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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Fortune Hunter, by Louis Joseph Vance
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Fortune Hunter
+
+Author: Louis Joseph Vance
+
+Illustrator: Arthur William Brown
+
+Posting Date: November 15, 2011 [EBook #9747]
+Release Date: January, 2006
+First Posted: October 15, 2003
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FORTUNE HUNTER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Suzanne Shell, Anuradha Valsa Raj, Tonya Allen
+and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: "You can be worth a million ... within a year"]
+
+
+THE FORTUNE HUNTER
+
+By
+
+Louis Joseph Vance
+
+Author Of "The Brass Bowl,"
+"The Bronze Bell," Etc.
+
+_With illustrations by_
+Arthur William Brown
+
+1910
+
+
+To
+George Spellvin, Esq.,
+
+_This book is cheerfully dedicated_
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+CHAPTER
+
+
+I.       FROM HIM THAT HATH NOT
+
+II.      TO HIM THAT HATH
+
+III.     INSPIRATION
+
+IV.      TRIUMPH OF MR. HOMER LITTLE JOHN
+
+V.       MARGARET'S DAUGHTER
+
+VI.      INTRODUCTION TO MISS CARPENTER
+
+VII.     A WINDOW IN RADVILLE
+
+VIII.    THE MAN OF BUSINESS IN EMBRYO
+
+IX.      SMALL BEGINNINGS
+
+X.       ROLAND BARNETTE'S FRIEND
+
+XI.      BLINKY LOCKWOOD
+
+XII.     DUNCAN'S GRUBSTAKE
+
+XIII.    THE BUSINESS MAN AND MR. BURNHAM
+ XIV.     MOSTLY ABOUT BETTY
+
+XV.      MANOEUVRES OF JOSIE
+
+XVI.     WHERE RADVILLE FEARED TO TREAD
+
+XVII.    TRACEY'S TROUBLES
+
+XVIII.   A BARGAIN IS A BARGAIN
+
+XIX.     PROVING THE PERSIPICUITY OF MR. KELLOGG
+
+XX.      ROLAND SHOWS HIS HAND
+
+XXI.     AS OTHERS SAW HIM
+
+XXII.    ROLAND'S TRIUMPH
+
+XXIII.   THE RAINBOW'S END
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+"You can be worth a million ... within a year"
+
+"You mean you're going to work here?"
+
+"Four hundred dollars, Mr. Sheriff"
+
+"Betty!"
+
+"You're a thief with a reward out for you"
+
+"Forever and ever and a day"
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+
+FROM HIM THAT HATH NOT
+
+Receiver at ear, Spaulding, of Messrs. Atwater & Spaulding, importers
+of motoring garments and accessories, listened to the switchboard
+operator's announcement with grave attention, acknowledging it with a
+toneless: "All right. Send him in." Then hooking up the desk telephone
+he swung round in his chair to face the door of his private office, and
+in a brief ensuing interval painstakingly ironed out of his face and
+attitude every indication of the frame of mind in which he awaited his
+caller. It was, as a matter of fact, anything but a pleasant one: he
+had a distasteful duty to perform; but that was the last thing he
+designed to become evident. Like most good business men he nursed a pet
+superstition or two, and of the number of these the first was that he
+must in all his dealings present an inscrutable front, like a
+poker-player's: captains of industry were uniformly like that,
+Spaulding understood; if they entertained emotions it was strictly in
+private. Accordingly he armoured himself with a magnificent
+imperturbability which at times almost deceived its wearer.
+
+Occasionally it deceived others: notably now it bewildered Duncan as he
+entered on the echo of Spaulding's "Come!" He had apprehended the
+visage of a thunderstorm, with a rattle of brusque complaints: he
+encountered Spaulding as he had always seemed: a little, urbane figure
+with a blank face, the blanker for glasses whose lenses seemed always
+to catch the light and, glaring, mask the eyes behind them; a
+prosperous man of affairs, well groomed both as to body and as to mind;
+a machine for the transaction of business, with all a machine's
+vivacity and temperamental responsiveness. It was just that quality in
+him that Duncan envied, who was vaguely impressed that, if he himself
+could only imitate, however minutely, the phlegm of a machine, he might
+learn to ape something of its efficiency and so, ultimately, prove
+himself of some worth to the world--and, incidentally, to Nathaniel
+Duncan. Thus far his spasmodic attempts to adapt to the requirements
+and limitations of the world of business his own equipment of misfit
+inclinations and ill-assorted abilities, had unanimously turned out
+signal failures. So he envied Spaulding without particularly admiring
+him.
+
+Now the sight of his employer, professionally bland and capable, and
+with no animus to be discerned in his attitude, provided Duncan with
+one brief, evanescent flash of hope, one last expiring instant of
+dignity (tempered by his unquenchable humour) in which to face his
+fate. Something of the hang-dog vanished from his habit and for a
+little time he carried himself again with all his one-time grace and
+confidence.
+
+"Good-afternoon, Mr. Spaulding," he said, replying to a nod as he
+dropped into the chair that nod had indicated. A faint smile lightened
+his expression and made it quite engaging.
+
+"G'dafternoon." Spaulding surveyed him swiftly, then laced his fat
+little fingers and contemplated them with detached intentness. "Just
+get in, Duncan?"
+
+"On the three-thirty from Chicago...."
+
+There was a pause, during which Spaulding reviewed his fingernails with
+impartial interest; in that pause Duncan's poor little hope died a
+natural death. "I got your wire," he resumed; "I mean, it got
+me--overtook me at Minneapolis.... So here I am."
+
+"You haven't wasted time."
+
+"I fancied the matter might be urgent, sir."
+
+Spaulding lifted his brows ever so slightly. "Why?"
+
+"Well, I gathered from the fact that you wired
+me to come home that you wanted my advice."
+
+A second time Spaulding gestured with his eyebrows, for once fairly
+surprised out of his pose. "_Your_ advice!..."
+
+"Yes," said Duncan evenly: "as to whether you ought to give up your
+customers on my route or send them a man who could sell goods."
+
+"Well...." Spaulding admitted.
+
+"Oh, don't think I'm boasting of my acuteness: anybody could have
+guessed as much from the great number of heavy orders I have not been
+sending you."
+
+"You've had bad luck...."
+
+"You mean you have, Mr. Spaulding. It was good luck for me to be
+drawing down my weekly cheques, bad luck to you not to have a man who
+could earn them."
+
+His desperate honesty touched Spaulding a trifle; at the risk of not
+seeming a business man to himself he inclined dubiously to relent, to
+give Duncan another chance. The fellow was likeable enough, his
+employer considered; he had good humour and even in dejection,
+distinction; whatever he was not, he was a man of birth and breeding.
+His face might be rusty with a day-old stubble, as it was; his
+shirt-cuffs frayed, his shoes down at the heel, his baggy clothing
+weirdly ready-made, as they were: there remained his air. You'd think
+he might amount to something, to somewhat more than a mere something,
+given half a chance in the right direction. Then what?... Spaulding
+sought from Duncan elucidation of this riddle.
+
+"Duncan," he said, "what's the trouble?"
+
+"I thought you knew that; I thought that was
+why you called me in with my route half-covered."
+
+"You mean--?"
+
+"I mean I can't sell your line."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"God only knows. I want to, badly enough. It's just general
+incompetence, I presume."
+
+"What makes you think that?"
+
+Duncan smiled bitterly. "Experience," he said.
+
+"You've tried--what else?"
+
+"A little of everything--all the jobs open to a man with a knowledge of
+Latin and Greek and the higher mathematics: shipping clerk,
+time-keeper, cashier--all of 'em."
+
+"And yet Kellogg believes in you."
+
+Duncan nodded dolefully. "Harry's a good friend. We roomed together at
+college. That's why he stands for me."
+
+"He says you only need the right opening--."
+
+"And nobody knows where that is, except my unfortunate employers: it's
+the back door going out, for mine every time.... Oh, Harry's been a
+prince to me. He's found me four or five jobs with friends of his--like
+yourself. But I don't seem to last. You see I was brought up to be
+ornamental and irregular rather than useful; to blow about in motor
+cars and keep a valet busy sixteen hours a day--and all that sort of
+thing. My father's failure--you know about that?"
+
+Spaulding nodded. Duncan went on gloomily, talking a great deal more
+freely than he would at any other time--suffering, in fact, from that
+species of auto hypnosis induced by the sound of his own voice
+recounting his misfortunes, which seems especially to affect a man down
+on his luck.
+
+"That smash came when I was five years out of college--I'd never
+thought of turning my hand to anything in all that time. I'd always had
+more coin than I could spend--never had to consider the worth of money
+or how hard it is to earn: my father saw to all that. He seemed not to
+want me to work: not that I hold that against him; he'd an idea I'd
+turn out a genius of some sort or other, I believe.... Well, he failed
+and died all in a week, and I found myself left with an extensive
+wardrobe, expensive tastes, an impractical education--and not so much
+of that that you'd notice it--and not a cent.... I was too proud to
+look to my friends for help in those days--and perhaps that was as
+well; I sought jobs on my own.... Did you ever keep books in a
+fish-market?"
+
+"No." Spaulding's eyes twinkled behind his large, shiny glasses.
+
+"But what's the use of my boring you?" Duncan made as if to rise,
+suddenly remembering himself.
+
+"You're not. Go on."
+
+"I didn't mean to; mostly, I presume, I've been blundering round an
+explanation of Kellogg's kindness to me, in my usual ineffectual
+way--felt somehow an explanation was due you, as the latest to suffer
+through his misplaced interest in me."
+
+"Perhaps," said Spaulding, "I am beginning to understand. Go on: I'm
+interested. About the fish-market?"
+
+"Oh, I just happened to think of it as a sample experience--and the
+last of that particular brand. I got nine dollars a week and earned
+every cent of it inhaling the atmosphere. My board cost me six and the
+other three afforded me a chance to demonstrate myself a captain of
+finance--paying laundry bills and clothing myself, besides buying
+lunches and such-like small matters. I did the whole thing, you
+know--one schooner of beer a day and made my own cigarettes: never
+could make up my mind which was the worst. The hours were easy, too:
+didn't have to get to work until five in the morning.... I lasted five
+weeks at that job, before I was taken sick: shows what a great
+constitution I've got."
+
+He laughed uncertainly and paused, thoughtful, his eyes vacant, fixed
+upon the retrospect that was a grim prospect of the imminent future.
+
+"And then--?"
+
+"Oh--?" Duncan roused. "Why, then I fell in with Kellogg again; he
+found me trying the open-air cure on a bench in Washington Square.
+Since then he's been finding me one berth after another. He's a
+sure-enough optimist."
+
+Spaulding shifted uneasily in his chair, stirred by an impulse whose
+unwisdom he could not doubt. Duncan had assuredly done his case no good
+by painting his shortcomings in colours so vivid; yet, somehow
+strangely, Spaulding liked him the better for his open-hearted
+confession.
+
+"Well...." Spaulding stumbled awkwardly.
+
+"Yes; of course," said Duncan promptly, rising. "Sorry if I tired you."
+
+"What do you mean by: 'Yes, of course'?"
+
+"That you called me in to fire me--and so that's over with. Only I'd be
+sorry to have you sore on Kellogg for saddling me on you. You see, he
+believed I'd make good, and so did I in a way: at least, I hoped to."
+
+"Oh, that's all right," said Spaulding uncomfortably. "The trouble is,
+you see, we've nothing else open just now. But if you'd really like
+another chance on the road, I--I'll be glad to speak to Mr. Atwater
+about it."
+
+"Don't you do it!" Duncan counselled him sharply, aghast. "He might say
+yes. And I simply couldn't accept; it wouldn't be fair to you, Kellogg,
+or myself. It'd be charity--for I've proved I can't earn my wages; and
+I haven't come to that yet. No!" he concluded with determination, and
+picked up his hat.
+
+"Just a minute." Spaulding held him with a gesture. "You're forgetting
+something: at least I am. There's a month's pay coming to you; the
+cashier will hand you the cheque as you go out."
+
+"A month's pay?" Duncan said blankly. "How's that? I've drawn up to the
+end of this week already, if you didn't know it."
+
+"Of course I knew it. But we never let our men go without a month's
+notice or its equivalent, and--"
+
+"No," Duncan interrupted firmly. "No; but thank you just the same. I
+couldn't. I really couldn't. It's good of you, but ... Now," he broke
+off abruptly, "I've left my accounts--what there is of them--with the
+book-keeping department, and the checks for my sample trunks. There'll
+be a few dollars coming to me on my expense account, and I'll send you
+my address as soon as I get one."
+
+"But look here--" Spaulding got to his feet, frowning.
+
+"No," reiterated Duncan positively. "There's no use. I'm grateful to
+you for your toleration of me--and all that. But we can't do anything
+better now than call it all off. Good-bye, Mr. Spaulding."
+
+Spaulding nodded, accepting defeat with the better grace because of an
+innate conviction that it was just as well, after all. And,
+furthermore, he admired Duncan's stand. So he offered his hand: an
+unusual condescension. "You'll make good somewhere yet," he asserted.
+
+"I wish I could believe it." Duncan's grasp was firm since he felt more
+assured of some humanity latent in his late employer. "However ...
+Good-bye."
+
+"Good luck to you," rang in his ears as the door put a period to the
+interview. He stopped and took up the battered suitcase and rusty
+overcoat which he had left outside the junior partner's office, then
+went on, shaking his head. "Much obliged," he said huskily to himself.
+"But what's the good of that. There's no room anywhere for a
+professional failure. And that's what I am; just a ne'er-do-well. I
+never realised what that meant, really, before, and it's certainly
+taken me a damn' long time to find out. But I know now, all right...."
+
+Outside, on the steps of the building, he paused a moment, fascinated
+by the brisk spectacle afforded by lower Broadway at the hour when the
+cave-like offices in its cliff-like walls begin to empty themselves,
+when the overlords and their lieutenants close their desks and turn
+their faces homewards, leaving the details of the day's routine to be
+wound up by underlings. In the clear light of the late spring afternoon
+a stream of humanity was high and fluent upon the sidewalks. Duncan had
+glimpses of keen-faced men, bright-faced women, eager boys, quickened
+all by that manner of efficiency and intelligence which seems so
+integrally American. A well-dressed throng, well-fed, amiable and
+animated, looking ever forward, the resistless tide of affairs that
+gave it being bore it onward; it passed the onlooker as a strong
+current passes flotsam in a back-eddy, with no pause, no turning aside.
+Acutely he felt his aloofness from it, who had no part in its interests
+and scarcely any comprehension of them. The sunken look, the leanness
+of his young face, seemed suddenly accentuated; the gloom in his
+discontented eyes deepened; his slight habitual stoop became more
+noticeable. And a second time he nodded acquiescence to his unspoken
+thought.
+
+"There," said he, singling out a passer-by upon whose complacent
+features prosperity had set its smug hall-mark--"there, but for the
+grace of God, goes Nat Duncan!" He rolled the paraphrase upon his
+tongue and found it bitter--not, however, with a tonic bitterness.
+"Lord, what a worthless critter I am! No good to myself--nor to anybody
+else. Even on Harry I'm a drag--a regular old man of the mountains!"
+
+Despondently he went down to the sidewalk and merged himself with the
+crowd, moving with it though a thousand miles apart from it, and
+presently diverging, struck across-town toward the Worth Street subway
+station.
+
+"And the worst of it is, he's too sharp not to find it out--if he
+hasn't by this time--and too damn' decent by far to let me know if he
+has! ... It can't go on this way with us: I can't let him ... Got to
+break with him somehow--now--to-day. I won't let him think me ... what
+I've been all along to him.... Bless his foolish heart!..."
+
+This resolution coloured his reverie throughout the uptown journey. And
+he strengthened himself with it, deriving a sort of acrid comfort from
+the knowledge that henceforth none should know the burden of his
+misfortunes save himself. There was no deprecation of Kellogg's
+goodness in his mood, simply determination no longer to be a charge
+upon it. To contemplate the sum total of the benefits he had received
+at Kellogg's hands, since the day when the latter had found him ill and
+half-starved, friendless as a stray pup, on the bench in Washington
+Square, staggered his imagination. He could never repay it, he told
+himself, save inadequately, little by little--mostly by gratitude and
+such consideration as he purposed now to exhibit by removing himself
+and his distresses from the other's ken. Here was an end to comfort for
+him, an end to living in Kellogg's rooms, eating his food, busying his
+servants, spending his money--not so much borrowed as pressed upon him.
+He stood at the cross-roads, but in no doubt as to which way he should
+most honourably take, though it took him straight back to that from
+which Kellogg had rescued him.
+
+There crawled in his mind a clammy memory of the sort of housing he had
+known in those evil days, and he shuddered inwardly, smelling again the
+effluvia of dank oilcloth and musty carpets, of fish-balls and fried
+ham, of old-style plumbing and of nine-dollar-a-week humanity in the
+unwashen raw--the odour of misery that permeated the lodgings to which
+his lack of means had introduced him. He could see again, and with a
+painful vividness of mental vision, the degenerate "brownstone fronts"
+that mask those haunts of wretchedness, with their flights of crumbling
+brownstone steps leading up to oaken portals haggard with flaking
+paint, flanked by squares of soiled note-paper upon which inexpert
+hands had traced the warning, not: "Abandon hope all ye who enter
+here," but: "Furnished rooms to let with board." And pursuing this grim
+trail of memory, whether he would or no--again he climbed, wearily at
+the end of a wearing day, a darksome well of a staircase up and up to
+an eyrie under the eaves, denominated in the terminology of landladies
+a "top hall back"--a cramped refuge haunted by pitiful ghosts of the
+hopes and despairs of its former tenants. And he remembered with
+reminiscently aching muscles the comfort of such a "single bed" as is
+peculiar (one hopes) to top hall backs, and with a qualm what it was to
+cook a surreptitious meal on a metal heater clamped to the gas-bracket
+(with ears keen to catch the scuffle of the landlady's feet as she
+skulked in the hall, jealous of her gas bill).
+
+And to this he must return, to that treadmill round of blighted days
+and joyless nights must set his face....
+
+Alighting at the Grand Central Station he packed the double weight of
+his luggage and his cares a few blocks northward on Madison Avenue ere
+turning west toward the bachelor rooms which Kellogg had established in
+the roaring Forties, just the other side of _the_ Avenue--Fifth
+Avenue, on a corner of which Duncan presently was held up for a time by
+a press of traffic. He lingered indifferently, waiting for the mounted
+policeman to clear a way across, watching the while with lack-lustre
+eyes the interminable procession of cabs and landaus, taxis and
+town-cars that romped by hazardously, crowding the street from curb to
+curb.
+
+The day was of young June, though grey and a little chill with the
+discouraged spirit of a retarded season. Though the hegira of the
+well-to-do to their summer homes had long since set in, still there
+remained in the city sufficient of their class to keep the Avenue
+populous from Twenty-third Street north to the Plaza in the evening
+hours. The suggestion of wealth, or luxury, of money's illimitable
+power, pervaded the atmosphere intensely, an ineluctable influence, to
+an independent man heady, to Duncan maddening. He surveyed the parade
+with mutiny in his heart. All this he had known, a part of it had
+been--upon a time. Now ... the shafts of his roving eyes here and there
+detected faces recognisable, of men and women whose acquaintance he had
+once owned. None recognised him who stood there worn, shabby and tired.
+He even caught the direct glance of a girl who once had thought him
+worth winning, who had set herself to stir his heart and--had been
+successful. To-day she looked him straight in the eyes, apparently,
+with undisturbed serenity, then as calmly looked over and through and
+beyond him. Her limousine hurried her on, enthroned impregnably above
+the envious herd.
+
+He sped her transit with a mirthless chuckle. "You're right," he said,
+"dead right. You simply don't know me any more, my dear--you musn't;
+you can't afford to any more than I could afford to know you."
+
+None the less the fugitive incident seemed to brim his disconsolate
+cup. In complete dejection of mind and spirit he pushed on to Kellogg's
+quarters, buoyed by a single hope--that Kellogg might be out of town or
+delayed at his office.
+
+In that event Duncan might have a chance to gather up his belongings
+and escape unhandicapped by the immediate necessity of justifying his
+course. At another time, surely, the explanation was inevitable; say
+to-morrow; he was not cur enough to leave his friend without a word.
+But to-night he would willingly be spared. He apprehended unhappily the
+interview with Kellogg; he was in no temper for argumentation, felt
+scarcely strong enough to hold his own against the fire of objections
+with which Kellogg would undoubtedly seek to shake his stand. Kellogg
+could talk, Heaven alone knew how winningly he could talk! with all the
+sound logic of a close reasoner, all the enthusiasm of youth and
+self-confidence, all the persuasiveness of profound conviction singular
+to successful men. Duncan had been wont to say of him that Kellogg
+could talk the hind-leg off of a mule. He recalled this now with a sour
+grin: "That means me..."
+
+The elevator boy, knowing him of old, neglected to announce his
+arrival, and Duncan had his own key to the door of Kellogg's apartment.
+He let himself in with futile stealth: as was quite right and proper,
+Kellogg's man Robbins was in attendance--a stupefied Robbins,
+thunderstruck by the unexpected return of his master's friend and
+guest. "Good Lord!" he cried at sight of Duncan. "Beg your pardon, sir,
+but--but it can't be you!"
+
+"Your mistake, Robbins. Unfortunately it is." Duncan surrendered his
+luggage. "Mr. Kellogg in?"
+
+"No, sir. But I'm expecting him any minute. He'll be surprised to see
+you back."
+
+"Think so?" said Duncan dully. "He doesn't know me, if he is."
+
+"You see, sir, we thought you was out West."
+
+"So you did." Duncan moved toward the door of his own bedroom, Robbins
+following.
+
+"It was only yesterday I posted a letter to you for Mr. Kellogg, sir,
+and the address was Omaha."
+
+"I didn't get that far. Fetch along that suitcase, will you please? I
+want to put some clean things in it."
+
+"Then you're not staying in town over night, Mr. Duncan?"
+
+"I don't know. I'm not staying here, anyway." Duncan switched on the
+lights in his room. "Put it on the bed, Robbins. I'll pack as quickly
+as I can. I'm in a hurry."
+
+"Yes, sir, but--I hope there's nothing wrong?"
+
+"Then you lose," returned Duncan grimly: "everything's wrong." He
+jerked viciously at an obstinate bureau drawer, and when it yielded
+unexpectedly with the well-known impishness of the inanimate, dumped
+upon the floor a tangled miscellany of shirts, socks, gloves, collars
+and ties.
+
+"Didn't you like the business, sir?"
+
+"No, I didn't like the business--and it didn't like me. It's the same
+old story, Robbins. I've lost my job again--that's all."
+
+"I'm very sorry, sir."
+
+"Thank you--but that's all right. I'm used to it."
+
+"And you're going to leave, sir?"
+
+"I am, Robbins."
+
+"I--may I take the liberty of hoping it's to take another position?"
+
+"You may, but you lose a second time. I've just made up my mind I'm not
+going to hang round here any longer. That's all."
+
+"But," Robbins ventured, hovering about with exasperating
+solicitude--"but Mr. Kellogg'd never permit you to leave in this way,
+sir."
+
+"Wrong again, Robbins," said Duncan curtly, annoyed.
+
+"Yes, sir. Very good, sir." With the instinct of the well-trained
+servant, Robbins started to leave, but hesitated. He was really very
+much disturbed by Duncan's manner, which showed a phase of his
+character new in Robbins' experience of him. Ordinarily reverses such
+as this had seemed merely to serve to put Duncan on his mettle, to
+infuse him with a determination to try again and win out, whatever the
+odds; and at such times he was accustomed to exhibit a mad
+irresponsibility of wit and a gaiety of spirit (whether it were a mask
+or no) that only outrivalled his high good humour when things
+ostensibly were going well with him.
+
+Intermittently, between his spasms of employment, he had been Kellogg's
+guest for several years, not infrequently for months at a time; and so
+Robbins had come to feel a sort of proprietary interest in the young
+man, second only to the regard which he had for his employer. Like most
+people with whom Duncan came in contact, Robbins admired him from a
+respectful distance, and liked him very well withal. He would have been
+much distressed to have harm happen to him, and he was very much
+concerned and alarmed to see him so candidly discouraged and sick at
+heart. Perhaps too quick to draw an inference, Robbins mistrusted his
+intentions; his dour habit boded ill in the servant's understanding:
+men in such moods were apt to act unwisely. But if only he might
+contrive to delay Duncan until Kellogg's return, he thought the former
+might yet be saved from the consequences of folly of some insensate
+sort. And casting about for an excuse, he grasped at the most sovereign
+solace he knew of.
+
+"Beg pardon, sir," he advanced, hesitant, "but perhaps you're just
+feeling a bit blue. Won't you let me bring you a drop of something?"
+
+"Of course I will," said Duncan emphatically over his shoulder. "And
+get it now, will you, while I'm packing.... And, Robbins!"
+
+"Sir?"
+
+"Only put a little in it."
+
+"A little what, sir?"
+
+"Seltzer, of course."
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+TO HIM THAT HATH
+
+It had been a forlorn hope at best, this attempt of his to escape
+Kellogg: Duncan acknowledged it when, his packing rudely finished, he
+started for the door, Robbins reluctantly surrendering the suit-case
+after exhausting his repertoire of devices to delay the young man. But
+at that instant the elevator gate clashed in the outer corridor and
+Kellogg's key rattled in the lock, to an accompanying confusion of
+voices, all masculine and all very cheerful.
+
+Duncan sighed and motioned Robbins away with his luggage. "No hope
+now," he told himself. "But--O Lord!"
+
+Incontinently there burst into the room four men: Jim Long, Larry
+Miller, another whom Duncan did not immediately recognise, and Kellogg
+himself, bringing with them an atmosphere breezy with jubilation.
+Before he knew it Duncan was boisterously overwhelmed. He got his
+breath to find Kellogg pumping his hand.
+
+"Nat," he was saying, "you're the only other man on earth I was wishing
+could be with me tonight! Now my happiness is complete. Gad, this is
+lucky!"
+
+"You think so?" countered Duncan, forcing a smile. "Hello, you boys!"
+He gave a hand to Long and Miller. "How're you all?" He warmed to their
+friendly faces and unfeigned welcome. "My, but it's good to see you!"
+There was relief in the fact that Kellogg, after a single glance,
+forbore to question his return; he was to be counted upon for tact, was
+Kellogg. Now he strangled surprise by turning to the fourth member of
+the party.
+
+"Nat," he said, "I want you to meet Mr. Bartlett. Mr. Bartlett, Mr.
+Duncan."
+
+A wholesome smile dawned on Duncan's face as he encountered the blank
+blue stare of a young man whose very smooth and very bright red face
+was admirably set off by semi-evening dress. "Great Scott!" he cried,
+warmly pressing the lackadaisical hand that drifted into his. "Willy
+Bartlett--after all these years!"
+
+A sudden animation replaced the vacuous stare of the blue eyes.
+"Duncan!" he stammered. "I say, this is rippin'!"
+
+"As bad as that?" Duncan essayed an accent almost English and nodded
+his appreciation of it: something which Bartlett missed completely.
+
+He was very young--a very great deal younger, Duncan thought, than when
+they had been classmates, what time Duncan shared his rooms with
+Kellogg: very much younger and suffering exquisitely from
+over-sophistication. His drawl barely escaped being inimitable; his air
+did not escape it. "Smitten with my old trouble," Duncan appraised him:
+"too much money... Heaven knows I hope he never recovers!"
+
+As for Willy, he was momentarily more nearly human than he had seemed
+from the moment of his first appearance. "You know," he blurted, "this
+is simply extraordinary. I say, you chaps, Duncan and I haven't met for
+years--not since he graduated. We belonged to the same frat, y'know,
+and had a jolly time of it, if he was an upper-class man. No side about
+him at all, y'know--absolutely none whatever. Whenever I had to go out
+on a spree, I'd always get Nat to show me round."
+
+"I was pretty good at that," Duncan admitted a trifle ruefully.
+
+But Willy rattled on, heedless. "He knew more pretty gels, y'know... I
+say, old chap, d'you know as many now?"
+
+Duncan shook his head. "The list has shrunk. I'm a changed man, Willy."
+
+"Ow, I say, you're chawfin'," Willy argued incredulously. "I don't
+believe that, y'know--hardly. I say, you remember the night you showed
+me how to play faro bank?"
+
+"I'll never forget it," Duncan told him gravely. "And I remember what a
+plug we thought my room-mate was because he wouldn't come with us." He
+nodded significantly toward the amused Kellogg.
+
+"Not him!" cried Willy, expostulant. "Not really? Why it cawn't be!"
+
+"Fact," Duncan assured him. "He was working his way through college,
+you see, whereas I was working my way through my allowance--and then
+some. That's why you never met him, Willy: he worked--and got the
+habit. We loafed--with the same result. That's why he's useful and
+you're ornamental, and I'm--" He broke off in surprise. "Hello!" he
+said as Robbins offered a tray to the three on which were slim-stemmed
+glasses filled with a pale yellow, effervescent liquid. "Why the blond
+waters of excitement, please?" he inquired, accepting a glass.
+
+From across the room Larry Miller's voice sounded. "Are you ready,
+gentlemen? We'll drink to him first and then he can drink to his royal
+little self. To the boy who's getting on in the world! To the junior
+member of L.J. Bartlett and Company!"
+
+Long applauded loudly: "Hear! Hear!" And even Willy Bartlett chimed in
+with an unemotional: "Good work!" Mechanically Duncan downed the toast;
+Kellogg was the only man not drinking it, and from that the meaning was
+easily to be inferred. With a stride Duncan caught his hand and crushed
+it in his own.
+
+"Harry," he said a little huskily, "I can't tell you how glad I am!
+It's the best news I've had in years!"
+
+Kellogg's responsive pressure was answer enough. "It makes it doubly
+worth while, to win out and have you all so glad!" he said.
+
+"So you've taken him into the firm, eh?" Duncan inquired of Bartlett.
+
+The blue eyes widened stonily. "The governor has. I'm not in the
+business, y'know. Never had the slightest turn for it, what?" Willy set
+aside his glass. "I say, I must be moving. No, I cawn't stop, Kellogg,
+really. I was dressin' at the club and Larry told me about it, so I
+just dropped round to tell you how jolly glad I am."
+
+"Your father hadn't told you, then?"
+
+"Who, the governor?" Willy looked unutterably bored. "Why, he gave up
+tryin' to talk business with me long ago. I can't get interested in it,
+'pon my word. Of course I knew he thought the deuce and all of you, but
+I hadn't an idea they were goin' to take you into the firm. What?"
+
+Long and Miller interrupted, proposing adieus which Kellogg vainly
+contended.
+
+"Why, you're only just here--" he expostulated.
+
+
+
+"Cawn't help it, old chap," Willy assured him earnestly. "I must go,
+anyway. I've a dinner engagement."
+
+"You'll be late, won't you?"
+
+"Doesn't matter in the least; I'm always late. 'Night, Kellogg.
+Congratulations again."
+
+"We just dropped round to take off our hats to you," Long continued,
+pumping Kellogg's hand.
+
+"And tell you what a good fellow we think you are," added Miller,
+following suit.
+
+"You don't know how good you make me feel," Kellogg told them.
+
+Under cover of this diversion Duncan was making one last effort to slip
+away; but before he could gather together his impedimenta and get to
+the door Willy Bartlett intercepted him.
+
+"I say, Duncan--"
+
+"Oh, hell!" said Duncan beneath his breath. He paused ungraciously
+enough.
+
+"We've got to see a bit of one another, now we've met again, y'know.
+Wish you'd look me up--Half Moon Club'll get me 'most any time. We'll
+have to arrange to make a regular old-fashioned night of it, just for
+memory's sake."
+
+Duncan nodded, edging past him. "I've memories enough," he said.
+
+"Right-oh! Any reason at all, y'know, just so we have the night."
+
+"Good enough," assented Duncan vaguely. He suffered his hand to be
+wrung with warmth. "I'll not forget--good-night." Then he pulled up and
+groaned, for Willy's insistence had frustrated his design: Kellogg had
+suddenly become alive to his attitude and hailed him over the heads of
+Long and Miller.
+
+"Nat, I say! Where the devil are you going?"
+
+"Over to the hotel," said Duncan.
+
+"The deuce you are! What hotel?"
+
+"The one I'm stopping at."
+
+"Not on your life. You're not going just yet--I haven't had half a
+chance to talk to you. Robbins, take Mr. Duncan's things."
+
+Duncan, set upon by Robbins, who had been hovering round for just that
+purpose, lifted his shoulders in resignation, turning back into the
+room as Miller and Long said good-night to him and left at Bartlett's
+heels, and smiled awry in semi-humorous deprecation of the way in which
+he let Kellogg out-manoeuvre him. When it came to that, it was hard to
+refuse Kellogg anything; he had that way with him. Especially if one
+liked him... And how could anyone help liking him?
+
+Kellogg had him now, holding him fast by either shoulder, at arm's
+length, and shaking a reproving head at his friend. "You big duffer!"
+he said. "Did you think for a minute I'd let you throw me down like
+that?"
+
+Duncan stood passive, faintly amused and touched by the other's show of
+affection. "No," he said, "I didn't really think so. But it was worth
+trying on, of course."
+
+"Look here, have you dined?"
+
+'At this suggestion Duncan stiffened and fell back. "No, but--"
+
+Kellogg swept the ground from under his feet. "Robbins," he told the
+man, "order in dinner for two from the club, and tell 'em to hurry it
+up."
+
+"Yes, sir," said Robbins, and flew to obey before Duncan could get a
+chance to countermand his part in the order.
+
+"And now," continued Kellogg, "we've got the whole evening before us in
+which to chin. Sit down." He led Duncan to an arm-chair and gently but
+firmly plumped him into its capacious depths. "We'll have a snug little
+dinner here and--what do you say to taking in a show afterwards?"
+
+"I say no."
+
+"You dassent, my boy. This is the night we celebrate. I'm feeling
+pretty good to-night."
+
+"You ought to, Harry." Duncan struggled to rouse himself to share in
+the spirit of gratulation with which Kellogg was bubbling. "I'm mighty
+glad, old man. It's a great step up for you."
+
+"It's all of that. You could have knocked me over with a feather when
+Bartlett sprang it on me this morning. Of course, I was expecting
+something--a boost in salary, or something like that. Bartlett knew
+that other houses in the Street had made me offers--I've been pretty
+lucky of late and pulled off one or two rather big deals--but a
+partnership with L.J. Bartlett--! Think of it, Nat!"
+
+"I'm thinking of it--and it's great."
+
+"It'll keep me mighty busy," Kellogg blundered blindly on; "it means a
+lot of extra work--but you know I like to work...."
+
+"That's right, you do," agreed Duncan drearily. "It's queer to me--it
+must be a great thing to like to work."
+
+"You bet it's a great thing; why, I couldn't exist if I couldn't work.
+You remember that time I laid off for a month in the country--for my
+health's sake? I'll never forget it: hanging round all the time with my
+hands empty--everyone else with something to do. I wouldn't go through
+with it again for a fortune. Never felt so useless and in the way--"
+
+"But," interrupted Duncan, knitting his brows as he grappled with this
+problem, "you were independent, weren't you? You had money--could pay
+your board?"
+
+"Of course; nevertheless, I felt in the way."
+
+"That's funny...."
+
+"It's straight."
+
+"I know it is; it wouldn't be you if you didn't love work. It wouldn't
+be me if I did.... Look here, Harry; suppose you didn't have any money
+and couldn't pay your board--and had nothing to do. How'd you feel in
+that case?"
+
+"I don't know. Anyhow, that's rot--"
+
+"No, it isn't rot. I'm trying to make you understand how I feel
+when--when it's that way with me.... As it generally is." He raised one
+hand and let it fall with a gesture of despondency so eloquent that it
+roused Kellogg out of his own preoccupation.
+
+"Why, Nat!" he cried, genuinely sympathetic. "I've been so taken up
+with myself that I forgot.... I hadn't looked for you till to-morrow."
+
+"You knew, then?"
+
+"I met Atwater at lunch to-day. He told me; said he was sorry, but--"
+
+"Yes. Everybody is always sorry, _but_--"
+
+Kellogg let his hand fall on Duncan's shoulder. "I'm sorry, too, old
+man. But don't lose heart. I know it's pretty tough on a fellow--"
+
+"The toughest part of it is that you got the job for me--and I
+_had_ to fall down."
+
+"Don't think of that. It's not your fault--"
+
+"You're the only man who believes that, Harry."
+
+"Buck up. I'll stumble across some better opening for you before long,
+and--"
+
+"Stop right there. I'm through--"
+
+"Don't talk that way, Nat. I'll get you in right somewhere."
+
+"You're the best-hearted man alive, Harry--but I'll see you damned
+first."
+
+"Wait." Kellogg demanded his attention. "Here's this man Burnham--you
+don't know him, but he's as keen as they make 'em. He's on the track of
+some wonderful scheme for making illuminating gas from crude oil; if it
+goes through--if the invention's really practicable--it's bound to work
+a revolution. He's down in Washington now--left this afternoon to look
+up the patents. Now he needs me, to get the ear of the Standard Oil
+people, and I'll get you in there."
+
+"What right've you got to do that?" demanded Duncan. "What the dickens
+do I know about illuminating gas or crude oil? Burnham'd never thank
+you for the likes o' me."
+
+"But--thunder!--you can learn. All you need--."
+
+"Now see here, Harry!" Duncan gave him pause with a manner not to be
+denied. "Once and for all time understand I'm through having you
+recommend an incompetent--just because we're friends."
+
+"But, Harry--"
+
+"And I'm through living on you while I'm out of a job. That's final."
+
+"But, man--listen to me!--when we were at college--"
+
+"That was another matter."
+
+"How many times did you pay the room-rent when I was strapped? How many
+times did your money pull me through when I'd have had to quit and
+forfeit my degree because I couldn't earn enough to keep on?"
+
+"That's different. You earned enough finally to square up. You don't
+owe me anything."
+
+"I owe you the gratitude for the friendly hand that put me in the way
+of earning--that kept me going when the going was rank. Besides, the
+conditions are just reversed now; you'll do just as I did--make good in
+the world and, when it's convenient, to me. As for living here, you're
+perfectly welcome."
+
+"I know it--and more," Duncan assented a little wearily. "Don't think I
+don't appreciate all you've done for me. But I know and you must
+understand that I can't keep on living on you,--and I won't."
+
+For once baffled, Kellogg stared at him in consternation. Duncan met
+his gaze steadily, strong in the sincerity of his attitude. At length
+Kellogg surrendered, accepting defeat. "Well...." He shrugged
+uncomfortably. "If you insist ..."
+
+"I do."
+
+"Then that's settled."
+
+"Yes, that's settled."
+
+"Dinner," said Robbins from the doorway, "is
+served."
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+INSPIRATION
+
+"Look here, Nat," demanded Kellogg, when they were half way through the
+meal, "do you mind telling me what you're going to do?"
+
+Duncan pondered this soberly. "No," he replied in the end.
+
+Kellogg waited a moment, but his guest did not continue. "What does
+that kind of a 'No' mean, Nat?"
+
+"It means I don't mind telling you."
+
+Again an appreciable pause elapsed.
+
+"Well, then, what do you mean to do?"
+
+"I'm sure I don't know."
+
+Kellogg regarded him sombrely for a moment, then in silence returned
+his attention to his plate; and in silence, for the most part, the
+remainder of the dinner was served and eaten. Duncan himself had
+certainly enough to occupy his mind, while Kellogg had altogether
+forgotten his own cause for rejoicing in his concern for the fortunes
+of his friend. He was entirely of the opinion that something would have
+to be done for Nat, with or without his consent; and he sounded the
+profoundest depths of romantic impossibilities in his attempts to
+discover some employment suited to Duncan's interesting but
+impracticable assortment of faculties and qualifications, natural and
+acquired. But nothing presented itself as feasible in view of the fact
+that employment which would prove immediately remunerative was
+required. And by the time that Robbins, clearing the board, left them
+alone with coffee and cigars and cigarettes, Kellogg was fain to
+confess failure--though the confession was a very private one, confined
+to himself only.
+
+"Nat," he said suddenly, rousing that young man out of the dreariest of
+meditations, "what under the sun _can_ you do?"
+
+"Me? I don't know. Why bother your silly old head about that? I'll make
+out somehow."
+
+"But surely there's something you'd rather do than anything else."
+
+"My dear sir," Duncan told him impressively, "the only walk of life in
+which I am fitted to shine is that of the idle son of a rich and
+foolish father. Since I lost that job I've not been worth my salt."
+
+"That's piffle. There isn't a man living who hasn't some talent or
+other, some sort of an ability concealed about his person."
+
+"You can search me," Duncan volunteered gloomily.
+
+His unresponsiveness irritated Kellogg; he thought a while, then
+delivered himself of a didactic conclusion:
+
+"The trouble with you is you were brought up all wrong."
+
+"Well, I've been brought down all right. Besides, that's a platitude in
+my case."
+
+"Let's see: I've know you--er--nine years."
+
+"Is it that long?" Duncan looked up from a gloomy inspection of the
+interior of his demitasse, displaying his first gleam of interest in
+this analysis of his character. "You are a long-suffering old duffer.
+Any man who'd stand for me for nine years--"
+
+"That'll be all of that," Kellogg cut in sharply. "I was going on to
+say that you can't room with a man for four terms at college and then
+know him, off and on, for five years more, pretty intimately, without
+forming a pretty clear estimate of what he's worth in your own mind."
+
+"And I don't mind telling you, Harry, I think you're the best little
+business man as well as the finest sort of an all-round good-fellow on
+this continent."
+
+"Thanks awfully. I presume that's why you're determined to throw me
+down just at the time you need me most.... What I was trying to get at
+is the fact that I've never doubted your ultimate success for an
+instant."
+
+"You'd be a mighty lonesome minority in a congress of my employers,
+Harry."
+
+"Given the proper opportunity--"
+
+"Hold on," Duncan interrupted. "I know just what you're going to say,
+and it's all very fine, and I'm proud that you want to say it of me.
+But you're dead wrong, Harry. The truth is I haven't got it in me--the
+capacity to succeed. Just as much as you love work, I hate it. I ought
+to know, for I've had a good, hard try at it--several tries, in fact.
+And you know what they came to."
+
+"But if you persist in this way, Nat,--don't you know what it means?"
+
+"None better. It means going back to what you helped me out of--the
+life that nearly killed me."
+
+"And you'd rather--"
+
+"I'd rather that a thousand years before I'd sponge on you another
+day.... But, on the level, I'd as lieve try the East River or turn on
+the gas.... What's the use? That's the way I feel."
+
+"That's fool talk. Brace up and be a man. All you need is a way to earn
+money."
+
+"No," Duncan insisted firmly: "get it. I'll never be able to earn
+it--that's a cinch."
+
+Kellogg laughed a little mirthlessly, absorbed in revolving something
+which had popped into his head within the last few moments. "There are
+ways to get it," he admitted abstractedly, "if you're not too
+particular."
+
+"I'm not. I only wish I understood the burglar business."
+
+This time Kellogg laughed outright. He sat up with a new spirit in his
+manner. "You mean you'd steal to get money?"
+
+"Oh, well ..." Duncan smiled a trace sheepishly. "I can't think of
+anything hardly I wouldn't do to get it."
+
+"Very well, my son. Now attend to uncle." Kellogg leaned across the
+table, fixing him with an enthusiastic eye. "Here, have a smoke. I'm
+going to demonstrate high finance to your debased intelligence." He
+thrust the cigarette case over to Duncan, who helped himself
+mechanically, his gaze held in wonder to Kellogg's face.
+
+"Fire when ready," he assented.
+
+"I know a way," said Kellogg slowly, "by which, if you'll discard a
+scruple or two, you can be worth a million dollars--or
+thereabouts--within a year."
+
+Duncan held a lighted match until it singed his fingertips, the while
+he stared agape. "Say that again," he requested mildly.
+
+"You can be worth a million in a year."
+
+"Ah!" Duncan nodded slowly and comprehendingly. He turned aside in his
+chair and raked a second match across the sole of his shoe. "Let him
+rave," he observed enigmatically, and began to smoke.
+ "No, I'm not dippy; and I'm perfectly serious."
+
+"Of course. But what'd they do to me if I were caught?"
+
+"This is not a joke; the proposition's perfectly legal; it's being done
+right along."
+
+"And I could do it, Harry?"
+
+"A man of your calibre couldn't fail."
+
+"Would you mind ringing for Robbins?" Duncan asked abruptly.
+
+"Certainly." Kellogg pressed a button at his elbow. "What d'you want?"
+
+"A straight-jacket and a doctor to tell which one of us needs it."
+
+Kellogg, chagrined as he always was if joked with when expounding one
+of his schemes, broke into a laugh that lasted until Robbins appeared.
+
+"You rang, sir?"
+
+"Yes. Put those decanters over here, and some glasses, please."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+The man obeyed and withdrew. Kellogg filled two glasses, handing one to
+Duncan.
+
+"Now be decent and listen to me, Nat. I've thought this thing over
+for--oh, any amount of time. I'll bet anything it will work. What d'you
+say? Would you like to try it?"
+
+"Would I like to try it?" A conviction of Kellogg's earnestness forced
+itself upon Duncan's understanding. "Would I--!" He lifted his glass
+and drained it at a gulp. "Why, that's the first laugh I've had for a
+month!"
+
+"Then I'll tell you--"
+
+Duncan placed a pleading hand on his forearm. "Don't kid me, Harry," he
+entreated.
+
+"Not a bit of it. This is straight goods. If you want to try it and
+will follow the rules I lay down, I'll guarantee you'll be a rich man
+inside of twelve months."
+
+"Rules! Man, I'll follow all the rules in the world! Come on--I'm
+getting palpitation of the heart, waiting. Tell it to me: what've I got
+to do?"
+
+"Marry," said Kellogg serenely.
+
+"Marry!" Duncan echoed, aghast.
+
+"Marry," reaffirmed the other with unbroken gravity.
+
+"Marry--who?"
+
+"A girl with a fortune.... You see, I can't guarantee the precise size
+of her pile. That all depends on luck and the locality. But it'll run
+anywhere from several hundred thousand up to a million--perhaps more."
+
+Duncan sank back despondently. "You ought to be ashamed of yourself,
+Harry," he said dully; "you had me all excited, for a minute."
+
+"No, but honestly, I mean what I say."
+
+"Now look here: do you really think any girl with a million would take
+a chance on me?"
+
+"She'll jump at it."
+
+Duncan thought this over for a while. Then his lips twitched. "What's
+the matter with her?" he inquired. "I'm willing to play the game as it
+lies, but I bar lunatics and cripples."
+
+"There's no particular her--yet. You can take your pick. I've no more
+idea where she is than you have."
+
+"Now I know you're stark, staring, gibbering----"
+
+"Not a bit of it. I'm inspired--that's all. I've solved your
+problem--you only can't believe it."
+
+"How could I? What the devil are you getting at, anyhow?"
+
+"This pet scheme of mine. Lend me your ears. Have you ever lived in a
+one-horse country town--a place with one unspeakable hotel and about
+twenty stores and five churches?"
+
+"No ..."
+
+"I have; I was born in one of 'em.... Have you any idea what becomes of
+the young people of such towns?"
+
+"Not a glimmering."
+
+"Then I'll enlighten your egregious density. ...The boys--those who've
+got the stuff in them--strike out for the cities to make their
+everlasting fortunes. Generally they do it, too."
+
+"The same as you."
+
+"The same as me," assented Kellogg, unperturbed. "But the yaps, the
+Jaspers, stay there and clerk in father's store. After office-hours
+they put on their very best mail-order clothes and parade up and down
+Main Street, talking loud and flirting obviously with the girls. The
+girls haven't much else to do; they don't find it so easy to get away.
+A few of 'em escape to boarding-schools and colleges, where they meet
+and marry young men from the cities, but the majority of them have to
+stay at home and help mother--that's a tradition. If there are two
+children or more, the boys get the chance every time; the girls stay
+home to comfort the old folks in their old age. Why, by the time
+they're old enough to think of marrying--and they begin young, for
+that's about the only excitement they find available--you won't find a
+small country town between here and the Mississippi where there aren't
+about four girls to every boy."
+
+"It's a horrible thought ..."
+
+"You'd think so if you knew what the boys were like. There isn't one in
+ten that a girl with any sense or self-respect could force herself to
+marry if she ever saw anything better. Do you begin to see my drift?"
+
+"I do not. But go on drifting."
+
+"No? Why, the demand for eligible males is three hundred per cent. in
+excess of the supply. Don't you know--no, you don't: I got to that
+first--that there are twenty times as many old maids in small country
+towns as there are in the cities? It's a fact, and the reason for it is
+because when they were young they couldn't lower themselves to accept
+the pick of the local matrimonial market. Now, do you see--?"
+
+"You're as interesting as a magazine serial. Please continue in your
+next. I pant with anticipation."
+
+"You're an ass.... Now take a young chap from a city, with a good
+appearance, more or less a gentleman, who doesn't talk like a yap or
+walk like a yap or dress like a yap or act like a yap, and throw him
+into such a town long enough for the girls to get acquainted with him.
+He simply can't lose, can't fail to cop out the best-looking girl with
+the biggest bank-roll in town. I tell you, there's nothing to it!"
+
+"It's wonderful to listen to you, Harry."
+
+"I'm talking horse sense, my son. Now consider yourself: down on your
+luck, don't know how to earn a decent living, refusing to accept
+anything from your friends, ready (you say) to do almost anything to
+get some money.... And think of the country heiresses, with plenty of
+money for two, pining away in--in innocuous desuetude--hundreds of
+them, fine, straight, good girls, girls you could easily fall in love
+with, sighing their lives away for the lack of the likes of you....
+Now, why not take one, Nat--when you come to consider it, it's your
+duty--marry her and her bank-roll, make her happy, make yourself happy,
+and live a contented life on the sunny side of Easy Street for the rest
+of your natural born days? Can't you see it now?"
+
+"Yes," Duncan admitted, half-persuaded of the plausibility of the
+scheme. "I see--and I admire immensely the intellect that conceived the
+notion, Harry. But ... I can't help thinking there must be a catch in
+it somewhere."
+
+"Not if you follow my instructions. You see, having come from just such
+a hole-in-the-ground, I know just what I'm talking about. Believe me,
+everything depends on the way you go about it. There are a lot of
+things to contend with at first; you won't enjoy it at all, to begin
+with. But I can demonstrate how it can be managed so that you'll win
+out to a moral certainty."
+
+Duncan drew a deep breath, sat back and looked Kellogg over very
+critically. There was not a suspicion of a gleam of humour in his face;
+to the contrary, it blazed with the ardour of the instinctive schemer,
+the man who, with the ability to originate, throws himself heart and
+soul into the promotion of the product of his imagination. Kellogg was
+not sketching the outlines of a gigantic practical joke; he believed
+implicitly in the feasibility of his project; and so strongly that he
+could infuse even the less susceptible fancy of Duncan with some of his
+faith.
+
+"If I didn't know you so well, Harry," said Duncan slowly, "I'd be
+certain you were mad. I'm not at all sure that I'm sane. It's raving
+idiocy--and it's a pretty damned rank thing to do, to start
+deliberately out to marry a woman for her money. But I've been through
+a little hell of my own in my time, and--it's not alluring to
+contemplate a return to it. There's nothing mad enough nor bad enough
+to stop me. What've I got to do?"
+
+Kellogg beamed his triumph. "You'll try it on, then?"
+
+"I'll try anything on. It's a contemptible, low-lived piece of
+business--but good may come of it; you can't tell. What've I got to
+do?"
+
+Slipping back, Kellogg knitted his fingers and stared at the ceiling,
+smiling faintly to himself as he enumerated the conditions that first
+appealed to his understanding as essentials toward success.
+
+"First, pick out your town: one of two or three thousand
+inhabitants--no larger. I'd suggest, at a hazard guess, some place in
+the interior of Pennsylvania. Most of such towns have at least one rich
+man with a marriageable daughter--but we'll make sure of that before we
+settle on one. Of course any suburban town is barred."
+
+"How so?"
+
+"Oh, they don't count. The girls always know people in the city--can
+get there easily. That spoils the game."
+
+"How about the game laws?"
+
+"I'm coming to them. Of course there isn't an open or close season, and
+the hunting's always good, but there are a few precautionary measures
+to be taken if you want to be sure of bagging an heiress. You won't
+like most of 'em."
+
+"Like 'em! I'll live by them!"
+
+"Well, here come the things you mustn't do. You mustn't swear or use
+slang; you mustn't smoke and you mustn't drink--"
+
+"Heavens! are these people as inhuman as all that?"
+
+"Worse than that. It might be fatal if you were ever seen in the hotel
+bar. And to begin with, you must refuse all invitations, of any sort,
+whether to dances, parties, church sociables, or even Sunday dinners."
+
+"Why _Sunday_ dinners?"
+
+"Because Sunday's the only day you'll be invited. Dinner on week-days
+is from twelve to twelve-thirty, and it's strictly a business
+matter--no time for guests. But you needn't fret; they won't ask you
+till they've sized you up pretty carefully."
+
+"Oh!..."
+
+"Moreover, you must be very particular about your dress; it must be
+absolutely faultless, but very quiet: clothing sober--dark greys and
+blacks--and plain, but the very last word as to cut and fit. And
+everything must be in keeping--the very best of shirts, collars, ties,
+hats, socks, shoes, underwear--." Kellogg caught Duncan's look and
+laughed. "Your laundress will report on everything, you know; so you
+must be impeccable."
+
+"I'll be even that--whatever it is."
+
+"Be very particular about having your shoes polished, shave daily and
+manicure yourself religiously--but don't let 'em catch you at it."
+
+"Would they raid me if they did?"
+
+"And then, my son, you must work."
+
+Kellogg paused to let his lesson sink in. After a time Duncan observed
+plaintively: "I knew there was a catch in it somewhere. What kind of
+work?"
+
+"It doesn't make any difference, so long as you get and hold some job
+in the town."
+
+"Well, that lets me out. You'll have to sic some other poor devil on
+this glittering proposition of yours. I couldn't hold a job in--"
+
+"Wait! I'll tell you how to do it in just a minute."
+
+"I don't mind listening, but--"
+
+"You'll cinch the whole business by going to church without a break.
+Don't ever fail--morning and evening every Sunday. Don't forget that."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"It's the most important thing of all."
+
+"Does going to church make such a hit with the young female
+Jasper--the Jasperette, as it were?"
+
+"It'll make you more solid than anything else with her popper and
+mommer, and that's very necessary when you're a candidate for their
+ducats as well as their daughter. You must work and you must go to
+church."
+
+"That can't be all. Surely you can think of something else?"
+
+"Those are the cardinal rules--church and work until you've landed your
+heiress. After that you can move back to civilisation.... Now as soon
+as you strike your town you want to make arrangements for board and
+lodging in some old woman's house--preferably an old maid. You'll be
+sure to find at least half a dozen of 'em, willing to take boarders,
+but you want to be equally sure to pick out the one that talks the
+most, so that she'll tell the neighbours all about you. Don't worry
+about that, though, they all talk. When you've moved In, stock up your
+room with about twenty of the driest-looking books in the world--law
+books look most imposing; fix up a table with lots of stationery--pens
+and pencils, red and black ink and all that sort of thing; make the
+room look as if you were the most sincere student ever. And by no means
+neglect to have a well-worn Bible prominently in evidence: you can buy
+one second-hand at some book-store before you start out."
+
+"I'd have to, of course. I thank you for the flattery. Proceed with the
+programme of the gay, mad life I must lead. I'm going to have a swell
+time: that's perfectly plain."
+
+"As soon as you're shaken down in your room, make the rounds of the
+stores and ask for work. Try and get into the dry-goods emporium if you
+can: the girls all shop there. But anything will do, except a grocery
+or a hardware store and places like that. You mustn't consider any
+employment that would soil your clothes or roughen your lily-white
+hands."
+
+"You expect me to believe I'd have any chance of winning a
+millionaire's daughter if I were a ribbon-clerk in a dry-goods store?"
+
+"The best in the world. The ribbon-clerk is her social equal; he calls
+her Mary and she calls him Joe."
+
+"Done with you: me for the ribbon counter. Anything else?"
+
+"The storekeepers aren't apt to employ you at first; they'll be
+suspicious of you."
+
+"They will be afterwards, all right. However--?"
+
+"So you must simply call on them--walk in, locate the boss and tell
+him: 'I'm looking for employment.' Don't press it; just say it and get
+out."
+
+"No trouble whatever about that; it's always that way when I ask for
+work."
+
+"They'll send for you before long, when they make up their minds that
+you're a decent, moral young man; for they know you'll draw trade. And
+every Sunday--"
+
+"I know: church!"
+
+"Absolutely.... Pick out the one the rich folks go to. Go in quietly
+and do just as they do: stand up and kneel, look up the hymns and sing,
+just when they do. Be careful not to sing too loud, or anything like
+that: just do it all modestly, as if you were used to it. Better go to
+church here two or three times and get the hang of it...."
+
+"Here, now--"
+
+"Nearly all the wealthy codgers in such towns are deacons, you see, and
+though they may not speak to you for months on the street, it's their
+business to waylay you after the service is over and shake hands with
+you and tell you they hope you enjoyed the sermon and ask you to come
+again. And you can bank on it, they'll all take notice from the first."
+
+"It's no wonder Bartlett made you a partner, Harry."
+
+"Now behave. I want you to get in right. ... If you follow the rules
+I've outlined, not only will all the girls in town be falling over
+themselves to get to you first, but their fond parents will be egging
+them on. Then all you've got to do is to pick out the one with the
+biggest bundle and--"
+
+"Make a play for her?"
+
+"Not on your life. That would be fatal. Your part is to put yourself in
+her way. She'll do all the courting, and when she scents the
+psychological moment she'll do the proposing."
+
+"It doesn't sound natural, but you certainly seem to know what you're
+drooling about."
+
+"You can anchor to that, Nat."
+
+"And are you finished?"
+
+"I am. Of course I'll probably think of more things to wise you to,
+before you go."
+
+Duncan laughed shortly and tilted back in his chair, selecting another
+cigarette. "And you're the chap who wanted me to go to some bromidic
+old show to-night! Harry, you're immense. Why didn't you ever let me
+suspect you had all this romantic imagination in your system?"
+
+"Imagination be blowed, son. This is business." Kellogg removed the
+stopper from the decanter and filled both glasses again. "Well, what do
+you say?"
+
+"I've just said my say, Harry. It's amazing; I'm proud of you."
+
+"But will you do it?"
+
+"Everything else aside, how can I? I've got to live, you know."
+
+"But I propose to stake you."
+
+Duncan came down to earth. "No, you won't; not a cent. I'm in earnest
+about this thing: no more sponging on you, Harry. Besides--"
+
+"No, seriously, Nat: I mean this, every word of it. I want you to do
+it--to please me, if you like; I've a notion something will come of it.
+And I believe from the bottom of my heart there's not the slightest
+risk if you'll play the cards as they fall, according to Hoyle."
+
+"Harry, I believe you do."
+
+"I do, firmly. And I'll put the proposition on a business basis, if you
+like."
+
+"Go on; there's no holding you."
+
+"You start out to-morrow and order your war kit. Get everything you
+need, and plenty of it, and have the bills sent to me. You can be ready
+inside a fortnight. The day you start I'll advance you five hundred
+dollars. When you're married you can repay me the amount of the
+advances with interest at ten per cent, and I'll consider it a mighty
+good deal for myself. Now, will you?"
+
+"You mean it?"
+
+"Every word of it. Well?"
+
+For a moment longer Duncan hesitated; then the vision of what he must
+return to, otherwise, decided him. In desperation he accepted. "It's a
+drowning man's straw," he said, a little breathlessly. "I'm sure I
+shouldn't. But I will."
+
+Kellogg flung a hand across the table, palm uppermost.
+
+"Word of honour, Nat?"
+
+Duncan let his hand fall into it. "Word of honour! I'll see it
+through."
+
+"Good! It's a bargain." Kellogg lifted his glass high in air. "To the
+fortune hunter!" he cried, half laughing.
+
+Duncan nervously fingered the stem of his glass. "God help the future
+Mrs. Duncan!" he said, and drank.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+TRIUMPH OF MR. HOMER LITTLEJOHN
+
+The twenty-first of June was a day of memorable triumph to me, a day of
+memorable events for Radville.
+
+Only the evening previous Will Bigelow and I had indulged in
+acrimonious argument in the office of the Bigelow House, the subject of
+contention being the importance of the work to which I am devoting my
+declining years, to wit, the recording of _The History of Radville
+Township, Westerly County, Pennsylvania_; Will maintaining with that
+obstinacy for which he is famous, that nothing ever had happened, does
+happen, can or will happen in our community, I insisting gently but
+firmly that it knows no day unmarked by important occurrence (for it
+would ill become me, as the only literary man in Radville, to yield a
+point in dispute with the proprietor of the town tavern). Besides, he
+was wrong, even as I was indisputably right--only he had not the grace
+to admit it. We ended vulgarly with a bet, Will wagering me the best
+five-cent Clear Havana in the Bigelow House sample-room that nothing
+worth mentioning would take place in Radville before sundown of the
+following day.
+
+I left him, returning to my room at Miss Carpenter's (Will and I are
+old friends, but I refuse to eat the food he serves his guests), warmed
+by the prospect of certain triumph if a little appalled by the prospect
+of winning the stake; and sympathising a little with Will, who, for all
+his egregious stubborness, has some excuse for upholding his
+unreasonable and ridiculous views. He knows no better, having never had
+the opportunity to find out for himself how utterly absurd are his
+claims for the outside world. Whereas I have.
+
+He's an adventurer at heart, Will Bigelow, a romantic soul crusted
+heavily with character--like a volcano smouldering beneath its lava.
+For many years he has managed the Bigelow House, with his thoughts
+apart from it, his eyes ever seeking the horizon that recedes beyond
+the soaring rim of our encircling cup of hills, his heart forever
+yearning forth to the outer world; which he erroneously conceives to be
+a theatre of events--as if outside of Radville only could there be
+things worth seeing, considering, or doing, or matters of any sort that
+move momentously! As long as I've known the man (and we played truant
+together fifty years ago--hookey, we called it then) he's had his heart
+set on going forth from Radville, "for to admire and for to see, for to
+view this wide world o'er"; always he has presented himself to me as
+one poised on the pinnacle of purpose, ready the next instant to dive
+and strike out into the teeming unknown beyond the barrier hills. But
+this promise he has never fulfilled. He still maintains that he will
+surely go--next week--after the hayin's over--as soon as the ice is
+in--the minute Mary graduates from High School. ... But I know he never
+will.
+
+So to Will Radville is as dull as ditchwater to a teamster; to me it's
+as fascinating as that same ditchwater to a biologist with a
+microscope. I see nothing going on in the world outside of Radville
+more important than our daily life. Too long I have lived away from it,
+a stranger in strange lands, not to appreciate its relative
+significance in the scheme of things. It makes all the difference--the
+view-point: Will sees Radville from its homely heart outwards, I stand
+on its boundaries, a native but yet, somehow in the local esteem (by
+reason of my long residence in the East) an outlander. Thus I get a
+perspective upon the place, to Will and his ilk denied.
+
+It seems curious that things should have fallen out thus for the two of
+us: that Will Bigelow, all afire with the lust for travel, should never
+have mustered up enterprise enough to break his home ties, whilst I
+whose dearest desire had always been to live no day of my alloted span
+away from Radville, should have been, in a manner which I'm bound
+presently to betray, forced out into the world; that he, the rebellious
+stay-at-home, cursing the destiny which chained him, should have
+prospered and become the man of substance he is, while I, mutinously
+venturing, should have returned only to watch my sands run out in
+poverty--what's little better.
+
+Not that I would have you think me whining: I have enough, little but
+ample for my simple needs, if inadequate for my ambitions or my
+neighbours' necessities. My editorial work for the _Radville
+Citizen_ is quite remunerative, while my weekly column of local
+gossip for the _Westerly Gazette_ brings me in a little, and I've
+one or two other modest sources of still more modest income. But
+Radville folks are poor, many of them, many who are very dear to me for
+old sake's sake. There's Sam Graham.... Though I wouldn't have you
+understand that as a community we are not moderately prosperous and
+contented, comfortable if not energetic and advanced. This is not a
+pushing town: it has never known a boom. That I'm sure will some day
+come, but I hope not in my time. I have faith in the mountains that
+fold us roundabout; they are rich with the possibilities of coal and
+iron, and year by year are being more and more widely opened up and
+developed; year by year the ranks of flaming, reeking coke ovens push
+farther on beside the railway that penetrates our valley. But as yet
+their smoke does not foul our skies, nor does their refuse pollute our
+river, nor their soot tarnish our vegetation. And as I say, I hope this
+is not to be while I live, though sometimes I have fears: Blinky
+Lockwood made a fortune selling the coal that was discovered beneath
+his father's old farm over Westerly way, and ever since that there's
+been more or less quiet prospecting going on in our vicinity. I shall
+be sorry to see the day when Radville is other than as it is: the
+quiet, peaceful, sleepy little town, nestling in the bosom of the
+hills, clean, sweet and wholesome....
+
+But this is rambling far from the momentous twenty-first of June, my
+day of triumph.
+
+I shall try to set down connectedly and coherently the events which
+culminated in the humbling of Will Bigelow to the dust.
+
+To begin with, we were early startled by the rumour that Hiram Nutt,
+theretofore deemed unconquerable, had been disastrously defeated at
+checkers in Willoughby's grocery--and that by Watty the tailor, of all
+men in Radville. The rumour was confirmed by eleven in the forenoon,
+and in itself should have provided us with a nine days' wonder.
+
+As it happened, an event happening almost simultaneously confused our
+minds. At eleven-fifteen Miss Carpenter's household was thrown into
+consternation by the scandalous behaviour of her black cat, Caesar, who
+chose suddenly to terminate a long and outwardly respectable career as
+Miss Carpenter's familiar by having kittens under the horse-hair sofa
+in the parlour. Incidentally this indelicate and ungentlemanly
+behaviour temporarily unloosed the hinges of Miss Carpenter's reason,
+so that my supper suffered that evening, and for several days she
+wandered round the house with blank and witless eyes. Perhaps I should
+have warned her, for I had latterly come to suspect Caesar of leading a
+double life; but for reasons which seemed sufficient I had refrained.
+
+By the noon train Roland Barnette received his new summer suit from
+Chicago. I did not see it till evening, but heard of it before one,
+since Roland donned it immediately and wore it to the bank that very
+afternoon. I understand it caused something very near a run on the
+bank; people came in to draw a dollar or so or get change and lingered
+to feast their outraged visions, so that Blinky Lockwood, the
+president, had to send Roland home to change before closing-time. He
+changed back, however, as soon as off duty, and spent the rest of the
+afternoon and evening hours in Sothern and Lee's, at the soda-fountain;
+which Sothern and Lee did not object to, since it drew trade.
+
+Pete Willing established a record by getting drunk at Schwartz's bar by
+three in the afternoon, his best previous time being four-thirty; and
+Mrs. Willing chased him up Centre Street until, at the corner of Main,
+he blundered into the arms of Judge Scott; who ordered him to arrest
+and lock himself up; which Pete, being the sheriff, solemnly did,
+saying that it was preferable to a return to home and wife.
+
+At five o'clock there was a dog-fight in front of Graham's drug-store.
+
+At five-forty-five the evening train lurched in, bearing The Mysterious
+Stranger.
+
+Tracey Tanner saw him first, having driven down to the station with his
+father's surrey on the off-chance of picking up a quarter or so from
+some drummer wishing to be conveyed to the Bigelow House. Only
+outlanders pay money for hacks in Radville; everybody else walks, of
+course. Naturally Tracey took The Mysterious Stranger for a drummer; he
+had three trunks and a heavy packing-box, so Tracey's misapprehension
+was pardonable. Instinctively he drove him to the Bigelow House; Will
+now and again makes Tracey a present of a bottle of sarsaparilla or
+lemon-pop, with the result that Tracey calls Tannehill, who runs the
+opposition hotel, a skinflint and never takes strangers there except on
+their express desire. The Mysterious Stranger merely asked to be driven
+to the best hotel. This is not like most commercial travellers, who as
+a rule know where they want to go, even in a strange town, having made
+inquiry in advance from their brothers of the road. Tracey made a note
+of this, and is further on record as having observed that this stranger
+was rather better dressed than the run of drummers, if not so nobbily.
+Moreover, he was reticent under the cross-fire of Tracey's
+irrepressible conversation, and failed to ask the name of the first
+pretty girl they passed; who happened to be Angle Tuthill. Finally The
+Mysterious Stranger actually tipped Tracey a whole quarter for carrying
+his suit-case into the hotel office.
+
+With these incitements it would have been unreasonable to expect Tracey
+to do otherwise than linger around for the good health of his sense of
+inquisitiveness, which would else have been severely sprained.
+
+Will Bigelow was dozing behind the desk, lulled by the sound of Hi
+Nutt's voice in the barroom, as he explained to all and sundry just how
+he had inadvertently permitted Watty the tailor to best him at checkers
+that morning. Otherwise the office was deserted. Tracey wakened Will by
+stamping heavily across the floor, and Will mechanically pushed down
+his spectacles and dipped a pen in ink, slewing the register round for
+the guest's signature. He says he knew at a glance that The Mysterious
+Stranger was no travelling man, but this is a moot point, Tracey's
+memory being minutely accurate and at variance with Will's assertion.
+
+The Mysterious Stranger was a young man, rather severely clothed in a
+dark suit which excited no interest in Bigelow's understanding,
+although I, when I saw him later, had no difficulty in realising that
+it had never been made by a tailor whose place of business was more
+than five doors removed from Fifth Avenue. He was tallish, but not
+really tall, and carried himself with a slight stoop which took way
+from his real height. Tracey says he had a way of looking at you as if
+he was smiling inside at some joke he'd heard a long time ago; and I
+don't know but that's a fairly apt description of his ordinary
+expression. He had a way, too, of nodding jerkily at you--just once--to
+show he recognised you or understood what you were driving at; at other
+times he carried his head a trifle to one side and slightly forward. He
+was a man you wouldn't forget, somehow, though what there was about him
+that was remarkable nobody seemed to know.
+
+He nodded that jerky way in answer to Will Bigelow's "G'devenin'," and
+without saying anything took the pen and started to register. He had to
+stop, however, for Tracey was pressing him so close upon the right that
+he couldn't get any play for his elbow, and after a minute or two he
+asked Tracey politely would he mind stepping round to the left, where
+he could see just as well. So Tracey did. Then he wrote his name in a
+good round hand: "Nathaniel Duncan, N.Y."
+
+"I'd like a room with a bath," he told Will: "something simple and
+chaste, within the means of a man in moderate circumstances."
+
+Will thought he was joking at first, but he didn't smile, so Will
+explained that there was a bathroom on the third floor at the end of
+the hall, though there wasn't much call for it. "I could give you a
+room next to that," he said, "but you wouldn't want it, I guess."
+
+"Why not?" asked The Mysterious Stranger.
+
+"Because," said Will, "'taint near the sample-room."
+
+"That doesn't make any difference; I'm on the wagon."
+
+The only sense Will could get out of that was that the young man was
+travelling for a buggy house and hadn't brought any samples with him.
+"I thought," he allowed, "as how you'd be wantin' a place to display
+your samples, but of course if you're in the wagon business--"
+
+"Oh," said Mr. Duncan, "I thought you meant the 'sample-room' over
+there." He nodded toward the bar. "That's what you call the
+dispensaries of intoxicating liquors in this part of the country, is it
+not?"
+
+Will made a noise resembling an affirmative, and as soon as he got his
+breath explained that travelling men generally wanted a sort of a
+showroom next to theirs and that that was called a sample-room, too.
+
+"But I'm not a travelling man," said The Mysterious Stranger. "So I
+shall have as little use for the one as the other."
+
+"Then the room on the third floor'll do for you," said Will. "How long
+do you calculate on stayin'?"
+
+"That will depend," said Mr. Duncan: "a day or so--perhaps longer;
+until I can find comfortable and more permanent quarters."
+
+In his amazement Will jabbed the pen so hard into the potato beside the
+ink-well that he never could get the nib out and had to buy a new one.
+"You don't mean to say you're thinkin' of coming here to live?" he
+gasped.
+
+"Yes, I do," said the young man apologetically. "I don't think you'll
+find me in the way. I shall be very quiet and unobtrusive. I'm a
+student, looking for a quiet place in which to pursue my studies."
+
+"Well," said Will, "you've found it all right. There ain't no quieter
+place in Pennsylvany than Radville, Mr. Duncan. I hope you'll like it,"
+he said, sarcastic.
+
+"I shall endeavour to," said the young man.
+
+"And now may I go to my room, please? I should like to renovate my
+travel-stained person to some extent before dinner."
+
+"You'll have time," said Will; "dinner's at noon to-morrow. I guess
+you're thinkin' about supper. That's ready now. Here, Tracey, you carry
+this gentleman's things up to number forty-three."
+
+But Tracey had already gone, and such was his haste to spread the news
+that he forgot to take the horse and surrey back to the stable, but
+left it standing in front of the hotel till eight o'clock; for which
+oversight, I am credibly informed, his father justly dealt with him
+before sending him to bed.
+
+I have never been able to understand how we failed to hear of it at
+Miss Carpenter's before seven o'clock. That was the hour when, having
+finished supper and my first evening pipe, I started down-town to the
+_Citizen_ office, intending to stop in at the Bigelow House on the
+way and confound Will with the list of the day's happenings. Main
+Street was pretty well crowded for that hour, I remember noticing, and
+most of the townsfolk were grouped together on the corners, underneath
+the lamps, discussing something rather excitedly. I paid no particular
+attention, realising that between Caesar, Pete Willing, Roland
+Burnette's suit and the checker game, they had enough to talk about. So
+it wasn't until I walked into the Bigelow House office that I either
+heard or saw anything of The Mysterious Stranger.
+
+Will Bigelow was in his usual place behind the desk, and looked, I
+thought, rather disgruntled. His reply to my "Howdy, Will?" sounded
+somewhat snappish. But he got out of his chair and moved round the end
+of the desk just as the young man came out of the dining-room door.
+Then Will pulled up and I realised that he was calling my attention to
+the stranger.
+
+So far as I could see, he seemed an ordinary, everyday, good-looking,
+good-natured young man, whose naturally sunny disposition had been
+insulted by the food recently set before him. He wandered listlessly
+out upon the porch and stood there, with his hands in his pockets,
+looking up and down Centre Street, just then being shadowed into the
+warm, purple June dusk, beneath its double row of elms. We've always
+thought it a rather attractive street, and that night it seemed
+especially lively with its trickle of girls and boys strolling up and
+down, and the groups of grown folks on the corners, and Roland
+Burnette's summer suit conspicuous through Sothern and Lee's
+plate-glass windows; and I supposed the young man was admiring it all.
+But now I know him better. He felt just the same about Main Street,
+corner of Centre, Radville, as I should have about Broadway and
+Forty-second Street, New York, if you had set me down there and told me
+I'd got to get accustomed to the idea that I must live there. He was
+saying, deep down in his heart: "O _Lord_!"--with the rising
+inflection.
+
+Will grabbed my arm, without saying anything, and pulled me into the
+bar.
+
+"Hello!" I said, as he went round behind and opened the cigar-case,
+"what's up?"
+
+He took out two boxes of the finest five-centers in town and placed
+them before me. "Them's up," he said. "You win. Have one."
+
+It staggered me to have him give in that way; I had been looking
+forward to a long and diverting dispute. "I guess you've heard
+everything worth hearing about to-day's history," I said, disappointed,
+as I selected the least unpleasant looking of the cigars.
+
+"No, I haven't," he said. "I didn't have to hear anything. What earned
+you that smoke took place right here in this office.... Here," he said,
+striking a match for me.
+
+I had been trying to put the cigar away so that I might dispose of it
+without hurting Will's feelings, but he had me, so I recklessly poked
+the thing into the automatic clipper and then into my mouth. "What do
+you mean?" I asked, puffing.
+
+"Come 'long outside," said Will; and we went out on the porch just in
+time to see Mr. Duncan going wearily upstairs to his room. "I mean,"
+said Will, _"him"_. And then he told me all about it.
+
+"But things like that don't happen every day," he wound up defensively.
+"I'll go you another cigar on to-morrow."
+
+"No, you won't," I said indignantly; and furtively dropped the infamous
+thing over the railing.
+
+I am never successful in my little attempts at deception, even in
+self-defence. In all candour I believe my disposition of that cigar
+would have gone undetected but for my notorious bad luck. Of course
+Bigelow's setter, Pompey, had to be asleep right under the spot where I
+dropped the cigar, and equally of course the burning end had to make
+instantaneous connection with his nerve centres, via his hide, with such
+effect that he arose in agony and subsequently used coarse language.
+Investigation naturally discovered my empty-handed perfidy. To no one
+else in Radville would this have happened.
+
+On the other hand, no one else in Radville would have thrown away the
+cigar.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+MARGARET'S DAUGHTER
+
+Discomfort roused Duncan from his rest at an early hour, the morning
+following his arrival in Radville. I must confess that the beds in the
+Bigelow House are no better than they should be; in fact, according to
+Duncan, not so good. Duncan ought to know; he has slept in one of them,
+or tried to; a trial thus far to me denied. From what he has said,
+however, I shudder to think what will become of me should I ever lose
+the shelter of Miss Carpenter's second-story front and be thrown out
+into a heartless world to choose between the Bigelow House and Frank
+Tannehill's Radville Inn....
+
+Duncan arose and consulted the two-dollar watch which he had left on
+the pine washstand by the window. It was half-past seven o'clock, and
+that seemed early to him. He was tired and would willingly have turned
+in again, but a rueful glance at the couch of his night-long vigil
+sufficed him. He lifted a hand to Heaven and vowed solemnly: "Never
+again!"
+
+As he bent over the washstand and poured a cupful of water into the
+china basin, thus emptying the pitcher, he was conscious of a pain in
+his back; but a thought cheered him. "They must have decent stables in
+this town," he considered, brightening. "The haymows for mine, after
+this."
+
+He dressed with scrupulous care, mindful of Kellogg's parting words,
+the sense of which was that first impressions were most important. "All
+the same," Duncan thought, "I don't believe they count in a dead-and-
+alive place like this. There's no one here with sufficient animation to
+realise I'm in town." This shows how little he understood our little
+community. A day of enlightenment was in store for him.
+
+Pansy Murphy was scrubbing out the office when he came down for
+breakfast. She is large, of what is known as a full complexion,
+good-hearted and energetic. His pause at the foot of the stairs, as he
+surveyed in dismay the seven seas of soapy water that occupied the
+floor, aroused her. She sat back suddenly on her heels and looked her
+fill of him, with her blue Irish eyes very wide, and her mouth a trap.
+He bowed politely. Pansy saved herself from falling over backwards by a
+supreme effort, scrubbed her hair out of her eyes with a very wet hand,
+and gave him "Good-marrin', Misther Dooncan," in a brogue as rich as
+you could wish for.
+
+He started violently. "Heavens!" he said. "I am discovered!"
+
+"Make yer moind aisy about thot," Pansy assured him. "'Tis known all
+over town who ye arre, what's yer name, how manny troonks ye've brought
+wid ye, and th' rayson f'r yer comin' here."
+
+"A comforting thought, thank you," he commented: "to awake to find
+one's self grown famous over-night!..."
+
+"Now ye know," she returned, emboldened, "what it is to be a big toad
+in a small puddle."
+
+"I thank you." He nodded again, with a comprehensive survey of the
+reeking floor. "I'm afraid I do." With which he slipped and slid over
+to and through the swinging wicker doors of the dining-room.
+
+It was deserted. From the negligée of the tables, littered with the
+plates and dishes, dreary survivors of a dozen breakfasts, he divined
+that he was the tardiest guest in the household. A slatternly young
+woman in a soiled shirt-waist--the waitress--received him with great
+calm and waved him toward a table by the window, where an unused cover
+was laid. He went meekly, dogged by her formidable presence. She stood
+over him and glared down.
+
+"Haman neggs," she said defiantly, "steakan nomlette."
+
+"I'll be a martyr," he told her civilly. "Me for the steak."
+
+She frowned gloomily and tramped away. He folded his hands and, cheered
+by an appetising aroma of warm water and yellow soap from the office,
+considered the prospect from the window by his side. Three children and
+a yellow dog came along and watched him do it, dispassionately
+reviewing his points in clear young voices. Tracey Tanner ambled into
+view on the other side of the street and beamed at him generously, his
+round red face resembling, Duncan thought, more than anything else a
+summer sun rising through mist. Josie Lockwood (he was to discover her
+name later) passed with her pert little nose ostentatiously pointed
+away from him; none the less he detected a gleam in the corner of her
+eye.... Others went by, singly or in groups, all more or less openly
+interested in him.
+
+He tried to look unconscious, but with ill success. There was nothing
+particularly engaging in the view: the broad, dusty street lined with
+commonplace structures of "frame" and brick, glowing in the morning
+sunshine. There were, to be sure, cool shadows beneath the trees, but
+the suggestion was all of summer heat. There was a watering-trough and
+hitching-rail directly opposite, a little to one side of Hemmenway's
+feed-store, and there a well-fed mare stood, drooping dejectedly
+between the shafts of a dilapidated buggy. On the corner was a
+two-storey brick building with large plate-glass windows on the ground
+floor for the display of intimate articles of feminine apparel. The
+black and gold sign above proclaimed it: "The Fair. Dry Goods &
+Notions. Leonard & Call." Duncan considered it with grave respect. "The
+scene of my future activities," he observed.
+
+By this time his audience had become too large and friendly for his
+endurance. He rose and retired to a less public table.
+
+In her own good time the waitress returned with a plate, and a small
+oval platter in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. She placed
+them before him with a manner that told him plainly he could never make
+himself the master of her affections. The small oval platter was
+discovered to contain a small segment of dark-brown ham and two fried
+eggs swimming in grease.
+
+Duncan questioned the woman with mute, appealing eyes.
+
+"Steak's run out," she told him curtly.
+
+"Leaving no address?" he inquired with forced gaiety.
+
+A suppressed smile softened her austerity, and she turned away to hide
+it. "To think," he wondered, "that a sense of humour should inhabit
+that!" He broke a roll and munched it gloomily, pondering this
+revelation. "And such humour !" he added, with justice.
+
+After an interval the woman returned. He had refrained from the staple
+dish. She indicated it with a grimy forefinger.
+
+"Please!" he begged plaintively. "I'm never very hungry in the
+morning."
+
+"I guess you don't like the table here," she observed icily, clearing
+away.
+
+"Do you?"
+
+"I don't have to; I live home."
+
+He stared. Could it be possible...?
+
+"I know a good old one, too," he ventured hopefully. "Now here." He
+drew his coffee cup toward him and began to stir with energy. "You say:
+'It looks like rain'; and I'll say: 'Yes, but it tastes a little like
+coffee.'"
+
+She clattered away indignantly. He rose, depressed, and sighing sought
+the outer air.
+
+In the course of a forenoon's stroll Radville discovered itself to him
+in all its squalor and its loveliness. It sits in the centre of a broad
+valley of rolling meadow-land, studded with infrequent homesteads,
+broken into rather extensive farms, threaded by a shallow silver stream
+that gives its all in tribute to the Susquehanna far in the south. The
+barrier mountains rise about it like the sides of a bowl, with a great
+V-shaped piece chipped out of the southern wall. This break we call the
+Gap; through it the railroad comes to us, through it the river escapes.
+The hills rear high and steep, their swelling flanks cloaked in sombre
+green and grey, with here and there a bald spot like a splash of ochre
+where there's been a landslide, climbing directly from the plain, with
+no foothills. A recluse, I have thought, must have chosen this spot for
+a town site; sickened of the world, he sought seclusion--and found it
+here to his heart's content. Until the coke-ovens come, following the
+miners, with their attendant hordes of Slovaks, Poles and Hungarians,
+we shall be near to God, for we shall know peace....
+
+The town has been laid out with great rectangularity; the river divides
+it unequally. On the western bank is the larger community--locally, the
+Old Town, retaining its characteristics of sobriety, quiet and comfort;
+here, also, is the business centre--such business as there is. Here
+Duncan found homely residences sitting back from the street in ample
+grounds--grounds, perhaps, not very carefully groomed, but in spite of
+that attractive and pleasant to the eye. With one or two exceptions,
+none were strongly suggestive of wealth. He detected a trace of
+ostentation, and no taste whatever, in Lockwood's new villa (I'm told
+that's the polite designation for the edifice he caused to be erected
+what time the plague of riches smote him and the old home on Cherry
+Street became too small for the collective family chest), and there was
+quiet dignity in the quaintly columned façade of the Bohun mansion, now
+occupied solely by old Colonel Bohun, lonely and testy, reputed the
+richest as well as the most miserable man in the county. But as to his
+wealth, I doubt if rumour runs by more than tradition; Blinky
+Lockwood's new-found hundred-thousands are growing rapidly toward the
+million mark, unless Blinky's a worse business man than the town takes
+him to be.
+
+An old stone arch (whereon lovers linger in the moonlight) spans the
+stream and links the Old Town with the new, which we sometimes term the
+Flats, but more often simply Over There. It is a sordid huddle of dingy
+and down-at-the-heel tenements, housing the poorer working classes and
+the frankly worthless and ruffianly riff-raff of the neighbourhood.
+There are eight gin-mills Over There as against two sample-rooms in the
+Old Town, and of the local constabulary two-thirds lead exciting lives
+patrolling the Flats; the remaining third is ordinarily to be found
+dozing in the backroom of Schwartz's, and if roused will answer to the
+name and title of Pete Willing, Sheriff and Chief of Police.
+
+Duncan reviewed both sides of the municipal face with fine
+impartiality--the Flats last; and turned back to the Old Town. "There's
+one thing," he communed as he reached the bridge: "If these people ever
+find me out they'll run me across the river--sure."
+
+He paused there, looking up and down the valley with contemplative
+gaze; and it was there I found him.
+
+As is my custom, I had devoted the earlier morning hours to the
+compilation of that work which is to gain for the name of Littlejohn a
+trifle more respect than, I fear, it owns in Radville nowadays; and
+afterwards, again in accordance with habit, had started out for my
+morning constitutional. As I was about to leave the house Miss
+Carpenter waylaid me and, in a voice still tremulous from the shock of
+yesterday, asked me to hunt up Jake Sawyer in the Flats and tell him to
+come and cut the grass.
+
+I was not in the least unwilling, for the walk was not long, and the
+morning very pleasant--not too warm, and bright with the smiling spirit
+of June. I don't remember feeling more cheerful and at peace with the
+world than when I marched off on my mission. The cloud I might, of
+course, have anticipated: clouds always come, and a lifetime has taught
+me to be sceptical of that tale about the silver lining. And even when
+it came it seemed no more depressing, of no more significant moment,
+than the cloud shadow that scurries across a wheat-field with no effect
+other than to enhance the beauty of the sunshine that pursues it.
+
+Old Colonel Bohun was the cloud-shadow of that morning. I met him
+turning into Main Street from Mortimer--at the head of which his
+mansion stands. He came down the sidewalk, but with a hint of haste in
+his manner: a tall old man, bending beneath the burden of his years,
+his fierce old face and iron-grey hair shaded as always by the black
+slouch hat with the flapping brim, his rounded shoulders cloaked with
+the black Inverness cape he wore summer and winter. In spite of his age
+and evident decrepitude, he bodied forth the spirit of what he had
+been, and none could pass him without knowledge of his presence; he
+drew eyes as a magnet draws filings, and drawing, held them in respect.
+I doubted if there were a man in Radville who could meet the old
+colonel with anything but a mingling of fear and deference--with one or
+two exceptions. For myself I hated him heartily, and he, looking down
+at me from the peak of pride whereon his iron soul perched, despised me
+with equal intensity. So we got along famously at our infrequent
+encounters.
+
+This morning I caught a flash of fire from his red-rimmed old eyes, and
+told myself I was sorry for whoever crossed his path before he returned
+to his lonely castle. It was his habit at odd intervals to foray down
+the village streets with one grievance or another rankling in his
+bosom, seeking some unlucky one upon whose head to wreak his
+resentment. We had come to recognise the heavy, slow tapping of his
+thick cane as a harbinger of trouble, even as you might prognosticate a
+thunderstorm from the rumbling beneath the horizon.
+
+I saw he recognised me and gave him a civil salute, which he returned
+with a brusque nod and a sharper, "Good-morning, Littlejohn," as he
+passed. Then he swung into Main Street, paralleling my course on the
+opposite sidewalk, and went _thump-thumping_ along, darting quick
+glances hither and yon beneath his heavy brows, like some dark
+incarnation of perverse pride and passion.
+
+Partly because the sight of him sensibly influenced my mood, and partly
+because inevitably he made me think of Sam Graham, I turned off at
+Beech Street, leaving him to pursue his way toward the centre of town.
+Graham's one-horse drug-store stood on Beech, a block south of Main.
+That being the least promising location in town for a business of any
+sort, Sam had naturally selected it when he concluded to set up shop.
+If Sam had ever in his life displayed any symptoms of business
+sagacity, Radville would never have recovered from the shock. I believe
+it was Legrand Gunn, our only really certificated village wit, who
+coined the epigram: "As useless as to take a prescription to Graham's."
+The implication being that Graham didn't carry sufficient stock to
+fill any prescription; which was largely true; he couldn't; he hadn't
+the money to stock up with. What little he took in from time to time
+went in part to the support of Betty and himself, but mainly to pay
+interest on his debts and buy raw materials for models of his
+thousand-and-one inventions. Most Radvillians firmly believed that Sam
+has at some time or other in his busy, worthless career invented
+everything under the sun, practicable or impracticable--the former
+always a few days after somebody else had taken out patents for the
+identical device. But at that time no one believed he would ever make a
+cent out of any one of the children of his ingenious brain; nor was I,
+in this respect, more credulous than any of my fellow-townsmen.
+
+I lingered a moment outside the shop, thinking of the change that had
+come over it since the death of Margaret Graham, Betty's mother. For,
+despite its out-of-the-way location, the shop had not always been
+unprofitable; while Margaret lived (my heart still ached with the
+memory of her name) Sam's business had prospered. She had been one of
+those woman who can rise to any emergency in the interest of her loved
+ones; the first to realise Sam's improvidence and lack of executive
+ability, she had taken hold of the business with a firm hand and made
+it pay--while she lived. It has never ceased to be a source of
+wondering speculation to me, that she, with her gentle training, so
+wholly aloof from every thought of commerce or economy, should have
+proven herself so thorough and level-headed a business woman. There's
+no accounting for it, indeed, save on the theory that she conceived it
+a woman's function to make up for man's deficiencies; Sam needed her,
+so she become his wife; he needed a manager, so she had became that
+also....
+
+During Margaret's régime, as I say, the shop had thrived. Sam had few
+ill-wishers in Radville; the trade came his way. Then Betty was born
+and Margaret died....
+
+Most of this I have on hearsay. I left Radville shortly after their
+marriage and did not return until some months after Margaret's burial.
+By that time the shop had begun to show signs of neglect; its stock was
+decimated, its trade likewise. Sam was struggling with his inventions
+more fiercely than ever--seeking forgetfulness, I always thought. The
+business was allowed to take care of itself. He had always a serene
+faith in his tomorrows.
+
+Now the little shop had been far distanced by the competition of
+Sothern and Lee. It was twenty years behind the times, as the saying
+is. Small, darksome, dreary and dingy, it served chiefly as a
+living-room for Sam, his daughter, and his cronies, as well as for his
+workshop. He had a bench and a ramshackle lathe in one corner, where
+you might be sure to find him futilely pottering at almost any hour. He
+owned the little building--or that portion in it which it were a farce
+to term the equity above the mortgage--and Betty kept house for him in
+three rooms above the store.
+
+I saw nothing of him as I stepped across the street, and was wondering
+if he were at home when, through the small, dark panes of glass in his
+show windows I discerned his white old head bobbing busily over
+something on the rear counter. I pushed the door open and entered. He
+looked up with his never-failing smile of welcome and a wave of his
+hand.
+
+"Howdy, Homer? Come in. Well, well, I'm glad to see you. Sit down--I
+think that chair there by the stove will hold together under you."
+
+"What are you doing, Sam?" I asked.
+
+"Fixin' up the sody fountain. 'Meant to get it working last month,
+Homer, but somehow I kind of forgot."
+
+He rubbed away briskly at the single faucet which protruded above the
+counter, lathering it briskly with a metal polish that smelt to Heaven.
+
+"Do much sody trade, Sam?"
+
+He paused, passing his worn old fingers reflectively across a chin
+snowy with a stubble of neglected beard. "No," he allowed thoughtfully,
+"not so much as we used to, now that Sothern and Lee've got this
+new-fangled notion of puttin' ice cream in a nickel glass of sody. Most
+of the young folks go there, now, but still I get a call flow and
+then--and every little bit helps." He rubbed on ferociously for a
+moment. "'Course, I'd do more, likely, if I carried a bigger line of
+flavours."
+
+"How many do you carry?"
+
+"One," he admitted with a sigh, "vanilly."
+
+While I filled my pipe he continued to rub very industriously.
+
+"Why don't you get more?"
+
+He flashed me one of his pale, genial smiles. "I'm thinkin' of it,
+Homer, soon's I get some money in. Next week, mebbe. There's a man in
+N'York that mebbe can be int'rested in one of my inventions, Roland
+Barnette says. Mebbe he'd be willin' to put a little money in it,
+Roland says, and of course if he does, I'll be able to stock up
+considerable."
+
+I sighed covertly for him. He rubbed, humming a tuneless rhythm to
+himself.
+
+"Roland's goin' to write to him about it."
+
+"What invention?" I asked, incredulous.
+
+Sam put down his bottle of polish and came round the counter, beaming;
+nothing pleases him better than an opportunity to exhibit some one of
+his innumerable models. "I'll show you, Homer," he volunteered
+cheerfully, shuffling over to his work-bench. He rasped a match over
+its surface and applied the flame to a small gas-bracket fixed to the
+wall. A strong rush of gas extinguished the match, and he turned the
+flow half off before trying again. This time the vapour caught and
+settled to a steady, brilliant flame as white as and much softer than
+acetylene.
+
+"There!" he said in triumph. "What d'ye think of that, Homer?"
+
+"Why," I said, "I didn't know you had an acetylene plant."
+
+"No more have I, Homer."
+
+"But what is that, then?" I demanded.
+
+"It's my invention," he returned proudly.
+
+"I've been workin' on it two years, Homer, and only got it goin'
+yestiddy. It's going to be a great thing, I tell you."
+
+"But what _is_ it, Sam?"
+
+"It's gas from crude petroleum, Homer. See ..." he continued,
+indicating a tank beneath the bench which seemed to be connected with
+the bracket by a very simple system of piping, broken by a smaller,
+cylindrical tank. "Ye put the oil in there--just crude, as it comes out
+of the wells, Homer; it don't need refinin'--and it runs through this
+and down here to this, where it's vaporised--much the same's they
+vaporise gasoline for autymobile engines, ye know--and then it just
+naturally flows up to the bracket--and there ye are."
+
+"It's wonderful, Sam," said I, wondering if it really were.
+
+"And the best part of it is the economy, Homer. A gallon will run one
+jet six weeks, day in and out. And simple to install. I tell ye--"
+
+"Have you got it patented yet?"
+
+"Yes, siree! took out patents just as soon as it struck me how simple
+it 'ud be--more than two years ago. Only, of course, it took time to
+work it out just right, 'specially when I had to stop now and then
+'cause I needed money for materials. But it's all right now, Homer,
+it's all right now."
+
+"And you say Roland Barnette's writing to some one in New York about
+it?"
+
+"Yes; he promised he would. I explained it to Roland and he seemed real
+int'rested. He's kind, very kind."
+
+I was inclined to doubt this, and would probably have said something to
+that effect had not a shadow crossing the window brought me to my feet
+in consternation. But before I could do more than rise, Colonel Bohun
+had flung open the door and stamped in. He stopped short at sight of
+me, misguided by his near-sighted eyes, and singled me out with a
+threatening wave of his heavy stick.
+
+"Well, sir!" he snarled. "I've come for my answer. Have you sense
+enough in your addled pate to understand that, man? I've come for my
+answer!"
+
+"And may have it, whatever it may be, for all of me," I told him.
+
+His face flushed a deeper red. "Oh, it's only you, is it, Littlejohn? I
+took you for that fool Graham, in this damned dark hole. Where is he?"
+
+I looked to Graham and he followed the direction of my gaze to the
+work-bench, where Sam stood with his back to it, his worn hands folded
+quietly before him. He seemed a little whiter than usual, I thought;
+and perhaps it was only my fancy that made him appear to tremble ever
+so slightly. For he was quite calm and self-possessed--so much so that
+I realised for the first time there was another man in Radville besides
+myself who did not fear old Colonel Bohun.
+
+"I'm here, colonel," he said quietly. "What is it you wish?"
+
+The colonel swung on him, shaking with passion. But he held his tongue
+until he had mastered himself somewhat: a feat of self-restraint on his
+part over which I marvel to this day.
+
+"You know well, Graham," he said presently. "You got my letter--the
+letter I wrote you a week ago?"
+
+"Yes," said Sam, with a start of comprehension. "Yes, I got it."
+
+"Then why the devil, man, don't you answer it?"
+
+Sam's apologetic smile sweetened his face.
+
+"Why," he said haltingly--"I'm sure I meant no offence, but--you see,
+I'm a very busy man--I forgot it."
+
+"The hell you forgot it. D'ye expect me to believe that, man?"
+
+"I'm afraid you'll have to."
+
+Bohun was speechless for a moment, stricken dumb by a second seizure of
+fury. But again he calmed himself.
+
+"Very well. I'll swallow that insolence for the present--"
+
+"It wasn't meant as such, I assure--"
+
+"Don't interrupt me! D'you hear? ... I've come for my answer. Yes, I've
+come down to that, Graham. If you can't accord me the common courtesy
+of a written reply--I've come to hear it from your mouth."
+
+Sam nodded thoughtfully. "Mebbe," he said, "you forgot you have failed
+to accord me the common courtesy of any sort of a communication
+whatever for twenty years, Colonel Bohun. Even when my wife, your
+daughter, died, you ignored my message asking you to her funeral...."
+
+"Be silent!" screamed the colonel. "Do you think I'm here to bandy
+words with you, fool? I demand my answer."
+
+"And as for that," continued Sam as evenly as if he had not been
+interrupted, "your proposition was so preposterous that it could have
+come only from you, and deserved no answer. But since you want it
+formally, sir, it's no."
+
+For a moment I feared Bohun would have a stroke. The back of the chair
+I had just vacated and his stick alone supported him through that dumb,
+terrible transport. He shook so violently that I looked momentarily to
+see the chair break beneath him. There was insanity in his eyes. When
+finally he was able to articulate it was in broken gasps.
+
+"I don't believe it," he stammered. "It's a lie. I don't believe it.
+It's madness--the girl wouldn't be so mad. ..."
+
+"What is it, father?"
+
+I don't know which of us three was the more startled by that simple
+question in Betty Graham's voice; Sam, at all events, showed the least
+surprise; the old colonel wheeled toward the back of the store, his jaw
+dropping and his eyes protruding as though he were confronted with a
+ghost. As, in a way, he was: even I had been struck by that strange,
+heartrending similarity to her mother's tone; and even I trembled a
+little to hear that voice, as it seemed, from beyond the grave.
+
+Betty stood at the foot of the staircase; alarmed by the noise of the
+colonel's raging, she had stolen down, unheard by any of us. And in
+that moment I realised as never before that the girl had more of her
+mother in her than lay in that marvellous reproduction of Margaret
+Graham's voice. As she waited there one detected in her pose something
+of her mother's quiet dignity, in her eyes more than a little of
+Margaret's tragedy. Of Margaret's beauty I saw scant trace, I own; but
+in those days my eyes were blinded by the signs of overwork and
+insufficient nourishment that marred her young features, by the
+hopeless dowdiness of her garments.
+
+Abruptly she moved swiftly to her father's side and slipped her hand
+into his. "What is it, father?" she repeated, eyeing Colonel Bohun
+coldly.
+
+I thought Sam's eyes filled. His lips trembled and he had to struggle
+to master his voice. He smiled through it all, tenderly at his girl,
+but there was in that smile the weakness of the child grown old, the
+dependence of the man whose womanfolk must ever mother him.
+
+"Why, Betty," he said, tremulous--"why, Betty, your grandfather here
+has been kind enough to offer to take you and educate you and make a
+lady of you, and--and we were just talking it over, dear, just talking
+it over."
+
+"Do you mean that?" she flung at Bohun.
+
+He straightened up and held himself well in hand. "Is it the first you
+have heard of it?"
+
+"Yes." She looked inquiringly at her father.
+
+"Why didn't you tell her?" Bohun persisted harshly. "Were you afraid?"
+
+"No." Sam shook his head slowly. "I wasn't
+afraid. But it was unnecessary.... You see, Betty, Colonel Bohun is
+willing to do all this for you on several conditions. You must leave me
+and never see me again; you mustn't even recognise me should we meet
+upon the street; you must change your name to Bohun and never permit
+yourself to be known as Betty Graham. Then you must--"
+
+"Never mind, daddy dear," said the girl. "That is enough. I know now--I
+understand why you never told me. It's impossible. Colonel Bohun knew
+that when he made the offer, of course; he made it simply to harass
+you, daddy. It's his revenge...."
+
+She looked Bohun up and down with a glance of contempt that would have
+withered another man, poor, wan, haggard little maid of all work that
+she was.
+
+"And that's your answer, miss?" he snapped, livid with wrath.
+
+"I would not," she told him slowly, "accept a favour from you, sir, if
+I were starving...."
+
+Bohun drew himself up. "Then starve," he told her; and walked out of
+the shop.
+
+I gaped after his retreating figure. It seemed impossible, incredible,
+that he should have taken such an answer without yielding to a fit of
+insensate passion. And I was still marvelling when I heard Graham
+saying in a broken voice: "Betty! Betty, my little girl!"
+
+Then I, too, went away, with a mist before my eyes to dim the golden
+grace of June.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+INTRODUCTION TO MISS CARPENTER
+
+On my way back from the Flats I discovered Duncan sitting on the wall
+of the bridge, moodily donating pebbles to the water. His attitude
+suggested preoccupation with unhappy reflections, a humour from which
+the sound of my footsteps roused him. He looked up and caught my eye
+with an uncertain nod, as though he half recognised me--presumably
+having casually noticed me at the Bigelow House the previous evening.
+
+"Good-morning," said I cheerfully, with a slight break in my stride
+intended craftily to convey the impression that I was not altogether
+averse to a pause for gossip.
+
+He said "Good-morning," sombrely.
+
+"A pleasant day," I observed spontaneously, stopping.
+
+"Yes," he agreed. "By the way, have you a match about you?"
+
+I searched my pockets, found a box and handed it over.
+
+"I've been perishing for a ..." He slid his fingers into a waistcoat
+pocket, as one who should seek a cigarette-case; but the hand came
+forth empty. He bit his remark off abruptly, with a blank look in his
+eyes which was promptly succeeded by an expression of deepest chagrin.
+He got up and with a little bow returned the box.
+
+"I forgot," he said, apologetic.
+
+"I'm afraid I can't help you out," said I.
+
+"Oh, that's all right. I'd just forgotten that I don't smoke."
+
+I pretended not to notice his disconcertion.
+
+"You're to be congratulated; it's a shameful waste of time and money."
+
+"A filthy habit," said he warmly.
+
+"Indeed, yes," I chanted, finding my pipe and tobacco pouch.
+
+He caught my twinkle as I filled and lighted, and looked away, the
+shadow of a smile lurking beneath his small, closely clipped moustache.
+
+"I beg your pardon," he said a moment later, regarding me with more
+interest, "but--do you live here?"
+
+"Certainly. Why?"
+
+"I was sure of it," he replied soberly. "But don't you feel a bit
+lonesome, sometimes?"
+
+"Not in the least. Radville's one of the most interesting places on
+this side of the footstool." He sighed. "Indeed," I insisted, "you
+won't feel any more lonely after you've lived here a while, than I do
+now, Mr. Duncan."
+
+He opened his eyes at my acquaintance with his name, but jerked his
+head at me comprehendingly.
+
+"To be sure," he said. "You would know. But I'm only beginning to
+realise what it feels like to be a marked man."
+
+"I hear you intend to make Radville your permanent residence, Mr.
+Duncan?"
+
+"It's part of the system," he said obscurely. "It may prove a life
+sentence."
+
+"Don't you think you'll like it here?"
+
+"Oh, I'm strong for Radville," he declared earnestly. "It's all to the
+merry ... I beg your pardon."
+
+I stared curiously to see him colour like a school-girl. "What for?"
+
+"My mistake, sir; I forgot myself again. I don't use slang."
+
+"Oh!" I commented, wondering. He was beginning to puzzle me.
+
+In the pause the air began to rock with the heavy clanging of the clock
+in the Methodist Church steeple.
+
+"That's noon," I said. "We'll have to cut along: dinner's ready."
+
+Duncan immediately replanted himself firmly upon the parapet. "I know
+it," he said with some indignation.
+
+Again bewildered, I hesitated, but eventually advanced: "Our ways run
+together, Mr. Duncan, as far as the Bigelow House. My name is
+Littlejohn--Homer Littlejohn."
+
+He rose again to take my hand and assured me he was glad to make my
+acquaintance. "But," he added morosely, "I'll be damned if I go back to
+that hotel before dinner's over.... Great Scott! I forgot again. I
+don't swear!"
+
+"Have you any other unnatural accomplishments?" I inquired, chuckling.
+
+"I'm so full of 'em I can hardly stick," he assented gloomily. "I don't
+drink or smoke or swear or play pool or cards, and on Sundays I go to
+church."
+
+I laughed outright. "You've come to the right place for such exemplary
+virtues to be fully appreciated, Mr. Duncan."
+
+"That's all right," he said with a return of his indignation, "but it
+wasn't in the bargain that I should starve to death. Do you realise,
+Mr. Littlejohn," he continued, warming, "that you behold in me a young
+man in the prime of health actually on the point of wasting visibly
+away to a shadow of my former hardy self? It's a fact: I am. For the
+past two days I've had nothing to eat except railway sandwiches and
+coffee and the kind of fodder they pitchfork you at the Bigelow House.
+And I came here with a mind coloured with rosy anticipations of real
+old-fashioned country cooking. It's an outrage!"
+
+"Look here," said I: "why not come home with me for dinner? I'll be
+glad to have you, and Miss Carpenter won't mind your coming, I'm sure."
+
+He got up with alacrity. "Those are the first human words I've heard in
+Radville, sir! I accept with joy and gratitude. Come--lead me to it!"
+
+Now, Miss Carpenter doesn't like her meals delayed; so I would have
+been inclined to hasten this Mr. Duncan; but he saved me the trouble.
+
+"Miss Carpenter?" he asked without warning, as we hurried up Main
+Street.
+
+"My landlady, Mr. Duncan."
+
+"She takes boarders? An old maid?" he persisted eagerly.
+
+"An elderly spinster; boarders are her distraction as well as a source
+of income."
+
+"Do you think she'd take me in, Mr. Littlejohn?"
+
+"I'm sure of it. There's a vacant room ..."
+
+"Does she talk?"
+
+"Moderately."
+
+"Not a regular walking newspaper--no?"
+
+"Not exactly--"
+
+"Then I'm afraid it's no use," he sighed.
+
+I glanced up at his face, but it was inscrutable.
+
+"You--you want a landlady who talks?" I gasped, incredulous.
+
+"It's one of the rules," he said, again obscurely.
+
+I could make nothing of him. And had I any right to introduce to Hetty
+Carpenter a guest who came without credentials and talked more or less
+like a lunatic at large?
+
+"Mr. Duncan--" I began, uncomfortable.
+
+"Don't say it," he anticipated me. "I know you think I'm crazy--but I'm
+not. You would think so, naturally, because you're the only man here
+who's ever lived away from Radville long enough--not counting those who
+went to the World's Fair--."
+
+"How did you know?"
+
+"Bigelow told me last night; said you'd be glad to meet somebody from
+New York. I hope he's right. I'm glad, personally.... You see--May I
+request that you regard this as confidential?"
+
+"Yes--yes!"
+
+"I've come to Radville to make my fortune."
+
+The confession smote me witless: I could only gape. He nodded
+confirmation, with a most serious mien. At length I found strength to
+articulate. "From New York--?"
+
+"Yes. It's a new scheme. You see, Mr. Littlejohn,
+matters have come to such a state that a city-bred boy practically
+doesn't stand any show on earth of making good in the cities; your
+country-bred boys crowd him to the wall, nine times out of ten. They
+invade us in hordes, fresh from the open, strong, vigorous,
+clear-headed, ambitious.... What chance have we got? ... I've been
+figuring it out, you see, and I've come to the conclusion that it's my
+only salvation to get back to the country and improve some of the
+opportunities--the golden opportunities--that your boys have neglected,
+overlooked, in their mad desire to invade the commercial centres of the
+country."
+
+He seemed very much in earnest; I was watching him as closely as I
+might without making my scrutiny offensive; and there seemed to be the
+ring of conviction in his voice, while the expression of his eyes
+indicated concentrated thought. And how was I to know, then, that the
+concentration was due to the necessity of invention?
+
+"You follow me, Mr. Littlejohn?"
+
+"I was here first," I corrected. "Still, there's more in what you say
+than perhaps you realise."
+
+"If I'd made this discovery originally I'd agree with you, sir. But,
+quite to the contrary, it was pointed out to me by one of the shrewdest
+business minds in the United States--a man who'd been a country boy to
+begin with. And I've come to the conclusion that he's right."
+
+"So you're here."
+
+"Here I am."
+
+"And what do you propose doing?"
+
+"I'm reading law, Mr. Littlejohn; that I shall continue. In the
+meantime, I shall keep my eyes open. At any day, at any amount, the
+opportunity may present itself, the opportunity I'm looking for."
+
+"Probably you're right," I assented, impressed, as we turned a corner.
+
+A young woman in a very attractive linen gown was strolling toward us,
+quite prettily engaged with a book which she read as she walked, her
+fair young head bowed beneath a sunshade which tinted her face
+becomingly. She gave me a shy smile and a low-voiced greeting as we
+passed. Only my knowledge of the young woman prevented me from being
+blinded by her engaging appearance.
+
+"That," said I, when we were out of earshot, "shows you what a furore a
+good-looking young man can create in a town like this. Josie Lockwood
+has put on her best bib-and-tucker to go walking in this afternoon, on
+the off-chance of meeting you, Mr. Duncan."
+
+"Flattery note," he commented. "Who's Josie Lockwood?"
+
+"Daughter of Blinky Lockwood, the richest man in Radville."
+
+"Ah!" he said cryptically.
+
+We had come to Miss Carpenter's. I opened the gate for him, but he
+stood aside, refusing to precede me. And courtesy in the young folk of
+to-day warms my old heart.
+
+He had as much for Hetty Carpenter. Within an hour he had insinuated
+himself into her good graces with a deftness, an ease, that astounded.
+Within three hours he was established, bag and baggage, in her very
+best room.
+
+And thirty minutes after she had helped Duncan unpack, Hetty had to run
+downtown to buy a spool of thread.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+A WINDOW IN RADVILLE
+
+A jealous secret, which has never heretofore been divulged, is
+responsible for the prosperity of the Radville _Citizen_--at
+least, in very great measure. As the discoverer of this recipe for
+circulation, I have kept it carefully locked in my guilty bosom for
+many a year, and if I now betray it I do so without scruple, for the
+_Gazette_ is now established firmly in a groove of popularity from
+which you'd find it hard to oust the paper. So here's letting the cat
+out of the bag:
+
+The policy of the _Citizen_ has long been to devote its columns
+mainly to the exploitation of what is known in newspaper terminology as
+"the local story." Of the news of the great outside world we're
+parsimonious, recognising the fact that the coronation of King Edward
+VII. is a matter of much less import to our community than the
+holocaust which was responsible for the destruction of Sir
+Higginbottom's new hen-house. Similarly a West Indian tornado involving
+losses running up into hundreds of thousands of dollars sinks into
+relative insignificance as compared with the local weather forecast and
+its probable effect on crops not worth ten thousand; while the enforced
+abdication of the Sultan of Turkey gets a "stick" (a space in a
+newspaper column about as long as your forefinger, if you have a small
+hand) as contrasted with the column and a half assigned to the death of
+old Colonel Bohun.
+
+Now, naturally, a paper in a small country town can't afford a large
+and hustling staff of enthusiastic reporters; and very probably the
+_Citizen_ would overlook many items and stories of burning local
+interest were it not for the fact that the population has been
+cunningly made to serve in a reportorial capacity without either pay or
+its own knowledge. We literally get our local news by wireless; and
+from dawn to dark there's a constant supply of it on tap.
+
+It's this way: our editorial rooms are in the second storey of a
+building overlooking Court House Square. The lower floor is occupied by
+the Post Office, and in front of the Post Office are a hitching-post
+and two long, weather-scarred benches, while just across the road--I
+mean street--on the boundary of the square proper--is a near-bronze
+drinking-fountain and watering-trough erected from the proceeds of
+several fairs given by the local branch of the W. C. T. U. Naturally,
+indeed inevitably, all Radville gravitates to the Post Office, bringing
+the news with it, and stops to discuss it on the steps or the benches
+or by the fountain; and the acoustics are admirable. With a window open
+and scratch-pad handy, the keen-eared scribe at his desk in our offices
+can hardly fail to pick up every scrap of town information between
+sunrise and dusk.... Of course, in winter the supply's not so good.
+Winter before last we all suffered with colds acquired through keeping
+the windows open; and last winter our circulation fell off surprisingly
+through keeping them closed. This winter we contemplate cutting a
+trap-door through the floor for the ostensible purpose of ventilation.
+
+And thus it was that I managed to hear much of Mr. Duncan while I
+myself was engaged in formulating an estimate of the young man. He
+engaged the popular imagination no less than mine own, although I was
+more intimately associated with him--as a fellow-resident at Hetty
+Carpenter's. My professional duties making their habitual demands upon
+my time, I saw, it may be, less of him than many of our people.
+Certainly I learned less of his ways from first-hand knowledge. But
+from my desk (it's the nearest to the window right above the Post
+Office door) I was enabled to keep a pretty close line upon his habits
+and movements, during the first fortnight of his stay in Radville.
+
+At home I saw him with unvarying regularity at meal-times and less
+frequently after supper. Between whiles he seemed to observe a fairly
+regular routine: in the morning, after breakfast, he walked abroad for
+his health's sake; in the afternoon and evening he sequestered himself
+in his room for the pursuit of his legal studies. About the genuineness
+of these latter I was long without a question: having been privileged
+to inspect his room I found it redolent of an atmosphere of highly
+commendable application. His writing table was a model of neatness, and
+his store of legal treatises impressed one vastly. That no one, not
+even Hetty Carpenter, ever saw the room without remarking the open
+volume of "The Law of Torts," with its numerous pages painstakingly
+spaced by slips of paper by way of bookmarks, is an attested fact. That
+it was always the same volume is less widely known.
+
+Less directly (that is to say, via my window) I learned of him
+compendiously from sources which would have been anonymous but for my
+long acquaintance with the voices of the townspeople.... I write these
+pages at my desk at home and, if truth's to be told, somewhat
+surreptitiously; but with these voices ringing in my memory's ear I
+seem still to be sitting at my erstwhile desk by the window, looking
+out over Court House Square, chewing the rubber heel of my pencil the
+while I listen. It's summer weather and there's a smell in the air of
+dust and heat; the square simmers and shimmers in unclouded sunshine,
+its many green plots of grass a trifle grey and haggard with dust, the
+flagstaff with its two flanking cannon by the bandstand in the middle
+wavering slightly in the haze of heat; there are two rigs, a farm-wagon
+and a buckboard, hitched to the post below, and some boys are squirting
+water on one another by holding their hands over the lips of the
+fountain across the way. Immediately opposite, on the far side of the
+square, the Court House rises proudly in all the majesty of its
+columned front and clapboarded sides; farther along there's the
+Methodist Church, very severe, with its rows of sheds to one side for
+the teams of the more rural members. Behind them all bulk our hills,
+dim and purple against the overwhelming blue of the sky. It's very
+quiet: there are few sounds, and those few most familiar: the raucous
+war-cry of a rooster somewhere on the outskirts of town; an
+intermittent thudding of hoofs in the inch-deep dust of the roadway;
+Miles Stetson wringing faint but genuine shrieks of agony from his
+cornet, in a room behind the Opery House on the next street;
+periodically a shuffle of feet on the sidewalk below; less frequently
+the whine of the swinging doors at Schwartz's place; above it all,
+perhaps, the shrill but not unpleasant accents of Angie Tuthill as she
+pauses on the threshold downstairs and injects surprising information
+into the nothing-reluctant ears of Mame Garrison.
+
+" ... He's got six suits of clothes, three for summer and three for
+winter, and two others to wear to parties--one regular full-dress suit
+and another without any tails on the coat that he told Miss Carpenter
+was a dinner-coat, but Roland Barnette says he must've meant a Tuxedo,
+because nobody wears that kind of clothes except at night; so how could
+it be a dinner-coat?... And Miss Carpenter told Ma he's got twelve
+striped shirts and eight white ones and dozens of silk socks and two
+dozen neckties and handkerchiefs till you can't count and...."
+
+Mame punctuates this monologue with a regular and excusable "My land!"
+and the young voices fade away into the mid-summer afternoon quiet. I
+am free to resume my interrupted flight of fancy, but I refrain. The
+atmosphere is soporiferous, hardly conducive to editorial inspiration,
+and I find the commingled flavours of red-cedar, glue and rubber quite
+nourishing.
+
+Presently Dr. Mortimer, the minister, comes down the street in company
+with his deacon, Blinky Lockwood. They are discussing someone in
+subdued tones, but I catch references to a worthy young man and the
+vacancy in the choir.
+
+Josie Lockwood rustles into hearing with Bessie Gabriel in tow. Josie
+is rattling volubly, but with a hint of the confidential in her tone.
+She insists that: "Of course, I never let on, but every time we meet I
+can just feel him looking and...."
+
+Bessie interposes: "Why, Tracey Tanner's just crazy for fear he'll take
+on with Angie."
+
+I can see Josie's head toss at this. "I bet he don't know what Angie
+Tuthill looks like. That's too absurd..."
+
+"Absurd" is Josie's newest word. It's a very good word, too, but
+sometimes I fear she will wear it threadbare. It closes her remarks as
+the two girls dart into the Post Office, and there is peace for a time;
+then they emerge giggling, and I hear Josie declare: "I'd get Roland
+Barnette to do it, but he's so jealous. He makes me tired."
+
+Bessie's response is inaudible.
+
+"Well," Josie continues, "I'm simply not going to send them out until I
+meet him. Father said I could give it a week from Saturday, but I won't
+unless--"
+
+Bessie interrupts, again inaudibly.
+
+"Of course I could do that, but ... if I just said 'Miss Carpenter and
+guests' that nosey old Homer Littlejohn'd think I meant him too, and if
+I only said 'guest' it'd look too pointed. Don't you think so?"
+
+To my relief they pass from hearing, and I feel for my pipe for
+comfort. Anyway, I never did like Josie Lockwood.... Smoking, I
+meditate on the astonishing power of personality. Here is Mr. Nathaniel
+Duncan no more than a fortnight in our midst (the phrase is used
+callously, as something sacred to country journalism) and, behold! not
+yet has the town ceased to discuss him. The control he has over the
+local mind and imagination is certainly wonderful: the more so since he
+has apparently made no effort to attract attention; rather, I should
+say, to the contrary. Quiet and unassuming he goes his way, minding his
+own business as carefully as we would mind it for him, with all the
+good will in the world, if only we could find out what it is. But we
+can't leave him alone....
+
+Tracey Tanner interrupts my musings.
+
+"Hello!" he twangs, like a tuneless banjo.
+
+"'Lo, Tracey." This lofty and blase greeting can come from none other
+than Roland Barnette.
+
+"Where you goin'?"
+
+"Over to the railway station."
+
+"What for?"
+
+"To give you something to talk about. I'm going to send a telegram to a
+friend of mine in Noo York."
+
+"Aw, you ain't the only one can send telegrams. Sam Graham sent one
+just now."
+
+"_He_ did!"
+
+"Uh-huh. I was sort of hangin' round, when he came in, and I seen him
+send it myself."
+
+"Sam Graham telegraphing! Do you know; who to, Tracey?" Roland's
+superiority is wearing thin under contact with his curiosity. This
+surprising bit of news makes him distinctly more affable and inclined
+to lower himself to the social level of the son of the livery-stable
+keeper.
+
+As for myself, I am inclined to lean out of the window and call Tracey
+up, lest he get out of hearing before I hear the rest of it.
+Fortunately I am not thus obliged to compromise my dignity. The two are
+at pause.
+
+"Gimme a cigarette 'nd I'll tell you," bargains Tracey shrewdly. "Lew
+Parker told me after Sam'd gone."
+
+The deal is put through promptly.
+
+"He was telegraphin' to--Got a match?"
+
+For once I am in sympathy with Roland, whose tone betrays his desire to
+wring Tracey's exasperating neck.
+
+"Aw, he was only telegraphing to Gresham an' Jones for some sody water
+syrups."
+
+"Where'd he get the money?" There's fine scorn in Roland's comment.
+
+"I dunno, but he handed Lew a five-dollar bill to pay for the message."
+
+"Well, if Sam Graham's got any money he'd better hold on to it, instead
+of buying sody-water syrups. I guess Blinky Lockwood'll get after him
+when he finds it out. He owes Blinky a note at the bank and it's coming
+due in a day or two and Blinky ain't going to renew, neither."
+
+"Sam seemed cheerful 'nough. Anyhow, it ain't my funeral."
+
+I have now something to think about, indeed, and am more than half
+inclined to stroll up to Graham's and find out what has happened, on my
+own account, when the voices of Hi Nutt and Watty the tailor drift up
+to me. The cronies are coming down for their regular afternoon session
+on the Post Office benches--a function which takes place daily, just as
+soon as the sun gets round behind the building, so that the seats are
+shaded. And I pause, true to the ethics of journalism; it's my duty not
+to leave just yet.
+
+Surprisingly enough these two likewise are discussing Sam Graham. At
+least I can deduce nothing else from Hiram's first words, though their
+subject is for the moment nameless.
+
+"Yes, sir; he's the poorest man in this town."
+
+"Yes," Watty quavers; "yes, I guess he be."
+
+"An' he's got no more business sense _into_ him than God give a
+goose."
+
+"No, I guess he ain't."
+
+"Why, look at the way things has run down at his store since Margaret
+died. She kept things a-runnin' while she was alive."
+ "Yes, she was a fine woman, Margaret Bohun
+was."
+
+"An' they ain't no doubt about it, Sam had money into the bank when she
+died. But ever sinst then it's been all go out and no come in with him.
+He keeps fussin' and fussin' with them inventions of his, but no one
+ever heard tell of his gettin' anything out of 'em."
+
+"And what'd he do with all the money he had when Margaret died?"
+
+"Spent it, what he didn't lend and give away and lose endorsin' notes
+for his friends and then havin' to pay 'em. An' speakin' of notes, I
+heard Roland Barnette say, t'other day, that old Sam had a note comin'
+due to the bank, an' Blinky wasn't goin' to renew it any more."
+
+"'Course Sam can't pay it."
+
+"Certainly he can't. I was in his store day before yestiddy an' they
+wasn't nobody come in for nothin' while I was there. He don't do no
+business to speak of."
+
+"How long was you there, Hi?"
+
+"From nine o'clock to noon."
+
+"What doin'?"
+
+"Nuthin'; jes' settin' round."
+
+"I seen him to-day goin' into the bank. Guess he must've gone to see
+Lockwood 'bout thet note."
+
+"Well, I don't envy him his call on Blinky Lockwood none."
+
+"Mebbe he went in to deposit his coupons," Watty chuckled.
+
+Hiram snorted and there was silence while he filled and lit his pipe.
+
+"I hearn tell this mornin'," he resumed, "that Josie Lockwood's goin'
+to give a party next week."
+
+"Yes, I hearn it too. Angie Tuthill was talkin' 'bout it to Mame
+Garrison up to Leonard and Call's. She said they was goin' to have the
+biggest time this town ever see. Goin' to decyrate the grounds with
+lanterns an' have ice cream sent from Phillydelphy, and cakes, too.
+Can't make out what's come into Blinky to let that gal of his waste
+money like that."
+
+"I figger," says Hiram after a sapient pause, "she must be gettin' it
+up for thet New York dood."
+
+"Duncan?"
+
+"Uh-huh."
+
+"I didn't know he was 'quainted with the Lockwoods."
+
+"I didn't know he was 'quainted with nobody."
+
+"Nobody 'ceptin' Homer Littlejohn an' Hetty Carpenter, an' they don't
+seem to know much about him. I call him darn cur'us. Hetty says he
+allus a-settin' in his room, a-studyin' an' a-studyin' an' a-studyin'."
+
+"He goes walkin' mornin's, Hetty told me."
+
+"Wal, he don't come downtown much. Nobody hardly ever sees him 'cept to
+church."
+
+Hiram ponders this profoundly, finally delivering himself of an opinion
+which he has never forsaken. "I claim he's a s'picious character."
+
+"Don't look to me as though he knew 'nough to be much of anythin'."
+
+"Wal, now, if he's a real student an' they ain't no outs 'bout him,
+what in tarnation's he doin' here? Thet's jest what I'd like to have
+somebody tell me, Watty."
+
+"Hetty sez he sez he wants a quiet place to study."
+
+Hiram snorts with scorn. "Oh, fid-del! You don't catch no Noo York
+young feller a-settlin' down in Radville unless he's crazy or somethin'
+worse."
+
+"'Tain't no use tellin' Hetty Carpenter thet." "No; if anybody sez a
+word agin him she shets 'em right up."
+
+"'Tain't only Hetty, but all the wimmin's on his side."
+
+"Thet's proof enough to me he ain't right." "Wimmin," says Watty, as
+the result of a period of philosophical consideration, "is all crazy
+about clothes. When a feller's got good clothes you can't make them see
+no harm into him, no matter what he is. I pressed some of Duncan's last
+Satiddy. I never see clothes--such goods and linin's. They was made for
+him, too--made by a tailor on Fifth Avenue, Noo York. I fergit the name
+now."
+
+"Wal, Roland Barnette sez they ain't stylish. He sez they're too much
+like an undertaker's gitup."
+
+"Wal, Roland oughter know. He's the fanciest dressed-up feller in the
+county."
+
+"Yes, I guess he be."
+
+The subject apparently languishes, but I know that it still occupies
+their sage meditations; and presently this is demonstrated by Hiram,
+who expectorates liberally by way of preface.
+
+"When this cuss Duncan fust come here," he says with a self-contained
+chuckle, "ev'rybody but me figgered he had stacks of money. Guess they
+be singin' a different tune, now, sinst he's been goin' round askin'
+for work."
+
+This is news to me, and I sit up, sharing Watty's astonishment.
+
+"Be he a-doin' thet, Hiram?"
+
+"That's what he's been a-doin'."
+
+"Funny I missed hearin' about it."
+
+"He only started this mornin'. He went to Sothern and Lee's and Leonard
+and Call's and Godfrey's--'nd then I guess he must 'ev quit
+discouraged. They wouldn't none of them give him nothin'. Leastways,
+thet's what they said after he'd gone out. He didn't give anybody a
+reel chance to say anythin'. I was in Leonard and Call's and he came in
+an' asked for a job, but the minute Len looked at him he turned right
+round and slunk out without a-waitin' for Len to say a word." Hiram
+smoked in huge enjoyment of the retrospect. "He's the curiousest
+critter we ever had in this town."
+
+"Yes," agrees Watty, "I guess he be."
+
+At this juncture comes an interruption; Tracey Tanner returns,
+hot-foot. Either he has been running, or his breathlessness is due to
+excitement. Before the two upon the bench he pauses in agitated glee, a
+bearer of tremendous tidings.
+
+"Hello," he pants.
+
+"Now, you Tracey Tanner," Hiram cuts in sharply, "you run 'long an'
+don't be a-botherin' round. Seems like a body never can git a chance to
+rest, with you children allus a-buttin' in--"
+
+"Aw, shet up," says Tracey dispassionately. "I only wanted to tell you
+the news."
+
+Watty quavers: "What news, Tracey?"
+
+"Well," says the boy, "I'll tell you, Watty, but I wouldn't 've told
+him after what he said."
+
+"But what's the news, Tracey?" There is suspense in the iteration.
+
+"Well, seein's it's you, Watty--"
+
+"You Tracey Tanner, you run 'long and stop your jokin'!" interrupts
+Hiram with authority.
+
+"'Tain't no joke; it's news, I'm tellin' you. Sa-ay, what d'ye think,
+Watty?"
+
+"Yes, Tracey, yes? What is it, boy?"
+
+"Thet--Noo--York--dood," drawls Tracey, "is a-workin' for Sam Graham!"
+
+A dramatic pause ensues. I rise and find my coat.
+
+"Tracey Tanner," shrills Hiram, "be you a-tellin' the truth?"
+
+"Kiss my hand and cross my heart and vow Honest Injun, I seen him up
+there just now in the store, Watty, tendin' the sody fountain."
+
+"Wal," says Hiram, rising, "I don't believe a word of it, but if it's
+true we better be goin' round to see, Watty, 'cause it ain't a-goin' to
+last long. He won't stay after he finds out Sam ain't got no money to
+pay his wages with."
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+THE MAN OF BUSINESS IN EMBRYO
+
+There's no questioning the fact that two weeks of Radville had driven
+Duncan to desperation; on the morning of the fifteenth day he wakened
+in his room at Miss Carpenter's and lay for a time abed staring
+vacantly at the gaudily papered ceiling, not through laziness remaining
+on his back, but through sheer inertia. The prospect of rising to
+ramble through another purposeless, empty day appalled his imagination;
+it had been all very well when the humour of his project intrigued him,
+when the village was a novelty and its inhabitants "types" to be
+studied, watched, analysed and classified with secret amusement; but
+now he felt that he had already exhausted its possibilities; he was a
+foreigner in thought and instinct, had as little in common with
+Radvillians as any newly imported Englishman would have had. In plain
+language, he was bored to the point of extinction.
+
+"Why," he reflected aloud, "it doesn't seem reasonable, but I'm
+actually looking forward to the delirious dissipation of church next
+Sunday!
+
+"Me?...
+
+"If Kellogg could only see me now!"
+
+He laughed mirthlessly.
+
+"I must have done something to deserve this in my misspent life...
+
+"Wonder if nothing ever happens here?.... I'd give a whole lot, if I
+had it, for a good rousing fire on Main Street--the Bigelow House, for
+choice....
+
+"And it's got me to the point of drooling to myself, like those fellows
+you read about who get lost in the desert....
+
+"Come! Get out of this! And, my boy, remember to 'count that day lost
+whose low descending sun sees nothing accomplished, nothing done.'...
+
+"Probably misquoted, at that."
+
+Sullenly he rose and dressed.
+
+He was late at the breakfast and silent and reserved throughout that
+meal. Poor Miss Carpenter thought him dissatisfied and hung round his
+chair, purring with a solicitude that almost maddened him. As soon as
+possible he made his escape from the house.
+
+The walk he indulged in that morning took him in a wide circle: south
+on the road to the Gap, then eastwards, crossing the railroad and the
+river, north through a smiling agricultural region, east to the Flats,
+and so across the stone bridge to the Old Town once more. He was
+trudging up Street toward Centre shortly after eleven--hot, a little
+tired, and utterly disgusted. The exercise, instead of exhilarating,
+had depressed him; the quickened flow of blood through his veins, the
+vigour of the clean air he inhaled, demanded of him action of some
+sort; and he had nothing whatever to do with himself all afternoon save
+drowse over "The Law of Torts."
+
+Recognition of Leonard and Call's familiar shop-front fired him with a
+spirit of adventure and enterprise. He stopped short, thoughtfully
+rubbing his small moustache the wrong way, his vision glued to the
+embarrassingly candid window displays.
+
+"It'd be an awful thing for me to do....
+
+"Think of yourself, man, jumping counters in and out amongst all
+hose--those _Things!_ like a lunatic monkey performing on a Monday
+morning's clothes line!..."
+
+He thought deeply, and sighed. "It ain't moral....
+
+"But it's one of the rules, it must be did. Henry said a ribbon clerk
+was a social equal....
+
+"Come, now! No more shennanigan! Brace up! Be a man!...
+
+"A man? That's the whole trouble: I am a man; I've got no business in a
+place like that."
+
+He turned and moved away slowly. But the idea had him by the heels. He
+struggled against a growing resolution to return. Then enlightenment
+came to him suddenly. He paused again, grappling with this amazing
+revelation of self.
+
+"Great Scott! Harry was right, damn him! He said this place would
+reconstruct me from the inside out and vice versa, and by jinks! it
+has. I actually _want_ to work!...
+
+"Can you beat that--_me_!"
+
+He swung back to Leonard and Call's, mentally reviewing his
+instructions.
+
+"Let's see. I was to wait at least a month, to let the shopkeepers get
+accustomed to the sight of me.... _Hmm_.... Harry certainly has a
+cute way of expressing his thought.... But it can't be helped; I can't
+wait. If I do, I'll throw up the job....
+
+"I'm to walk in and say, politely: '_I'm looking for employment. If
+at any time you should have an opening here that you can offer me, I
+shall endeavour to give satisfaction. Good-day_.'...
+
+"But be careful not to press it. Just say it and get right out...."
+
+With the air of a man who knows his own mind he pulled open the wire
+screen-door and strode in.
+
+Two minutes later he emerged, breathing hard, but with the glitter of
+determination in his eye.
+
+"I wouldn't 've believed I could get away with it. Here goes for the
+next promising opening."
+
+He headed for Sothern and Lee's drug-store.
+
+"Wonder what that fellow would have said if I'd had the nerve to wait
+and listen...."
+
+In the drug-store he experienced less difficulty in making his speech
+and exit; he flattered himself that he accomplished both gracefully,
+even impressively. And indeed you may believe he left a gaping audience
+behind him. So likewise at Godfrey's notions and stationery shop.
+
+As he emerged from the latter the resonant clamour of the Methodist
+Church clock drove him home for dinner, hungry and glowing with
+self-approbation. At all events, no one had refused him: he had not
+been set upon and incontinently kicked out. He felt that he was getting
+on.
+
+"Now this afternoon," he mused, "I'll wind up the job. By night
+everyone in town will know I want work."
+
+But if he had thought a moment he would have realised that he might
+have spared himself the trouble; the consummation he so earnestly
+desired was already being brought about by resident and recognised, if
+unofficial, agents for the dissemination of news.
+
+It was two o'clock or thereabouts, I gather, when, shaping his course
+toward Radville's commercial centre, Duncan hesitated on the corner of
+Beech Street, cocking an incredulous eye up at the weather-worn sign
+which has for years adorned the side of Tuthill's grocery: a hand
+indicating fixedly:
+
+THIS WAY TO GRAHAM'S DRUG STORE
+
+"Two druggists in Radville!" he mused. "Is it possible?... Then it's
+Harry's mistake if the scheme fails; he said this was a one-horse
+country town, but I'm blest if it isn't a thriving metropolis! Two!...
+Here, I'm going to have a look."
+
+He turned up Beech and presently discovered the object of his quest, a
+two-storey building of "frame," guiltless of the ardent caress of a
+paint-brush since time out of mind. On the ground floor the windows
+were made up of many small square panes, several of which had been
+rudely mended. Through them the interior glimmered darkly. In the
+foreground stood a broken bottle, shaped like a mortuary urn and half
+full of pink liquid. Beside it reposed a broken packing-box in which
+bleary camphor-balls nestled between torn sheets of faded blue paper.
+Of these a silent companion in misery stood on the far side of the
+window: a towering pagoda-like cage of wire in which (trapped,
+doubtless, by means of some mysterious bait known only to alchemists)
+three worn but brutal-looking sponges were apparently slumbering in
+exhaustion. Back of these a dusty plaster cast of a male figure lightly
+draped seemed to represent the survival of the fittest over some
+strange and deadly patent medicine. The recessed door bore an
+inscription in gold letters, tarnished and half obliterated:
+
+AM GRAHAM
+ RUGS & CHEM C LS
+
+ R SCRIPTION CAREF LY C POUNDED
+
+"Looks like the very place for one of my acknowledged abilities," said
+Duncan. He turned the knob and entered, advancing to the middle of the
+dingy room. There, standing beside a cold and rusty stove whose pipe
+wandered giddily to a hole in the farthest wall (reminding him of some
+uncouth cat with its tail over its back), he surveyed with the single
+requisite comprehensive glance the tiers of shelves tenanted by a
+beggarly array of dingy bottles; the soda fountain with its company of
+glasses and syrup jars; the flanking counters with their broken
+show-cases housing a heterogenous conglomeration of unsalable wares;
+the aged and tattered posters heralding the virtues of potent affronts
+to the human interior--to say naught of its intelligence; the drab
+walls and debris-littered flooring.
+
+A slight grating noise behind him brought Duncan round with a start. At
+a work-bench near the window sat a white-haired man garbed baggily in
+an old crash coat and trousers. His head was bowed over something
+clamped in a vise, at which he was tinkering busily with a file. He did
+not look up, but, as his caller moved, inquired amiably: "Well?"
+
+"Good-morning," stammered Duncan; "er--I should say afternoon."
+
+"So you should," Sam admitted, still fussing with his work. "Anything
+you want?"
+
+Duncan swallowed hard and mastered his confusion. "Would it be possible
+for me to speak to the proprietor a moment?"
+
+"I should jedge it would. Go right along." Sam filed vigorously.
+
+"Might I ask--are you Mr. Graham?"
+
+"Yes, sir; that's me."
+
+The filing continued stridently. Duncan moved closer. There was scant
+encouragement to be gathered from Graham's indifferent attitude; yet
+his voice had been pleasant, kindly.
+
+"I--I'm looking for employment," said Duncan hastily. "If--"
+
+"Employment!"
+
+Graham dropped his tools with a clatter and faced round. For a moment
+his eyes twinkled and a wintry smile lightened his fine old features.
+"Well, I declare!" he said, rising. "You must be the stranger the whole
+town's been talkin' about."
+
+"If at any time," Duncan pursued hastily, "you should have an opening
+here that you can offer me, I shall endeavour to give satisfaction.
+Good-day, sir." And he made for the door.
+
+"Eh, just a minute," said Graham. "Are you in a hurry?"
+
+Duncan paused, smiling nervously. "Oh, no--only I mustn't press it, you
+know--just say it and get right--I mean I don't want to take up your
+valuable time, sir."
+
+Graham chuckled. "Guess the folks haven't been talking much to you
+about me," he suggested. "You seem to have a higher opinion of the
+value of my time than anybody else in Radville."
+
+"Yes, but--that is to say--"
+
+"But if you're really looking for a job, I'd like to give you one first
+rate."
+
+Duncan started toward him in breathless haste. "You--you'd like
+to!--You don't mean it!"
+
+"Yes," Graham nodded, smiling with enjoyment of his little joke. It was
+harmless; he didn't for a moment believe that Duncan really needed
+employment; and on the other hand it tickled him immensely to think
+that anyone should apply to him for work.
+
+"Well," said Duncan, staring, "you're the first man I ever met that
+felt that way about it."
+
+Sam's amusement dwindled. "The trouble is," he confessed--"the trouble
+is, my boy, my business is so small I don't need any help. There isn't
+much of anything to do here."
+
+"That's just the sort of a place I'd like," said Duncan impulsively.
+Then he laughed a little, uneasily. "I mean, I'm willing to take any
+position, no matter how insignificant. I mean it, honestly."
+
+"This might suit you, then--"
+
+"I wish you'd let me try it, sir."
+
+"But you don't understand." Graham was serious enough now; there wasn't
+any joke in what he had to say. "To tell you the truth, I can't afford
+it. When your pay was due, I'm afraid I shouldn't have any money to
+give you."
+
+Duncan dismissed this paltry consideration with a princely gesture. "I
+don't mind that part," he insisted. "Mr. Graham, if you'll teach me the
+drug business I'll work for you for nothing."
+
+He said it earnestly, for he meant it just a bit more seriously than he
+himself realised at the moment; and I'm glad to think it was because
+Sam's serene and gentle, guileless nature had appealed to the young
+man. He had that in him, that instinct for decency and the right, that
+made him like this simple, sweet and almost childish old man at
+sight--like him and want to help him, though he was hardly conscious of
+this and believed his motive rather more than less selfish, that he was
+grasping at this opportunity for relief from the deadly ennui that
+oppressed him as madly as a famished man at a crust. Indeed, the boy
+was eager to deceive himself in this respect, with youth's wholesome
+horror of sentiment.
+
+"Between you and me," he hurried on, "it's this way: I've been here for
+two weeks with nothing to do but look at a book, and it's got me crazy
+enough to want to work!"
+
+But still I like to think it was for a better reason, that his conduct
+then bore out my theory that there are streaks of human kindliness and
+right-thinking in all of us--buried deep though they may be by many an
+acquired stratum of callousness and egoism: the sediment of life caking
+upon the soul....
+
+But as for Sam, as soon as he recovered he shook his head in thoughtful
+deprecation. "Well, I swan!" he said. "I guess you must find it pretty
+slow down here. But"--brightening--"if you feel that way about it, I'd
+better take you over to Sothern and Lee's. They'd be glad to get you at
+the price."
+
+"And in a week they'd think they were over-paying me," Duncan argued.
+"No--I've been there. Why not try me on here?"
+
+"Well, I'm just a little bit afraid you wouldn't learn much, my boy. I
+don't do business enough to give you a good idea of it. Sothern and Lee
+get all the trade nowadays."
+
+"But look here, sir: don't you think if I came in here perhaps we could
+build up the business?"
+
+"No, I'm afraid not," Graham deprecated, pursing his lips and rubbing
+the white stubble of his beard with a toil-worn thumb.
+
+Duncan eyed him in bitter humour. "No, of course not. You're right--but
+somebody must have tipped you off."
+
+Graham paid little heed, whose mind was bent upon his own parlous
+circumstances. "I haven't got capital enough to stock up the store," he
+explained; "that's the real trouble. Folks have got into the habit of
+going to the other store because I'm out of so many things."
+
+"Well, to be sure," said Duncan, a little dashed; "you can't expect to
+do business unless you've got things to sell...."
+
+"I don't expect it, my boy," Sam assented dolefully. "'Twouldn't be in
+reason.... You see," he added, hope lightening his gloom, "I'm working
+on an invention of mine, and if that should work out I'd get some money
+and be able to get a fresh stock. Then I'd be glad to have you."
+
+Duncan brushed this impatiently aside. "How much business are you doing
+here now?"
+
+"Some days"--Graham reckoned it on his fingers--"I take in a dollar or
+two, and some days... nothing.... There's my sody fountain," he said
+with a jerk of a thumb toward it: "got that fixed up a little while
+ago, and it's bringing in a little. Not much. You see, I need more
+syrups. I've only got vanilly now."
+
+"Soda water!" Duncan jumped at the idea. "Hold on! All the girls round
+here drink soda, don't they?"
+
+"Oh, yes," said Graham abstractedly.
+
+The thought infused new life into the younger man's waning purpose.
+"Mr. Graham, I wish you'd let me come in here for a while. I don't care
+about wages."
+
+Graham lifted his shoulders resignedly. "Well, my boy, it don't seem
+right, but if you really want to work here for nothing, I'll be glad to
+have you; and if things look up with me, I'll be glad to pay you."
+
+Abruptly he found his hand grasped and pumped gratefully.
+
+"That's mighty good of you, Mr. Graham. When can I start?"
+
+"Why... whenever you like."
+
+In a twinkling Duncan's hat and gloves were off. "I'd like to, now," he
+said. "Where can we get more syrups?"
+
+"Unfortunately... I'll have to buy them."
+
+"How much?" Duncan's hand was in his pocket in an instant.
+
+"Oh, no, you mustn't do that." Sam backed away in alarm. "I couldn't
+allow it, my boy. It's good of you, but..."
+
+"Either," Nat told himself, "I'm asleep or someone's refusing to take
+money from me." He grinned cheerfully. "Oh, that's all right," he
+contended aloud. "I'll draw it down as soon as we begin to sell soda."
+He selected a bill from his slender store. "Will five dollars be
+enough?"
+
+"Oh, yes, but it wouldn't be right for me to--"
+
+But by this time Duncan was pressing the bill into his hand.
+"Nonsense!" he insisted. "How can we build up trade without syrup?"
+
+"But--but--"
+
+"And how can I learn the business without trade?" He closed Graham's
+unwilling fingers over the money and skipped away.
+
+Sighing, Graham gave over the unequal argument. "Well, if you're
+satisfied, my boy.... But I'll have to write to Elmiry for it."
+
+"Telegraph."
+
+"Telegraph!" Graham laughed. "That'd kill Lew Parker, I guess."
+
+"Who's he?"
+
+"Telegraph operator and ticket agent."
+
+"Well, he won't be missed much. Telegraph and tell 'em to send the
+goods C.O.D. Please, Mr. Graham. We want to get things moving here, you
+know; we've got to build up the business. We'll put out some signs and
+... and ... well, we'll get the people in the habit of coming here
+somehow. You'll see!"
+
+He raked the poverty-stricken shelves with a calculating eye, all his
+energy fired by enthusiasm at the prospect of doing something. Graham
+watched him with kindling liking and admiration. His old lips quivered
+a little before he voiced his thought.
+
+"You--you know, my boy, you've got splendid business ability," he
+asserted with whole-souled conviction.
+
+Duncan almost reeled. "What?" he cried.
+
+"I was just saying, you have wonderful business ability."
+
+"You're the first man that ever said that. I wonder if it's so."
+
+"I'm sure of it."
+
+"Well," said Nat, chuckling, "I'll write that to my chum. He'll--"
+
+"Oh, I can tell," Graham interrupted. "Now, I ... Well, you see, I've
+been a failure in business. So far as that goes, I've been a failure in
+everything all my life."
+
+Duncan stared for a moment, then offered his hand. "For luck," he
+explained, meeting Graham's puzzled gaze as his hand was taken.
+
+Wondering, Graham shook his head; and gratitude made his old voice
+tremulous. He put a hand over Duncan's, patting it gently.
+
+"I want you to know, my boy, that I appreciate..." His voice broke.
+"It's mighty kind of you to buy the syrup--very kind--"
+
+"Nothing of the sort; it's just because I've got great business
+ability." Duncan laughed quietly and moved away. "We'll want to clean
+up a bit," said he; "got a broom? I'll raise the dust a bit while
+you're out sending that wire."
+
+"You'll find one in the cellar, I guess, but--your clothes--"
+
+"Oh, that's all right. Where's the cellar?"
+
+"Underneath," Graham told him simply, taking down a battered hat from a
+hook behind the counter.
+
+"I know; but how do I get there?"
+
+"By the steps; you go through that door there into the hall. The steps
+are under the stairs to our rooms. I live above the store, you see."
+
+"Yes.... Good-bye, Mr. Graham."
+
+"Good-bye, my boy."
+
+Duncan watched the old man move slowly out of sight, then with a groan
+sat down on the counter to think it over. "It wouldn't be me if I
+didn't make a mess of things somehow," he told himself bitterly. "Now
+you have gone and went and done it, Mr. Fortune Hunter. You stand a
+swell chance of getting away with the goods when you take a wageless
+job in a spavined country drug-store with no trade worth mentioning and
+nothing to draw it with... just because that old duffer's the only
+human being you've spotted in this burg!...
+
+"Wonder what Harry would say if he heard about that wonderful business
+ability thing...
+
+"But what in thunder can we do to bring business to this bum joint?"
+
+He raked his surroundings with a discouraged glance.
+
+"Oh," he said thoughtfully, "hell!"
+
+Five minutes later Ben Sperry found him in the same position, his head
+bent in perplexed reverie. Sperry had been travelling for Gresham and
+Jones, a wholesale drug-house in Elmira, more years than I can
+remember. His friendship for Sam Graham, contracted during the days
+when Graham's was the drug-store of Radville, has survived the decay of
+the business. He's a square, decent man, Sperry, and has wasted many an
+hour trying to persuade Sam to pay a little more attention to the
+business. I suspect he suffered the shock of his placid life when he
+found Sam absent and the shop in the care of this spruce, well set-up
+young man.
+
+"Anything I can do for you?" chirped Duncan cheerfully, dropping off
+the counter as Sperry entered.
+
+"No-o; I just wanted to see old Sam. Is he upstairs?"
+
+"No, Mr. Graham's not in at present," Duncan told him civilly.
+
+Sperry wrinkled his brows over this problem. "You working here?" he
+asked.
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Well, I'll be hanged!"
+
+"Let us hope not," said Duncan pleasantly. He waited a moment, a little
+irritated. "Sure there's nothing _I_ can do for you?"
+
+"No-o," said Sperry slowly, struggling to comprehend. "Thank you just
+the same."
+
+"Not at all." Duncan turned away.
+
+"You see," Sperry pursued, "I don't buy from drug-stores: I sell to
+'em."
+
+Duncan faced about with new interest in the man. "Yes?" he said
+encouragingly.
+
+"My card," volunteered Sperry, fishing the slip of pasteboard from his
+waistcoat pocket. He dropped his sample case beside the stove and
+plumped down in the chair, to the peril of its existence. "I don't make
+this town very often," he pursued, while Duncan studied his card.
+"Sothern and Lee are the only people I sell to here, but I never miss a
+chance to chin a while with old Sam. So, having half an hour before
+train time, I thought I'd drop in."
+
+"Mr. Graham doesn't order from your house, then?"
+
+"Doesn't order from anybody, does he?"
+
+"I don't know; I've just come here. He'll be sorry to have missed you,
+though. He's just stepped out to wire your house--I gather from the
+fact that it's in Elmira; he mentioned that town, not the firm
+name--for some syrups."
+
+"You don't mean it!" Sperry gasped. "What's struck him all of a sudden?
+He ain't put in any new stock for ten years, I reckon."
+
+"Well, you see," Duncan explained artfully, "I've persuaded him, in a
+way, to try to make something out of the business here. We're going to
+do what we can, of course, in a small way at first."
+
+Sperry wagged a dubious head. "I dunno," he considered. "Sam's a nice
+old duffer, but he ain't got no business sense and never had; you can
+see for yourself how he's let everything run to seed here. Sothern and
+Lee took all his trade years ago."
+
+"Yes, I know; that's why he needs me," said Duncan brazenly. In his
+soul he remarked "O Lord!" in a tone of awe; his colossal impudence
+dazed even himself. "But don't you think he could get back some of the
+trade if the store was stocked up?"
+
+"No doubt about that at all," Sperry averred; "he'd get the biggest
+part of it."
+
+"You think so?"
+
+"Sure of it. You see, everybody round here likes Sam, and Sothern and
+Lee have always been outsiders. They'd swing to this shop in a minute,
+just on account of that. Fact is, I wasted a lot of talk on our firm a
+couple of years ago, trying to make our people give him some credit,
+but they couldn't see it. He owed them a bill then that was so old it
+had grown whiskers."
+
+"And still owes it, I presume?"
+
+"You bet he still owes it. Always will. It's so small that it ain't
+worth while suing for----"
+
+"Look here, Mr. Sperry, how much is this bill with the whiskers?"
+
+"About fifty dollars, I think," said the travelling man, fumbling for
+his wallet. "I'm supposed to ask for payment every time I strike town,
+you know, so I always have it with me; but I haven't had the heart to
+say a word to Sam for a good long time.... Here it is."
+
+Duncan studied carefully the memorandum: "To Mdse, as per bill
+rendered, $47.85." "I wonder..." he murmured.
+
+"Eh?" said Sperry.
+
+"I was wondering:... Suppose you were to tell your people that there's
+a young fellow here who'd like to give this store a boom.... Say he
+wants a little credit because--because Mr. Graham won't let him put in
+any cash----"
+
+"Not a bit of use," Sperry negatived. "I would, myself, but the
+house--no."
+
+"But suppose I pay this bill----"
+
+"Pay it? You really mean that?"
+
+"Certainly I mean it." Duncan produced the wad of bills which Kellogg
+had furnished him the night before his departure from New York. Thus
+far he had broken only one of the five-hundred-dollar gold
+certificates, and of that one he had the greater part left; living is
+anything but expensive in Radville.
+
+"I'm beginning to understand that I was cut out for an actor," he told
+himself as he thumbed the roll with a serious air and an assumed
+indifference which permitted Sperry to estimate its size pretty
+accurately.
+
+"That's quite a stack of chips you're carrying," Sperry observed.
+
+Duncan's hand airily wafted the remark into the limbo of the
+negligible. "A trifle, a mere trifle," he said casually. "I don't
+generally carry much cash about me. Haven't for five years," he added
+irrepressibly. He extracted a fifty-dollar certificate from the sheaf,
+and handed it over.
+
+"I'll take a receipt, but you needn't mention this to Mr. Graham just
+now."
+
+"No, certainly not." Sperry scrawled his signature to the bill.
+
+"And about that line of credit?----"
+
+"Well, with this paid, I guess you could have what you needed, in
+moderation. Of course----"
+
+"My name is Duncan--Nathaniel Duncan." Sperry made a memorandum of it
+on the back of an envelope. "Any former business connections?"
+
+"None that I care to speak about," Duncan confessed glumly.
+
+Sperry's face lengthened. "No references?"
+
+It took thought, and after thought courage; but Duncan hit upon the
+solution at length. "Do you know L. J. Bartlett & Company, the
+brokers?"
+
+"Do I know J. Pierpont Morgan?"
+
+"Then that's all right. Tell your people to inquire of Harry Kellogg,
+the junior partner. He knows all about me."
+
+Noting the name, Sperry put away the envelope. "That's enough. If he
+says you're all right, you can have anything you want." He consulted
+his watch. "Hmm. Train to catch.... But let's see: what do you need
+here?"
+
+Duncan reviewed the empty shelves, his face glowing. "Pills," he said
+with a laugh: "all kinds of pills and... everything for a regular,
+sure-enough drug-store, Mr. Sperry: everything Sothern and Lee carries
+and a lot of attractive things they don't.... Small lots, you know,
+until I see what we can sell."
+
+"I see. You leave it to me; I probably know what you need better than
+you do. I'll make out a list this afternoon and mail it to-night with
+instructions to ship it at the earliest possible moment."
+
+"Splendid!" Duncan told him. "You do that, and don't worry about our
+making good. I'm going to put all my time and energy into this
+proposition and----"
+
+"Then you'll make good all right," Sperry assured him. "All anybody's
+got to do is look at you to see you're a good business man." He
+returned Duncan's pressure and picked up his sample-case. "S'long,"
+said he, and left briskly, leaving Duncan speechless.
+
+As if to assure himself of his sanity he put a hand to his brow and
+stroked it cautiously. "Heavens!" he said, and sought the support of
+the counter. "That's twice to-day I've been told that in the same
+place!"...
+
+"It's funny," he said, half dazed, "I never could have pulled that off
+for myself!"
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+
+SMALL BEGINNINGS
+
+Presently Duncan moved and came out of his abstraction. "I'd better get
+that broom," he said slowly. "The place certainly needs some expert
+manicuring before we get that new stock in.... By George, I really
+begin to believe we've got a chance to do something, after all!...
+
+"Or else I'm dreaming...."
+
+He opened the back door and entered a narrow and dark hallway, almost
+stumbling over the lowest step of a flight of stairs communicating with
+the upper storey. From above he could hear a clatter of crockery,
+sounds of footsteps, a woman singing softly.
+
+"Graham's wife, I presume. Never struck me he might be married....
+Well, I'll be quiet. If she catches me now, before we're introduced,
+she'll take me for a burglar."
+
+On tiptoes he found the descent to the cellar, where by the aid of a
+match he discovered a floorbrush whose reasons for retirement from
+active employment were most evident even to his inexpert eye. None the
+less nothing better offered, and he took it back with him to the shop.
+
+Graham's tinkering was never of a cleanly sort; the floor was thick
+with a litter of rubbish--shavings, old nuts and bolts, bits of scrap
+tin and metal, torn paper, charred ends of matches: an indescribable
+mess. Duncan surveyed it ruefully, but with the will to do strong in
+him, took off his coat, turned up his trousers, and fell to. The
+disposition of the sweepings troubled him far less than the dust he
+raised; obviously the only place to put it was behind the counters.
+
+"Nobody'll see it there," he said in a glow of satisfaction, pausing
+with the room half cleared. "I always wondered what they did with that
+sort of truck--under the beds, I suppose. Funny Graham never thought of
+this, himself--it's so blame' easy."
+
+He resumed his labours, thrilled with the sensation of accomplishment.
+"One thing at least that I can do," he mused; "never again shall I fear
+starvation... so long as there's a broom handy." Absorbed he brushed
+away, raising a prodigious amount of dust and utterly oblivious to the
+fact that he was observed.
+
+Two shadows moved slowly athwart the windows, to which his back was
+turned, paused, moved on out of sight, returned. It was only during a
+pause for breath that he became aware of the surveillance.
+
+Straightening up, he looked, gasped and fled for the back of the store.
+"Heavens!" he whispered, aghast to recognise Josie Lockwood and Angie
+Tuthill, of whose ubiquitous shadows in his way he had been conscious
+so frequently within the past several days. "I _thought_ I must
+have made an impression.... Don't tell me they're coming in!"
+
+Behind the counter he struggled furiously into his coat. "They are," he
+said with a sinking heart; "and I'll bet a dollar my face is dirty!"
+
+Notwithstanding these misgivings, it was a very self-possessed young
+man, to all appearances, who moved sedately round the end of the
+counter to greet these possible customers. His bow was a very passable
+imitation of the real thing, he flattered himself; and there's no
+manner of doubt but that it flattered the two prettiest and most
+forward young women in Radville of that day.
+
+"May I have the honour of waiting on you, ladies?" he inquired with all
+the suavity of an accomplished salesman.
+
+Josie and Angie sidled together, giggling and simpering, quite overcome
+by his manner. A muffled "How de do?" from Angie and a half-strangled
+echo of the salutation from the other were barely articulate. But
+hearing them he bowed again, separately to each.
+
+"Good-afternoon," said he, and waited in an inquiring pose.
+
+"This--'this is Mr. Duncan, isn't it?" inquired Josie, controlling
+herself.
+
+"Yes, and you are Miss Lockwood, if I'm not mistaken?"
+
+Renewed giggles prefaced her: "Oh, how _did_ you know?"
+
+"Could anyone remain two weeks in Radville and not hear of Miss
+Lockwood?"
+
+The shot told famously. "How nice of you! Mr. Duncan, I want you to
+meet my friend, Miss Tuthill."
+
+"I've had the honour of admiring Miss Tuthill from a distance," Duncan
+assured the younger woman. And, "She'll burn up!" he feared secretly,
+watching the conflagration of blushes that she displayed. "Just think
+of getting away with a line of mush like that! Harry was right after
+all: this is a country town, all right."
+
+"And--and are you working here, Mr. Duncan?" Josie pursued.
+
+"I'm supposed to be; I'm afraid I don't know the business very well, as
+yet."
+
+"Oh, that's awf'ly nice," Angle thought.
+
+He thanked her humbly.
+
+"We didn't expect to see you here," Josie assured him. "We just thought
+we'd like some soda."
+
+"Soda!" he parroted, horrified. He cast a glance askance at the tawdry
+fountain. "Let's see: how d'you work the infernal thing?" he asked
+himself, utterly bewildered.
+
+"Yes," Angie chimed in; "it's so warm this afternoon, we----"
+
+"I've got to put it through somehow," he thought savagely. And aloud,
+"Yes, certainly," he said, and smiled winningly. "Will you be pleased
+to step this way?"
+
+Out of the corners of his eyes he detected the amused look that passed
+between the girls. "Oh, very well!" he said beneath his breath. "You
+may laugh, but you asked for soda, and soda you shall have, my dears,
+if you die of it." He put himself behind the counter with an air of
+great determination, and leaned upon it with both hands outspread until
+he realised that this was the pose of a groceryman. "What'll you have?"
+he demanded genially. "Er--that is--I mean, would you prefer vanilla
+or--ah--soda?"
+
+A chant antiphonal answered him:
+
+"I hate vanilla."
+
+"And so do I."
+
+"Oh, don't say that!" he pleaded. "Of course you know there's--ah--
+vanilla and vanilla..., Ah... some vanilla I know is detestable, but
+when you get a really fine vintage--ah--imported vanilla, it's quite
+another matter--ah--particularly at his season of the year----"
+
+His confusion was becoming painful.
+
+"Oh, is it?" asked Josie helpfully. Her eyes dwelt upon his with a
+confiding expression which he later characterised as a baby stare; and
+he was promptly reduced to babbling idiocy.
+
+"Indeed it is; no doubt whatever, Miss Lockwood. Especially just now,
+you know--ah--after the bock season--ah--I mean, when the weather is--
+is--in a way--you might put it--vanilla weather."
+
+"But I like chocolate best," Angle pouted. And he hated her consumedly
+for the moment.
+
+"Very well," Josie told him sweetly, "I'll have the vanilla."
+
+He thanked her with unnecessary effusion and turned to inspect the
+glassware. There could be no mistake about the right jar, however;
+there was nothing but vanilla, and seizing it he removed the metal cap
+and placed it before the girls. With less ease he discovered a whiskey
+glass and put it beside the bottle, with a cordial wave of the hand.
+ A pause ensued. Duncan was smiling fatuously, serene in the belief that
+he had solved the problem: the way to serve soda was to make them help
+themselves. It was very simple. Only they didn't... With a start he
+became sensible that they were eyeing him strangely.
+
+"You--ah--wanted vanilla, did you not?"
+
+"Yes, thanks, vanilla," Josie agreed.
+
+"Well, that's it," he said firmly, indicating the jar and the glass.
+
+Josie giggled. "But I don't want to drink it clear. You put the syrup
+in the glass, you know, and then the soda."
+
+"Oh, I see! You want to make a high-ba--ah--a long drink of it. Ah,
+yes!" He procured a glass of the regulation size. "Now I understand." A
+pause. "If you'll be good enough to help yourself to the syrup."
+
+"No; you do it," Josie pleaded.
+
+"Certainly." He lifted the whiskey-glass and the jar and began to pour.
+"If you'll just say when."
+
+"What? Oh, that's enough, thank you."
+
+"If I ever get out of this fix, I'll blow the whole shooting match," he
+promised himself, holding the glass beneath the faucet and fiddling
+nervously with the valves. For a moment he fancied the tank must be
+empty, for nothing came of his efforts. Then abruptly the fixture
+seemed to explode. "A geyser!" he cried, blinded with the dash of
+carbonated water and syrup in his face, while he fumbled furiously with
+the valves.
+
+As unexpectedly as it had begun the flow ceased. He put down the glass,
+found his handkerchief and mopped his dripping face. When able to see
+again he discovered the young women leaning against one of the
+show-cases, weak with laughter but at a safe remove.
+
+"Our soda's so strong, you know," he apologised. "But if you'll stay
+where you are, I'll try again."
+
+Warned by experience, he worked at the machine gingerly, finally
+producing a thin, spluttering trickle. Beaming with triumph, he looked
+up. "I think it's safe now," he suggested; "I seem to have it under
+control."
+
+Angie and Josie returned, torn by distrust but unable to resist the
+fascination of the stranger in our village. And there's no denying the
+boy was good-looking and a gentleman by birth: a being alien to their
+experience of men.
+
+He had filled one glass and was tincturing it with syrup when he caught
+again that confiding smile of Josie's, full upon him as the beams of a
+noon-day sun.
+
+"Haven't we seen you at church, Mr. Duncan?" she said prettily.
+
+"I think, perhaps, you may have," he conceded. "I have seen you, both."
+The second glass (for he was determined that Angie should not escape)
+took up all his attention for an instant. "Do you have to go, too?" he
+inquired out of this deep preoccupation.
+
+"What?"
+
+"I mean, do you attend regularly?" he amended hastily.
+
+"Oh, yes, of course," Josie simpered, accepting the glass he offered
+her. "You make it a rule to go every Sunday, don't you, Mr. Duncan?"
+
+He permitted himself an indiscretion, secure in the belief it would
+pass unchallenged: "It's one of the rules, but I didn't make it."
+
+"Did you know there was a vacancy in the choir?" Angle asked, taking up
+her glass.
+
+"Choir?"
+
+"Yes," Josie chimed in; "we were hoping you'd join. I want you to,
+awfully."
+
+"We're both in the choir," Angie explained.
+
+"And all the girls want you to join. Don't they, Angie?"
+
+"Oh, yes, indeed; they're all just dying to meet you."
+
+"I'll have to write and ask," he said abstractedly.
+
+"Why, what do you mean by that?"
+
+Josie's question struck him dumb with consternation. He made curious
+noises in his throat, and fancied (as was quite possible) that they
+eyed him in a peculiar fashion. "It's--I mean--a little trouble with my
+throat," he managed to lie, at length. "I must ask my physician if I
+may, first."
+
+"Oh, I see," said Josie.
+
+"But," he hastened to change the subject, "you're not drinking, either
+of you. I sincerely hope it's not so very bad."
+
+Angie replaced her glass, barely tasted. "Do you like it, Josie?"
+
+To Josie's credit it must be admitted that she made a brave attempt to
+drink. But the mixture was undoubtedly flat, stale and unprofitable.
+She sighed, put it back on the counter, and rose to the emergency.
+
+"Mine's perfectly lovely"--with a ravishing smile--"but it's not very
+sweet."
+
+"I made them dry for you--thought you'd like 'em that way," he
+stammered. "Perhaps you'd like 'em better if I put a collar on 'em?"
+
+The chorus negatived this suggestion very promptly.
+
+"Why don't you try a glass, Mr. Duncan?" Angie added with malice.
+
+"I'm on the wagon--I mean, I don't drink at all," he said wretchedly;
+and was deeply grateful for the diversion afforded by the entrance of a
+third customer.
+
+It was Tracey Tanner, as usual swollen with important tidings, as usual
+propelling himself through the world at a heavy trot. It has always
+been a source of wonderment to me how Tracey manages to keep so stout
+with all the violent exercise he takes.
+
+"Say, Angle," he twanged at sight of her, "I've been lookin' for you
+everywhere. Did you hear that----"
+
+He stopped instantaneously with open mouth as he saw Duncan behind the
+counter; and openmouthed he remained while the young man came round and
+advanced toward him, with a bland smirk accompanied by a professional
+bow and rubbing of hands.
+
+"May I have the pleasure of serving you, Mr. Tanner?"
+
+"Huh?" bleated Tracey, dumbfounded.
+
+"Is there anything you wish to purchase?"
+
+A violent emotion stirred in Tracey. Sounds began to emanate from his
+heaving chest. "N-n-no, ma'am!" he breathed explosively.
+
+Duncan bowed again, his face expressionless. "Then will you be good
+enough to excuse me?" He turned precisely and made his way back to the
+counter.
+
+As if released from some spell of strong enchantment by the movement,
+Tracey swung on his heel and lunged for the door.
+
+"What was it you wanted to ask me, Tracey?" Angie called after him.
+
+As the boy disappeared at a hand-gallop his response floated back: "I
+fergit."
+
+"I'm afraid I must have frightened him?" Duncan said inquiringly.
+
+"Oh, no, not at all," Josie reassured him; "he's just gone to tell
+everybody you're here."
+
+"Come, Josie, we've been here ever so long." Angie moved slowly toward
+the door, but Josie inclined to linger.
+
+"Don't hurry, I beg of you," Duncan interposed.
+
+"Oh, we haven't hurried," she said with a gush of gratification that
+startled the man. "You'll remember what I said about the choir, won't
+you?"
+
+He braced himself to take advantage of the opening. "I shall never
+forget it," he said impressively.
+
+She gave him her hand. "Then good-bye."
+
+"Not good-bye, I trust?" He retained the hand, despising himself
+inexpressibly.
+
+"Oh, we'll be in again, won't we Angie?"
+
+"Oh, yes, indeed."
+
+"My land, Angie! What do you think? I'd almost forgotten to pay for the
+soda?"
+
+"Please don't speak of it, Miss Lockwood--the pleasure--."
+
+"But I must, Mr. Duncan. How much is it?"
+
+Josie fingered the contents of her purse expectantly, but Duncan hung
+in the wind. He had no least notion what might be the price of soda
+water. "Two for a quarter?" he hazarded with his disarming grin.
+
+Angle choked with appreciation of this exquisite sally. "Ain't you
+funny!"
+
+"I'm afraid you're right," he conceded; "still I'd rather you didn't
+think so."
+
+"It's ten cents, isn't it, Mr. Duncan?"
+
+Josie was offering him a dime; he accepted it without question.
+
+"Thank you, very much," said he. "Good afternoon, ladies."
+
+He was aware of Angle's fluttering farewells on the sidewalk. Josie was
+lingering on the doorstep in an agony of untrained coquetry. He lowered
+his tone for her benefit, thereby adding new weight to his bombardment
+of her amateur defences.
+
+"Remember you promised to call again."
+
+Her giggles tore his ear-drums. "Th-thank you, I'm sure," she
+stammered, and fled.
+
+They disappeared. He wandered to the chair and threw himself limply
+into it. "That voice!" he said stupidly. "That giggle! I've got to woo
+and win... _that!_...
+
+"It serves me right," he concluded.
+
+The most hopeless of humours assailed him, and he yielded to it without
+a struggle. His attitude expressed his mood with relentless verity.
+Chin sunken upon his breast, eyes fairly distilling gloom, legs
+stretched out carelessly before him, he sat motionless, suffocating at
+the bottom of a gulf of discontent. His lips moved, sometimes
+noiselessly, again in whispers barely audible.
+
+"Years of this!... A matter of human endurance--no, superhuman!... If
+it wasn't for the bargain, I'd chuck it all and...
+
+"Well, the only way to forget your misery is to work, I suppose."
+
+He pulled himself together and stood up, wondering where he had left
+his broom, and simultaneously stiffened with surprise, aware that he
+was not alone. A glance, however, established the connection between
+the rear door, which stood ajar, and the young woman who stood staring
+at him in utterest stupefaction. This, he thought, must be the woman of
+the voice, upstairs.
+
+But she couldn't be Graham's wife. She was too young. Even beneath the
+mask of care and weariness, the all too plain evidences of privation,
+spiritual and mental as well as physical, that Betty wore unceasingly
+in those days, he could discern youth and grace and gentleness, and the
+nascent promise of prettiness that longed to be, to have the chance to
+show itself and claim its meed of deference and love. He was quick to
+see the intelligence in her mutinous eyes, and the sweet lines of her
+mouth, too often shaped in sullen mould, and no less quick to recognise
+that she would carry herself well, with spirit and dignity, once she
+were relieved of household toil and moil, once given the chance to
+discard her shapeless, bedraggled and threadbare garments for those
+dainty and beautiful things for which her starved heart must be sick
+with longing....
+
+"Good Lord!" he thought, pitiful, "it's worse here than I dreamed. Old
+Graham must need a keeper--and this child has been trying to be that,
+with nothing to keep him on."
+
+"Who are you?" the girl demanded sullenly, in a voice a little harsh
+and toneless. "What are you doing here? Where's my father?"
+
+"Mr. Graham has stepped out on business," Duncan replied. "You are his
+daughter, I believe?"
+
+"Yes, I'm his daughter, but----"
+
+"My name is Nathaniel Duncan. Mr. Graham has been kind enough to take
+me on as apprentice, so to speak."
+
+Her stare continued, intense, resentful, undeviating.
+
+"You mean you're going to work here?"
+
+"That my intention, Miss Graham." He nodded gravely.
+
+"What for?"
+
+"To learn the drug business."
+
+"Oh-h!" She flung herself a pace away, impatiently. "I'm not a child,
+and I don't want to be talked to like one."
+
+"I didn't mean to annoy you----"
+
+[Illustration: "You mean you're going to work here?"]
+
+"Well, you do. You've got no business in a run-down place like this--
+you with your fine clothes and your fine airs. You didn't come here to
+learn the drug business; you know as well as I do you've got some other
+motive."
+
+There was a truth in that to sting him. He smarted under its lash, but
+held his temper in check because he was sorry for the girl. "Perhaps
+you're right," he conceded; "perhaps I have some other motive. But
+that's neither here nor there. I'm here, and it is my present intention
+to learn the drug business in your father's store."
+
+"I don't believe you, Mister Duncan--or whatever your name is."
+
+"I'm sorry," he said patiently.
+
+Betty's lips twitched, contemptuous. "Well, saying you do mean to work
+here----"
+
+"I do."
+
+"Where do you think your pay's going to come from?"
+
+"Heaven, perhaps."
+
+"I guess you think that's funny, don't you?"
+
+"I confess, at the moment I did. But now I realise it's probably a
+bitter truth."
+
+He was too much for her, she saw, and the knowledge only served to fan
+her indignation and suspicions.
+
+"You're making a mistake," she snapped. "Father can't pay you nothing."
+
+"He'll pay me all I'm worth," said Duncan meekly.
+
+She glared at him an instant longer, then mute for lack of a
+sufficiently scornful retort, turned and ran back up the steps,
+slamming the door behind her.
+
+Duncan drew a rueful face, contemplating the place where she had been.
+
+"I didn't think this was going to be a bed of roses--and it isn't," he
+concluded.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+
+ROLAND BARNETTE'S FRIEND
+
+Nat had a busy day or two after that, trying to set things to rights in
+the store for the better reception and display of the new stock. Sperry
+dropped him a line saying that the goods would arrive on the third day,
+and there was much to do to make way for it. He managed to get the shop
+cleaned up thoroughly with Betty's not unwilling but distinctly
+suspicious aid; the girl was apparently convinced that Duncan meant
+business, and that this would ostensibly work for her father's benefit,
+but she was distinctly dubious as to the _deus ex machina_. Duncan
+now and again would catch her watching him, her eyes dark with
+speculation; but when she detected his gaze her look would change
+instantly to one of hostility and defiance. He suspected that only her
+father's wishes prevented an open break with her; as it was he was
+conscious that there was no more than an armed truce between them. And
+he did not like it; it made him uncomfortable. He wasn't hardened
+enough to have an easy conscience, and Betty's open doubts as to the
+reason for his coming to Radville disturbed Duncan more than he would
+have cared to own.
+
+For all that, they worked together steadily, and accomplished a rather
+sensational transformation in the appearance of the place. The floor,
+counter and shelves were swept, washed, dusted and garnished with
+paint; that is, all but the floor received the attention of the
+paint-brush; Duncan managed to smuggle a quantity of oil-cloth into the
+shop and get it down before Graham could enter any protest: the effect
+approximated tiling nearly enough to brighten the room up wonderfully.
+Aside from this the old stock was routed out and, for the greater part,
+donated to the rubbish-heap. Teddy Smart, the glazier, was commissioned
+to repair the broken window-panes and show-cases. A can of metal polish
+freshened up the nickel and brass trimmings and rendered the single
+upright of the soda fountain almost attractive. The stove was uprooted
+and stored away, and its aspiring pipes dispensed with. Finally, after
+considerable argument, Graham consented to the removal of his
+work-bench to a shed in the back-yard. The model was suffered to
+remain, the tanks and burner being stored out of sight beneath one of
+the window-seats, more because Duncan considered it would be a good
+thing to have the light than because he understood or attached much
+importance to the contrivance. For that matter, he hadn't the time to
+listen to an exposition of its advantages, and Graham, recognising
+this, was content to abide his time, serene in the conviction that he
+would presently find in his assistant a willing and sympathetic
+listener.
+
+Between spasms of work Duncan had his hands full attending to the soda
+fountain. Soda water being practically the only salable thing in the
+store, it had to serve as an excuse for the inquisitiveness of many of
+my fellow-citizens, to say nothing of--I should put it, but
+especially--their wives and daughters. The consumption of vanilly sody
+in those two days broke all known Radville records, and stands a
+singular tribute to the Spartan fortitude of Radville womanhood,
+particularly the young strata thereof. Duncan, after he had succeeded
+in taming the fountain, seemed rather to enjoy than object to
+dispensing sody, standing inspection and receiving adulation and
+nickels in unequal proportions. By the end of the second day he could
+not truthfully have told his friend Willy Bartlett: "The list has
+shrunk." It had swollen enormously. There isn't any doubt but that he
+had a nodding acquaintance with every pretty girl in town, as well as
+with most not considered pretty.
+
+From my window in the _Citizen_ office I was able to keep a
+tolerably close account of events and obtain a consensus of public
+opinion. So far as the latter bore upon Duncan, it was divided into two
+rather distinct parties, one of course favouring him; and this was
+feminine almost exclusively. Tracey Tanner, to be sure, confessed
+within my hearing to a predilection for the Noo York dood, but was
+inclined to hedge and climb the fence when assailed by Roland's
+strictures. Roland, I suspect, was a wee mite jealous; he had been
+paying attention to--I mean, going with--Josie Lockwood for several
+months. Instinctively he must have divined his danger; and it's not in
+reason to exact admiration of the usurper from the usurped, even when
+the act of usurpation has not yet been definitely consummated. Roland
+went to the length of labelling Duncan "sissy," and professed to
+believe that Hiram Nutt was justified in calling him a "s'picious
+character"; Roland hinted darkly that Duncan knew New York no better
+than Will Bigelow.
+
+"And if he did come from there," he asseverated, "I betcher he didn't
+leave for no good purpose."
+
+His temper inspired me with the sapient reflection that it's a terrible
+thing to be in love, even if only with an old man's millions.
+
+"There's goin' to be a real Noo Yorker here before long," Roland
+boasted; "he's comin' to see me on some 'special private bus'ness of
+ourn."
+
+"Huh," commented Tracey, the sceptical. "What kind of a Noo Yorker'd
+come all the way here to see you?"
+
+"That's all right. You'll see when he gets here. He's a pro-motor."
+
+"A what?"
+
+"A pro-motor, a financier." Roland pronounced it "finnan seer," thus
+betraying symptoms of culture and bewildering Tracey beyond expression.
+
+"What's that?" he demanded aggressively.
+
+"That's a feller 't can take nothing at all and incorporate it and make
+money out of it," Roland defined with some hesitancy.
+
+"And that's why he's coming down here to take a look at you?" inquired
+Tracey, skipping nimbly round the corner.
+
+Curiously enough in my understanding (for I own to no great faith in
+Roland's statements, taking them by and large) his friend from New York
+put in an unheralded appearance in Radville that same night, on the
+evening train. The Bigelow House received him to its figurative bosom
+under the name of W.H. Burnham. He sent for Roland promptly and treated
+him to a dinner at the hotel; something which I have always regarded as
+a punishment several sizes too large for the crime. Later, having
+displayed him on the streets in witness to his good faith, Roland spent
+the evening with Mr. Burnham mysteriously confabulating behind closed
+doors in the hotel. Speculation ran rife through the town until nine
+o'clock, and land for several days basked in the heat of public
+interest.
+
+I happened accidentally to get a glimpse of Mr. Burnham after supper,
+although I had to miss my baked apple in order to get down town in
+time. He was a disappointment to some extent, although his mode of
+dress attracted much comment as being far more sprightly than Duncan's
+and less startling than Roland's. He had a self-confident air and a bit
+of swagger that filled the eye, but a face and a voice that detracted,
+the one too boldly good-looking, with eyes roving and predaceous, the
+other a suggestion too loud and domineering. ... I fear association
+with Duncan had vitiated my taste.
+
+However that may be, Roland got an hour off at the bank the following
+morning, and the pair of them, after wandering with evident aimlessness
+round the town, drifted as it were on the tide of hap-chance into
+Graham's drug-store.
+
+Duncan was at the station, superintending the transportation of the new
+stock, which had come by the early local; Betty was busy with her
+housework upstairs; and only old Sam kept the shop.
+
+Sam wasn't in the best of spirits. His evergreen optimism seldom
+withered, but in spite of all that had already been accomplished in
+behalf of the store, in spite of the rosier aspect of his declining
+fortunes and his confidence in and affection for Duncan, Sam was
+worried. He had been over to the bank once, even at that early hour,
+but Blinky Lockwood had driven out of town to see about foreclosing one
+of his numerous mortgages in the neighbourhood, and his note, which
+fell due at the bank that day, was still a weight upon Sam's mind.
+
+Roland and Burnham found him wandering nervously round the store,
+alternately taking his hat down from the peg, as if minded to make a
+second trip to the bank, and replacing it as he realised that patience
+was his part. He looked older and more worn than ordinarily, and seemed
+distinctly pleased to be distracted by his callers.
+
+"Why, hello, Roland!" he cried cheerfully, hanging up his hat for
+perhaps the twentieth time. And, "How de doo, sir?" he greeted the
+stranger.
+
+"Good-morning, sir," said Burnham pleasantly.
+
+"Say, Sam," Roland blundered with his usual adroitness, "this
+gentleman------"
+
+Burnham's hand fell heavily on his forearm and he checked as if
+throttled.
+
+"What's that, Roland?" Sam turned curiously to them.
+
+"Oh, nothin'; I was--er--just going to say that this gentleman's my
+friend from Noo York, Mr. Burnham. I was showin' him round the town and
+we just happened to look in."
+
+"The friend you were going to write to about my burner?" inquired Sam.
+"Well, I'm right glad to meet you, sir."
+
+It was here that Roland got a look from Mr. Burnham that withered him
+completely. His further contributions to the conversation were somewhat
+spasmodic and ineffectual.
+
+"Why, no, Mr. Graham," Burnham interposed deftly. "Mr. Barnette must've
+been talking of someone else he knew in New York. I----"
+
+"Didn't know he knew more'n one there," Sam observed mildly.
+
+Burnham's glance jumped warily to Sam's face, but withdrew reassured,
+having detected therein nothing but the old man's kindly and simple
+nature. "At all events," he continued, "I don't remember hearing
+anything about the matter (what did you call it? A burner, eh?) from
+Mr. Barnette."
+
+"I s'pose Roland forgot," Sam allowed. "He's so busy courtin' our
+pretty girls, Mr. Burnham----"
+
+"Yes, that was it," Roland put in hastily, seeing his chance to mend
+matters. "I did intend to write you about it, Mr. Burnham, but it kind
+of slipped my mind. We've had a lot of important business over to the
+bank recently."
+
+"By the way, Roland, did you just come from the bank? Is Mr. Lockwood
+back yet?"
+
+"No; I got off this morning. I don't think he is, Sam. Did you want to
+see him?"
+
+"Well, yes," Sam admitted. "I guess you know about that, Roland."
+
+"Mean business, sometimes, asking favours of these bankers, eh, Mr.
+Graham?" Burnham remarked, much too casually to have deceived anybody
+but old Sam.
+
+Graham nodded, dolefully. "Yes, it is unpleasant," he admitted
+confidingly. "You see, there's a note of mine come due to-day, and I'm
+not able to take care of it or pay the interest just now...." He
+thought it over gravely for a moment, then brightened. "But I guess
+it'll be all right. Mr. Lockwood's kind, very kind."
+
+"I'm afraid you're a little too sure, Sam," Roland contributed
+tactfully. "When there's money due Lockwood, he wants it, and most
+times he gets it or its equivalent."
+
+"Yes," Sam assented sadly, "I guess he does, mostly."
+
+"But," Burnham changed the subject adroitly, "what was this--burner,
+did you say?--that Mr. Barnette forgot to tell me about?"
+
+"Oh, just one of my inventions, sir."
+
+"I understand you're quite an inventor?"
+
+Sam's smile lightened his face like sunlight striking a snow-bound
+field. He nodded slowly, thinking of his past enthusiasms, his hopes
+and discouragements. "I've spent most of my life at it, sir, but
+somehow nothing has ever turned out well... not so far, I mean. But I
+mean to hit it yet."
+
+"That's the way to talk," Burnham cried heartily; "never give up, I
+say!... But tell me about some of these inventions, won't you?"
+
+"Wel-l"--Sam knitted his fingers and pursed his lips reflectively--"I
+patented a new type threshing machine, once, but I couldn't get anybody
+to take hold of it. You see, I haven't any money, Mr. Burnham."
+
+"How would you like to talk it over with me, some time? I'm interested
+in such things--as a sort of side issue."
+
+"Will you?" Sam's eagerness was not to be disguised.
+
+"Be glad to. Tell me, how did you get your power?"
+
+"From gas, sir--though coal will do 'most as well. You see, I've got
+this burner patented, that makes gas from crude oil--no waste, no odour
+nor trouble, and little expense. It'd be cheaper than coal, I thought;
+that's why I invented it. I could get steam up mighty quick with that
+gas arrangement. I use it for lighting here in the store, now."
+
+"Do you, indeed?" Burnham's tone indicated failing interest, but such
+diplomacy was lost on Sam.
+
+"If you've got time, I could show you; it's right over here."
+
+A glance at his watch accompanied Burnham's consent to spare a few
+minutes. "There's a telegram I must send presently," he said. "But I'd
+like to see this burner, if it won't take long."
+
+"No, not long; just a minute or two." Sam was already dragging the
+affair out from under the window box. "You see..."
+
+He went on to expound its virtues with all the fond enthusiasm of a
+father showing off his firstborn, and wound up with a demonstration of
+the illuminating appliance. I'm afraid, though, he got little
+encouragement from Mr. Burnham. He considered the machine with a
+dispassionate air, it's true, and admitted its practical advantages,
+but wasn't at all disposed to take a roseate view of its future.
+
+"Yes," he grudged, when Sam put a match to the jet, "that's certainly a
+very good light."
+
+"All right, ain't it?" chimed Roland, enthusiastic.
+
+"Oh, it may amount to something. It's hard to tell. Of course you know,
+sir," he continued, addressing Graham directly, "you've got competition
+to overcome."
+
+Sam's old fingers trembled to his chin. "No-o," he said, "I didn't know
+that. I've got the patent----"
+
+"Of course that's something. But the Consolidated Petroleum crowd has
+another machine, slightly different, which does the same work, and, I
+should say, does it better."
+
+"Is--is that so?" quavered Sam. "My patent----."
+
+"Now see here, Mr. Graham," Burnham argued, "we're practical men, both
+of us----"
+
+"No; I shouldn't say that about myself," Sam interrupted. "Now you,
+sir----I can see you're a man who understands such things. But I----"
+
+"Nevertheless, you must know that a patent isn't everything. You said a
+moment ago a man had to have money to make anything out of his
+inventions."
+
+"Did I?" Sam interjected, surprised.
+
+"Certainly you did; and dead right you are. A patent's all very well,
+but supposing you're up against a powerful competitor like the
+Consolidated Petroleum Company. They've got a patent, too. Granted it
+may be an infringement of yours even--what can you do against them."
+
+"Why, if it's an infringement----"
+
+"Sue, of course. But do you suppose they're going to lie down just
+because an unknown and penniless inventor sues them? Bless you, no!
+They'll fight to the last ditch, they'll engage the best legal talent
+in the country. You'll have to carry the case to the Supreme Court of
+the United States if you want a winning decision. And that's going to
+cost you thousands--hundreds of thou-sands--a million----"
+
+"Never mind; a thousand's enough," said Sam gently. "I see what you
+mean, sir. It's just another case where I've got no chance."
+
+"Oh, I wouldn't put it as strong as that------"
+
+"But I have no money."
+
+"Still, you never can tell. I'll think it over, if I get time."
+
+"Why, that's kind of you, sir, very kind."
+
+It was at this point that Roland rose to the occasion like the noble
+ass he is. Roland never could see more than an inch beyond the end of
+his nose.
+
+"Say, Mr. Burnham," he floundered, "don't you think you could help Sam
+to----"
+
+"I think," said Mr. Burnham, with additional business of looking at his
+watch, "I'd like to send that wire I spoke of."
+
+"Yes, Roland," Sam agreed meekly; "you mustn't keep your friend from
+his business. I'm glad you looked in, sir. You'll call again, I hope."
+
+"Thank you," said Burnham, moving toward the door.
+
+It was too much for Roland's sense of opportunity. He rolled in
+Burnham's wake, sullenly reluctant. "Say, Mr. Burnham," he exploded as
+they got to the door, "if you'll just offer Sam five----"
+
+_"That will do!"_ Roland collapsed as if punctured. Burnham turned
+to Graham with a wave of his hand. "I'm leaving on the afternoon train,
+but if I get time I may drop in again and talk things over with you.
+There might be something in that threshing machine you mentioned."
+
+"I'll be glad to show you anything I've got here..."
+
+"All right. Good-day. I'll see you again, perhaps."
+
+This cavalier snub was lost on Sam, an essential of whose serene soul
+is the quality of humility. He followed them to the door, as grateful
+as a lost dog for a stray pat instead of a kick. "Good-day, sir.
+Good-day, Roland," he sped their parting cheerfully.
+
+But it was a broken man who shut the door behind them and turned back,
+fingering his grey chin. There must have been a dimness in his eyes and
+a quiver to his wide-lipped, generous mouth.
+
+"Perhaps Mr. Burnham was right. Only I was kind of hopin'... Now Mr.
+Lockwood over there..."
+
+He shook himself to throw off the spell of depression and somehow
+managed to quicken again his abiding faith in the essential goodness of
+the world.
+
+"Well, well! He's kind, very kind."
+
+He began to restore his model to its hiding place, musing upon the
+ebb-tide in his affairs in his muddle-headed way, and in the process
+managed to convince himself that "it 'ud all come right."
+
+"With this young man in here, and everythin' gettin' fixed up, and new
+stock comin' in ... I'm sure Mr. Lockwood'll see it the right way ...
+for us.... He's kind, very kind."
+
+Thus it was that he presently called up the stairs in a very cheerful
+voice: "Betty, are you pretty near through up there?"
+
+The girl's weary voice came down to him without accent: "Yes, father,
+almost."
+
+"Well, then, you keep an eye on the store, please. I'm goin' to step
+out for a minute."
+
+"Yes, father."
+
+"And if--if anybody asks for me, I'll most likely be down to the depot,
+with Mr. Duncan."
+
+He didn't mention that he contemplated calling on Lockwood, because he
+feared it might worry Betty. ... As if a woman doesn't always
+understand when things are going wrong!
+
+Betty knew, or rather divined. And she had no hope, no faith such as
+made Sam what he was. She came down the steps listlessly, overborne by
+her knowledge of the world's wrongness. The glance with which she
+comprehended the renovated shop was bitter with contempt. What was the
+worth of all this? Nothing good would come of it; nothing good came of
+anything. Life was drab and dreary, made up of weary, profitless years
+and months and weeks and days, to each its appointed disappointment.
+
+Only her sense of duty sustained her. She owed something to old Sam for
+the gift of life, dismal though she found it. He needed her; what she
+could do for him she would. I have always thought that her affection
+for her father was less filial than maternal. He seemed such a child,
+she--so very old! She mothered him; it was her only joy to care for
+him. Her care was constant, unfailing, omniscient. In return she got
+only his love. But it was almost enough--almost, not quite, dearly as
+she prized it. There were other things a girl should have--indeed, must
+have, if her life were to be rounded out in fulness. And these, she
+understood, were forever denied her: apples of Paradise growing in her
+sight, heartrending in their loveliness so far beyond her reach....
+
+Sighing, she went to work. In work only could she forget.... The soda
+glasses needed cleaning, and the syrup jars replenishing (for the new
+order of syrups had come in the previous evening).
+
+After a time, to a tune of pounding feet, Tracey Tanner pranced into
+the shop with all the graceful abandon of a young elephant feeling its
+oats. His face was fairly scarlet from exertion and his eyes bulging
+with a sense of importance. The girl looked up without interest,
+nodding slightly in response to his breathless: "'Lo, Betty."
+
+"Father's gone out," she said, holding a glass to the light, suspicious
+of the lint from her dish towel.
+
+"I know--seen him down the street." The boy halted at the counter,
+producing a handful of square envelopes. "Note for you from the
+Lockwoods, Betty," he panted. "Josie ast me to bring it round."
+
+Betty put down her glass in consternation. From the Lockwoods?"
+
+"Uh-huh." Tracey offered it, but she withheld her hand, dubious.
+
+"For me, Tracey?"
+
+"Uh-huh. It's a ninvitation. I got four more to take." He thrust it
+into her reluctant fingers. "Got five, really, but one of 'em's for
+me."
+
+"An invitation, Tracey!"
+
+"Yeh. Hope you have a good time when it comes off." Already he was
+bouncing toward the door. "Goo'-bye."
+
+"But what is it, Tracey?"
+
+"Aw, it tells in the ninvitation. S'long."
+
+"From the Lockwoods!" she whispered.
+
+Suddenly she tore it open, her hands unsteady with nervousness.
+
+The envelope contained a square of heavy cardboard of a creamy tint
+with scalloped edges touched with gold. On the face of the card a round
+and formless hand had traced with evident pains the information:
+
+Miss Josephine Mae Lockwood
+
+Requests the Pleasure of your Company at a Lawn Fête and Dance to be
+held at the residence of her Parents, Mr. & Mrs. Geo. Lockwood,
+Saturday July 15, at 8 p. m. R.S.V.P.
+
+The envelope fluttered to the floor while the card was crushed between
+the girl's hands. For a moment her face was transfigured with delight,
+her eyes blank with rapturous visions of the joys of that promised
+night.
+
+"Oh!... it 'ud be grand!..."
+
+Then suddenly the light faded. Her eyes clouded, her face settled into
+its discontented lines. She stuffed the card heedlessly into the pocket
+of her dingy apron, and took up another glass.
+
+"But I can't go; I've got nothin' to wear...."
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+
+BLINKY LOCKWOOD
+
+She was scrubbing blindly at the same glass when, a quarter of an hour
+later, Blinky Lockwood strode into the store, his right eye twitching
+more violently than usual, as it always does in his phases of mental
+disturbance--as when, for instance, he fears he's going to lose a
+dollar.
+
+Lockwood is that type of man who was born to grow rich. He inherited a
+farm or two in the vicinity of Radville and the one over Westerly way,
+to which I have referred, and ... well, we've a homely paraphrase of a
+noted aphorism in Radville: "Them as has, gits." Lockwood had, to begin
+with, and he made it his business to get; and, as is generally the case
+in this unbalanced world of ours, things came to him to which he had
+never aspired. Fortune favoured him because he had no need of her
+favours; the discovery of coal under his Westerly acres was wholly
+adventitious, but it made him far and away the richest man in
+Radville--with the possible exception of old Colonel Bohun's
+traditional millions.
+
+In person he is as beautiful as a snake-fence, as alluring as a stone
+wall. Something over six feet in height, he walks with a stoop (one
+hand always in a trouser-pocket jingling silver) that materially
+detracts from his stature. His face, like his figure, is gaunt and
+lanky, his nose an emaciated beak; his mouth illustrates his attitude
+toward property--is a trap from which nothing of value ever escapes;
+his eyes are small and hard and set close together under lowering
+brows. He's grizzled, with hair not actually white, but grey as the iron
+from which his heart was fashioned. Aside from these characteristics his
+principal peculiarity is a nervous twitching of the right eye which has
+earned him his sobriquet of Blinky. Legrand Gunn said he contracted the
+affliction through squinting at the silver dollar to make sure none of
+its milling had been worn off. ... I have never known the man to wear
+anything but a rusty old frock coat, black, of course, and black and
+shiny broadcloth trousers, with a hat that has always a coating of dust
+so thick that it seems a mottled grey.
+
+He grunts his words, a grunt to each. He grunted at Betty when he saw
+her.
+
+"Where's your father?"
+
+She put down her glass and dish-rag. "I don't know, sir."
+
+"Don't know, eh?" he asked in an indescribably offensive tone.
+
+"I think he went to the bank to see you."
+
+"Oh, he did, eh? Did he have anything for me."
+
+The girl took up another glass. "I don't know, sir," she said wearily.
+"I'm afraid not."
+
+"Well, if he didn't there's no use see in' me. It won't do him any
+good."
+
+"I guess he knows that," she returned with a little flash of spirit.
+
+Lockwood looked her up and down as if he had never seen her before,
+then summarised his resentful impression of her attitude in an open
+sneer. "Does, eh? Well, that's a good thing; saves talk."
+
+She contained herself, saying nothing. He glared round the place,
+remarking the improvements.
+
+"You don't do no business here, not to speak of, do ye?"
+
+"No," she admitted without interest, "not to speak of."
+
+"Then what's the good of all this foolishness, fixing up?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"Costs money, don't it?"
+
+"I guess so."
+
+"And that money belongs to me."
+
+"It's Mr. Duncan's doing. Father ain't paying for it. He can't."
+
+"What's he doin', then? Sittin' round foolin' with his inventions,
+ain't he?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What's he inventin' now?"
+"I don't know much about it." She pointed to the model beneath the
+window. "That's the last thing, I guess."
+
+Blinky snorted and stamped over to the window, stooping to peer at the
+machine. "What's the good of that?" he demanded, disdainful; and
+without waiting for her response went on nagging. "Foolishness! That's
+what it is. Why don't you tell him not to waste his time this way?"
+
+"Because he likes it," said Betty hopelessly. "It's the only thing that
+makes life worth while to him. So I let him alone."
+
+"What difference does that make? It don't bring him in nothin', does
+it?"
+
+"No ..."
+
+"Nor do any good?"
+
+"No."
+
+"No, siree, it don't. He'd oughter stop it. What does he do with them
+things when he gets 'em finished?"
+
+"Patents them."
+
+"And then what?"
+
+"Nothin' that I know of."
+
+"That's it; nothing--nor ever will. Well, he's been getting money from
+me for those patents--I thought at fust there might be somethin' in
+'em--but he won't any more. I'd oughter had more sense."
+
+A little colour spotted the girl's sallow cheeks. "He'd never ha' got
+money from you if he hadn't thought he could pay it back," she told
+Blinky hotly.
+
+"No, nor if I hadn't thought he could----"
+
+She interjected a significant "Huh!" He broke off abruptly, pale with
+anger.
+
+"Well, I want to see him, and I want to see him before noon," he
+snapped. "I'm goin' over to the bank, an' if he knows what's good for
+him he'll come there pretty darn quick."
+
+"I'll try to find him for you; he must be somewhere round," she
+offered.
+
+"Well, you better. I ain't got much patience to-day."
+
+He swung on one heel and slouched out, as Betty turned to go upstairs.
+Presently she reappeared pinning on her sad little hat, and left the
+store.
+
+It was upwards of an hour before she returned, walking quickly and very
+erect, with her head up and shoulders back, her eyes suspiciously
+bright, the spots of colour in her cheeks blazing scarlet, her mouth
+set and hard, the little work-worn hands at her sides clenched tightly
+as if for self-control. Even old Sam, who had returned from the depôt
+after missing Blinky at the bank--even he, blind as he ordinarily was,
+saw instantly that something was wrong with the child.
+
+"Why, Betty!" he cried in solicitude as she flung into the
+store--"Betty, dear, what's the matter?"
+
+For an instant she seemed speechless. Then she tore the hat from her
+head and cast it regardlessly upon the counter. "Father!" she cried.
+"Father!"--and gulped to down her emotion. "Can you get me some money?"
+
+"Money? Why, Betty, what--?"
+
+Her foot came down on the floor impatiently. "Can you get me some
+money?" she repeated in a breath.
+
+"Well--er--how much, Betty?" He tried to touch her, to take her to his
+arms, but she moved away, her sorry little figure quivering from head
+to feet.
+
+"Enough," she said, half sobbing--"enough to buy a dress--a nice
+dress--a dress that will surprise folks--"
+
+"But tell me what the matter is, Betty. Wanting a dress would never
+upset you like this."
+
+She whipped the cracked and crumpled card from her pocket and pushed it
+into his hand. "Look at that!" she bade him, and turned away,
+struggling with all her might to keep back the tears.
+
+He read, his old face softening. "Josie Lockwood's party, eh? And she's
+sent you an invitation. Well, that was kind of her, very kind."
+
+She swung upon him in a fury. "No, it was not kind. It was mean... It
+was mean!"
+
+"Oh, Betty," he begged in consternation, "don't say that. I'm sure--"
+
+"Oh, you don't know... I heard the girls talking in the post-office--
+Angle Tuthill and Mame Garrison and Bessie Gabriel... I was round by
+the boxes where they couldn't see me, but I could hear them, and they
+were laughing because I was invited. They said the reason Josie did it
+was because she knew I didn't have anything to wear, and she wanted to
+hear what excuse I'd make for not going. Ah, I heard them!"
+
+"Oh, but Betty, Betty," he pleaded; "don't you mind what they say.
+Don't--"
+
+"But I do mind; I can't help mindin'. They're mean." She paused, her
+features hardening. "I'm going to that party," she declared tensely:
+"I'm goin' to that party and--and I'm goin' to have a dress to go in,
+too! I don't care what I do--I'm goin' to have that dress!"
+
+Sam would have soothed her as best he might, but she would neither look
+at nor come near him.
+
+"We'll see," he said gently. "We'll see. I'll try--"
+
+She turned on him, exasperated beyond thought. "That only means you
+can't help me!"
+
+"Oh, no, it doesn't. I'll do what I can--"
+
+"Have you got any money now?"
+
+He hung his head to avoid her blazing eyes. "Well, no--not at present,
+but here's this new stock and--."
+
+"That doesn't mean anything, and you know it. You owe that note to Mr.
+Lockwood, don't you? And you can't pay it?"
+
+"Not to-day, Betty, but he'll give me a little more time, I'm sure.
+He's kind, very kind."
+
+"You don't know him. He's as mean--as mean as dirt--as mean as Josie."
+
+"Betty!"
+
+"Then if you did get any money you'd have to give it to him, wouldn't
+you?"
+
+"Yes, but--I'm sure--I think it'll come all right."
+
+"Ah, what's the use of talkin' that way? What's the use of talkin' at
+all? I know you can't do anything for me, and so do you!"
+
+Sam had dropped into his chair, unable to stand before this storm; he
+stared now, mute with amazement, at this child who had so long, so
+uncomplainingly, shared his poverty and privations, grown suddenly to
+the stature of a woman--and a tormented, passionate woman, stung to the
+quick by the injustice of her lot. He put out a hand in a feeble
+gesture of placation, but she brushed it away as she bent toward him,
+speaking so quickly that her words stumbled and ran into one another.
+
+"I can't understand it!" she raged. "Why is it that I have to be more
+shabby than any other girl in town? Why is it that the others have all
+the fun and I all the drudgery? Why is it that I can't ever go anywhere
+with the boys and girls and laugh and--and have a good time like the
+rest do?..."
+
+Sam bent his head to the blast. In his lap his hands worked nervously.
+But he could not answer her.
+
+"It ain't that I mind the cookin' and doin' the housework and--all the
+rest--but--why is it you can never give me anything at all? Why must it
+be that everyone looks down on us and sneers and laughs at us? Why is
+it that half the time we haven't got enough to eat?... Other men manage
+to take care of their families and give their children things to wear.
+You've got only us two to look after, and you can't even do that. It
+isn't right, it isn't decent, and if I were you I'd be ashamed of
+myself--!"
+
+Her temper had spent itself, and with this final cry she checked
+abruptly, with a catch at her breath for shame of what she had let
+herself say. But, childlike, she was not ready to own her sorrow; and
+she turned her back, trembling.
+
+Sam, too, was shaken. In his heart he knew there was justification for
+her indictment, truth in what she had said. And he was heartbroken for
+her. He got up unsteadily and put a gentle hand upon her shoulder.
+
+"Why, Betty--I--I--"
+
+A dry sob interrupted him. He pulled himself together and forced his
+voice to a tone of confidence. "Just be a little patient, dear. I'm
+sure things will be better with us, soon. Just a little more patience--
+that's all... Why, there was a gentleman here this morning, from Noo
+York City, talkin' about an invention of mine."
+
+The girl moved restlessly, shaking off his hand. "Invention!" she
+echoed bitterly. "Oh, father! Everybody knows they're no good. You've
+been wastin' time on 'em ever since I can remember, and you've never
+made a dollar out of one yet."
+
+He bowed to the truth of this, then again braced up bravely. "But this
+gentleman seemed quite interested. He's over to the Bigelow House now.
+I think I'll step over and have a talk with him--"
+
+"You'd much better go and have a talk with Blinky Lockwood," she told
+him brutally. "He's waitin' for you at the bank, and said he wasn't
+goin' to wait after twelve o'clock, neither!"
+
+"Wel-l, perhaps you're right. I'll go there. It's after twelve, but..."
+He started to get his hat and stopped with an exclamation: "Why, Nat!
+I didn't know you'd got back!"
+
+Duncan was at the back of the store, clearing the last remnants of the
+old stock from the shelves. "Yes," he said pleasantly, without turning,
+"I've been here some time, cleaning up the cellar, to make room for the
+stuff that's coming in. I came upstairs just a moment ago, but you were
+so busy talking you didn't notice me."
+
+He paused, swept the empty shelves with a calculating glance, and came
+out around the end of the counter. "Everything's in tip-top shape," he
+said. "I checked up the bill of lading myself, and there's not a thing
+missing, not a bit of breakage. Mr. Graham," he continued, dropping a
+gentle hand on the old man's shoulder, "you're going to have the finest
+drug-store in the State within six months. With the stuff that Sperry
+has sent us we can make Sothern and Lee look like sixty-five cents on
+the dollar.... We're going to make things hum in this old shop, and
+don't you forget it." He laughed lightly, with a note of encouragement.
+But he avoided Graham's eyes even as he did Betty's. He could not meet
+the pitiful look of the former, any more than that stare of hostility
+and defiance in the latter.
+
+"It's good of you, my boy," Graham quavered. "I--but I'm afraid it
+won't----"
+
+"Now don't say that!" Duncan interposed firmly. "And don't let me
+keep you. I think you said you were going out on business? And I'll be
+busy enough right here."
+
+And without exactly knowing how it had come about, Graham found himself
+in the street, stumbling downtown, toward the bank.
+
+When he had gone, Duncan would have returned to the shelves for a final
+redding-up. He desired least of all things an encounter with Betty in
+her present frame of mind, and he tried his level best to seem as one
+who had heard nothing, who was only concerned with his occupation of
+the moment. But from the instant that she had been made aware of his
+presence Betty had been watching him with smouldering eyes, wondering
+how much he had heard and what he was thinking of her. The keen
+repentance that gnawed at her heart, allied with shame that an alien
+should have been private to her exhibition, half maddened the child.
+With a sudden movement she threw herself in front of Duncan, thrusting
+her white, drawn face before his, her gaze searching his half in anger,
+half in morose distrust.
+
+"So you were listening!"
+
+"I'm sorry," he said uncomfortably.
+
+She drew a pace away, holding herself very straight while she threw him
+a level glance of unqualified contempt.
+
+"I didn't mean to hear anything," he argued plaintively. "I was in
+the room before I understood, and by the time I did, it was too late--
+you had finished."
+
+"Oh, don't try to explain. I--I hate you!"
+
+He held her eyes inquiringly. "Yes," he said in the tone of one who
+solves a puzzling problem, "I believe you do."
+
+She looked away, shaking with passion. "You just better believe it."
+
+"But," he went on quietly, "you don't hate your father, too, do you,
+Miss Graham?"
+
+She swung back to meet his stare with one that flamed with indignation.
+
+"What do you mean by that, Mr. Duncan?"
+
+"I mean," he said, faltering in where one wiser would have feared to
+venture--"I'm going to give you a bit of advice. Don't you talk to your
+father again the way you did just now."
+
+"What business is that of yours?"
+
+"None," he admitted fairly. "But just the same I wouldn't, if I were
+you."
+
+"Well, you ain't me!" she cried savagely. "You ain't me! Understand
+that? When I want advice from you, I'll ask for it. Until I do, you
+let me alone."
+
+"Very well," he replied, so calmly that she lost her bearings for a
+moment. And inevitably this, emphasising as it did all that she
+resented most in him--his education, wit, address, his advantages of
+every sort--only served further to infuriate the child.
+
+"Oh, I know why you talk that way," she said, rubbing her poor little
+hands together.
+
+"Do you?" he asked in wonder.
+
+"Yes, I do--you!..."
+
+Suddenly she found words--poverty-stricken words, it's true, but the
+best she had wherewith to express herself. And for a little they flowed
+from her lips, a scalding, scathing torrent. "It's because you go to
+church all the time and try to look like a saint and--and try to make
+out you're too religious for anything, and like to hear yourself givin'
+Christian advice to poor miserable sinners--like me. You think that's
+just too lovely of you. That's why you said it, if you want to know.
+... Folks wonder what you're doing here, don't they? Guess you know
+that--and like it, too. It makes 'em look at you and talk about you,
+and that's what you like. _I_ could tell 'em. You're only here to
+show off your good clothes and your finger-nails and the way you part
+your hair and--and all the other things you do that nobody in Noo York
+would pay any attention to!"
+
+He faced her soberly, attentively. She was a little fool, he knew, and
+making a ridiculous figure of herself. But--his innate honesty told him
+--she was right, in a way; she had hit upon his weakest point. He was
+in Radville to "show off," as she would have said, to make an
+impression and ... to reap the reward thereof. The way she spoke was
+ludicrous, but what she said was mostly plain truth. He nodded
+submissively.
+
+"A pretty good guess at that," he acknowledged candidly.
+
+"Yes, it is, and I know it, and you know it. ... Oh, it's easy enough
+to give advice when you've got plenty of money and fine clothes and ...
+but..."
+
+"I understand," he said when she paused to get a grip upon herself and
+find again the words she needed. "You needn't say any more. The only
+reason I said what I did was because I'm strong for your father and ...
+well, I wanted to do you a good turn, too."
+
+"I don't want any of your good turns!"
+
+"Then I apologise."
+
+"And I don't want your apologies, neither!"
+
+"All right, only ... think over what I said, some time."
+
+"I had a good reason for saying what I did."
+
+"I know you had."
+
+"You know I had!" She looked at him askance. She had been on the point
+of relenting a little, of calming, of being a bit ashamed of herself.
+But his quiet acquiescence rekindled her resentment. "How do you know?
+You!" she said bitterly.
+
+
+"Because I'm not what you think I am, altogether."
+
+"I guess you're not," she observed acidly.
+
+"But I don't mean what you mean. I mean you think I'm conceited and
+rich and don't know what trouble is. Well, you're mistaken. I've been
+up against it the worst way for five years, and I know just how it
+feels to see other people getting up in the world when you're at the
+bottom of the heap with no chance of squirming out--to know that they
+have things you haven't got any chance of getting. I've been through
+the mill myself. Why, I've kept out of the way for days and days rather
+than let my prosperous friends see how shabby I was. Many's the time
+I've dodged round corners to avoid meeting men I knew would invite me
+to have dinner or luncheon or a drink--of soda--or something, for fear
+they'd find out that I couldn't treat in return. Many a time I've gone
+hungry for days and weeks and slept on park benches ... until an old
+friend found me and took me home with him."
+
+The ring of sincerity in his manner and tone silenced the girl,
+impressed her with the conviction of his absolute sincerity. The tumult
+in her mind quieted. She eyed him with attention, even with interest
+temporarily untinged with resentment. And seeing that he had succeeded
+in gaining this much ground in her regard, Duncan dared further,
+pushing his advantage to its limits.
+
+"But it's your father I wanted to talk about," he hurried on. "I'd bet
+a lot he knows more than any other man in this town; and besides, he's
+a fine, square, good-hearted old gentleman. Anybody can see that.
+Only, he's got one terrible fault: he doesn't know how to make money.
+And that's mighty tough on you--though it's just as tough on him. But
+when you roast him for it, like you did just now ... you only make him
+feel as miserable as a yellow dog ... and that doesn't help matters a
+little bit. He can't change into a sharp business crook now; ... he's
+too old a man. ... Before long he ... he won't be with you at all and
+... when he's gone you'll be sore on yourself ... sure! ... if you keep
+on throwing it into him the way I heard you. ... And that's on the
+level."
+
+He paused in confusion; the role of preacher sat upon him awkwardly, a
+sadly misfit garment. He felt self-conscious and ill at ease, yet with
+a trace of gratulation through it all. For he felt he'd carried his
+point. He could see no longer any animus in the pale, wistful little
+face that looked up into his--only sympathy, understanding, repentance
+and (this troubled him a bit) a faint flush of dawning admiration.
+Presently she grew conscious of herself again, and looked aside, humbled
+and distressed.
+
+"I--I won't do it again," she faltered, twisting her hands together.
+
+"Bully for you!" he cried, and with an abrupt if artificial resumption
+of his business-like air turned away to a show-case--to spare her the
+embarrassment of his regard.
+
+"I didn't think," said the voice behind him; "I didn't mean to--
+something happened that almost drove me wild and..."
+
+"I know," he said gently.
+
+After a bit she spoke again: "I'll go up and get dinner ready now."
+
+"That's all right," he returned absently. "I'll tend the store."
+
+He heard her footsteps as she crossed to the door and opened it. There
+followed a pause. Then she came hurriedly back. He faced about to meet
+her eyes shining with wonder.
+
+"I wanted to ask you," she said hastily, "if--was it this friend you
+spoke about--that found you in the park--who set you on the road to
+fortune?"
+
+"That's what he said," Duncan answered, twisting his brows whimsically.
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+
+DUNCAN'S GRUBSTAKE
+
+Like almost all business Radville, Duncan went home for his midday
+meal. It wasn't much of a walk from Sam Graham's store to Miss
+Carpenter's, and he didn't mind in the least.
+
+On this particular day he was sincerely hungry, but he had much to
+think about besides, and between the two he just bolted his food and
+made off, hot-foot for the store, greatly to the distress of his
+landlady.
+
+Naturally, knowing nothing about Sam's note, although he knew Pete
+Willing by sight as the sheriff and town drunkard in one, it didn't
+worry him at all to discover that gentleman tacking toward the store as
+he hurried up Beech Street, eager to get back to his job. The first
+intimation that he had of anything seriously amiss was when he entered,
+practically on Pete's heels.
+
+Pete Willing is the best-natured man in the world, as a general rule;
+drunk or sober, Radville tolerates him for just that quality. On only
+two occasions is he irritable and unmanageable: when his wife gets
+after him about the drink (Mrs. Willing is an able-bodied lady of Irish
+descent, with a will and a tongue of her own, to say nothing of
+an arm a blacksmith might envy) and when he has a duty to perform in
+his official capacity. It is in the latter instance that he rises
+magnificently to the dignity of his position. The majesty of the law in
+his hands becomes at once a bludgeon and a pandemonium. No one has ever
+been arrested in Radville, since Pete became sheriff, without the
+entire community becoming aware of it simultaneously. Pete's voice in
+moments of excitement carries like a cannonade. Legrand Gunn said that
+Pete had only to get into an argument in front of the Bigelow House to
+make the entire disorderly population of the Flats, across the river,
+break for the hills. (This is probably an exaggeration.)
+
+Tall, gaunt, gangling and loose-jointed, Duncan found Pete standing in
+the middle of the floor, hands in pockets and a noisome stogie thrust
+into a corner of his mouth, swaying a little (he was almost sober at
+the moment) and explaining his mission to old Sam in a voice of
+thunder.
+
+"I'm sorry about this, Sam," he bellowed, "but there ain't no use
+wastin' words 'bout it. I'm here on business."
+
+"But what's the matter, Sheriff?" Graham asked, his voice breaking.
+
+"Ah, you know you got a note due at the bank, don't you?"
+
+"Yes, but----"
+
+"Well, it's protested. Y'un'erstand that, don't you?"
+
+"Why, Pete!" Graham swayed, half-dazed.
+
+"An' I'm here to serve the papers onto you."
+
+"But--but there must be some mistake." Sam clutched blindly for his
+hat. "I'll step over and see Mr. Lockwood. He'll arrange to give me a
+little more time, I'm sure. He's always been kind, very kind."
+
+"Naw!" Pete bawled, "Mr. Lockwood don't want to see you unless you can
+settle. Y'can save yourself the trouble. Y'gottuh put up or git out!"
+
+"But, Pete--Mr. Lockwood said he didn't want to see me?"
+
+"Yah, that's what he said, and I got orders from him, soon's I got
+judgment to close y'up. And that goes, see!"
+
+"To--to turn me out of the store, Pete?" Graham's world had slipped
+from beneath his feet. He was overwhelmed, witless, as helpless as a
+child. And it was with a child's look of pitiful dismay and perplexity
+that he faced the sheriff.
+
+The father who has fallen short of his child's trust and confidence
+knows that look. To Duncan its appeal was irresistible. He had his
+hand in his pocket, clutching the still considerable remains of what
+Kellogg had termed his grubstake, before he knew it.
+
+"But--there must be some mistake," Graham repeated pleadingly. "It
+can't be--Mr. Lockwood surely wouldn't----"
+
+"Now there ain't no use whinin' about it!" Willing roared him into
+silence. "Law is Law, and----" He ceased quickly, surprised to find
+Duncan standing between him and his prey. "What----!" he began.
+
+"Wait!" Duncan touched him gently on the chest with a forefinger, at
+the same time catching and holding the sheriff's eye. "Are you," he
+inquired quietly, "labouring under the impression that Mr. Graham is
+deaf?"
+
+"What----!"
+
+Duncan turned to Sam, apologetically. "He said 'what.' Did you hear it,
+sir?"
+
+But by this time Pete was recovering to some degree. "What've you got
+to say about this?" he demanded, crescendo.
+
+"I'll show you," Duncan told him in the same quiet voice, "what I've
+got to say if you'll just put the soft pedal on and tell me the amount
+of that note."
+
+Pete struggled mightily to regain his vanished advantage, but try as he
+would he could not escape Duncan's cool, inquisitive eye. Visibly he
+lost importance as he yielded and dived into his pocket. "With interest
+and costs," he said less stridently, "it figgers up three hundred 'n'
+eighty dollars 'n' eighty-two cents."
+
+There's no use denying that Duncan was staggered. For the moment his
+poise deserted him utterly. He could only repeat, as one who dreams:
+_"Three hundred and eighty dollars!..."_
+
+His momentary consternation afforded Pete the opening he needed. The
+room shook with his regained sense of prestige.
+
+"Yes, three hundred 'n' eighty dollars 'n'--say, you look a-here!----"
+
+Again the calm forefinger touched him, and like a hypnotist's pass
+checked the rolling volume of noise. "Listen," begged Duncan: "if
+you've got anything else to tell me, please retire to the opposite side
+of the street and whisper it. Meanwhile, _be quiet!"_
+
+Pete's jaw dropped. In all his experience no one had ever succeeded in
+taming him so completely--and in so brief a time. He experienced a
+sensation of having been robbed of his spinal column, and before he
+could pull himself together was staring in awe, while with one final
+admonitory poke of his finger Duncan turned and made for the soda
+counter, beneath which was the till. His scanty roll of bills was in
+his right hand, and there concealed. He stepped behind the counter (old
+Sam watching him with an amazement no less absolute than Pete's),
+pulled out the till, bent over it with an assured air, and pushed back
+the coin slide. Then quite naturally, he produced--with his right
+hand--his four-hundred-and-odd dollars from the bill drawer, stood up
+and counted them with great deliberation.
+
+"One ... two ... three ... four."
+He smiled winningly at Pete. "Four hundred dollars, Mr. Sheriff. Now
+will you be good enough to hand over that note and the change and then
+put yourself, and that pickle you're wearing in your face, on the other
+side of the door?"
+
+Pete struggled tremendously and finally succeeded in producing from
+his system a still, small voice:
+
+"I ain't got the note with me, Mr. Duncan."
+
+"Then perhaps you won't mind going to the bank for it?"
+
+Half suffocated, Pete assented. "Aw'right, I'll go and git it. Kin I
+have the money?"
+
+"Certainly." Duncan extended the bills, then on second thought withheld
+them. "I presume you're a regular sheriff?" he inquired.
+
+Very proudly Pete turned back the lapel of his coat and distended the
+chest on which shone his nickel-plated badge of office. Duncan examined
+it with grave admiration.
+
+"It's beautiful," he said with a sigh. "Here."
+
+Gingerly, Pete grasped the bills, thumbed them over to make sure they
+were real, and bolted as for his life, his coat-tails level on the
+breeze.
+
+[Illustration: "Four hundred dollars, Mr. Sheriff"]
+
+There floated back to Duncan and old Sam his valedictory: "Wal, I'll be
+damned!"
+
+With a short, quiet laugh Duncan made as though to go out to the
+back-yard, where the new stock was being delivered, having been carted
+up from the station through the alley--thereby doing away with the
+necessity of cluttering up the store with a débris of packing. His
+primal instinct of the moment was to get right out of that with all the
+expedition practicable. He didn't want to be alone with old Sam another
+second. The essential insanity of which he had just done was patent;
+there was no excuse for it, and he was like to suffer severely as a
+consequence. But he wasn't sorry, and he did not want to be thanked.
+
+"I'm going," he said hurriedly, "to find me a hatchet and knock the
+stuffing out of some of those packing-cases. Want to get all that truck
+indoors before nightfall, you know----"
+
+But old Sam wasn't to be put off by any such obvious subterfuge as
+that. He put himself in front of Duncan.
+
+"Nat, my boy," he said, tremulous, "I can't let this go through--I
+can't allow you----"
+
+"There, now!" Duncan told him, unconcernedly yet kindly, "don't say
+anything more. It's over and done with."
+
+"But you mustn't--I'll turn over the store to you, if----"
+
+"O Lord!" Duncan's dismay was as genuine as his desire to escape
+Graham's gratitude. "No--don't! Please don't do that!"
+
+"But I must do something, my boy. I can't accept so great a kindness--
+unless," said Graham with a timid flash of hope--"you'll consider a
+partnership----"
+
+"That's it!" cried Duncan, glad of any way out of the situation.
+"That's the way to do it--a partnership. No, please don't say any more
+about it, just now. We can settle details later. ... We've got to get
+busy. Tell you what I wish you'd do while I'm busting open those boxes:
+if you don't mind going down to the station to make sure that
+everything's----"
+
+"Yes, I'll go; I'll go at once." Sam groped for Duncan's hand, caught
+and held it between both his own. "If--if fate--or something hadn't
+brought you here to-day--I don't know what would've happened to Betty
+and me. ..."
+
+"Never mind," Duncan tried to soothe him. "Just don't you think about
+it."
+
+Graham shook his head, still bewildered. "Perhaps," he stumbled on, "to
+a gentleman of your wealth four hundred dollars isn't much----"
+
+"No," said Duncan gravely, without the flicker of an eyelash:
+"nothing." Then he smiled cheerfully. "There, that's all right."
+
+"To me it's meant everything. I--I only hope I'll be able to repay
+you some day. God bless you, my boy, God bless you!"
+
+He managed to jam his hat awry on his white old head and found his way
+out, his hands fumbling with one another, his lips moving inaudibly--
+perhaps in a prayer of thanksgiving.
+
+Motionless, Duncan watched him go, and for several minutes thereafter
+stood without stirring, lost in thought. Then his quaint, deprecatory
+grin dawned. He found a handkerchief and mopped his forehead.
+
+"Whew!" he whistled. "I wouldn't go through that again for a million
+dollars."
+
+Gradually the smile faded. He puckered his brows and drew down the
+corners of his mouth. Thoughtfully he ran a hand into his pocket and
+produced the little crumpled wad of bills of small denominations,
+representing all he had left in the world. Smoothing them out on the
+counter, he arranged them carefully, summing up; then returned them to
+his pocket.
+
+"Harry," he observed--"Harry said I couldn't get rid of that stake in a
+year!...
+
+"He doesn't know what a fast town this is!"
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+
+THE BUSINESS MAN AND MR. BURNHAM
+
+It was, perhaps, within the next thirty minutes that Betty (who had
+been left in charge of the store while Duncan, with coat and collar off
+and sleeves rolled above his elbows, hacked and pounded and pried and
+banged at the packing-cases in the backyard) sought him on the scene of
+his labours.
+
+She waited quietly, a little to one side, watching him, until he should
+become aware of her presence. What she was thinking would have been
+hard to define, from the inscrutable eyes in her set, tired face of a
+child. There was no longer any trace of envy, suspicion or resentment
+in her attitude toward the young man. You might have guessed that she
+was trying to analyse him, weighing him in the scales of her
+impoverished and lopsided knowledge of human nature, and wondering if
+such conclusions as she was able to arrive at were dependable.
+
+In the course of time he caught sight of that patient, sad little
+figure, and, pausing, panting and perspiring under the July sun,
+cheerfully brandished his weapon from the centre of a widespread
+area of wreckage and destruction.
+
+"Pretty good work for a York dude--not?" he laughed.
+
+There was a shadowy smile in her grave eyes. "It's an improvement," she
+said evenly.
+
+He shot her a curious glance. "_Ouch!_" he said thoughtfully.
+
+"I just came to tell you," she went on, again immobile, "you're wanted
+inside."
+
+"Somebody wants to see _me?_" he demanded of her retreating back.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"But who--?"
+
+"Blinky Lockwood," she replied over her shoulder, as she went into the
+house.
+
+"Lockwood?" He speculated, for an instant puzzled. Then suddenly:
+"Father-in-law!" he cried. "Shivering snakes! he mustn't catch me like
+this! I, a business man!"
+
+Hastily rolling down his shirt-sleeves and shrugging himself into his
+coat, he made for the store, buttoning his collar and knotting his tie
+on the way.
+
+He found Blinky nosing round the room, quite alone. Betty had
+disappeared, and the old scoundrel was having quite an enjoyable time
+poking into matters that did not concern him and disapproving of them
+on general principles. So far as the improvements concerned old Sam
+Graham's fortunes, Blinky would concede no health in them. But with
+regard to Duncan there was another story to tell: Duncan apparently
+controlled money, to some vague extent.
+
+"You're Mr. Duncan, ain't you?" he asked with his leer, moving down to
+meet Nat.
+
+"Yes, sir. Mr. Lockwood, I believe?"
+
+"That's me." Blinky clutched his hand in a genial claw. "I'm glad to
+meet you."
+
+"Thank you," said Duncan. "Something I can do for you, sir?"
+
+"Wal, Pete Willin' was tellin' me you'd just took up this note of
+Graham's?"
+
+"Not exactly; the firm took it up."
+
+Blinky winked savagely at this. "The firm? What firm?"
+
+"Graham and Duncan, sir. I've been taken into partnership."
+
+"Have, eh?" Blinky grunted mysteriously and fished in his pocket for
+some bills and silver. "Wal, here's some change comin' to the firm,
+then; and here," he added, producing the document in question, "is
+Sam's note."
+
+"Thank you." Duncan ceremoniously deposited both in the till, going
+behind the soda fountain to do so, and then waited, expectant. Blinky
+was grunting busily in the key of one about to make an important
+communication.
+
+"I'm glad you're a-comin' in here with Sam," he said at length, with an
+acid grimace that was meant to be a smile.
+
+"Oh, it may be only temporary." Nat endeavoured to assume a seraphic
+expression, and partially succeeded. "I'm devoting much of my time to
+my studies," he pursued primly; "but nevertheless feel I should be
+earning something, too."
+
+"That's right; that's the kind of spirit I like to see in a young
+man.... You always go to church, don't you?"
+
+"No, sir--Sundays only."
+
+"That's what I mean. D'you drink?"
+
+"Oh, no, sir," Duncan parroted glibly: "don't smoke, drink, swear, and
+on Sundays I go to church."
+
+The bland smile with which he faced Lockwood's keen scrutiny disarmed
+suspicion.
+
+"I'm glad to hear that," Blinky told him. "I'm at the head of the
+temp'rance movement here, and I hope you'll join us, and set an example
+to our fast young men."
+
+"I feel sure I could do that," said Duncan meekly.
+
+Lockwood removed his hat, exposing the cranium of a bald-headed eagle,
+and fanned himself. "Warm to-day," he observed in an endeavour to be
+genial that all but sprained his temperament.
+
+Indeed, so great was the strain that he winked violently.
+
+Duncan observed this phenomenon with natural astonishment not unmixed
+with awe. "Yes, sir, very," he agreed, wondering what it might portend.
+
+"I believe I'll have a glass of sody."
+
+"Certainly." Duncan, by now habituated to the formulae of soda
+dispensing, promptly produced a bright and shining glass.
+
+"I see you've been fixin' this place up some."
+
+"Oh, yes," said Nat loftily. "We expect to have the best drugstore in
+the State. We're getting in new stock to-day, and naturally things are
+a little out of order, but we'll straighten up without delay. We'll try
+to deserve your esteemed patronage," he concluded doubtfully, with a
+hazy impression that such a speech would be considered appropriate
+under the circumstances.
+
+"You shall have it, Mr. Duncan, you shall have it!"
+
+"Thank you, I'm sure.... What syrup would you prefer?"
+
+"Just sody," stipulated Lockwood.
+
+His spasmodic wink again smote Duncan's understanding a mighty blow.
+Unable to believe his eyes, he hedged and stammered. Could it be--?
+This from the leader of the temperance movement in Radville?
+
+
+"I beg pardon----?"
+
+His denseness irritated Blinky slightly, with the result that the right
+side of his face again underwent an alarming convulsion. "I say," he
+explained carefully, "just--_plain_--sody."
+
+"On the level?"
+
+"What?" grunted Blinky; and blinked again.
+
+A smile of comprehension irradiated Nat's features. "Pardon," he said,
+"I'm a little new to the business."
+
+Blinky, fanning himself industriously, glared round the store while
+Duncan, turning his back, discreetly found and uncorked the whiskey
+bottle. He was still a trifle dubious about the transaction, but on the
+sound principles of doing all things thoroughly, poured out a liberal
+dose of raw, red liquor. Then, with his fingers clamped tightly about
+the bottom of the glass, the better to conceal its contents from any
+casual but inquisitive passer-by, he quickly filled it with soda and
+placed it before Blinky, accompanying the action with the sweetest of
+childlike smiles.
+
+Lockwood, nodding his acknowledgments, lifted the glass to his lips.
+Duncan awaited developments with some apprehension. To his relief,
+however, Blinky, after an experimental swallow, emptied the mixture
+expeditiously into his system; and smacked his thin lips resoundingly.
+
+"How," he demanded, "can anyone want intoxicatin' likers when
+they can get such a bracin' drink as that?"
+
+"I pass," Nat breathed, limp with admiration of such astounding
+hypocrisy.
+
+Blinky reluctantly pried a nickel loose from his finances and placed it
+on the counter. Duncan regarded it with disdain.
+
+"Ten cents more, please," he suggested tactfully.
+
+"What for?"
+
+"Plain sody." The explanation was accompanied by a very passable
+imitation of Blinky's blink.
+
+Happily for Duncan, Blinky has no sense of humour: if he had he would
+explode the very first time he indulged in introspection.
+
+"Not much," said he with his sour smile. "I guess you're jokin'....
+Well, good luck to you, Mr. Duncan. I'd like to have you come round and
+see us some evenin'."
+
+"Thank you very much, sir." Duncan accompanied Blinky to the door.
+"I've already had the pleasure of meeting your daughter, sir. She's a
+charming girl."
+
+"I'm real glad you think so," said Blinky, intensely gratified. "She
+seems to've taken a great shine to you, too. Come round and get
+'quainted with the hull family. You're the sort of young feller I'd
+like her to know." He paused and looked Nat up and down captiously,
+as one might appraise the points of a horse of quality put up for sale.
+"Good-day," said he, with the most significant of winks.
+
+"Oh, that's all right," Nat hastened to reassure him. "I won't say a
+word about it."
+
+Blinky, on the point of leaving, started to question this (to him)
+cryptic utterance, but luckily had the current of his thoughts diverted
+by the entrance of Roland Barnette, in company with his friend Mr.
+Burnham.
+
+Roland's consternation at this unexpected encounter was, in the mildest
+term, extreme. At sight of his employer he pulled up as if slapped.
+"Oh!" he faltered, "I didn't know you was here, sir."
+
+"No," said Blinky with keen relish, "I guess you didn't."
+
+"I--ah--come over to see Sam about that note," stammered Roland.
+
+"Wal, don't you bother your head 'bout what ain't your business, Roly.
+Come on back to the bank."
+
+"All right, sir." Roland grasped frantically at the opportunity to
+emphasise his importance. "Excuse me, Mr. Lockwood, but I'd like to
+interdoos you to a friend of mine, Mr. Burnham from Noo York."
+
+Amused, Burnham stepped into the breach. "How are you?" he said with
+the proper nuance of cordiality, offering his hand.
+
+Lockwood shook it unemotionally. "How de do?" he said, perfunctory.
+
+"I brought Mr. Burnham in to see Sam----"
+
+"Yes," Burnham interrupted Roland quickly; "Barnette's been kind enough
+to show me round town a bit."
+
+"Here on business?" inquired Lockwood pointedly.
+
+"No, not exactly," returned Burnham with practised ease, "just looking
+round."
+
+"Only lookin', eh?" Blinky's countenance underwent one of its erratic
+quakes as he examined Burnham with his habitual intentness.
+
+The New Yorker caught the wink and lost breath. "Ah--yes--that's all,"
+he assented uneasily. And as he spoke another wink dumbfounded him.
+"Why?" he asked, with a distinct loss of assurance. "Don't you believe
+it."
+
+"Don't see no reason why I shouldn't," grunted Blinky. "Hope you'll
+like what you see. Good day."
+
+"So long ... Mr. Lockwood," returned Burnham uncertainly.
+
+Lockwood paused outside the door. "Come 'long, Roland."
+
+"Yes, sir; right away; just a minute." Roland was lingering
+unwillingly, detained by Burnham's imperative hand. "What d'you want? I
+got to hurry."
+
+"What was he winking at me for?" demanded Burnham heatedly. "Have
+you----?"
+
+"Oh!" Roland laughed. "He wasn't winking. He can't help doing that.
+It's a twitchin' he's got in his eye. That's why they call him Blinky."
+
+"Oh, that was it!" Burnham accepted the explanation with distinct
+relief, while Duncan, who had been an unregarded spectator, suddenly
+found cause to retire behind one of the show-cases on important
+business.
+
+So that was the explanation!...
+
+After his paroxysm had subsided and he felt able to control his facial
+muscles, Duncan emerged, suave and solemn. Roland had disappeared with
+Blinky, and Burnham was alone.
+
+"Anything you wish, sir?" asked Nat.
+
+"Only to see Mr. Graham."
+
+"He's out just at present, but I think he'll be back in a moment or so.
+Will you wait? You'll find that chair comfortable, I think."
+
+"Believe I will," said Burnham with an air. He seated himself. "I can't
+wait long, though," he amended.
+
+"Yes, sir. And if you'll excuse me----?"
+
+Burnham's hand dismissed him with a tolerant wave. "Go right on about
+your business," he said with supreme condescension.
+
+And Duncan returned to his work in the backyard. It wasn't long before
+he found occasion to go back to the store, and by that time old Sam was
+there in conversation with Burnham. Neither noticed Nat as he entered,
+and to begin with he paid them little heed, being occupied with his
+task of depositing an armful of bottles without mishap and then placing
+them on the shelves. The hum of their voices from the other side of the
+counter struck an indifferent ear while he busied himself, but
+presently a word or phrase caught his interest, and he found himself
+listening, at first casually, then with waxing attention.
+
+"That's part of my business," he heard Burnham say in his sleek,
+oleaginous accents. "Sometimes I pick up an odd no-'count contraption
+that makes me a bit of money, and more times I'm stung and lose on it.
+It's all a gamble, of course, and I'm that way--like to take a gambling
+chance on anything that strikes my fancy--like that burner of yours."
+
+"Yes," Graham returned: "the gas arrangement."
+
+"It's a curious idea--quite different from the one I told you about;
+but I kinda took to it. There might be something to it, and again there
+mightn't. I've been thinking I might be willing to risk a few dollars
+on it, if we could come to terms."
+
+"Do you mean it, really?" said old Sam eagerly.
+
+"Not to invest in it, so to speak; I don't think it's chances are
+strong enough for that. But if you'd care to sell the patent outright
+and aren't too ambitious, we might make a dicker. What d'you say?"
+
+"Why, yes," said Graham, quivering with anticipation. "Yes, indeed,
+if--"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"If you really think it's worth anything, sir."
+
+"Well, as I say, there's no telling; but I was thinking about it at
+dinner, and I sort of concluded I'd like to own that burner, so I made
+out a little bill of sale, and I says to myself, says I: 'If Graham
+will take five hundred dollars for that patent, I'll give him spot
+cash, right in his hand,' says I."
+
+With this Burnham tipped back in his chair, and brought forth a wallet
+from which he drew a sheet of paper and several bills.
+
+"Five hundred dollars!" repeated Graham, thunderstruck by this
+munificence.
+
+"Yes, sir: five hundred, cash! To tell you the truth--guess you don't
+know it--I heard at the bank that they didn't intend to extend the time
+on that note of yours, and I thought this five hundred would come in
+handy, and kind of wanted to help you out. Now what do you say?"
+
+He flourished the bills under Graham's nose and waited, entirely at
+ease as to his answer.
+
+"Well," said the old man, "it is kind of you, sir--very kind. Everybody's
+been good to me recently--or else I'm dreamin'."
+
+"Then it's a bargain?"
+
+"Why, I hope it won't lose any money for you, Mr. Burnham," Sam
+hesitated, with his ineradicable sense of fairness and square-dealing.
+"Making gas from crude oil ought to--"
+
+Duncan never heard the end of that speech. For some moments he had been
+listening intently, trying to recollect something. The name of Burnham
+plucked a string on the instrument of his memory; he knew he had heard
+it, some place, some time in the past; but how, or when, or in respect
+to what he could not make up his mind. It had required Sam's reference
+to gas and crude oil to close the circuit. Then he remembered: Kellogg
+had mentioned a man by the name of Burnham who was "on the track of" an
+important invention for making gas from crude oil. This must be the
+man, Burnham, the tracker; and poor old Graham must be the tracked....
+
+Without warning Duncan ran round and made himself an uninvited third to
+the conference.
+
+"Mr. Graham, one moment!" he begged, excited. "Is this patent of yours
+on a process of making gas from crude oil?"
+
+Burnham looked up impatiently, frowning at the interruption, but Graham
+was all good humour.
+
+"Why, yes," he started to explain; "it's that burner over there that--"
+
+"But I wouldn't sell it just yet if I were you," said Nat. "It may be
+worth a good deal--"
+
+"Now look here!" Burnham got to his feet in anger. "What business 've
+you got butting into this?" he demanded, putting himself between Duncan
+and the inventor.
+
+"Me?" Duncan queried simply. "Only just because I'm a business man. If
+you don't believe it, ask Mr. Graham."
+
+"He's got a perfect right to advise me, Mr. Burnham," interposed
+Graham, rising.
+
+"Well, but--but what objection 've you got to his making a little money
+out of this patent?" Burnham blustered.
+
+"None; only I want to look into the matter first. I think it might be--
+ah--advisable."
+
+"What makes you think so?" demanded Burnham, his tone withering.
+
+"Well," said Nat, with an effort summoning his faculties to cope with a
+matter of strict business, "it's this way: I've got an _idea_," he
+said, poking at Burnham with the forefinger which had proven so
+effective with Pete Willing, "that you wouldn't offer five hundred iron
+men for this burner unless you expected to make something big out of
+it, and... it ought to be worth just as much to Mr. Graham as to you."
+
+"Ah, you don't know what you're talking about."
+
+"I know that," Nat admitted simply, "but I do happen to know you're
+promoting a scheme for making gas from crude oil, and if Mr. Graham
+will listen to me you won't get his patent until I've consulted my
+friend, Henry Kellogg."
+
+"_Kellogg!_"
+
+"Yes. You know--of L.J. Bartlett & Company." Nat's forefinger continued
+to do deadly work. Burnham backed away from it as from a fiery brand.
+
+"Oh, well!" he said, dashed, "if you're representing Kellogg"--and Nat
+took care not to refute the implication--"I--I don't want to interfere.
+Only," he pursued at random, in his discomfiture, "I can't see why he
+sent you here."
+
+"I'd be ashamed to tell you," Nat returned with an open smile. "Better
+ask him."
+
+Burnham gathered his wits together for a final threat. "That's what I
+will do!" he threatened. "And I'll do it the minute I can see him. You
+can bet on that, Mister What's-Your-Name!"
+
+"No, I can't," said Nat naïvely. "I'm not allowed to gamble."
+
+His ingenuous expression exasperated Burnham. The man lost control of
+his temper at the same moment that he acknowledged to himself his
+defeat. In disgust he turned away.
+
+"Oh, there's no use talking to you--"
+
+"That's right," Nat agreed fairly.
+
+"But I'll see you again, Mr. Graham--"
+
+"Not alone, if I can help it, Mr. Burnham," Duncan amended sweetly.
+
+"But," Burnham continued, severely ignoring Nat and addressing himself
+squarely to Graham, "you take my tip and don't do any business with
+this fellow until you find out who he is." He flung himself out of the
+shop with a barked: "Good-day!"
+
+"Well, Mr. Graham?" Duncan turned a little apprehensively to the
+inventor. But Sam's expression was almost one of beatific content. His
+weak old lips were pursed, his eyes half-closed, his finger tips
+joined, and he was rocking back and forth on his heels.
+
+"Margaret used to talk that way, sometimes," he remarked. "She was the
+best woman in the world--and the wisest. She used to take care of me
+and protect me from my foolish impulses, just as you do, my boy...."
+
+For a space Duncan kept silent, respecting the old man's memories, and
+a great deal humbled in spirit by the parallel Sam had drawn. Then: "I
+was afraid what I said would sound queer to you, sir," he ventured--
+"that you mightn't understand that I'm not here to do you out of your
+invention..."
+
+"There's nothing on earth, my boy,"--Graham's hand fell on Nat's arm--
+"could make me think that. But five hundred dollars, you see, would
+have repaid you for taking up that note, and--and I could have bought
+Betty a new dress for the party. But I'm sure you've done what's best.
+You're a business man--"
+
+"Don't!" Nat pleaded wildly. "I've been called that so much of late
+that it's beginning to hurt!"
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+
+MOSTLY ABOUT BETTY
+
+Sam Graham said to me, that night: "I don't know when so many things
+have happened to me in so short a time. It don't seem hardly possible
+it's only four days since that boy came in here asking for a job. It's
+wonderful, simply wonderful, the change he's made."
+
+He waved a comprehensive hand, and I, glancing round the transformed
+store, agreed with him. Everything was spick and span and mighty
+attractive--clean and neat-looking--with the new stock in the shining
+cases and arranged on the glistening white shelves: not all of it set
+out by any means, of course, but no unplaced goods in sight, cluttering
+up the counters or kicking round the floor.
+
+"The way he's worked----! You'd hardly believe it, Homer. He said he
+wanted to get home early so's to write a letter to a friend of his in
+New York, a Mr. Kellogg, junior member of L. J. Bartlett & Company,
+about my invention. But he insisted on leaving everything to rights for
+business to-morrow. And just look!"
+
+"But I thought Roland Barnette----?" I suggested with guile. Of
+course I'd heard a rumour of what had happened--'most everyone in town
+had--and how Roland and his friend, Mr. Burnham, had sort of fallen out
+on the way from the Bigelow House to the train; but no one knew
+anything definite, and I wanted to get "the rights of it," as Radville
+says.
+
+So I had dropped in at Graham's, on my way home from the office, as I
+often do, for an evening smoke and a bit of gossip: something I rarely
+indulge in, but which I've found has a curious psychological effect on
+the circulation of the _Citizen_--like a tonic. Sam was just at
+the point of closing up. He was alone, Duncan having gone home about an
+hour earlier, and Betty being upstairs, while (since it was quite
+half-past nine) all the rest of Radville, with few exceptions (chiefly
+to be noted at Schwartz's and round the Bigelow House bar) was making
+its final rounds of the day: locking the front door, putting out the
+lamp in its living-room, banking the fire in the range, ejecting the
+cat from the kitchen and wiping out the sink, and finally, odoriferous
+kerosene lamp in hand, climbing slowly to the stuffy upstairs
+bed-chamber. Indeed, the lights of Radville begin to go out about
+half-past eight; by ten, as a rule, the town is as lively as a
+cemetery.
+
+But I am by nature inexorable and merciless, a masterful man with such
+as old Sam; and it was an hour later before I left him, drained of
+the last detail of the day. He was a weary man, but a happy one, when
+he bade me good-night, and I myself felt a little warmed by his
+cheerfulness as I plodded up Main Street through the thick oppression
+of darkness beneath the elms.
+
+After a time I became aware that someone was overtaking me, and waited,
+thinking at first it would be one of my people. But it wasn't long
+before I recognised from the quick tempo of the approaching footfalls
+that this was no Radvillian. There was just light enough--starlight
+striking down through the thinner spaces in the interlacing foliage--to
+make visible a moving shadow, and when it drew nearer I saluted it with
+confidence.
+
+"Good-evening, Mr. Duncan."
+
+He stopped short, peering through the gloom. "Good-evening, but--Mr.
+Littlejohn? Glad to see you." He joined me and we proceeded homeward,
+he moderating his stride a trifle in deference to my age. "Aren't you
+late?"
+
+"A bit," I admitted. "I've been gossiping with Sam Graham."
+
+"Oh...?"
+
+"You're out late yourself, Mr. Duncan, for one of such regular, not to
+say abnormal, habits."
+
+He laughed lightly. "Had a letter I wanted to catch the first morning
+train."
+
+"Then you're interested in Sam's burner?"
+
+"No, I'm not, but I hope to interest others....Oh, yes: Mr. Graham
+told you about it, of course.... It just struck me that if a man of
+Burnham's stamp was willing to risk five hundred dollars on the
+proposition, he very likely foresaw a profit in it that might as well
+be Mr. Graham's. So I've sent a detailed description of the thing to a
+friend in New York, who'll look into it for me."
+
+He was silent for a little.
+
+"Who's Colonel Bohun?" he asked suddenly.
+
+"Why do you ask?"
+
+"I saw him this evening. He was passing the store and stopped to glare
+in as if he hated it--stopped so long that I got nervous and asked Miss
+Lockwood (she'd just happened in for a parting glass--of soda) whether
+he was an anarchist or a retired burglar. She told me his name, but was
+otherwise inhumanly reticent."
+
+"For Josie?" I chuckled; but he didn't respond. So I took up the tale
+of the first family of Radville.
+
+"The story runs," said I, "that the Bohuns were one of the F.F.V.'s;
+that they sickened of slavery, freed their slaves and moved North, to
+settle in Radville. I _believe_ they came from somewhere round
+Lynchburg; but that was a couple of generations ago. When the Civil War
+broke out the old Colonel up there"--I gestured vaguely in the general
+direction of the Bohun mansion--"couldn't keep out of it, and
+naturally he couldn't fight with the North. He won his spurs under
+Lee.... After the war had blown over he came home, to find that his
+only son had enlisted with the Radville company and disappeared at
+Gettysburg. It pretty nearly killed the old man--though he wasn't so
+old then; but there's fire in the Bohun blood, and his boy's action
+seemed to him nothing less than treason."
+
+"And that's what soured him on the world?"
+
+"Not altogether. He had a daughter--Margaret. She was the most
+beautiful woman in the world...." I suspect my voice broke a little
+just there, for there was a shade of respectful sympathy in the
+monosyllable with which he filled the pause. "He swore she should never
+marry a Northerner, but she did; I guess, being a Bohun, she had to,
+after hearing she must not. There were two of us that loved her, but
+she chose Sam Graham...."
+
+"Why," he said awkwardly--"I'm sorry."
+
+"I'm not: she was right, if I couldn't see it that way. They ran away--
+and so did I. I went East, but they came back to Radville. Colonel
+Bohun never forgave them, but they were very happy till she died.
+Betty's their daughter, of course: Sam's not the kind that marries more
+than once."
+
+Duncan thought this over without comment until we reached our gate.
+There he paused for a moment.
+
+"He's got plenty of money, I presume--old Bohun?"
+
+"So they say. Probably not much now, but a great deal more than he
+needs."
+
+"Then why doesn't somebody get after the old scoundrel and make him do
+something for that poor--for Miss Graham?" he asked indignantly.
+
+"He tried it once, but they wouldn't listen. His conditions were
+impossible," I explained. "She was to renounce her father and take the
+name of Bohun------."
+
+"What rot!" Duncan growled. "What an old fiend he must be! Of course he
+knew she'd refuse."
+
+"I suspect he did."
+
+Duncan hesitated a bit longer. "Anyhow," he said suddenly, "somebody
+ought to get after him and make him see the thing the right way."
+
+"S'pose you try it, Mr. Duncan?" I suggested maliciously, as we went up
+the walk.
+
+He stopped at the door. "Perhaps I shall," he said slowly.
+
+"I'd advise you not to. The last man that tried it has no desire to
+repeat the experiment."
+
+"Who was he?"
+
+"An old fool named Homer Littlejohn."
+
+Duncan put out his hand. "Shake!" he insisted. "We'll talk this over
+another time."
+
+We went in very quietly, lit our candles, and with elaborate care
+avoided the home-made burglar-alarm (a complicated arrangement of
+strings and tinpans on the staircase, which Miss Carpenter insists on
+maintaining ever since Roland Barnette missed a dollar bill and
+insisted his pocket had been picked on Main Street) and so mounted to
+our rooms. As we were entering (our doors adjoin) a thought delayed my
+good-night.
+
+"By the way, did you get your invitation to Josie Lockwood's party, Mr.
+Duncan? I happened to see it on the hall table this evening."
+
+"Yes," he assented quietly.
+
+"It's to be the social event of the year. I hope you'll enjoy it."
+
+"I'm not going."
+
+"Not going!... Why not?"
+
+"It's against the rules at first--I mean, business rules. I'll be so
+busy at the store, you know."
+
+"Josie'll be disappointed."
+
+"Thank you," said he gratefully. "Good-night."
+
+Alone, I was fain to confess he baffled my understanding.
+
+The rush of business to Graham's began the following morning: Duncan's
+hands were full almost from the first, and he had to relegate such
+matters as making final disposition of his stock and getting acquainted
+with it to the intervals between waiting upon customers. Old Sam must
+have put up more prescriptions in the next few days than he had within
+the last five years. Everybody wanted to take a look at the renovated
+store, shake Sam's hand, and see what the new partner was really like.
+Sothern and Lee's was for some days quite deserted, especially after
+Duncan took a leaf out of their book, bought an ice-cream freezer and
+began to serve dabs of cream in the sody. I've always maintained that
+our Radville folks are pretty thoroughly sot in their ways (the phrase
+is local), but the way they flocked to Graham's forced me to amend the
+aphorism with the clause: "except when their curiosity is aroused."
+Every woman in town wanted to know what Graham and Duncan carried that
+Sothern and Lee didn't, and how much cheaper they were than the more
+established concern; also they wanted to know Mr. Duncan. I suspect no
+drug-store ever had so many inquiries for articles that it didn't
+carry, but might possibly, or ought to, in the estimation of the
+prospective purchasers, as well as that at no time had Radvillians
+happened to think of so many things that they could get at a
+druggist's. People drove in from as far as twenty miles away, as soon
+as the news reached them, to buy notepaper and stamps--people who
+didn't write or receive a letter a month. Will Bigelow, even, dropped
+round and bought samples of the tobacco stock, from two-fors up to
+ten-centers--and smoked them with expressive snorts. Tracey Tanner's
+soda and cigarette trade was transferred bodily to Graham's from the
+first, and Roland Barnette gave it his patronage, albeit grudgingly, as
+soon as he found it impossible to shake Josie Lockwood's allegiance. I
+say grudgingly, because Roland didn't like the new partner, and had
+said so from the first. But everyone else did like him, almost without
+exception. His attentiveness and courtesy were not ungrateful after the
+way things were thrown at you at Sothern and Lee's, we declared.
+
+Duncan certainly did strive to please. No man ever worked harder in a
+Radville store than he did. And from the time that he began to believe
+there would be some reward for his exertions, that the business was
+susceptible to being built up by the employment of progressive methods,
+he grew astonishingly prolific of ideas, from our sleepy point of view.
+The window displays were changed almost daily, to begin with, and were
+made as interesting as possible; we learned to go blocks out of our way
+to find out what Graham and Duncan were exploiting to-day. And daily
+bargain sales were instituted--low-priced articles of everyday use,
+such as shaving soap, tooth brushes, and the like, being sold at a
+few cents above cost on certain days which were announced in advance by
+means of hand-lettered cards in the show-windows; whereas formerly we
+had always been obliged to pay full list-prices. An axiom of his creed
+as it developed was to the effect that stock must not be allowed to
+stand idle upon the shelves; if there were no call for a certain line
+of articles, it must be stimulated. I remember that, some time along in
+August, he began to worry about the inactivity in cough-syrups.
+
+"No one wants cough-syrups in summer," he told Graham; "that stuff's
+been here six weeks and more. It's getting out of training. Needs
+exercise. Look at this bottle: it says: 'Shake well.' Now it hasn't
+been shaken at all since it was put on the shelves, and I haven't got
+time to shake it every morning. We must either hire a boy to give it
+regular exercise, or sell it off and get in a fresh supply for the
+winter. I'll have to think up some scheme to make 'em take it off our
+hands."
+
+He did. Somehow or other he managed to convince us that forewarned was
+forearmed, that it was better to have a bottle or two of cough-syrup in
+our medicine chests at home than on the shelves of the drug-store, when
+the chill autumnal winds began to blow, especially when you could buy
+it now for thirty-nine cents, whereas it would be fifty-four in
+October.
+
+Still earlier in his career as a business man he noticed that the local
+practitioners wrote their prescriptions on odd scraps of paper.
+
+"That's all wrong," he declared. "We'll have to fix it." And by next
+morning the job-printing press back of the Court House was groaning
+under an order from Graham and Duncan's, and a few days later every
+physician within several miles of Radville received half a dozen neat
+pads of blanks with his name and address printed at the top and the
+advice across the bottom: "Go to Graham's for the best and purest drugs
+and chemicals." The backs of the blanks were utilised to request people
+living out of reach, but on rural free delivery routes, either to mail
+their prescriptions and other orders in, or have the physicians
+telephone them, promising to fill and despatch them by the first post.
+
+For he had a telephone installed within the first fortnight, and the
+next day advertised in the _Gazette_ that orders by telephone
+would receive prompt attention and be delivered without delay. Tracey
+Tanner became his delivery-boy, deserting his father's stables for the
+obvious advantages of three dollars a week with a chance to learn the
+business.... Sothern and Lee were quick to recognise the advantage the
+telephone gave Graham and Duncan, and promptly had one put in their
+store; but the delay had proven almost fatal: Radville had already
+got into the habit of telephoning to Graham's for a cake of soap, or
+whatnot, and it's hard to break a Radville habit.
+
+As business increased and the stock turned itself over at a profit,
+Duncan began to branch out, to make improvements and introduce new
+lines of goods. He it was who inoculated Radville with the habit of
+buying manufactured candies. Up to the time of his advent, we had been
+accustomed to and content with home-made taffies and fudges--and were,
+I've no doubt, vastly better off on that account. But Duncan, starting
+with a line of five- and ten-cent packages of indigestible sweets, in
+time made arrangements with a big Pittsburgh confectionery concern to
+ship him a small consignment of pound and half-pound "fancy" boxes of
+chocolates and bonbons twice a week. And taffy-pulls and fudge parties
+lapsed into desuetude.
+
+Later, Sperry introduced him to an association of druggists, of which
+he became a member, for the maintenance and exploitation of the cigar
+and tobacco trade in connection with the drug business. They installed
+at Graham's a handsome show-case and fixtures especially for the sale
+and display of cigars, and thereafter it was possible to purchase
+smokable tobacco in our town.
+
+Again, he treated Radville to its first circulating library,
+establishing a branch in the store. One could buy a book at a moderate
+price, and either keep it or exchange it for a fee of a few cents. I
+disputed the wisdom of this move, alleging, and with reason, that
+Radville didn't read modern fiction to any extent. But Duncan argued
+that it didn't matter. "They're going to try it on as a novelty, to
+begin with," he said, "and it'll bring 'em into the store for a few
+exchanges, at least. That's all I want. Once we get 'em in here, it'll
+be hard if we can't sell them something else. You'll see."
+
+He was right.
+
+Undoubtedly he made the business hum during those first few months; and
+after that it settled down to a steady forward movement. The store
+became a social centre, a place for people to meet. In time Tracey was
+promoted to be assistant and another boy engaged to make deliveries.
+... And Duncan had never been happier; he had found something he could
+understand and, understanding, accomplish; there was work for his hands
+to do, and they had discovered they could do it successfully. I don't
+believe he stopped to think about it very much, but he was conscious of
+that glow of achievement, that heightening of the spirits, that comes
+with the knowledge of success, be that success however insignificant,
+and it benefited him enormously....
+
+But this chronicle of progress has run away altogether with a desultory
+pen, which started to tell why Duncan didn't want to go to Josie
+Lockwood's party. I was long in finding out, but not so long as Duncan
+himself, perhaps; by which I mean to say that he was conscious of the
+desire not to go, and determined not to, without stopping to analyse
+the cause of that desire more than very superficially.
+
+It happened, toward the close of the eventful day already detailed at
+such length, that as Duncan was entering the house with a load of boxed
+goods, he heard voices in the store--young voices, of which one was
+already too familiar to his ears. He paused, waiting for them to get
+through with their business and go; for he had no time to waste just
+then, even upon the heiress of his manufactured destiny. Betty was
+keeping shop at the time (old Sam having gone upstairs for a little
+rest, who was overwrought and weary with the excitement of that day)
+and it was Duncan's hope that she would be able to serve the customers
+without his assistance.
+
+There were two of them, you see--Josie and Angle Tuthill--hunting as
+usual in couples; and while he waited, not meaning to eavesdrop but
+unwilling to betray his whereabouts by moving, he heard very clearly
+their passage with Betty.
+
+He overheard first, distinctly, Betty responding in expressionless
+voice: "Hello, Angie.... Hello, Josie."
+
+There ensued what seemed a slightly awkward pause. Then Josie,
+painfully sweet: "Did you get the invitation, Betty?"
+
+Betty moved into Duncan's range of vision, apparently intending to come
+and call him. She turned at the question, and he saw her small, thin
+little body and pinched face _en silhouette_ against the fading
+light beyond. He saw, too, that she was stiffening herself as if for
+some unequal contest.
+
+"The invitation?" she questioned dully, but with her head up and
+steady.
+
+"Why," said Josie, "I sent you one. To the party, you know--my lawn
+feet next week."
+
+I give the local pronunciation as it is.
+
+"Did you?"
+
+"I gave it to Tracey for you," persisted the tormentor. "Didn't you get
+it?"
+
+Betty caught at her breath, inaudibly; only Duncan could see the little
+spasm of mortification and anger that shook her.
+
+"Oh, perhaps I did," she said shortly. "I--I'll ask Mr. Duncan to wait
+on you."
+
+She swung quickly out into the hallway, slamming the door behind her
+and so darkening it that she didn't detect Duncan's shadowed figure.
+And if she had meant to call him, she must have forgotten it; for an
+instant later he heard her stumbling up the stairs, and as she
+disappeared he caught the echo of a smothered sob.
+
+He waited, motionless, too disturbed at the time to care to enter the
+store and endure Josie's vapid advances; and through the thin partition
+there came to him their comments on Betty's ungracious behaviour.
+
+"Well!... _did_ you ever!"
+
+That was Angle; Josie chimed in the same key: "Oh, what did you expect
+from that kind of a girl?"
+
+"_Ssh!_ maybe he's coming!"
+
+After a moment's silence, Josie: "Oh, come on. Don't let's wait any
+longer. I don't think it's healthy to drink sody so soon before dinner,
+anyway."
+
+"And, besides, we only wanted to hear--"
+
+Their voices with their footsteps diminished. Duncan allowed a prudent
+interval to elapse, entered the store and began to bestow the goods he
+had brought in.
+
+While he was at work the light failed. He stopped for lack of it just
+as Betty came downstairs.
+
+"Hello!" he said cheerfully. "Know where the matches are?"
+
+"Yes." She moved behind a counter and fetched him a few. "Are you 'most
+done?" she inquired, not unfriendly, as he took down from its bracket
+one of the oil lamps.
+
+"Hardly," he responded, touching a light to the wick and replacing the
+chimney. "It's a good deal of a job."
+
+"Yes..."
+
+He replaced the lamp, and in the act of turning toward another caught a
+glimpse of the girl's face, pale and drawn, her eyes a trifle reddened.
+And with that commonsense departed from him, leaving him wholly a prey
+to his impulse of pity. "Oh, thunder!" he told himself, thrusting a
+hand into his pocket. "I might as well be broke as the way I am now."
+He produced the scanty remains of his "grubstake."
+
+"Miss Graham..."
+
+"Yes?" she asked, wondering.
+
+"Could you get a party dress for thirty-four dollars?"
+
+"Thirty-four dollars!" she faltered.
+
+He discovered what small change he had in his pocket: it was like him
+to be extravagant, even extreme. "And fifty-three cents?" he pursued,
+with a nervous laugh.
+
+"Heavens!" the girl gasped. "I should think so!"
+
+"Then go ahead!" He offered her the money, but she could only stare,
+incredulous. "I'll stake you."
+
+"Oh..._no_, Mr. Duncan," she managed to say.
+
+"Oh, yes!" He tried to catch one of the hands that involuntarily had
+risen toward her face in a gesture of wonder. "Please do," he begged,
+his tone persuasive, "as a favour to me."
+
+But she evaded him, stepping back. "I couldn't take it; I couldn't
+really."
+
+"Yes, you can. Just try it once, and see how easy it is," he persisted,
+pursuing.
+
+"No, I can't." She looked up shyly and shook her head, that smile of
+her mother's for the moment illuminating her face almost with the
+radiance of beauty. "But I--I thank you very much--just the same."
+
+"But I want you to go to that party..."
+
+"You're awful' kind," she said softly, still smiling, "but I don't care
+to go, now. I--"
+
+"Don't care to! Why, you were insisting on going, a little while ago."
+
+"Yes," she admitted simply, "I know I was. But ... I've been thinking
+over what you said, since then, and I ... I've made up my mind I'd be
+out of place there."
+
+"Out of place!" he echoed, thunderstruck.
+
+"Yes. I've concluded I belong here in the store with father." She half
+turned away. "And I guess folks is better off if they stay where they
+belong...."
+
+
+She went slowly from the room, and he remained staring, stupefied.
+
+"You never can tell about a woman," he concluded with all the gravity
+of an original philosopher.
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+
+MANOEUVRES OF JOSIE
+
+Nat didn't go to the Lockwood lawn fête, and did excuse himself on the
+plea of being unable to leave the store. I'm afraid the young man had a
+faint, fond hope that Josie would be offended; but his excuse was
+accepted without remonstrance. And, indeed, it was at that time quite a
+reasonable one. Tracey had not been added to the staff, although
+business was booming, and Saturday night is, as everyone who has lived
+in a Radville knows, the busiest of the week; all the stores keep open
+late on Saturday--some as late as eleven--and frequently take in half
+the week's income between noon and the closing hour. Duncan really
+couldn't be spared; so it's probable that Josie cloaked her
+disappointment and comforted herself with the assurance that her
+selection of the day had been an error in judgment, of which she would
+not again be guilty.
+
+But the party came off, without fail, and that on a wonderful, still,
+moonlit night; and everybody voted it a splendid success. The
+_Citizen_ in its next issue recorded the event to the extent of a
+column and a half of reading matter, called it a social function, and
+described the gowns of the leading ladies of society present in
+bewildering phrases. I was not invited, but the owner of the paper was,
+and his wife wrote the description with the assistance of the entire
+editorial and reportorial force, a dictionary and some evil if
+suppressed language from the foreman of the composing-room. I read
+the proofs with an admiration strongly tinctured with awe, and found
+it lacking in one particular only: no mention was made of Roland
+Barnette's first open-faced suit.
+
+Roland had ordered it from a clothing-house in Chicago, and it arrived
+just in time. Having heard all about it from Roland's own lips (they
+dilated upon the matter to Watty the tailor, just beneath my window), I
+sort of hung round downtown Saturday evening in the hope of catching
+a glimpse of it, and was not disappointed. I was loitering in Graham's
+when Roland sauntered nonchalantly in at about a quarter to eight and
+called for a pack of "Sweets." Sam served him, and Duncan, happily for
+him disengaged at the moment, after one look at Roland retired
+precipitately behind the prescription counter--overcome, I judged from
+Roland's triumphant smirk, by deepest chagrin. Well, thought I, might
+he have been: he could never, by whatever wildest endeavour, have
+approximated Roland's splendour.
+
+The coat was bob-tailed (at least, so Watty described it within my
+hearing) and curiously double-breasted, caught together at the waist
+with a single button, thus revealing a shining expanse of very stiff
+shirt-bosom; which creaked, for some reason. With this Roland wore a
+ribbed white-silk waistcoat, very brilliant low-cut patent leather
+shoes, and white-silk socks. The trousers were strikingly cut, as to
+each leg, after the physical configuration of the domestic pear, and
+the effect of the whole was measurably enhanced by an opera-hat--one
+of those tall and striking contraptions that you can shut up by
+pressing gently but firmly upon the human midriff and looking
+unconscious, but which is apt to open with a resounding report if
+you're not careful... I am glad to be able to report that Roland failed
+to commit the solecism of wearing a red string tie; his tie was a
+sober black, firmly knotted at the factory. I'm glad too, for the
+sartorial honour of Radville, that Roland knew how to wear such
+fixin's: that is to say, with an expression of proud defiance.
+
+After he had departed, stepping high, Sam called me behind the counter
+to assist in reviving Duncan. We found him leaning upon the counter,
+his forehead resting upon a mortar, very red in the face and breathing
+stertorously; and when Sam addressed him, to learn what was the matter,
+he seemed unable to speak, but choked and beat the air feebly with his
+hands. Sam concluded he had swallowed something, and was, I think,
+right; he was plainly half strangled, and only recovered after we had
+beaten his back severely. Then he refused any explanation, beyond
+saying that he was subject to such seizures.
+
+After the party the town's excitement simmered down and subsided; we
+had become moderately accustomed to the presence of Duncan in our midst
+(strange as this may sound), and for some time nothing happened germane
+to the fate of the Fortune Hunter.
+
+On his part, he fell into a routine without the least evidence of
+discontent. He was early to rise and early to work, and rarely left the
+store save at meal hours and closing-up time. And in the course of our
+serene days, I began to notice in him an increasing interest in the
+affairs of the church; he seemed to look forward with a not uneager
+anticipation to the fixtures of its calendar. He attended with
+admirable regularity both morning and evening services, on Sunday, the
+mid-weekly prayer-meeting, and Friday evening choir practice. For in
+the course of time he had been won over to join the choir, and modestly
+discovered to our edification a barytone voice, wholly untrained but
+not unpleasing. Mrs. Rogers, our organist, averred his superiority to
+Packy Soule, whom he superseded, and was supported in this estimate by
+the remainder of the choir, with the exception of Roland Barnette,
+who helped with his reedy tenor. Josie Lockwood sang contralto and Bess
+Gabriel what we were informed was soprano--only Radville called it a
+treble. Tracey Tanner pumped the organ and puffed audibly in the
+pauses--a singular testimony to his devotion to Angie Tuthill, who
+"just sang" with the others, chiefly because she was Josie's nearest
+friend.
+
+I remember that, one Sunday night after evening service, Duncan
+confided to me, quite seriously, "that the church thing was getting to
+him." He seemed somewhat surprised, to a degree indignant, as if he
+suspected religion of having taken an advantage of him in some
+roundabout, underhand way.... He wondered audibly what Harry would
+think if he could see him now.
+
+He had settled down to a pretty steady correspondence with Kellogg,
+chiefly on business matters. Kellogg was investigating old Sam's
+burner, and seemed quite impressed with its possibilities. He had
+quarrelled with Roland's friend, Burnham, on Duncan's representations,
+and ordered him out of the offices of L. J. Bartlett & Company, it
+seemed. Later he opened up negotiations with a corporation known as the
+Modern Gas Company, I believe, a competitor of Consolidated Petroleum,
+and in due course representatives of both concerns came to Radville,
+examined the burner, and retired, non-committal. Then Bartlett sent
+a requisition for a model, and supplied the funds for making it--thus
+demonstrating his confidence. Sam never had such a good time in his
+life as when occupied with that model, and in his elation was inspired
+to invent two notable improvements on the machine--which were promptly
+patented. Then the model was despatched, receipt acknowledged, and
+nothing ensued for three or four months. Radville, which had been
+watching and wondering with open incredulity and dissatisfaction (this
+latter because neither Graham nor Duncan would talk about the matter),
+concluded that the whole business had gone up in smoke, said "I told ye
+so," and forgot it completely. Roland Barnette, I believe, drove the
+last nail in the coffin of our expectations that anything would ever
+come of it, by writing to Burnham that Duncan's negotiations had
+failed, and inviting him to renew his offer if he thought it worth
+while. Presumably he didn't, for Roland received no reply, and told the
+town so....
+
+I don't remember just how soon it was, but it was shortly after the
+formation of the firm of Graham and Duncan that the young man received
+his first invitation to dinner at the Lockwoods'. He accepted, of
+course, whether he wanted to or not, for there could be no excuse for
+his refusing a Sunday bid, and the Lockwoods made quite an event of
+it. The Soules were invited, because they were Araminta Lockwood's
+brother and sister-in-law, and the Godfreys came over from Westerly to
+grace the board as representatives of the Lockwood strain. Also Ben
+Lockwood attended--Blinky's first cousin and senior.
+
+Duncan described the function in a letter to Kellogg as the time of his
+young life. Undoubtedly it was in certain respects singular in his
+experience. The entire party walked home from church through a hot
+August noon, with that air of chastened joy common to a gathering of
+relations--an atmosphere of festive gloom and funeral baked meats
+painfully enlivened by exhilarating jests from old Ben, who was a
+connoisseur of vintages when it came to jokes. Duncan wished
+fervently, first that he might expire; secondly, and with greater
+intensity of feeling, that they all might die. Minta Lockwood, he felt,
+was slowly but expertly greasing him with adulation--as a python
+prepares its prey before dining (or is it a python?)--and he knew he
+was presently to be swallowed alive.
+
+They dined protractedly. The meal, consisting of baked chicken, mashed
+potatoes, boiled onions with cream sauce, boiled beets and green corn,
+followed by rhubarb pie and ice cream, was served by an independent,
+bony and red-faced specimen of the "help" genus. The atmosphere was
+stifling, with the heat of the day thickened by the steam and odour of
+cooked food. Duncan was seated consciously beside Josie--a circumstance
+of which, in fact, everyone else seemed tolerantly aware. He writhed in
+impotent agony, confronted alone by the consciousness he had brought
+this thing upon himself: it was a part of his punishment.
+
+At the conclusion of the meal, which endured throughout two
+interminable hours, the elder menfolk withdrew to the garden and the
+lawn, where they strolled about, sleepy eyes glistening with repletion,
+until finally they disappeared, to each his doze. The ladies
+foregathered in the parlour, conversing in undertones, with significant
+glances and liftings of their eyebrows. Nat was left to Josie, who
+conducted him to the side porch, out of sight of everybody, and planted
+herself in the baggy hammock there. She was gay, even brilliant within
+her limitations, arch, naïve, coquettish, shy, petulant, by turns:
+animated by a sense of conquest. She supplied the major part of the
+conversation, chatting volubly on the thousand subjects she didn't
+understand, the dozen she did. In the most ingenuous manner imaginable
+she laid herself open to advances, not once, but a score of times; and
+when he failed to respond according to the code of Radville, had the
+wit to mask her chagrin, did she feel any: very probably she laid his
+lack of responsiveness at the door of his shyness (a quality he was
+wholly without) and liked him the better for it.
+
+It was on this day that she extracted from him his promise to join the
+choir; he acceded through apathy alone.
+
+"I don't care whether you can sing or not," she confessed, with a look.
+"But I do want somebody to walk home with me that ... I like."
+
+"That's a nice way of putting it," Duncan considered without emphasis.
+
+"Roland Barnette's always walked home with me, but I think he's just
+tiresome."
+
+"Why?" inquired the young man, with some interest.
+
+She averted her head, plucking at the strands of the hammock. "Oh,
+_you_ know," she said diffidently.
+
+"Oh?" Nat was enlightened. "Then I'm sorry for Roland."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"I can't blame him, you know." He couldn't help this: the time, the
+place, the girl inspired, indeed incited, one to banality.
+
+"Why?" she persisted.
+
+"Oh, _you_ know." He caught the intonation of her previous words
+precisely.
+
+She had the grace to blush and hang her head; but he received a
+thrilling sidelong glance.
+
+"Ah... aren't you awful to talk that way, Mr. Duncan?"
+
+"Yes," he admitted meekly.
+
+"Then you will join the choir?" she pursued, failing to fathom the
+meaning of that humble acquiescence. Any other boy or man of her
+acquaintance would have taken her remark as openly provocative.
+
+"Oh, yes," he agreed listlessly.
+
+"I'm so glad..."
+
+He thanked her, but avoided her eye.
+
+"We might's well begin to-night," she suggested presently, with
+diffident, downcast eyes.
+
+"What--the choir?" He was startled. "Oh, I couldn't without a
+rehearsal--"
+
+"No, I didn't mean that..."
+
+"No?"
+
+"I mean about Roland." She was paying minute attention to the lace
+insertion of her skirt. From this circumstance he divined that he was
+on dangerous ground, but could not, in his stupidity, understand just
+what made it dangerous.
+
+"About Roland--?"
+
+"Yes; I mean... You know what I mean, Mr. Duncan?"
+
+"I assure you I do not, Miss Lockwood."
+
+"About not walking home with him any more. I don't want to. I wish
+you'd commence to-night, instead of choir practice night. I'd much
+rather walk home with you."
+
+"After evening service, you mean?" She nodded. "It'll be a great
+pleasure."
+
+"Really?" She gave him her eyes now.
+
+"Really," he assured her.
+
+"Ah, I don't believe you mean that!"
+
+"But indeed I do...."
+
+It was not until nearly five o'clock that he was given a chance to
+escape. He had, even then, to refuse inflexibly an invitation to stay
+to supper.
+
+Minta Lockwood--an expansive woman, generously convex--almost
+smothered him with appreciation of his thanks. She held his hand in a
+large, moist palm and beamed upon him, saying: "Now't you know the way,
+Mr. Duncan...."
+
+"Yes," Blinky insisted, blinking roguishly, "drop in any time. Take pot
+luck. We're plain people, Mr. Duncan, but allus glad to see our
+friends. Drop in any time."
+
+Josie accompanied him to the front gate, where etiquette required him
+to linger for a parting chat....
+
+"Good-bye." The girl gave him her hand. "I'm real glad you came--at
+last."
+
+"The pleasure has been all mine," insisted the gallant bromide, fishing
+the trite phrase desperately from the grey vacuity of his thoughts.
+"You won't forget?"
+
+"Forget what?"
+
+"About to-night?"
+
+"Do you imagine I could?..."
+
+Josie returned to the family conclave, to interrupt a symposium on
+Duncan's qualities. He was unanimously approved, on every point. She
+took no part in the conversation, but listened, aglow with the pride of
+triumph, until old Ben chose to observe:
+
+"He seems to've taken a right smart set for Josie."
+
+Then she rose, blushing, and tossed her pretty, pert head. "How you all
+do talk!" she cried. "I'm not thinking about Mr. Duncan that way." And
+she left the gathering.
+
+"You might's well begin now as later," pursued her, accompanied by
+chucklings; and she tossed her head, but wasn't at all displeased, be
+sure.
+
+Duncan wrote to Kellogg in his room that night after church: "I don't
+want to sound immodest, but it looks as if you were right, old man:
+apparently there's nothing to it...
+
+"Probably I should have stayed on for supper, but I couldn't; I should
+have choked. As it was, my soul was curdling. Another ten minutes and I
+should have jumped down on the lawn and run round the house on all
+fours, yapping and foaming at the mouth, and have wound up by
+biting old Blinky..
+
+"The worst of it all is, I know I'm ungrateful: I know they mean well.
+But why is it that people who mean well almost invariably grate upon
+your sensibilities like the screeching of a slate-pencil?
+
+"In this case, I suspect it's a case of when Snob meets Snob. A snob, I
+take it, is a fellow who holds himself your superior because he looks
+at things in a different way. That counts me a snob in my mental
+attitude toward the Lockwoods. I don't understand their conception of
+life--wasn't brought up to understand it. And yet I know they're not a
+bad sort, though they bore me to death what time I'm not laughing in my
+sleeve at them. Blinky, for instance, is an old screw, but he can't
+help that; he was born that way; and aside from the fact that money has
+made him snobbish toward his neighbours, he's a simple, honest,
+square-dealing (according to his lights) old Jasper. He's not snobbish
+toward me, because I've got something he admires but can't understand
+and never can acquire; but he's a snob of the first water when it comes
+to somebody like this old prince I'm working for--Graham--and his
+daughter. And so is Josie....
+
+"But I mustn't say mean things about my future spouse, I presume....
+That is the great trouble with your infernal scheme, Harry: it seems
+to be working like a charm, and now that I've got something to do I'm
+not so strong for it as I was. But I gave you my word. ... Only, mind
+this: if the rules prescribe a perpetual course of Sunday dinners,
+_en famille_, it's going to break down and turn out a natural-born
+flivver. There are limits to human endurance, and I'm human, whatever
+else I am not...."
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+
+WHERE RADVILLE FEARED TO TREAD
+
+Summer slumbered to its close, a drowsy autumn settled upon our valley,
+in which its traditional peace seemed but the more profound. The skies
+darkened to an ineffable intensity of blue; the livery of the fields
+was changed, green giving place to gold; the woodlands and lower slopes
+of our hills flamed with the scarlet of dying sumach, with the russet
+and orange and crimson of a foliage making merry against its moribund
+to-morrows; a drought parched the land, and our little river lessened
+to a mere trickle of water. The daylight hours became sensibly
+abbreviated; while they endured they were golden and warm and hazy:
+faint veils of purple shrouded the distances. Twilight fell early, its
+air sweet with the tang of dead leaves raked into heaping bonfires by
+the children of the town. The nights were long and cool, with a hint of
+frosts to come. Day dissolved into day almost imperceptibly. ...
+
+Josie Lockwood announced that she was going away to school in New York
+for the winter. Pete Willing took the pledge and kept it almost a
+month. Will Bigelow secured time-tables and laboriously mapped out his
+semi-annually contemplated trip to the East: like the others
+destined never to come off. Tracey Tanner went to work for Graham and
+Duncan. The _Citizen_ gained eighteen subscribers; four old ones
+paid up their accounts. Babies were born, people married and died,
+loved and hated, lived in striving or sloth, accomplished or failed.
+Roland Barnette paid ostentatious attentions to Bess Gabriel, who
+tolerated him simply because she didn't much like Josie; but, blighted
+by Josie's supreme indifference, this budding passion drooped and
+failed by mutual consent of both parties concerned. Angie Tuthill
+became more conspicuously than ever the orb of Tracey's universe.
+Duncan walked home with Josie on two weekday evenings and twice on
+Sundays, and learned how to play Halma and Parcheesi, as well as how
+long to linger at the front gate in the gloaming, saying good-night.
+Eight young women of the town set their caps for him, at one time or
+another and... set them back again, because he was too blind to see. As
+a body they united with the female element in Radville in condemning
+Josie for a heartless flirt, and sympathising with Nat, behind his
+back, for being so nice and at the same time so easily taken in. Mrs.
+Lockwood gave a Bridge party which failed as such because Radville knew
+not Bridge; but everybody went and played progressive euchre, instead.
+The drug-store prospered in moderation, Sothern and Lee vainly
+contesting its conquering campaign. And Duncan grew thoughtful.
+
+One has more time to think unselfishly in Radville than in a great
+city, where there's rarely more time than enough to think of one's own
+concerns. And Duncan was making time to think about others--notably,
+Betty Graham. The girl was, as usual, shy, reticent, reserved; she kept
+her thoughts to herself, sharing the most intimate not even with old
+Sam, who _would_ talk; but Duncan divined that she was unhappy.
+The easier circumstances of the family had provided her with a few
+simple frocks, adequate clothing which she had gone without for years,
+and with a sufficiency of wholesome and appetising food: with these,
+peace of mind should likewise have come to her, and content. But Duncan
+thought they hadn't. Relieved, on Tracey's engagement, of any share in
+the store service, she had only the housework for herself and father to
+occupy her; her associations with the girls of her age were distant and
+constrained. Usage wears into tradition in the Radvilles of our land;
+even with the young folks this is so; and in Betty's case, the girl had
+for so long been "out of it," debarred by her unfortunate circumstances
+from participation in the pastimes, pleasures and duties of her
+generation, that by common consent, unspoken but none the less
+absolute, she remained an outsider. You might say that she relied on
+her father alone for companionship. Duncan she avoided, unobtrusively
+but with pains; he consorted with those with whom she had nothing in
+common, and she would not thrust herself upon him or seem to seek his
+notice. Her early suspicion and sullen resentment of his intrusion into
+their affairs had vanished; there remained only a gnawing consciousness
+that to him she was little or nothing, that his vision ranged above her
+humble head. She was not the sort to take this ill; she was reasonable
+enough to believe it natural. But she would not willingly intrude upon
+his thoughts--who little knew how much she did occupy his leisure
+moments.
+
+He saw her go and come, a wistful shadow on the borders of his
+occupations, self-contained, a little timid, but at the same time brave
+in her own quiet, uncomplaining fashion. And the distant look in those
+soft eyes he divined to be one of longing for that which she might not
+possess--the advantages that other girls had, socially and
+educationally, the pleasures they contrived, the attentions they
+received, the thousand and one slight things that make existence life
+for a woman. He saw her drooping insensibly day by day, growing a
+little paler, a shade more aloof and listless. And he became infinitely
+concerned for her.
+
+He told himself he had solved the problem of her disease, but its
+remedy remained beyond his reach. The business was doing very well
+indeed, but it was still young and must be subjected to as few
+financial drains as possible; as it ran, there was an income sufficient
+to board, lodge and clothe the three of them, maintain the credit of
+the partnership, and now and again admit of a slight but advantageous
+addition to the stock or fixtures. Things would certainly be better in
+the course of time, but... Kellogg he would not beg another dollar of,
+the bank was an equally impossible resource; there wasn't a chance in a
+hundred that Lockwood would refuse to accommodate the growing concern
+with money in reason, but the concern, individually and collectively,
+would never ask it of him. There remained--?
+
+It came to pass that he left the store early one evening, excusing
+himself on the plea of some slight indisposition, and lost himself for
+the space of two hours. I mean to say, that no one knew where he went
+until long after. When he came home some time after ten he told me he
+had been for a walk....
+
+He found himself shortly after eight at pause by the gate to the Bohun
+place. The night was dark and murmurous with a sibilant wind that sent
+the leaves drifting, softly clashing one with another. At the far end
+of the straight brick walk, up through the formal grounds, he could
+just see the glimmer of the stately columns, and, between them, to one
+side, a little twinkling light. The gate was closed, but he tried it
+and found it on the latch. He entered and scuffled up the walk, ankle
+deep in fallen leaves. His footfalls as he crossed the porch sounded
+startlingly loud by contrast; he even fancied a note of indignation in
+the cavernous echoes of the knocker on the front door. He waited with a
+thumping heart, aware that he was venturing where even fools would fear
+to tread.
+
+An aged negro butler, one of the freed slaves brought from Virginia by
+the Bohuns, admitted him to the hall and took his card, smothering his
+own wonderment. For in those days nobody disturbed the silence and the
+peace of decay of the Bohun mansion save its master. And Duncan had
+long to wait in the wide, gloomy, musty hall before the servant
+returned.
+
+"Cunnul Bohun will see yo', suh," he said, and ushered him into the
+library--a great, high-ceiled, shadowy room illuminated by a single
+lamp, tenanted by the old colonel alone.
+
+Bohun received the young man standing: he was as courteous beneath his
+own roof as he was impossible away from it. A quaint old figure, with
+his grey hair tousled and his dressing-gown draped grotesquely from his
+shoulders, he stood by the fireplace, Duncan's card between his
+fingers, and bowed ceremoniously.
+
+"Mr. Duncan, I believe?"
+
+Nat returned the bow. "Yes, sir," he said. "Will you be good enough to
+pardon this intrusion, Colonel Bohun, and spare me five minutes of your
+time?"
+
+The colonel nodded. "At your service, sir," he replied, and waited
+grimly--perhaps not unsuspicious of the nature of his visitor's errand,
+since he could not have been ignorant of his place in Radville.
+
+Duncan had his own way of getting at things--generally more circuitous
+than now, though he struck on a tangent sufficiently acute momentarily
+to puzzle Bohun.
+
+"May I inquire, sir, if you are acquainted with the firm of L.J.
+Bartlett & Company of New York?"
+
+"I have heard of it, Mr. Duncan, through the newspapers."
+
+"You know that it ranks pretty high, then, I presume?"
+
+"I understand that such is the case."
+
+"Then would you mind doing me the favour of writing to Mr. Henry
+Kellogg, the junior partner, and asking him about me?"
+
+The colonel stiffened. "May I ask why I should do anything so
+uncalled-for?"
+
+"Because it isn't uncalled-for, sir. I mean, you won't think so after
+I've explained."
+
+Bohun inclined his head, searching Nat's face with his keen, bright
+eyes.
+
+"You see, sir, it's this way: I want you to entrust me with a
+considerable sum of money, and naturally you wouldn't do that without
+knowing something about me."
+
+"I incline very much to doubt that I should do it in any event, Mr.
+Duncan."
+
+"Oh, don't say that. You don't know the circumstances, as yet." Nat
+jerked his head earnestly at the colonel. "You see, you're said to be
+one of the richest men in town, and I'm certainly one of the poorest,
+so of course I turn to you in a case like this."
+
+"In a case like what, Mr. Duncan?" Something in the young man's manner
+seemed to tickle the colonel; Duncan could have sworn that the eyes
+were twinkling beneath the savagely knitted brows.
+
+"Well, you must understand I'm in business here in Radville--a partner
+in a growing and prospering concern--ah--doing--very well, in point of
+fact."
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"But we haven't any spare capital; in fact, we haven't got any capital
+worth mentioning. But the business is entirely sound and solvent."
+
+"I congratulate you, sir."
+
+"Thank you very much.... Now I'm interested in a rather singular
+case: that of a young woman--a girl, I should say--daughter of my
+partner. She's a good girl and wonderfully sweet and fine, sir. She
+comes of one of the best families in these parts--"
+
+"On her mother's side," suggested the colonel drily.
+
+"So I'm told, sir. But she's been neglected. Circumstances have been
+against her. She hasn't had a real chance in life, but she ought to
+have it, and I'm going to see that she gets it, one way or another."
+
+"You haven't finished?" said the colonel coldly, as he paused for
+breath and thought.
+
+"Not quite, sir," said Duncan. "Good sign!" he told himself: "he hasn't
+ordered me thrown out yet." And he hurried on, speaking quickly in the
+semi-humorous style he had, more arresting to the attention than
+absolute gravity would have been.
+
+"To come down to cases, sir, she ought to be sent to a good
+boarding-school for a few years. It'll make a new woman of her--a woman
+to be proud of. She's got that in her--it only needs to be brought
+out."
+
+"And before you leave, sir," said the colonel with significant
+precision, "will you be so kind as to inform me why you think this
+should interest me?"
+
+"No," said Duncan candidly; "I haven't got the nerve to. But what I
+wanted to propose was this: that you lend me five hundred dollars to
+cover the expense of the first year, on condition that I represent the
+money as coming from the profits of the business and, in short, keep
+the transaction between ourselves absolutely quiet. If you'll inquire
+of Mr. Kellogg he'll tell you I can be trusted to keep my word.
+Furthermore"--he galloped, suspecting that his time was perilously
+short and desiring to get it all out of his system--"I'll guarantee you
+repayment within a year, and that you shan't be annoyed this way a
+second time."
+
+Bohun looked him over from head to foot, bowed in silence, and
+turning--both had stood throughout this passage--grasped a bell-rope by
+the chimney, and pulled it violently.
+
+Duncan turned to the door, hat in hand, realising that he had his
+answer and was lucky to get away with one so mild. Only the emergency
+could have spurred him to the point of so outrageous an impertinence.
+
+In the desolate fastnesses of that dreary house somewhere a bell
+tinkled discordantly. A moment later the white-headed darky butler
+opened the door.
+
+"Suh?" he said.
+
+Colonel Bohun essayed to speak, cleared his throat angrily, and
+indicated Duncan with a courteous gesture.
+
+"Scipio," said he, "this gentleman will have a glass of wine with me."
+
+"Yassuh!" stammered the negro, overcome with astonishment.
+
+Bohun turned to his guest. "Won't you be seated, Mr. Duncan?" he said.
+"You have interested me considerably, sir, and I should be glad to
+discuss the matter with you."
+
+Speechless, Duncan gasped incoherently and moved toward a chair as the
+servant reappeared with a tray on which was a decanter of sherry and
+two old-fashioned, thin-stemmed crystal glasses. He placed this on the
+library table, filled the glasses, and at a sign from Bohun retired.
+
+"Sir," said the colonel, indicating the tray, "to you."
+
+"I--I thank you, sir." Duncan lifted one of the glasses. Bohun took up
+the one remaining, and held it toward his guest with the gracious
+gesture of a bygone day.
+
+"I hold it a privilege, sir," he said, "to drink to the only gentleman
+of spirit it's been my good fortune to meet this many a year."
+
+By way of an aside, it should be mentioned that this was the first and
+only drink Duncan took while he lived in Radville.
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+
+TRACEY'S TROUBLES
+
+Probably nothing ever gave rise to more comment in Radville than Betty
+Graham's departure to spend the winter at a boarding-school near
+Philadelphia. Hardly anyone knew anything about it--in fact, the rumour
+of it was just being noised about and contemptuously discredited on all
+hands--when Tracey galloped down Main Street Monday morning with the
+news that she had left on the early train. He himself had remained in
+ignorance of the impending event until requested to carry Betty's bag
+down to the station....
+
+She left under convoy of a certain Mrs. Hamilton, who lived in
+Philadelphia and had been visiting her cousin, Mrs. Will Bigelow.
+Duncan had met this lady at a church sociable and, apparently, taken a
+liking to her; for he prevailed upon her, via Sam Graham and Will
+Bigelow, to see the girl safely to her school, after superintending the
+purchase of a suitable wardrobe in Philadelphia.
+
+So Betty was gone--herself, I believe, no less surprised and
+incredulous than the rest of us.
+
+Radville was at first stupefied, then clamorous; but there was little
+information to be got out of old Sam. I found him busy working on his
+new model and much preoccupied with that. When interrogated and given
+to understand that I would not be put off, he roused a bit, but beyond
+being unquestionably a very happy man, seemed himself slightly dazed by
+the amazing circumstances. I learned from him that Nat had evidently
+made all his plans in advance, but had withheld his announcement of
+them until the Saturday prior to that Monday; and then he had fairly
+whirled Betty and her father off their feet and left them no time to
+think or to raise objections.
+
+"There's no use at all arguing with that boy," Sam told me, with the
+fond smile that I was beginning to recognise as the invariable
+accompaniment of his thoughts about Nat; "when he says a thing must
+be, it must. When he first came here I told him he was a wonderful
+business man, and he laughed at me, but now I know he is. Why, he gave
+Betty a hundred dollars to buy clothes with in Philadelphia, and said
+he'd have more for her by Christmas, besides paying all the expenses of
+that school--which must be considerable. I don't see how the store's
+going to stand the strain--though it's doing splendidly since he came
+in, splendidly!--but he says it's all right, and so it must be...."
+
+Duncan himself refused to be interviewed. He told everybody who had
+the impudence to mention the matter to him, that it was Mr. Graham's
+affair: Mr. Graham was a substantial business man, he said, and if he
+chose to send his daughter away to school he had a perfect right to do
+so. I don't believe even Josie Lockwood got more than that out of him,
+for if she had we would have heard of it; and Josie was unmistakably a
+little jealous, and undoubtedly questioned Nat.
+
+One direct result of it all was to hasten Josie's own leave-taking. It
+would never do to let the Grahams eclipse the Lockwoods, you see. Josie
+had been talking of going to a school in Maryland, but Betty's move to
+a fashionable centre like Philadelphia made her change her mind; and
+arrangements were made by which Josie was able to go Betty one better:
+a young ladies' seminary in New York City itself received Josie. She
+left us bereaved about a week after Betty vanished from our ken, but
+promised to be back for the Christmas holidays--an announcement which
+Duncan received with expressions of chastened joy, as he did her
+promise to write to him regularly, in return for his covenant to
+respond promptly.... Betty, by the way, had made no such arrangement;
+but she wrote twice a week to old Sam, and I understand she never
+failed to include a message to Nat.
+
+Betty was happy, she protested in every communication, and wholly
+content. She was getting along. The other girls liked her and she liked
+them (these statements being made in the order of their relative
+importance). Lots of them, of course, were frightfully swell (Betty
+annexed "frightfully" at school, by the by) and had all sorts of
+clothes; but Betty was perfectly content with her modest outfit, and
+none of the other girls seemed to mind how she dressed. They were all
+kind and nice, and she'd never had such a good time.... I quote these
+expressions from memory of Sam's digest of her letters.
+
+Of Josie I heard less; I know that Graham and Duncan's mail seldom
+lacked a personal communication to Duncan, postmarked at New York; our
+postmaster told me so. But Duncan was reticent, and the Lockwoods said
+little. I gathered an impression that Josie was not altogether happy
+in her new surroundings.... One inferred there was a difference between
+New York and Philadelphia, that one was less friendly and sociable
+than the other.
+
+Josie kept her promise and came home for Christmas. She was reticent as
+to her impressions of the New York seminary, but seemed extremely glad
+to be home, notwithstanding the fact that Nat had apparently contracted
+no disturbing alliances with the other belles of our village. And
+Roland remained true--a reliable second string to Josie's bow. Roland
+was working hard at the bank, with an application that earned Blinky
+Lockwood's regard and outspoken approbation; and his Christmas raiment
+proved the sensation of the season. But none of us believed he had any
+chance against Duncan: Josie's attitude toward the latter was such
+that we confidently anticipated the announcement of their engagement
+before she went away again. But it didn't come, for some reason. We
+bore up under the disappointment bravely, all things considered,
+sustained by a very secure feeling that the proclamation couldn't be
+long deferred.
+
+In passing, I should mention that Betty didn't come home once
+throughout the entire school term. The Christmas and Easter holidays
+she spent with a girl friend at her Philadelphia home.
+
+Meanwhile, life in our town simmered gently. Things went on much as
+they might have been expected to. I don't recall much essential to this
+narrative, in the way of events; and part of the ground I've covered on
+earlier pages. Duncan continued to make progress: for one thing, I
+recall that he put in hot soda with whipped cream, which helped a lot
+to hold the trade regained in the summer from Sothern and Lee. And he
+bought a new soda fountain, a very magnificent affair, installing it in
+the early spring. Graham and Duncan's, in short, became a town
+institution: to it Radville pointed with pride....
+
+He remained reserved, retiring, inconspicuous, and puzzling to our
+understanding. In his effort (never very successful) to strike off the
+shackles of modern slang, he fell into a way of speech that bewildered
+those unable to realise what an abiding sense of humour underlay it--as
+water runs beneath ice--more, I think, a matter of intonation and
+significant silences, than a mere play upon words and phrases; which,
+coupled with an unshakable sobriety of demeanour, furnished us with
+wonder and some admiration, but no resentment. We liked him pretty
+well and mostly unanimously: he was a good fellow, if queer; entitled
+to his idiosyncrasy, if he chose to keep one....
+
+There was a certain night, by way of illustration--a bitter night,
+along toward the first of January--when trade was dull, as it always is
+after Christmas, and there was nobody in the store save Nat and Tracey.
+Each had their task, whatever it may have been, and each was busied
+with it, but of the two Tracey seemed the more restless. His ample, if
+low, forehead was decidedly corrugated; his always rosy face owned an
+added trace of scarlet--a flush of perturbation; his chubby hands were
+inexpert, clumsy. He stumbled, fumbled, forgot and (in our homely
+phrase) flummoxed generally; his mind was elsewhere, and his hands and
+feet went anywhere but where they should have gone: a condition which
+eventually excited Duncan's attention.
+
+He broke a long silence in the store. "What's the trouble, Tracey?"
+
+Tracey pulled up with a stare of confusion. "I--I dunno, Mr. Duncan; I
+was thinkin', I guess."
+
+"Anything gone wrong?"
+
+"Not yet." Niobe would have made the response with a greater show of
+cheer.
+
+Duncan looked up curiously, struck by the boy's tone. "Somebody been
+demonstrating that your doll's stuffed with sawdust, Tracey?"
+
+"No-o, but..."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Say, Mr. Duncan--" Tracey's confusion became terrific.
+
+"Say on, Mr. Tanner."
+
+The interjection diverted Tracey's train of thought to an
+inconsiderable siding. "I only called you Mr. Duncan," he said,
+aggrieved, "'cause you're my boss."
+
+"That's a poor excuse, Tracey. You call Mr. Graham 'Sam,' and he's
+likewise your boss."
+
+"I know. But it's diff'runt."
+
+"I don't see it. Even Nats have their place in the cosmic system,
+Tracey."
+
+"I dunno what that is, but you ain't like Sam."
+
+"The loss is mine, Tracey. Proceed."
+
+"But, Mr. Duncan..."
+
+"I beg of you, speak to me as to a friend."
+
+Tracey struggled perceptibly. The words, when they came, were blurted.
+"Ah... I was only thinkin' 'bout Angie."
+
+"Do you ever think about anything else?"
+
+"No," Tracey admitted honestly, "not much. But I was wonderin'--"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Are you stuck on Angie, Mr. Duncan?" demanded Tracey desperately.
+
+"Great snakes! I hope not!" Duncan cast an anxious glance about him,
+and discovered the poster depicting the gentleman in strange attire
+vainly endeavouring to free his overcoat (I believe it's his overcoat)
+from the bench upon which a pot of glue has been spilled. He lifted a
+reverent hand to the card. "Tracey," he said solemnly, "I swear to you
+that not even that indispensable article of commerce could stick me on
+Angie."
+
+The boy sighed. "Thank you, Mr. Duncan. I was only worryin' because you
+and Angie is singin' together in the choir, now Josie Lockwood's gone
+to school, an'--an' Angie's the purtiest girl in town--and I was 'fraid
+'t you might like her best, when Josie's away. An' I wanted to ask you
+to pick out s'mother girl."
+
+Duncan chuckled silently. "Tracey," he said presently, "it strikes me
+you must be in love with Angie."
+
+The boy gulped. "I--I am."
+
+"And I think she's rather partial to you."
+
+"Do you, really, Mr. Duncan?"
+
+"I do. Do you want to marry her?"
+
+"Gee! I can't hardly wait!... Only," Tracey continued, disconsolate,
+"it ain't no use, really. She's so purty and swell and old man
+Tuthill's so rich--not like the Lockwoods, but rich, all the same--an'
+I'm only the son of the livery-stable man, an' fat an'--all that--an'--"
+
+"Nonsense, Tracey!" Nat interrupted firmly. "If you really want her and
+will follow the rules I give you, it's a cinch."
+
+"Honest, Mr. Duncan?"
+
+"I guarantee it, Tracey. Listen to me...." And Duncan expounded
+Kellogg's rules at length, adapting them to Tracey's circumstances, of
+course; and throughout maintained the gravity of a graven image. "You
+try, and you'll see if I'm not right," he concluded.
+
+"Gosh! I b'lieve you are!" Tracey cried admiringly. "I'm just going to
+see how it works."
+
+"Do, if you'd favour me, Tracey."
+
+Tracey was quiet for a time, working with the regularity of a mind
+relieved. But presently he felt unable to contain himself. Gratitude
+surged in his bosom, and he had to speak.
+
+"Sa-y, lis'en...."
+
+"Proceed, Tracey."
+
+"Say, Mist--Nat, you've treated me somethin' immense."
+
+"Your mistake, Tracey. I haven't treated anybody since I've been here:
+I'm on the wagon."
+
+"I mean just now, when we was talkin' 'bout me an' Angie. I'd--I'd like
+to help you the same way, if I could."
+
+"You would?" Duncan eyed the boy apprehensively, wondering what was
+coming.
+
+"Yes, indeedy, I would. An' p'rhaps I kin tell you somethin' that
+will."
+ "Speak, I beg."
+
+"You--er--you're tryin' to court Josie Lockwood, ain't you?"
+
+"Oh!" said Nat. "So that was it! That's a secret, Tracey," he averred.
+
+"All right. Only, if you are, she's your'n."
+
+"Just how do you figure that out?"
+
+"Oh, I kin tell. She was in here to-night with Roland."
+
+"To-night?"
+
+"Yes, just afore you come home from prayer-meetin'. She was lookin'
+for you, and when she seen you wasn't here, she wouldn't wait for no
+soda nor nothin'. Said she had a headache an' was goin' home. Roland
+went with her, but she didn't want him to. You just missed seein'
+her."
+
+"Heavens, what a blow!"
+
+"But Roland's takin' her home needn't upset you none."
+
+"Thank you for those kind words, Tracey." Nat sighed and passed a
+troubled hand across his brow. "You're a true friend."
+
+"I'm tryin' to be, Nat, same's you are to me." Tracey thought this
+over. "But you ain't foolin' me, are you?" he asked presently. "I mean
+'bout bein' a true friend?"
+
+"Why should I?"
+
+"Ah, I dunno. You're so cur'us, sometimes. I ain't never sure whether
+you mean what you're sayin' or not."
+
+"Oh, don't say that."
+
+"Well, I ain't the only one. Everybody in town says they don't
+understand you, half the time."
+
+Duncan left his counter and moved over to that at which Tracey was
+occupied. His face was entirely serious, his manner deeply
+sympathetic. "Tracey," he said, dropping a hand on the boy's shoulder,
+"do you know, nothing in life is harder to bear than not to be
+understood?"
+
+Tracey wrestled with this for a moment, but it was beyond him.
+
+"Then why the hell don't you talk so's folks'll know what it's about?"
+he demanded heatedly.
+
+"Because... _Hm_." Duncan hesitated, with his enigmatic smile.
+"Well, because the rules don't require it."
+
+"What d'you mean by _that_?" Tracey exploded.
+
+Nat couldn't explain, so he countered neatly. "This is one of your
+Angie... evenings, isn't it, Tracey?"
+
+"Yep, but--"
+
+"Well, you hurry along. I'll close up the shop."
+
+Tracey had slammed on his hat and was struggling into his overcoat
+almost as soon as the words were out of Nat's mouth.
+
+"Kin I?" he cried excitedly.
+
+"Yes," said Nat, watching the boy turn up his collar and button his
+overcoat to the throat, "I haven't got the heart to keep you."
+
+"Ah, thanks, Mr. Duncan."
+
+"But, Tracey..."
+
+The boy paused at the door. "What?"
+
+"Remember what I told you. Don't you make too much love. Let Angie do
+that."
+
+"Gosh, that'll be the hardest rule of all for me!" A shadow clouded
+Tracey's honest eyes. "But I got to do it that way, anyway. I can't
+ask her to marry me yit. I can't afford to get married."
+
+"It's a contrary world, Tracey, a contrary world!" sighed Nat in a tone
+of deepest melancholy.
+
+"What makes you say that? You kin git married's soon's you want to."
+
+"You think so, Tracey?"
+
+"All you got to do's ask Josie--"
+
+"I'm almost afraid you're right."
+
+"Why? Don't you want to git married?"
+
+"Well"--Nat smiled--"no. Don't believe I do. Not just now, at any
+rate."
+
+"Well, you don't have to if you don't want to.... G'd-night."
+
+"Yes, I do," Nat told Tracey's back. "The rules say so. If the girl
+asks me, I must."
+
+He grimaced ruefully beneath his wisp of a moustache. "Anyhow, I've got
+a few months left...."
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+
+A BARGAIN IS A BARGAIN
+
+So the winter wore away.... And as spring drew nigh upon our valley,
+Duncan seemed to grow perturbed, even as he had been in the autumn
+before Betty went away. He was pondering another scheme for the
+betterment of the condition of those he cared for, and gave it ample
+consideration before he broached it to old Sam, after swearing him to
+secrecy.
+
+He had to propose nothing more or less than an abandonment of the old
+Graham housekeeping quarters above the store and a removal of the
+_ménage_ bodily to a vacant house on Beech Street, near the store,
+which could be rented, partly furnished, at a moderate rate.
+
+To begin with (thus ran his argument) the store itself was growing too
+small for the volume of business it commanded. More room was needed,
+both for storage and laboratory purposes, to say nothing of
+accommodation for Sam's models and work-bench. The latter had already
+been moved upstairs for the winter, the shed in the backyard being too
+cold to work in; and the laboratory end of the business was growing at
+such a rate that it was crowding the prescription counter to the
+wall--so to speak. You see, there really wasn't a more clever
+analytical chemist in the northern part of the State than Sam Graham,
+and now that the drug-store was becoming an influence in the
+neighbourhood he was receiving commissions from physicians operating in
+districts as far as fifty miles away. So a room was needed for that
+branch of the business alone.
+
+Moreover, a separate residence distinctly befitted the dignity of a
+man who was at once a prominent inventor and one of Radville's leading
+merchants (vide a "Personal" in the late issue of the Radville
+_Citizen_), to say nothing of the social position of his
+daughter--meaning Betty. And the house Duncan had his metaphorical eye
+upon was large enough to shelter Nat himself in addition to the Graham
+family. Thus they might pool their living expenses to the economical
+advantage of each.
+
+Finally, it would be a great and glad surprise for Betty on her
+homecoming.
+
+Graham fell in with the scheme without a murmur of dubiety or dissent.
+Whatever Nat proposed in Sam's understanding was right and feasible;
+and even if it wasn't really so, Nat would make it so.... They engaged
+the house and moved. Miss Ann Sophronsiba Whitmarsh, a maiden lady of
+forty-five or thereabouts, popularly known as "Phrony," had been coming
+in by the day to "do for" old Sam in the rooms above the shop. She was
+engaged as resident housekeeper for the new establishment, and entered
+upon her duties with all the discreet joy of one whose maternal
+instincts have been suppressed throughout her life. She mothered Sam
+and she mothered Nat and she panted in expectation of the day when she
+would have Betty to mother. Incidentally, she was one of the best
+housekeepers in Radville, and cooperated with all her heart with Nat
+in the task of making a home out of the new house. They arranged and
+disarranged and rearranged and discarded old furniture and bought new
+with almost the abandon of a newly married couple fitting out their
+first home.... It was surprising what they managed to accomplish with
+it; when they were finished, there wasn't a prettier nor a more
+home-like residence in all Radville--and Phrony Whitmarsh was Nat's
+slave, even as Miss Carpenter had been. She gave him all the credit for
+everything praiseworthy about the place: and with some reason; for, as
+a matter of fact, he had spared himself not at all in the business of
+scheming and contriving to make the new home suitable for the
+reception of Betty Graham....
+
+It's interesting when one has come to my time of life, to sit and
+speculate on the singular mental blindness of mortal man, such as that
+which kept Nat unaware of the real, rock-bottom reason why he was
+working so hard on the Beech Street house. I daresay the young idiot
+thought his motives as much selfish as anything else--told himself that
+he wanted a comfortable home--and this was his way of securing one--and
+all that rot. At all events, he told me as much, quite seriously--
+seemed to believe it himself; and this, in spite of the fact that Miss
+Carpenter had done everything imaginable to make him comfortable....
+
+Josie Lockwood came home again for the Easter holidays, but didn't
+return to finish her term in the New York school. Just why, we never
+discovered: the Lockwoods furnished us with no really satisfying
+explanation; they said that Josie didn't like New York, but I've always
+doubted that, especially since Josie married and insisted on moving
+straightway to that metropolis. I suspect she didn't get along with
+the class of young women with whom she was thrown at school, and I'm
+pretty certain she was uneasy about Nat all the time she was so far
+away from him. Anyway, she elected to remain in Radville and keep the
+young man dancing attendance on her day in and out. Which he did, as in
+duty bound; he liked the game less and less all the time, but Kellogg
+held his promise....
+
+It was during this period, between the Easter vacation and the end of
+the spring school term, that Roland Barnette's animosity toward Duncan
+became virulent. Looking back, I can recall the symptoms of his waxing
+hostility--as, for instance, the evening he spent in the
+_Citizen_ office, poring over back files of our exchanges. That
+seemed innocent enough at the time, a harmless freak on the part of the
+young man, and no one paid much attention to it; but it led to great
+things, in the end, and incidentally did Duncan a service which
+probably could have been accomplished through no other agency. This,
+however, is something that Roland doesn't realise to this day; and I'm
+inclined to doubt if you could ever make him understand it.
+
+Josie, of course, was prompt to oust Angie Tuthill from her place in
+the choir. After that she sang with Nat on Friday nights as well as
+Wednesdays and twice per Sunday. Between whiles she was a pretty
+constant patron of the store. There was no longer the least doubt in
+the collective mind of the town as to the inclination of Josie's
+affections. Nat himself gave evidence of his appreciation of the
+gravity of the situation, managing by some admirable diplomacy to evade
+the issue until the very last moment. But with the three--Roland, Nat,
+and Josie--so involved, we sensed a storm below the horizon, and
+awaited its breaking, if not with avidity, at least with quickened
+apprehension.
+
+The culmination came the day before Betty was to return--a day late in
+May, I remember, and a Friday at that.
+
+It began along toward evening. Duncan, alone in the store, was busy
+behind the prescription counter. The day had been humid, warm and
+sultry, and the doors and windows were open. The air was bland and
+still, and sound travelled easily. He could hear the musical clanking
+of hammers in Badger's smithy, on the next block, the deep-throated
+_hoot-toot_ of the late afternoon train as it rushed down the
+valley, sounds of fierce altercation from the home of Pete Willing near
+by, a boy rattling a stick along palings down on Main Street.... But he
+did not hear anybody enter the store: absorbed with his task, he
+thought himself quite alone until a well-kenned voice reached his ear.
+
+"Well!" it said, unctuous with appreciation of the sight of him.
+"_Old_ Doctor Duncan!"
+
+He let the pestle fall from his hand and jumped as if he had been stuck
+with a pin. His jaw dropped and his eyes bulged. "Great Scott!" he
+cried; and in a twinkling was round the counter, throwing himself into
+the arms of a man whom he hailed ecstatically: "Harry, by all that's
+wonderful!" He fairly danced with delight. "Henry Kellogg, Esquire!"
+he cried, holding him at arms' length and looking him over. "What in
+thunderation are you doing here?"
+
+Kellogg freed himself, only to seize both Nat's hands and squeeze them
+violently. "Wanted to see you," he replied, beaming. "On my way to
+Cincinnati on business--thought I'd drop off for a night and size you
+up. My, but it's good to get a look at you! How are you?"
+
+"Me? Look at me--picture of health. Harry, you've made a new man of
+me." Duncan pranced round his friend in a mild frenzy. "No booze--no
+smokes--no swears--work! I feel like a two-year-old: I could do a
+Marathon without turning a hair. Watch me kick up my heels and neigh!"
+He paused for breath. "And you?"
+
+"Fine as silk--but you've got it on me, Nat, physically. You're a sight
+to heal the blind."
+
+"And listen!" Nat crowed: "I'm a business man. Didn't you believe it?
+Pipe my shop!"
+
+Kellogg checked to obey the admonition of Duncan's gesticulations, and
+took a long look round the store. "Gad!" said he. "I'm blowed if it
+isn't true! It _was_ hard to credit your letters. But it's great,
+old man. I congratulate you, with all my heart."
+
+"Just wait and I'll tell you all about it. But first tell me how long
+you're going to be here."
+
+"Well, I plan to hang around with you a couple of days. My business in
+the West isn't pressing."
+
+"Good!"
+
+"Which is the least worst hotel?"
+
+"There ain't no such thing in the whole giddy town.... No, none of that
+hotel stuff, now I I'm going to put you up--and I'll do it in style,
+too. I wrote you about taking a new place for the Grahams?"
+
+"Yes, and I'm mighty keen to meet 'em. The girl here?"
+
+"Betty? No; she's coming home to-morrow. But Graham himself is upstairs
+in the laboratory. Take you up in a minute, but not before I've had a
+good look at you."
+
+Kellogg found himself a chair. "Well," he inquired, twinkling, "how's
+the scheme working out? Are you really living up to all the rules?"
+
+"Every singletary one."
+
+"You have got a strong constitution.... Even prayer-meetings?"
+
+"The church thing? Honest, Harry, I _own_
+it."
+
+"Bully for you, Nat. But how does it work? Was I right?"
+
+"I should say you were. It's so easy it's a shame to do it. If this
+thing ever should get into the papers there'd be a swarm of city men
+lighting out for the Rube centres so thick you wouldn't be able to see
+the sky."
+
+"I knew it! Trust your Uncle Harry." Kellogg waited a time for further
+particulars, but Duncan seemed stuck; his transports of the few
+minutes just gone were sensibly abated; and the sidelong look he gave
+Kellogg was both uneasy and rueful--apprehensive, indeed. So Kellogg
+had to pump for news. "And you've made a strong play for the fond
+affections of Lockwood's daughter?"
+
+"Certainly not!"
+
+"Not--?"
+
+"You forget your rules." Nat grinned, whimsical. "I let her to make a
+play for me."
+
+"Of course. My mistake.... But how has it worked?"
+
+"Oh! immense." Duncan's tone, however, was wholly destitute of
+enthusiasm. He stuck his hands in his trousers' pockets and half turned
+away from his friend, looking out of the window.
+
+Kellogg smiled secretly. "You mean you've won her already?"
+
+"Oh, there's nothing to it," said Duncan, shaking his head and meaning
+just the exact opposite of what his words conveyed, for of such is our
+modern slang.
+
+"Then you're engaged?" Kellogg had understood perfectly, you see.
+
+"No, not _yet_. I've got two months left--almost."
+
+"So you have. And since she's so strong for you, there's no hurry: let
+her take her time."
+
+"I only wish she would." Duncan removed one hand from the pocket the
+better to tug at his moustache. "It's got beyond that--to the point
+where I have to keep dodging her."
+
+"You don't mean it! That's splendid." Kellogg got up and slapped Nat's
+shoulder heartily. "But don't overdo the dodging. She might get her
+back up."
+
+"Not she. She'd eat out of my hand, if I'd let her. You don't
+understand."
+
+"What's the matter, then? Aren't you strong for her?"
+
+"I wish I were."
+
+"But why? Is there another----?"
+
+"No." Nat shook his head, honestly believing he was telling the truth.
+"Only ... I don't look at things the way I did once."
+
+"Just what do you mean by that?"
+
+Nat, squaring himself to face Kellogg, was very serious, now, and
+troubled. "See here, Harry," he said: "do you really want me to carry
+out the rest of the agreement?"
+
+"Most certainly I do. Why not?"
+
+"Because I'm pretty well fixed here. The business is making good--and
+so am I. It won't be long before I can pay you back, with interest, as
+we agreed, without having to marry that poor girl and ... and draw on
+her money to make good to you."
+
+"You want to go back on our agreement?" demanded Kellogg, with a show
+of disappointment and disgust.
+
+"Yes and no. I won't break faith with you, if you insist, but I'd give
+a lot if you'd let me off--let me pay back what you advanced and cry
+quits.... When you outlined this scheme I was down and three times
+out--willing to take a chance at anything, no matter how contemptible.
+Now... well, it's different."
+
+"Good heavens! You don't mean you'd be willing to _live_ here?"
+
+Nat smiled, but not mirthfully. "I don't know," he hesitated; "I'm
+afraid I'm beginning to like it."
+
+"You, Nat?" Kellogg's amazement was unfeigned. "You, ready to spend
+your life here slaving away in this measly store?"
+
+Duncan grunted indignantly. "Hold on, now. Don't you call this a measly
+store. There isn't a more complete drug-store in the State!"
+
+"Do you hear that?" Kellogg appealed vehemently to the universe at
+large. "Is it possible that this is Nat Duncan, the fellow who hated
+work so hard he couldn't earn a living?... Gad, I believe I've arrived
+just in time!"
+
+"In time for what?"
+
+"To save you from yourself, old man. Here's the heiress you came here
+to cop out, ready and anxious, everything else coming your way and ...
+and you're more than half inclined to back out.... You make me tired."
+
+"I suppose I must. But I can't help it. I can't make you see how the
+thing looks to me. You know--I've written you all about everything--
+what this place has meant to me. Until I came here I never realised it
+was in me to make good at anything. But here I have; I'm doing so well
+that I'd actually have some self-respect if I wasn't bound to play this
+low-down trick on Josie Lockwood. I've worked and succeeded and been
+of some service to people who were worth it----"
+
+"Who? Sam Graham?"
+
+"He and his daughter----"
+
+"Oh, his daughter!"
+
+"Now get that foolish idea out of your head; there's nothing in it.
+Betty's just a simple, sweet little girl, who's had a pretty hard time
+and never a real chance in life--until I managed to give it to her. And
+I'd feel pretty good about that if ... Oh, there's no use talking to
+you!"
+
+"No; go on; you're very entertaining." Kellogg laughed mockingly.
+
+"Well, I have tried to keep to the terms of our understanding; I
+singled out this Lockwood girl and worked all the degrees--didn't say
+much, you know--no love-making--just let her catch me looking sadly
+at her once in a while..."
+
+"That's the way to work it."
+
+"Yes, that's the way," Nat assented gloomily. "But the longer I keep it
+up the meaner I feel and... I wish you'd agree to call it off. ...
+These Rubes at first struck me as being nothing but a lot of jay
+freaks, but when I got to know them I realised they were just as human
+as we are. I like them now and... on the level, I'm getting kind of
+stuck on church.... As for work, why, I eat it up!"
+
+Kellogg laughed with delight "Nat," he cried, "my poor crazy friend,
+listen to me: This working and church-going and helping old Graham is
+all very noble and fine, and I'm glad you've done it. This drug-store
+is a monument to the business ability that I always knew was latent in
+you. And clean living hasn't done you any harm.... But now you're due
+to come down to earth. This place pays you a neat profit. Well and
+good! That's all it'll ever do. It's new to you now and you like the
+novelty and you're having the time of your life finding out you're good
+for something. But pretty soon it'll begin to stale on you, and before
+long you'll find yourself hating it and the town--and then you'll be
+back where you started. Now, I'm going to hold you to our bargain for
+your own sake. If you're stuck on the town and the work you can keep
+right on just as well after you're married; but when you do begin to
+tire of it, you'll want that fortune to fall back on and do what you
+like with. Don't let this chance slip--not on your life!"
+
+"But," Nat argued feebly, "think of the injustice to the girl. From
+the way I've behaved since I struck this burg she thinks I'm closely
+related to the saints."
+
+"Very well, then; I'll concede a point. If you really think you're
+taking a mean advantage of her, when she proposes to you tell her all
+about yourself--just the sort of a chap you've been. You needn't
+mention our agreement, however. Then if she wants to drop you, I'll
+have nothing to say."
+
+"Thank you for nothing," said Duncan bitterly. "A bargain's a bargain.
+I gave you my word of honour I'd go through with this thing, and I'll
+stick to it. But I tell you now, I don't like it."
+
+"Oh, I know how you feel, Nat. But I _know_ that some day you'll
+come to me and say: 'Harry, if you had let me back out, I'd never have
+forgiven you.'"
+
+"All right," said Nat impatiently. "I presume you know best."
+
+"You can bet I do. And now I'd like to meet old Graham."
+
+"I'll take you right up--no, I can't. Here comes a customer. But you
+just go through that door and upstairs; he'll be in the laboratory--the
+front room--and he knows all about you. I'll join you just as soon as
+Tracey gets back."
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+
+PROVING THE PERSPICUITY OF MR. KELLOGG
+
+A customer came and went, and then Nat noticed that twilight was
+beginning to darken the store. Though the hour wasn't late and the
+evenings were long at that season, the windows faced the east, and
+there were huge, overshadowing elms outside--just then heavy with
+luxuriant foliage; so dusk was always early in the room.
+
+It was one of Nat's axioms that a store, to be successful, should be
+always brilliantly lighted. It was a bit expensive, perhaps, but in the
+long run it paid. For that reason he installed electric light as soon
+as he felt the business could afford it.
+
+Now he moved to the windows and switched on the bulbs behind the huge
+glass jars filled with tinted water. Returning, he was about to connect
+up the remainder of the illuminating system, when Josie, entering,
+stayed him. Later he was glad of this.
+
+"Nat..."
+
+He knew that voice. "Why, Josie!" he exclaimed in surprise, swinging
+about to discover her standing on the threshold--very dainty and
+fetching, indeed, in one of the summery frocks she had brought back
+from New York.
+
+She moved over to him, holding out her hand. He took it with disguised
+reluctance. "Where's Tracey?" she asked with a look that first held his
+eyes, then reviewed the store.
+
+"This is his afternoon off," Nat reminded her.
+
+"Then you're all alone?" she deduced archly.
+
+"Oh, quite...."
+
+"I'm so glad." She sighed and dropped into a chair by the soda-water
+counter. "I wanted to see you--to talk to you alone."
+
+He bit his lip in his annoyance, shivering with a presentiment. "What
+about, Josie?"
+
+"About Wednesday night--after prayer meeting. Why didn't you wait for
+me?"
+
+"Why--ah--I had to get back to the store, you know--there were some
+cheques to be made out and sent off, and I'd forgotten them. Besides,"
+he added on inspiration, "you were talking with Roland and I didn't
+want to interrupt you."
+
+"So you left me to go home with him?"
+
+"Why, what else--"
+
+"You're making me awful' unhappy." Her voice trembled.
+
+"_I_, Josie?"
+
+"Yes. You knew I didn't want to walk home with Roland."
+
+"How could I know that?"
+
+"I should think you ought to know it, Nat, unless you're blind.
+Besides, I told you once."
+
+"True," he fenced desperately, "but that was a long time ago; and how
+could I be sure you hadn't changed your mind? Besides, you know, I
+mustn't monopolise you. If I do...."
+
+"Well?" she inquired sweetly as he paused on the lip of a break.
+
+"Why, if I do--ah--"
+
+"If you're afraid people will talk about us, seeing us so much
+together, you needn't worry. They're doing that now."
+
+"Why, Josie!"
+
+"Yes, they are. We've been going together so long, and then suddenly
+you don't seem to care about--care to be alone with me at all. This
+is the first chance I've had to talk to you, when there wasn't somebody
+else round, for I don't know how long. And even now you don't seem glad
+to see me."
+
+"You should _know_ I am...."
+
+"You don't act like it."
+
+"It's so unexpected," he muttered wretchedly.
+
+"You didn't really think I wanted Roland Barnette to go home with me
+Wednesday night, did you, Nat?"
+
+"It seemed so, but ... that's all right. Why shouldn't you?"
+
+She turned to him, trembling a little. "Must I tell you, Nat?"
+
+"O, no!" he cried in dismay. "Please don't----!"
+
+"I see I must," she persisted. "You're so blind. It----"
+
+"Josie, don't say anything you'll be sorry for," he entreated wildly.
+
+"I can't help it: I've got to. It was--it was because I wanted to be
+with you.... There!" she gasped, frightened by her own forwardness.
+
+"Now I've said it!"
+
+Duncan grasped frantically at straws. "But you don't really mean it,
+Josie: you know you don't," he floundered. "You're just saying that
+because you--you have such a kind heart and--ah--don't want to hurt
+me--ah--because----"
+
+She stemmed the flood of his protestations with a hand on his arm.
+"Nat," she said gently, looking up into his face, "would it make you
+happy to know I really meant it?"
+
+"Why--ah--why shouldn't it, Josie?"
+
+"Then please believe me, when I say it."
+
+"But I do believe it. I..." He stammered and fell still.
+
+"Because I do like you, Nat, very much, and--and it's very hard for me
+to know that folks think I'm pursuing you and that you're trying to
+avoid me."
+
+"Josie!" he exclaimed reproachfully.
+
+"Well, that's the way it looks," she affirmed plaintively. "You don't
+want it to, do you?"
+
+"Why, no; of course I don't."
+
+"Then why don't you stop it?" She watched his face, her manner coy and
+yielding. "Nat," she said in a softer voice, "if you like me as well as
+I like you----"
+
+He moved away a pace or two. "Ah, child!" he said, with a feeling that
+the term was not misapplied, somehow, "you don't know what you're
+saying."
+
+"Yes, I do." She pouted. "I don't believe you... care anything about
+me."
+
+"Oh, Josie, please----"
+
+"Well, anyway, you've never told me so." She turned an indignant
+shoulder to him.
+
+"How could I?"
+
+"Why couldn't you?"
+
+"But don't you see that I shouldn't, Josie?" He turned back to her
+side, looked down at her, pleaded his defence with the fire of
+desperation.
+
+"Just think: you are an only daughter." Just what this had to do with
+the case was not plain even to him. "An only daughter," he repeated--
+"ah--not only your father's only daughter, but your mother's only
+daughter. Your father--ah--is my friend. How unfair it would be to him."
+
+But the girl interrupted with decision. "But papa wants you to... He
+told me so."
+
+He could only pretend not to understand. "But consider, Josie: you are
+rich, an heiress: I'm a poor man. Would you like it to be said I was
+after your money?"
+
+"No one would dare say such a thing," she asserted with profound
+conviction.
+
+"Oh, yes, they would. You don't know the world as I do. And for all you
+know, they might be right. How do you know that------"
+
+"Nat!" A catch in her voice stopped him. "Don't say such horrid things!
+I could tell: a woman always can. I know you would be incapable of such
+a thing. Papa knows it, too. No one has ever got ahead of papa, and
+_he_ says you are a fine, steady, Christian man, and he would
+rather see me your wife than any------"'
+
+"Josie!"
+
+The interjection was so imperative that she was silenced. "Why, what,
+Nat?" she asked, rising.
+
+"The time has come," he declared; "you must know the truth."
+
+"Oh, Nat!"
+
+"I'm _not_ what you think me," he continued, dramatic.
+
+_"Oh, Nat!"_
+
+"Nor what your father thinks me, nor what anybody else in this town
+thinks me. I'm not a regular Christian--it's all a bluff: I didn't
+know anything about a church till I came here. I smoke and I drink and
+I swear and I gamble, and I only cut them all out in order to trick you
+into caring for me!"
+
+"Oh, Nat, I don't believe it."
+
+"Alas, Josie!" he protested violently, "it's true, only too true!"
+
+"But you did it to win my love, Nat?"
+
+"Ye-es." He saw suddenly that he had made a fatal mistake.
+
+"Then, Nat, I will be your wife in spite of all!"
+
+He found himself suddenly caught about the neck by the girl's arms. His
+head was drawn down until her cheek caressed his and he felt her lips
+warm upon his own.
+
+"Josie!" he gasped.
+
+"Nat, my darling!"
+
+With a supreme effort he pulled himself together and embraced the girl.
+"Josie," he said earnestly, "I--I'm going to try to be a good husband
+to you.... And that," he concluded, _sotto voce_, "wasn't in the
+agreement!"
+
+She held him to her passionately. "Dearest, I'm so glad!"
+
+"It makes me very happy to know you are, Josie," he murmured miserably.
+And to himself, while still she trembled in his embrace: "What a cur
+you are!... But I won't renege now; I'll play my hand out on the
+square, with her...."
+
+Upon this tableau there came a sudden intrusion. The back door opened
+and Graham came in, Kellogg at his heels. It was the voice of the
+latter that told the two they were discovered: a hearty "Hello! What's
+this?" that rang in Nat's ears like the trump of doom.
+
+In a flash the girl disengaged herself, and they were a yard apart by
+the time that Graham, blundering in his surprise, managed to turn on
+the lights at the switchboard. But even in the full glare of them he
+seemed unable to credit his sight.
+
+"Why, Nat!" he quavered, coming out toward the guilty pair. "Why,
+Nat...!"
+
+Duncan took a long breath and Josie's hand at one and the same time.
+"Mr. Graham," he said coolly, "I'm glad you're the first to know it.
+Josie has just ask--agreed to be my wife."
+
+Old Sam recovered sufficiently to take the girl's hand and pat it. "I'm
+mighty glad, my dear," he told her. "I congratulate you both with all
+my heart."
+
+"And so will I, when I have the right," Kellogg added, smiling.
+
+"Oh, I forgot." Nat hastened to remedy his oversight. "Josie, this is
+my dearest friend, Mr. Kellogg; Harry, this is Miss Lockwood."
+
+
+Josie gave Kellogg her hand. "I--I," she giggled--"I'm pleased to meet
+you, I'm sure."
+
+"I'm charmed. I've heard a great deal of you, Miss Lockwood, from Nat's
+letters, and I shall hope to know you much better before
+long."
+
+"It's awful' nice of you to say so, Mr. Kellogg."
+
+"And, Nat, old man!" Kellogg threw an arm round Duncan's shoulder. "I
+congratulate you! You're a lucky dog!"
+
+"I'm a dog, all right," said Nat glumly.
+
+"But we mustn't disturb these young people, Mr. Kellogg," Graham broke
+in nervously.
+
+"They'll--they'll have a lot to say to one another, I'm sure; so we'll
+just run along. I'm taking Mr. Kellogg up to the house, Nat. You'll
+follow us as soon as you can, won't you?"
+
+"Yes--sure."
+
+"I've got some news for you, too, that'll make you happy."
+
+"Never mind about that; it'll keep till supper, Mr. Graham." Kellogg
+laughed, taking the old man's arm. "Good-bye, both of you--good-bye for
+a little while."
+
+"Good-bye..."
+
+"Wasn't that terrible!" Josie turned back to Nat when they were alone.
+"I think it was real mean of Mr. Graham to turn on all the lights
+that way," she simpered. "Somebody else might've seen."
+
+"Yes," agreed the young man, half distracted; "but of course I daren't
+turn them off again."
+
+"Never mind. We can wait." Josie blushed.
+
+"I'll just sit here and wait--we can talk till Tracey comes, and then
+you can walk home with me."
+
+"Yes, that'll be nice," he agreed, but without absolute ecstasy.
+
+Fortunately for him, in his temper of that moment, Pete Willing reeled
+into the shop, two-thirds drunk, with his face smeared with blood from
+a cut on his forehead.
+
+"'Scuse me," he muttered huskily. "Kin I see you a minute, Doc?"
+
+He reeled and almost fell--would have fallen had not Duncan caught his
+arm and guided him to a chair. "Great Scott, Pete!" he cried. "What's
+happened to you?"
+
+"M' wife..." Pete explained thickly.
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+
+ROLAND SHOWS HIS HAND
+
+"Perhaps I'd better go." Josie, fluttering with alarm and a little
+pale, went quickly to the door.
+
+Duncan followed her a pace or two. "I can't leave just now," he
+stammered.
+
+"I don't mind one bit. I don't want to be in the way. I'll telephone
+from home.... Good-night, dearest!" On tiptoes she drew his face down
+to hers and kissed him. "I'm so happy..."
+
+Half dazed, Nat stared after her until her lightly moving figure merged
+with the shadows beneath the trees and was lost. Then, with a sigh, he
+turned back to Pete.
+
+The sheriff had undoubtedly suffered at the hands of that militant
+person, Mrs. Willing. "Great Scott!" Duncan exclaimed as he examined
+the two-inch gash in his head. "That's a bird, Pete."
+
+"M' wife done it," Willing muttered huskily. "Sh' threw side 'r th'
+house at me, I think."
+
+"Wife, eh?" The coincidence smote Duncan with redoubled force. He
+shivered "Well, she certainly gave it to you good." He went behind the
+counter to prepare a dressing for the wound, which, if wide, was
+neither deep nor serious and gave him little concern for Pete.
+
+The latter ruminated on the event, breathing stertorously, while Duncan
+was fixing up a wash of peroxide. "She'll kill me some day," he
+announced suddenly, with intense conviction in his tone.
+
+"Oh, don't say that...."
+
+Opposition roused Pete to a fury of assertion. "Yes, she will, sure!"
+he bawled. Then his emotion quieted. "But I'd 'bout as soon be dead's
+live with her, anyway."
+
+"_Um_." Nat got some absorbent cotton and adhesive plaster. "Been
+drinking again, hadn't you?"
+
+"Yesh," Pete admitted with a leer of drunken cunning. "But she druv me
+to it." He was quiet for a moment. "Mish'r Duncan," he volunteered
+cheerfully, "you ain't got _no_ idee how lucky y'are y'aint married."
+
+"Is that so?" Nat returned with the dressings.
+
+"No idee'tall." Pete surrendered his head to Nat's ministrations. "'Nd
+I hope y' won't never have."
+
+"But I'm going to be married, Pete."
+
+The sheriff assimilated this information and became abruptly
+intractable. He jerked his head away and swung round in his chair to
+argue the matter.
+
+"Oh, no!" he expostulated. "Don't, Mish'r Duncan. Don't never do it.
+Take warnin' from me."
+
+"But I'm engaged, Pete."
+
+"Maksh no diff'runsh--break it off." His voice rose to a howl of alarm.
+"F'r Gaw's sake, break it off!--now, before it's too late! Do anythin'
+rather'n that: drink--lie--steal--murder--c'mit suicide--don't care
+what--only _keep single!_" "Here," said Duncan, laughing, "sit back
+there and let me'tend to your head." He began to wash the wound with
+the peroxide. "There: that'll sting a bit, but not long.... But
+suppose, Pete, I'd get a lot of money by marrying?"
+
+"No matter how mush y'get, 'tain't enough!"
+
+"I'm inclined to think you're about right, Pete."
+
+"You bet I'm right. I'm married 'nd _I know_."
+
+Nat finished dressing the cut, smoothed down the ends of the adhesive
+tape, and stood back. "That's all right, now. Go home, wash your face,
+and sleep it off. Let me see you sober in the morning."
+
+"Huh!" Pete chuckled derisively. "Ain't goin' home t'night."
+
+"You've got to get some sleep: that's the only way for you to
+straighten up."
+
+"Well," agreed Pete, rising, "then I'll go over to the barn 'nd sleep
+with the horse."
+
+"Aren't you afraid he'll step on you?" asked Nat, amused.
+
+"Maybe he will," Pete replied fairly, "but I'd ruther risk that 'n m'
+wife."
+
+He swerved and lurched toward the door. "Thanks, doc, 'nd g'night," he
+mumbled, and incontinently collided with Roland Barnette.
+
+Roland was working under a full head of steam, apparently; his
+naturally sanguine complexion was several shades darker than the
+normal, and he was seething with repressed emotion--excitement,
+anticipated triumph, jealousy, envy and hatred: all centring upon the
+hapless head of Nat Duncan. Plunging along with his head down, his
+thoughts wholly preoccupied with his grievance and its remedy, he
+bumped into Willing and cannoned off, recognising him with an angry
+growl. The result of this was to stay Pete's departure; he grasped
+the frame of the door and steadied himself, glaring round at the
+aggressor.
+
+"'Lo, Roland," he said, focussing his vision. "Whash masser?"
+
+Roland disregarded him entirely. "Say, you!" he snorted, catching sight
+of Nat. "I want to see you."
+
+"Oh?" Nat drawled exasperatingly. He had never had much use for Roland,
+and now with hidden joy he read the signs of passion on the boy's
+inflamed countenance. Happy he would be, thought Nat, if Roland were to
+be delivered into his hands that night. He owed the world a grudge,
+just then, and needed nothing more than an object to wreak his
+vengeance upon. "Well, I'll stake you to a good long look," he added
+sweetly.
+
+"Ah-h! don't you try to be so funny; you might get hurt."
+
+Pete seemed to be suddenly electrified by Ro-land's matter. "Here!" he
+interposed. "Whajuh mean by that?" And relinquishing his grasp on the
+door, he reeled between the two and thrust his face close to Roland's.
+"Who're you talkin' to, an'way?" he demanded, truculent.
+
+Nat stepped forward quickly and grabbed Pete's arm. "That's all right,
+Pete," he soothed him. "Don't get nervous. Roly won't hurt anybody."
+
+The diminutive stung Roland to exasperation. "Why, damn you----!" he
+screamed, and promptly became inarticulate with rage.
+
+"Ah! ah! ah!" Nat wagged a reproving forefinger. "Naughty word, Roly!
+Careful, or you'll sour your chewing gum."
+
+"Now, say! Do you think----"
+
+At this juncture Pete drowned his words with an incoherent roar, having
+apparently reached the conclusion that the time had now arrived when it
+would be his duty and pleasure to eat Roland alive. Nat saved the young
+man by the barest inch; he grappled with Pete and drew himself aside
+just in time.
+
+"Steady, Pete!" he said quietly. "Steady, old man. Let Roland alone."
+
+"Awrh, I ain't 'fraid of him!" spluttered Pete.
+
+"Neither am I. Get out, won't you, and leave him to me."
+
+"Aw'right." Pete became more calm. "I'll leave him 'lone, but all the
+same I wan' it 'stinctly un'erstood I kin lick any man in town 'ceptin'
+m' wife. G'night, everybody."
+
+He gathered himself together and by a supreme effort lunged through the
+door and into the deepening dusk.
+
+"Well, Roly?" Nat asked, turning back.
+
+His ironic calm gave Roland pause. For a moment he lost his bearings
+and stammered in confusion. "I come in to tell you that me and you's
+apt to have trouble," he concluded.
+
+"Oh? And are you thinking of starting it?"
+
+"You bet I'll start it, and I'll start it damn' quick if you don't
+leave Josie Lockwood alone."
+
+"So that's the trouble, is it?" commented Nat thoughtfully.
+
+"Yes, that's the trouble. From now on I want you to let her alone, and
+you'll do it, too, if you know what's best for you."
+
+A suggestion of menace in his manner, unconnected with any hint of
+physical correction, caught Nat's attention. He frowned over it.
+
+"Just what do you mean by this line of talk?" he inquired blandly,
+stepping nearer.
+
+"I'll tell you what I mean." Roland clenched both fists and thrust his
+chin out pugnaciously. "I'd been a-goin' steady with Josie Lockwood for
+more'n a year before you come here and thought that, on account of her
+money, you could sneak in and cut me out...."
+
+"Was her money the reason you were after her, Roly?"
+
+"What----?" The question brought Roland momentarily up in the wind.
+"'Tain't none of your business if it was!" he snapped, recovering. "But
+here's what I'm gettin' at." He tapped his breast-pocket with a sneer
+of bucolic triumph. "Just about ten months ago," he continued
+meaningly, "they was a cashier skipped out of the Longacre National
+Bank in Noo Yawk, and they ain't got no track of him yet."
+
+So this was why Roland had been so assiduous a student of the back
+files in the Citizen office!
+
+"Indeed?"
+
+"Yes, indeed. I had my suspicions all along, but didn't say nothin',
+but just to-day I got a description of him, and the description just
+fits, Mr. Mortimer Henry."
+
+"Just fits Mr. Mortimer Henry? But what has that----?"
+
+"Ah, don't you try to seem too darn' innocent," Roland snarled. "You
+can't fool me!"
+
+A light dawned upon Nat, and laughter flooded his being, although
+outwardly he remained imperturbable--merely mildly curious. But his
+fingers were itching.
+
+"So you think I'm the absconding cashier, eh, Roly?"
+
+"You keep away from Josie 'r you'll find out what I think." Nat's
+placidity deceived Roland, who drew the wholly erroneous conclusion
+that he had succeeded in frightening his rival, and consequently dared
+a few lengths further in his tirade. "Why, if I was to go to Mr.
+Lockwood and tell him you're Mortimer Henry, alias Nat Duncan----"
+
+Duncan's temper suddenly snapped like a taut violin string.
+
+"That will do," he said icily. "That will be all for this evening,
+thanks."
+
+"Ah... Are you going to quit chasin' after Josie?"
+
+"I'll begin chasing after you if you don't clear out of here."
+
+"You better agree----"
+
+[Illustration: "Betty!"]
+
+Just there the storm burst. Ten seconds later Roland, with a confused
+impression of having been kicked by a mule, picked himself up out of
+the dust in the middle of the street and stared stupidly back at the
+store. Nat was waiting in the doorway for a renewal of hostilities, if
+any such there were to be. Seeing, however, that Roland had apparently
+sated his appetite for personal conflict, he picked up a dark object at
+his feet and held it out.
+
+"Here's your hat, Roly," he called.
+
+Roland spat out a mouthful of dust and swore beneath his breath. "Throw
+it out here," he replied prudently.
+
+Tossing him the hat, Nat turned contemptuously. "Come in again, any
+time you want to apologise," he shouted over his shoulder, as an
+afterthought.
+
+He paused in the middle of the store and felt of his necktie. It proved
+to be a little out of place, but otherwise he was as immaculate as was
+his wont. He reviewed the encounter and laughed quietly.
+
+"There's no cure for a fool," he mused....
+
+The telephone bell roused him from his reverie. He went over to the
+instrument, sat down, and put the receiver to his ear.
+
+"Hello?" he said.... "Oh, hello, Josie! ... What's that?... That's
+right, but I'm not used to it yet, you know.... Well, I'll try again.
+Now--ready?"
+
+He schooled his voice to a key of heartrending sentiment: "Hello,
+darling.... How's that? ... Told your father? Told him what?... Oh,
+about the engagement! Was he angry? ... Oh, he wasn't, eh? What did he
+say? ... Wasn't that nice of him!..."
+
+Conscious of a slight noise in the store he looked up. A young woman
+had just entered. She paused just inside the door, smiling at him a
+little timidly.
+
+Without another word to his fiancee Nat put down the telephone and
+hooked up the receiver.
+
+"Betty!" he cried wonderingly.
+
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+
+AS OTHERS SAW HIM
+
+If Nat's cry of recognition had been wondering, it was no less one of
+delight. The surprise he felt was perfectly natural; Betty wasn't to
+have returned until the morrow, and was therefore the last person he
+had expected to see when he looked up from the telephone desk. But it
+was the change in the girl that most stirred him: the change he had
+prophesied, planned for, anticipated eagerly throughout the long seven
+months of her absence; to have his expectations so wonderfully
+fulfilled, and more than fulfilled, pleased him beyond expression. And
+it's curious to speculate upon the fact that he fancied his greatest
+pleasure came from the knowledge that old Sam would be so overjoyed....
+
+It was really only a paraphrase of the old story of the grub and the
+butterfly. The little, starveling drudge who had found him in the
+store, that first day, had completely vanished; it was as if she had
+never been. In her place he discovered a girl all grace and loveliness,
+her slender figure ripening into gracious womanhood; a girl of mind and
+heart and understanding, all fire and tenderness; demure, intelligent,
+with a pretty pose of independence and sureness of herself moderated by
+modesty and reserve. Her travelling dress of sober colouring and severe
+lines became her bewitchingly. Beneath the brim of her dainty hat, with
+veil thrown back, her dark hair waved back, glossy with the sheen of
+perfect well-being, from a face serenely charming--the more so for her
+slightly deepened flush; and the eyes that shone into Nat's danced with
+the light of enjoyment, bred of his supreme astonishment....
+
+"Nat, I'm so glad to see you again!"
+
+He was speechless.
+
+She laughed, put down her suit-case, and moved toward him, offering him
+both her hands. He took them, stammering.
+
+"It's such a surprise, Betty----!"
+
+"I knew it would be. I just couldn't wait, Nat, when I found I could
+get here by the night train instead of tomorrow morning. I haven't been
+home, you know, but I couldn't resist the temptation to stop in here
+and see--what the store looked like after all these months. Besides, I
+thought that you or father----" Her eyes fell and she faltered,
+withdrawing her hands.
+
+By now he had himself in hand. "Why," he laughed, "you nearly took my
+breath away. Even now I can hardly believe it..."
+
+"Believe what, Nat?" she asked quickly.
+
+"That you're the same little Betty Graham. I never saw such a change."
+
+"It's a change for the better, isn't it, Nat?" she asked with a smile
+half wistful.
+
+"I should think it was. It's just marvellous!"
+
+"Did I seem so very awful, then?"
+
+"Nonsense. You know you didn't, only, now..."
+
+"Then you think father will be pleased?"
+
+"If he isn't, I'm blind!"
+
+She looked away, embarrassed, and touched by his interest and his
+feeling. "And does it make you a little proud, Nat?"
+
+"Proud!" he exclaimed blankly.
+
+"Because you know you've done it all. If there's any improvement in
+Betty Graham to-day, it's because of you. If it hadn't been for
+you----"
+
+"Never in the world; you don't know what you're talking about, Betty.
+Nobody but yourself could have brought about this change. It had to be
+in you before it could come out. You know that."
+
+She shook her head very decidedly, seating herself on one of the chairs
+by the soda-fountain. "Oh, no," she contradicted calmly and sincerely.
+"Why, Nat, don't you suppose I have any memory? You began making me a
+better girl the very first day we met here in the store, by the things
+you said to me. And ever since I've been watching you, while you were
+making life a Heaven for father and me, and thinking that if I were a
+man I'd try to be as near like you as I could."
+
+"Oh, don't say that," he pleaded wretchedly.
+
+"It's true.... And when you sent me away to school I promised myself
+I'd try to repay you for the sacrifice you must be making for me; that
+I'd follow your example as nearly as ever I could; that I'd work hard
+and try to treat people the way you do--kindly, Nat, and considerately,
+and bravely and tenderly and honestly----"
+
+He dropped into a chair near her and buried his head in his hands.
+"Don't!" he begged huskily. "Please, Betty, don't!"
+
+But she wouldn't stop, little guessing how she was racking his heart in
+her innocent desire to make him understand how deeply she appreciated
+all he had done for her. "And, O Nat, it's worked so wonderfully! It's
+made all the girls at school like me, and it's made me understand and
+like everybody else better; and now, what's ten thousand times the best
+of all, you notice an improvement the minute you see me! And I--I never
+was so happy in all my life." She bent forward and took one of his
+hands, patting it softly. "Nat, I think you're the very best man in the
+whole world!"
+
+"Don't!" he groaned. "Don't, for Heaven's sake!"
+
+"Oh, I know, Nat--I know you don't like me to say this, but I must,
+just the same, tell you the truth about yourself. It's so splendid to
+live the life you do. You're all unconscious of it, but I want you to
+realise it and know that I do, too. You've made everybody love you
+and..."
+
+But confusion silenced her, and she gently replaced his hand. For
+several moments neither spoke. Then Nat broke the tension with a short,
+hard laugh.
+
+"That's right," he said inscrutably; "that was the idea...."
+
+"Nat, what do you mean?"
+
+He turned to her. "Betty, does it make you--feel that way toward me?"
+
+She coloured divinely. "Why, Nat, of course ... Why, everyone..."
+
+"That's why I came here, Betty," he pursued, blind to her
+embarrassment. "I came here with the idea... of getting married...."
+
+He was staring gloomily at the floor and could not see the light that
+dawned upon the girl's face. Absorbed in the struggle with his
+conscience he had no least suspicion of how his words were affecting
+her. He knew only that he must somehow make a confession to her, that
+to own her regard and gratitude on the terms that then existed between
+them was utterly intolerable.
+
+"You never guessed that, did you?"
+
+"No," she breathed brokenly. "No, Nat, I--"
+
+"Well, it's the truth and...." He rose and moved away. "But I can't
+tell you just now--not now...."
+
+"No, not now, Nat." Betty, too, got up. "I think I'd better go home and
+see father--I mustn't forget--" she faltered, half blinded by the mist
+of the happiness before her eyes.
+
+"No--wait." She stopped to find his gaze full upon her; for the first
+time he comprehended that she had not understood, that, worst of all,
+she had misunderstood. "I must tell you," he blurted desperately, "I
+must."
+
+Instinctively she moved a step toward him. He hung his head.
+
+"To-night, Betty--this evening, just a little while ago, I became
+engaged to Josie Lockwood."
+
+She stood as if petrified throughout a wait that seemed to both
+interminable. Then he heard her catch her breath sharply. He looked up,
+frightened, but she was smiling steadily into his face. Somehow he
+found her hand in his.
+
+"Oh, Nat dear," she said, "I'm so glad for you.... I wish you all the
+happiness in the world. I ... Good-night."
+
+
+The hand slipped out of Nat's. He did not move, but waited there with
+his empty palm outstretched, despair in his eyes and hell in his heart,
+while she walked quietly from the store.
+
+After some time he awoke to the knowledge that she was gone.
+
+"Blithering fool!" he growled. "Why didn't I know I loved her like
+this?" He took a turn to and fro, distracted. "And now I've made a mess
+of everything! Good Lord! what can I do? I must do something or go
+mad!" He swung round behind the soda-fountain counter and seized a
+bottle. "I know what! The rules are off! I can have a drink! I can have
+two drinks! I can have a million drinks if I want 'em!"
+
+Pouring a generous dose of raw whiskey into the glass he lifted it to
+his lips and threw back his head. But the heavy bouquet of the liquor
+was stifling in his nostrils, and the first mouthful of it almost
+choked him. In a fury he flung the glass from him, so that it crashed
+and splintered upon the floor. "Great Heavens!" he cried. "I don't like
+the stuff any more.... But"--his gaze fell upon the cigar case--"I can
+have a smoke. That'll help some!"
+
+With feverish haste he snatched a cigar from the nearest box, gnawed
+off one end, and thrusting the other into the alcohol lighter, puffed
+vigorously. But to his renovated palate the potent fumes of the tobacco
+were no less repugnant than the whiskey had been. Half strangled, he
+plucked the cigar from his mouth and stamped on it.
+
+"Oh," he cried wildly, "I'll be--I'll be damned!"
+
+He paused, staring vacantly at nothing. "And even that doesn't do any
+good! God help me, I've forgotten how to swear!"
+
+To him, in this overwrought state, came Tracey, lumbering cheerfully
+in, his mouth shaped for a whistle. At sight of Nat he pulled up as if
+hit by a club.
+
+"'Evenin', Mister Duncan. What's the matter?"
+
+By an effort Nat brought his gaze to bear upon the boy and comprehended
+his existence.
+
+"Ain't you feeling well, Mr. Duncan?"
+
+"No--rotten!"
+
+"What's the matter?"
+
+"_Nothing_!" Nat shouted ferociously.
+
+"Anything I kin----"
+
+"_No_!"
+
+At that instant Kellogg appeared. "Hello, Nat! What's been keeping you?
+I came down to bring you home to supper."
+
+"Go to blazes with your supper! Keep away from me! Don't talk to me! I
+don't want anything to do with you, d'you understand? You and your
+confounded systems have got me into all this----"
+
+He caught sight of his hat abruptly, ceased talking, grabbed the hat
+and jammed it on his head, muttering; then started on a run for the
+door.
+
+"But what's the matter?" demanded Kellogg, thunderstruck. "Here! Hold
+on! Where are you going?"
+
+"To the only place I can get any consolation--church!"
+
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+
+ROLAND'S TRIUMPH
+
+But at the doorstep of the Methodist Church Nat hesitated. The building
+was dimly lighted, for it was choir practise night, and the door was
+ajar; but he couldn't bring himself to enter. He would not long have
+peace and quiet in which to think, there; presently would come Angle
+and Josie and Roland and...
+
+"I couldn't stand it; I'd probably murder Roland....
+
+"Besides, I've no right there--an impostor--a contemptible low-lived
+pup like me!...
+
+"Why the thunderation did I ever allow myself to be persuaded to come
+here? Why was I ever such a fool?...
+
+"How _could_ I be such a fool?..."
+
+He was walking, now, striding swiftly through the silent village
+streets, meeting few wayfarers and paying them no heed, whether they
+knew and greeted him or not. His entire consciousness was obsessed by
+regret, repentance and remorse. He had ruined everything, deceived
+everybody--even himself for a time--played the cad and the bounder with
+consummate address. There were no bounds to the contempt he felt for
+the man who had tricked these simple, kindly folk into believing him
+immaculate, impeccable; who had hoodwinked "that old prince, Graham,"
+and under false pretences gained his confidence and affection; who had
+deliberately set out to snare an innocent and trusting girl for the
+sake of the filthy money her father owned; who had made another and a
+better girl love him, though that he had done so unconsciously, only to
+break her heart; who had sacrificed everything, honour and decency and
+self-respect, to his greed for money.
+
+But it should go no further. He'd given what he called his word of
+honour to a despicable compact; there could be no dishonour so great as
+holding by that word, sticking to his bargain, maintaining the
+deception and--ruining the life of one woman--perhaps two: Josie
+Lockwood's, for he could never love her; and possibly Betty Graham's,
+for she was of that sort that loves once and once only. If she truly
+loved him...
+
+But by his own act he had placed himself forever beyond the joy of her
+love. He could never accept it, desire it as passionately as he
+might--and did. He could never consent to drag her down to his base
+level...
+
+To-morrow--no, to-night, that very night, he would unmask himself,
+declare his character to them all, pillory himself that all might see
+how low a man could fall. And to-morrow he would go, leave Radville,
+lose himself to all that had come to be so dear to him, forever....
+
+So, raving and ranting with the extravagance of youth, he passed
+through the village, out into the open country, and in the course of an
+hour and a half, back--all blindly: circling back to the store, in the
+course of his wanderings, as instinctly as a carrier pigeon shapes its
+course for home.
+
+It was with incredulity that he found himself again in that cheerful,
+cherished, homely place. But there he was when he came out of his
+abstraction: there in those familiar surroundings, with Tracey's round
+red face beaming at him over the cigar-stand like a lively counterfeit
+of the round red moon he had watched lift up into the skies, back there
+in the still countryside, just as he paused to turn back to town.
+
+He recollected his faculties and resumed command of himself
+sufficiently to acknowledge Tracey's greeting with a moody word.
+
+"All right, Tracey," he said abruptly. "You may go, now. I'll shut up
+the store."
+
+He looked at his watch, and was surprised to discover that it was no
+later than half-past eight. He seemed to have lived a lifetime in the
+last few hours.
+
+
+"Thank you, sir," said Tracey with a gush of gratitude. "I'll be glad
+to get off. Angle's waiting."
+
+"Angle----?"
+
+"Good-evening, Mr. Duncan."
+
+"Oh, Miss Tuthill!" Nat discovered that little rogue, all smiles and
+dimples and blushes, not distant from his elbow. "I didn't see you--I
+was thinking."
+
+"Guess we know what you was thinkin' about," observed Tracey, bringing
+his hat round the counter. "Everybody in town's talkin' about it."
+
+"About what?"
+
+"Ah, you know about what, and we're mighty glad of it, and we want to
+congratulate you, don't we, Angie."
+
+"Oh, yes, indeed, Mr. Duncan. It's just too sweet for anything."
+
+"O Lord!" groaned Nat.
+
+"I'm awful glad you done it when you did," pursued Tracey, oblivious to
+Nat in his own ecstatic temper. "I guess I wouldn't never 've got up
+the spunk to--to tell Angie what I did to-night, 'f it hadn't been we
+was talkin' 'bout your engagement to Josie. Then, somehow, it just
+seemed to bust right out of me, like I couldn't hold it no longer.
+Didn't it, Angie?"
+
+"Oh, Tracey, how can you talk so!"
+
+"Then you're engaged, too?" Nat inquired, rousing himself a little and
+smiling feebly upon them.
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"I'm glad to hear it. It's great news. Now run along, both of you, and
+don't forget you'll never be so happy again." With what he thought an
+expiring flash of humour he raised his hands above their heads. "Bless
+you, my children!" he said solemnly. "Now, for Heaven's sake, beat it!"
+
+Alone he went to the prescription desk and opening one of the drawers
+took out the firm's books. After that for some fifteen minutes there
+was nothing to be heard in the store save Nat's breathing and the
+scratching of his pen as he figured out a trial balance....
+
+Brisk footfalls disturbed him. He sighed and moved out into the store
+to find Kellogg there, suave and easy as always, yet with that in his
+manner, perceptible perhaps only to a friend of long-standing like Nat,
+to betray a mind far from complacent.
+
+"Oh, you're here!" he cried, with a distinct start of relief. "I've
+been looking all over for you."
+
+"I just got in." Nat brushed aside explanations curtly, intent upon his
+purpose. "Harry, I've got something to say to you: I'm not going
+through with this thing."
+
+"You're not?"
+
+"No; and that's final. I was just on the point of drawing you a cheque
+for three-hundred; that's all my share of the profits of this concern,
+so far; and my note for the balance. I'll pay that up as soon as I'm
+able--and I'll work like a terrier until I do. But as for the rest of
+it, I'm through."
+
+"Oh, you are?" Kellogg took a chair and tipped back, frowning gravely.
+"But what about your word to me?"
+
+"Damn that," said Duncan without heat. "The word of honour of a man
+who'd stoop to a trick as vile as I have doesn't amount to a
+continental shinplaster. I'll rather be dishonoured by breaking it than
+by ruining a woman's life."
+
+"Very well, if you feel that way about it," said Kellogg as coolly.
+"And you may keep your cheque and note: I wouldn't take them. You can
+pay me back when it's convenient--I don't care when. But what I want to
+know is what you mean to do?"
+
+"I mean to do the only thing left to do. I'm going to shut up here and
+then see Lockwood and Josie and tell them the whole story."
+
+"Hm," Kellogg reflected, quizzical. "You've got a pleasant little job
+ahead of you."
+
+"I don't care about that: I deserve all that's coming to me. I owe
+Josie a duty. Why, it's awful, Harry, to trick a girl into caring for
+you and then to--to----"
+
+"Break her heart?" Kellogg's tone was sardonic.
+
+"That's what I meant."
+
+"Don't flatter yourself, my boy. Josie Lockwood doesn't love you; she
+just set herself to win you because you're the best chance she's seen."
+Kellogg laughed quietly. "The system would have worked just as well if
+anyone else had tried it."
+
+"Do you think so--honest?" Nat's eagerness to believe him was
+undisguised.
+
+"I'm sure of it. The trouble is that people will say you've thrown her
+over--there isn't anyone in Radville who hasn't heard the news by this
+time; and that's going to make the girl feel pretty cheap. But only for
+a while: she'll get over it and solace herself with the next best
+thing.... And don't forget; you lose a fortune."
+
+"No, I don't," Duncan disclaimed. "I never had it and now I don't want
+it."
+
+"That's true enough," Kellogg admitted evenly. "And I hope you'll
+always feel that way about it; but, believe me, you'll find plenty of
+money a great help if you want to live a happy life."
+
+"There are better things than money to make a man happy; I'll pass up
+the money and try for the others."
+
+"That's true, too; but when did you find it out?"
+
+"Here--this last year.... You know I had everything my heart desired
+until the governor cashed in; and I used to think I was a pretty happy
+kid in those days. But now I've learned that you can beat that kind of
+happiness to death. Harry"--Duncan was growing almost sententious--"the
+real way to be happy is to work and have your work amount to something
+and--and to have someone who believes in you to work for."
+
+"Is this a sermon, Nat?"
+
+"Call it what you like: it goes, just the same. ... That's what I've
+found out this year."
+
+Kellogg let his chair fall forward and rose, imprisoning Nat's
+shoulders with two heavy but kindly hands. "And you're right!" he cried
+heartily. "I'm glad you had the backbone to back out, Nat. It was a
+low-down trick and I'm ashamed of myself for proposing it. I did it, I
+presume, simply because I'm a schemer at heart, and I knew it would
+work. It did work, but it's worked a finer way than I dreamed of: it's
+made a man of you, Nat, and I'm mightly glad and proud of you!"
+
+Nat swayed with amazement. "What's changed you all of a sudden?" he
+demanded blankly.
+
+Releasing him, Kellogg resumed his seat, laughing. "Well, a number of
+things. Among others, I've talked with Graham and I've met his
+daughter."
+
+"Oh-h!"
+
+"And that reminds me," Kellogg changed the subject briskly; "I
+understood from you that Graham was sole owner of that patent burner."
+
+"So he is."
+
+"He says not. I had a proposition to make him from the Mutual people,
+and he referred me to you, saying that you controlled the matter."
+
+"I've not the slightest interest in it!" Nat protested.
+
+"I know you haven't, but Graham insisted you owned the whole thing. I
+pressed him for an explanation, and he finally furnished one in his
+rambling, inconsequent, fine old way. He admitted that there wasn't any
+sort of an existing contract or agreement of any sort, even oral,
+between you, but just the same you'd been so good to him and his girl
+that he'd made up his mind--some time ago, I gather--to make you a
+present of the burner; but naturally he forgot to tell you about an
+insignificant detail like that."
+
+"Of course that's nonsense; I wouldn't and shant accept."
+
+"Of course you won't. I did you the honour to discount that. But he
+wouldn't say a word about the offer--yes or no--just left it all up to
+you. He says you're a business man, and that he's often thought what a
+help you must have been to me before you left New York."
+
+Nat laughed outright. "Can you beat that? ... But what is the offer?"
+
+"Fifty thousand cash and ten thousand shares of preferred
+stock--hundred dollars par."
+
+"What's that worth?"
+
+"At the market rate when I left town, seventy-eight." Kellogg waited a
+moment. "Well, what do you say?"
+
+"Say? Great Caesar's Ghost! What is there to say? Wire 'em an
+acceptance before they get their second wind.... You don't know how
+good this makes me feel, Harry; I can't thank you enough for what
+you've done. This'll square me with Graham to some extent, and I can
+clear out----"
+
+"No, you can't, Mr. Smarty! You ain't been 'cute enough."
+
+Both men, startled by the interruption, wheeled round to discover
+Roland Barnette dancing with excitement in the doorway, the while he
+beckoned frantically to an invisible party without. "Come on!" he
+shouted. "Here he is!"
+
+"What's eating you, Roly-Poly?" inquired
+
+Nat, too happy for the money to cherish animosity even toward his
+one-time rival.
+
+"You'll find out soon enough," snarled Roland. "Mr. Lockwood's got
+something to say to you, I guess."
+
+And on the heels of this announcement Lockwood strode into the store,
+Josie clinging to his arm, Pete Willing--a trifle more sanely drunk
+than he had been some hours previous--bringing up the rear.
+
+"So!" snarled Blinky, halting and transfixing Nat with the stare of his
+cold blue eyes. "So we've found you, eh?"
+
+"Oh? I didn't know I was lost."
+
+"No nonsense, young man. I ain't in the humour for foolin'." Blinky was
+unquestionably in no sort of a humour at all beyond an evil one. "I
+come here to have a word with you."
+
+"Well, sir?" Nat's tone and attitude were perfectly pacific.
+
+"Ah, there ain't no use beatin' 'round the bush. You've behaved
+yourself ever since you come to Radville, and insinooated yourself into
+our confidence, 'spite of the fact that nobody in town knows who you
+were before you came. But now Roland's laid a charge again' you, and I
+want to know the rights to it."
+
+"Well," Roland interposed cockily, "I accused him of it to-night and he
+didn't deny it."
+
+[Illustration: "You're a thief with a reward out for you!"]
+
+"What's more," Lockwood continued with rising colour, "Roland says he
+can prove it?"
+
+"Prove what?" Nat insisted. "Get down to facts, can't you?"
+
+"That you're a thief with a reward out for you," said Roland. "You're
+that Mortimer Henry what absconded from the Longacre National Bank in
+Noo York."
+
+There fell a brief pause. Nat bowed his head and tugged at his
+moustache, his shoulders shaking with emotion variously construed by
+those who watched him. Presently he looked up again, his features
+gravely composed.
+
+"Roly," said he, "Balaam must miss you terribly."
+
+"That ain't no answer." Lockwood put himself solidly between Nat and
+the object of his obscure remark--who was painfully digesting it. "I
+want to know about this. You got my daughter to say she'd marry you
+this evenin', and you've got to explain to me about this bank business
+before it goes any further."
+
+"Yes?" commented Nat civilly.
+
+"Yes!" thundered Blinky. "Do you deny it? ... Answer me."
+
+To Kellogg's huge diversion, Nat struck an attitude, "I refuse to
+answer," said he.
+
+"Aha! What'd I tell you?" This was Roland's triumphant crow.
+
+"Nat!" Josie advanced, trembling with excitement. "Tell me, what does
+this mean?"
+
+Duncan perforce avoided her gaze. "Don't ask," he said sadly.
+
+"Is it true?" she insisted.
+
+"You heard what Roly said," he replied, with a chastened expression.
+
+"Then you admit it?"
+
+"I admit nothing."
+
+"Oh-h!" The girl drew away from him as from defilement. "I--I hate
+you!" she cried in a voice of loathing
+
+"That's all right," he told her serenely; "I've despised myself all
+evening."
+
+The girl showed him a scornful back. "Papa----" she began.
+
+"Don't thank me, Josie. Roland done it all: he got onto him." Lockwood
+continued to watch Duncan with the air of a cat eyeing a mouse.
+
+Impulsively Josie moved to Roland's side and caught his arm. He drew
+himself up proudly.
+
+"I do thank you, Roland; I can never be grateful enough. I've been so
+foolish.
+
+"That's all right." Roland tucked the girl's hand beneath his arm and
+patted it down. "You wasn't to blame. I never seen anyone from Noo York
+yet that wasn't a crook."
+
+"Won't you please take me away from this--place, Roland?" she appealed.
+
+"I'll be mighty glad to see you home, Josie," he assured her
+generously, turning.
+
+In the act of leaving, Josie caught Nat's eye. She hung back for an
+instant, withering him with a glare. "Oh-h!" she cried. "How did you
+dare pretend to care for me?"
+
+He bowed politely. "It was one of the rules, Josie."
+
+"There's no need to tell you, I guess, that the engagement is broken."
+
+"None whatever, Miss Lockwood. Good-evening."
+
+"Come, Roland!"
+
+Arm in arm they left, with the haughty tread of the elect, while Pete
+Willing lurched to Duncan's side and caught his arm.
+
+"Come 'long to jail, Mish'r Duncan," he said with sympathy. "Mush
+bessher."
+
+"You look after him, Pete." Lockwood turned to leave with a final shot
+for Duncan. "I'll 'tend to your case in the mornin', young man, and
+I'll make you wish you never came to this town."
+
+"You needn't trouble. I feel that way about it already. _Good_-night."
+
+Lockwood left them, snarling. Nat caught Kellogg's eye and began to
+giggle. But Pete was still holding him fast, partially, beyond doubt,
+for support.
+
+"You've been saved just in time, Mish'r Duncan," he commented; "y'are
+mighty lucky man. Now lissen: you better make tracks. I ain't got no
+warrant to hold you, 'nd I wouldn't if I had."
+
+"You're a good fellow, Pete; but you needn't worry. I'm not the man
+they think me, and it'll be easy to prove."
+
+"Wal," said Pete, "jus' the same, you better git out, 'r you may have
+to marry her aft'all."
+
+"No, I won't."
+
+"Thank Gawd f'r that!" Pete exclaimed in maudlin gratitude. He swung
+widely toward the door, and by a miracle found it. "G'night, Mish'r
+Duncan. I feel s' good 'bout thish I'm goin' try goin' home 'nd face m'
+wife. G'night."
+
+"Good-night, Pete."
+
+"Well!" said Kellogg after a pause, "that was a bit of luck!"
+
+"Luck!" Nat seized his hat and began to turn off the lights. "It's more
+luck than I thought there was in the whole world. Come along."
+
+"Where are you going?"
+
+"First, to see Lockwood and have it out with him."
+
+"No, you aren't," Kellogg laughed as Nat locked the door. "You're going
+to leave Lockwood to me; I'll manage to ease his mind. You've got
+infinitely more important matters to attend to--and the sooner you find
+her, the better, Nat!"
+
+
+
+
+XXIII
+
+
+THE RAINBOW'S END
+
+The air was heavy with moisture and very still and warm; a heady
+fragrance of precocious blooms flavoured the air, vying with the scent
+of rain. The silence was profound, but shaken now and then by a grumble
+of distant thunder. The world hung breathless on the issue of the night.
+
+Since evenfall a wall of cloud, massive and portentous, had been
+climbing up over the western hills, slowly but with ominous steadiness
+obscuring the moon-swept sky with its far, pale wreaths of stars,
+blotting it out with monstrous folds and convolutions of impenetrable
+purple-black. Along its crest fire played like swords in the sunlight,
+and now and again sheeted flame lightened the monstrous expanse so that
+it glowed with the pale phosphorescence of a summer sea.
+
+As Duncan hurried homeward over sidewalks chequered in silver and ink,
+the advance of the cloud army seemed to become accelerated. With
+increasing frequency gusts of air set the trees a-shiver until their
+sibilant whispers of warning filled the valley. The rolling of the
+thunder grew more sharp, more instant upon the flashes.... When there
+was no wind the air seemed to quiver with terror--as a dog cringes to
+the whip....
+
+But of this Duncan was barely conscious.
+
+He gained the gate in the fence of wood paling, opened it, and entered.
+The lawn and house were lit with the unearthly radiance of moonlight
+threatened by eclipse. He could see the light in Graham's study and,
+through the open doors, the faint glow of the hall-lamp. But there was
+no one visible.
+
+He hurried up the path, tortured by impatience, fear, longing,
+despair....
+
+Then he saw what seemed at first a pale shadow detach itself from
+darker shades in the shrubbery and move toward him.
+
+"Nat, is it you?"
+
+"Betty!"
+
+His whole heart was in that cry; the girl thrilled to its timbre as
+though a master hand had struck a chord upon her heart-strings.
+
+"Nat, what--what is it?"
+
+"Betty, I want to tell you something."
+
+She came very slowly toward him, torn alternately by fear and hope.
+What did he mean?
+
+"Do you happen to remember that I told you a while ago I was engaged to
+Josie Lockwood?"
+
+[Illustration: "Forever and ever and a day"]
+
+"Nat! Could I forget? ... Why?"
+
+"Because ... it's broken off, Betty."
+
+"Broken off! ... How? Why?"
+
+"Because it had to be, sweetheart: because I love you."
+
+She was very close to him then. Her uplifted face shone like marble in
+the fading light. "Nat, I ... I don't understand."
+
+"Then, listen--I must tell you. It was all a plan, a scheme, my coming
+here, Betty. Everything I did, said, thought, was part of a
+contemptible trick.... I meant to marry Josie Lockwood, whom I'd never
+seen, for her money. ... Now you know what I was, dear.... But it's
+different, now. I'm not the same man who came to Radville ten months
+ago. I've learned a little to understand the right, I hope: I've
+learned to love and reverence goodness and purity and unselfishness and
+... And I want to be a man, the kind of a man you thought me: a man
+worthy of you and your love, Betty.... Because I love you. I want you
+to be my wife. ... And, O Betty, Betty, I need you to help me!"
+
+His voice broke. He waited, every nerve and fibre of him tense for her
+answer. While he had been speaking, the onrush of the storm had blotted
+out the moon. There was only darkness there in the garden--deep, dense
+darkness, so thick he could not even see the shimmer of her dress....
+
+Then suddenly she was in his arms, shaking and sobbing, straining him
+to her.
+
+"Oh, Nat, my Nat! I've loved you from the first day I ever saw you! You
+know I have."
+ "Betty! ... sweetheart..."
+
+There came an abrupt, furious patter of heavy drops of water, beating
+upon the foliage, splashing and rebounding from the house.
+
+"Forever and ever, Nat?"
+
+"Forever and ever and a day, my dear ... my dear!"
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Fortune Hunter, by Louis Joseph Vance
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FORTUNE HUNTER ***
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+<html>
+<head>
+<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1">
+<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Fortune Hunters, by Joseph Louis Vance</title>
+<style type="text/css">
+<!--
+body {margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; background-color: white}
+img {border: 0;}
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+
+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Fortune Hunter, by Louis Joseph Vance
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Fortune Hunter
+
+Author: Louis Joseph Vance
+
+Illustrator: Arthur William Brown
+
+Posting Date: November 15, 2011 [EBook #9747]
+Release Date: January, 2006
+First Posted: October 15, 2003
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FORTUNE HUNTER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Suzanne Shell, Anuradha Valsa Raj, Tonya Allen
+and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<p class="ctr">
+<a href="images/frontis.jpg"><img src="images/frontis_th.jpg" width="150"
+alt="'You Can Be Worth a Million ... Within a Year'"></a>
+</p>
+
+<h1>THE FORTUNE HUNTER</h1>
+
+<h2>By Louis Joseph Vance</h2>
+
+<h3>Author Of "The Brass Bowl,"
+"The Bronze Bell," Etc.
+</h3>
+
+<h3>
+<i>With illustrations by</i>
+Arthur William Brown
+</h3>
+
+<h3>
+1910
+</h3>
+
+<h3>
+To
+George Spellvin, Esq.,
+</h3>
+<h3>
+<i>This book is cheerfully dedicated</i>
+</h3>
+
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+
+<h2>
+	CONTENTS
+</h2>
+
+<p class="ctr">
+<a href="#i">I.       FROM HIM THAT HATH NOT
+</a></p>
+<p class="ctr">
+<a href="#ii">II.      TO HIM THAT HATH
+</a></p>
+<p class="ctr">
+<a href="#iii">III.     INSPIRATION
+</a></p>
+<p class="ctr">
+<a href="#iv">IV.      TRIUMPH OF MR. HOMER LITTLE JOHN
+</a></p>
+<p class="ctr">
+<a href="#v">
+V.       MARGARET'S DAUGHTER
+</a></p>
+<p class="ctr">
+<a href="#vi">
+VI.      INTRODUCTION TO MISS CARPENTER
+</a></p>
+<p class="ctr">
+<a href="#vii">
+VII.     A WINDOW IN RADVILLE
+</a></p>
+<p class="ctr">
+<a href="#viii">
+VIII.    THE MAN OF BUSINESS IN EMBRYO
+</a></p>
+<p class="ctr">
+<a href="#ix">
+IX.      SMALL BEGINNINGS
+</a></p>
+<p class="ctr">
+<a href="#x">
+X.       ROLAND BARNETTE'S FRIEND
+</a></p>
+<p class="ctr">
+<a href="#xi">
+XI.      BLINKY LOCKWOOD
+</a></p>
+<p class="ctr">
+<a href="#xii">
+XII.     DUNCAN'S GRUBSTAKE
+</a></p>
+<p class="ctr">
+<a href="#xiii">
+XIII.    THE BUSINESS MAN AND MR. BURNHAM</a></p>
+<p class="ctr">
+<a href="#xiv">
+ XIV.     MOSTLY ABOUT BETTY
+</a></p>
+<p class="ctr">
+<a href="#xv">
+XV.      MANOEUVRES OF JOSIE
+</a></p>
+<p class="ctr">
+<a href="#xvi">
+XVI.     WHERE RADVILLE FEARED TO TREAD
+</a></p>
+<p class="ctr">
+<a href="#xvii">
+XVII.    TRACEY'S TROUBLES
+</a></p>
+<p class="ctr">
+<a href="#xviii">
+XVIII.   A BARGAIN IS A BARGAIN
+</a></p>
+<p class="ctr">
+<a href="#xix">
+XIX.     PROVING THE PERSIPICUITY OF MR. KELLOGG
+</a></p>
+<p class="ctr">
+<a href="#xx">
+XX.      ROLAND SHOWS HIS HAND
+</a></p>
+<p class="ctr">
+<a href="#xxi">
+XXI.     AS OTHERS SAW HIM
+</a></p>
+<p class="ctr">
+<a href="#xxii">
+XXII.    ROLAND'S TRIUMPH
+</a></p>
+<p class="ctr">
+<a href="#xxiii">
+XXIII.   THE RAINBOW'S END
+</a></p>
+
+<br>
+<br>
+
+<h3>ILLUSTRATIONS</h3>
+
+
+<p class="ctr"><a href="images/frontis.jpg">
+'You can be worth a million ... within a year'
+</a></p>
+<p class="ctr"><a href="images/illp154.jpg">
+'You mean you're going to work here?'
+</a></p>
+<p class="ctr"><a href="images/illp198.jpg">
+'Four hundred dollars, mr. sheriff'
+</a></p>
+<p class="ctr"><a href="images/illp308.jpg">
+'Betty!'
+</a></p>
+<p class="ctr"><a href="images/illp330.jpg">
+'You're a thief with a reward out for you!'
+</a></p>
+<p class="ctr"><a href="images/illp336.jpg">
+'Forever and ever and a day'
+</a></p>
+
+
+
+
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+
+
+
+<h3><a name="i">
+	I
+</a></h3>
+<p class="ctr">
+FROM HIM THAT HATH NOT
+</p>
+<p>
+Receiver at ear, Spaulding, of Messrs. Atwater &amp; Spaulding, importers
+of motoring garments and accessories, listened to the switchboard
+operator's announcement with grave attention, acknowledging it with a
+toneless: "All right. Send him in." Then hooking up the desk telephone
+he swung round in his chair to face the door of his private office, and
+in a brief ensuing interval painstakingly ironed out of his face and
+attitude every indication of the frame of mind in which he awaited his
+caller. It was, as a matter of fact, anything but a pleasant one: he
+had a distasteful duty to perform; but that was the last thing he
+designed to become evident. Like most good business men he nursed a pet
+superstition or two, and of the number of these the first was that he
+must in all his dealings present an inscrutable front, like a
+poker-player's: captains of industry were uniformly like that,
+Spaulding understood; if they entertained emotions it was strictly in
+private. Accordingly he armoured himself with a magnificent
+imperturbability which at times almost deceived its wearer.
+</p>
+<p>
+Occasionally it deceived others: notably now it bewildered Duncan as he
+entered on the echo of Spaulding's "Come!" He had apprehended the
+visage of a thunderstorm, with a rattle of brusque complaints: he
+encountered Spaulding as he had always seemed: a little, urbane figure
+with a blank face, the blanker for glasses whose lenses seemed always
+to catch the light and, glaring, mask the eyes behind them; a
+prosperous man of affairs, well groomed both as to body and as to mind;
+a machine for the transaction of business, with all a machine's
+vivacity and temperamental responsiveness. It was just that quality in
+him that Duncan envied, who was vaguely impressed that, if he himself
+could only imitate, however minutely, the phlegm of a machine, he might
+learn to ape something of its efficiency and so, ultimately, prove
+himself of some worth to the world&mdash;and, incidentally, to Nathaniel
+Duncan. Thus far his spasmodic attempts to adapt to the requirements
+and limitations of the world of business his own equipment of misfit
+inclinations and ill-assorted abilities, had unanimously turned out
+signal failures. So he envied Spaulding without particularly admiring
+him.
+</p>
+<p>
+Now the sight of his employer, professionally bland and capable, and
+with no animus to be discerned in his attitude, provided Duncan with
+one brief, evanescent flash of hope, one last expiring instant of
+dignity (tempered by his unquenchable humour) in which to face his
+fate. Something of the hang-dog vanished from his habit and for a
+little time he carried himself again with all his one-time grace and
+confidence.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Good-afternoon, Mr. Spaulding," he said, replying to a nod as he
+dropped into the chair that nod had indicated. A faint smile lightened
+his expression and made it quite engaging.
+</p>
+<p>
+"G'dafternoon." Spaulding surveyed him swiftly, then laced his fat
+little fingers and contemplated them with detached intentness. "Just
+get in, Duncan?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"On the three-thirty from Chicago...."
+</p>
+<p>
+There was a pause, during which Spaulding reviewed his fingernails with
+impartial interest; in that pause Duncan's poor little hope died a
+natural death. "I got your wire," he resumed; "I mean, it got
+me&mdash;overtook me at Minneapolis.... So here I am."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You haven't wasted time."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I fancied the matter might be urgent, sir."
+</p>
+<p>
+Spaulding lifted his brows ever so slightly. "Why?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, I gathered from the fact that you wired
+me to come home that you wanted my advice."
+</p>
+<p>
+A second time Spaulding gestured with his eyebrows, for once fairly
+surprised out of his pose. "<i>Your</i> advice!..."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes," said Duncan evenly: "as to whether you ought to give up your
+customers on my route or send them a man who could sell goods."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well...." Spaulding admitted.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, don't think I'm boasting of my acuteness: anybody could have
+guessed as much from the great number of heavy orders I have not been
+sending you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You've had bad luck...."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You mean you have, Mr. Spaulding. It was good luck for me to be
+drawing down my weekly cheques, bad luck to you not to have a man who
+could earn them."
+</p>
+<p>
+His desperate honesty touched Spaulding a trifle; at the risk of not
+seeming a business man to himself he inclined dubiously to relent, to
+give Duncan another chance. The fellow was likeable enough, his
+employer considered; he had good humour and even in dejection,
+distinction; whatever he was not, he was a man of birth and breeding.
+His face might be rusty with a day-old stubble, as it was; his
+shirt-cuffs frayed, his shoes down at the heel, his baggy clothing
+weirdly ready-made, as they were: there remained his air. You'd think
+he might amount to something, to somewhat more than a mere something,
+given half a chance in the right direction. Then what?... Spaulding
+sought from Duncan elucidation of this riddle.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Duncan," he said, "what's the trouble?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I thought you knew that; I thought that was
+why you called me in with my route half-covered."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You mean&mdash;?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I mean I can't sell your line."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"God only knows. I want to, badly enough. It's just general
+incompetence, I presume."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What makes you think that?"
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan smiled bitterly. "Experience," he said.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You've tried&mdash;what else?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"A little of everything&mdash;all the jobs open to a man with a knowledge of
+Latin and Greek and the higher mathematics: shipping clerk,
+time-keeper, cashier&mdash;all of 'em."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And yet Kellogg believes in you."
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan nodded dolefully. "Harry's a good friend. We roomed together at
+college. That's why he stands for me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He says you only need the right opening&mdash;."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And nobody knows where that is, except my unfortunate employers: it's
+the back door going out, for mine every time.... Oh, Harry's been a
+prince to me. He's found me four or five jobs with friends of his&mdash;like
+yourself. But I don't seem to last. You see I was brought up to be
+ornamental and irregular rather than useful; to blow about in motor
+cars and keep a valet busy sixteen hours a day&mdash;and all that sort of
+thing. My father's failure&mdash;you know about that?"
+</p>
+<p>
+Spaulding nodded. Duncan went on gloomily, talking a great deal more
+freely than he would at any other time&mdash;suffering, in fact, from that
+species of auto hypnosis induced by the sound of his own voice
+recounting his misfortunes, which seems especially to affect a man down
+on his luck.
+</p>
+<p>
+"That smash came when I was five years out of college&mdash;I'd never
+thought of turning my hand to anything in all that time. I'd always had
+more coin than I could spend&mdash;never had to consider the worth of money
+or how hard it is to earn: my father saw to all that. He seemed not to
+want me to work: not that I hold that against him; he'd an idea I'd
+turn out a genius of some sort or other, I believe.... Well, he failed
+and died all in a week, and I found myself left with an extensive
+wardrobe, expensive tastes, an impractical education&mdash;and not so much
+of that that you'd notice it&mdash;and not a cent.... I was too proud to
+look to my friends for help in those days&mdash;and perhaps that was as
+well; I sought jobs on my own.... Did you ever keep books in a
+fish-market?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"No." Spaulding's eyes twinkled behind his large, shiny glasses.
+</p>
+<p>
+"But what's the use of my boring you?" Duncan made as if to rise,
+suddenly remembering himself.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You're not. Go on."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I didn't mean to; mostly, I presume, I've been blundering round an
+explanation of Kellogg's kindness to me, in my usual ineffectual
+way&mdash;felt somehow an explanation was due you, as the latest to suffer
+through his misplaced interest in me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Perhaps," said Spaulding, "I am beginning to understand. Go on: I'm
+interested. About the fish-market?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, I just happened to think of it as a sample experience&mdash;and the
+last of that particular brand. I got nine dollars a week and earned
+every cent of it inhaling the atmosphere. My board cost me six and the
+other three afforded me a chance to demonstrate myself a captain of
+finance&mdash;paying laundry bills and clothing myself, besides buying
+lunches and such-like small matters. I did the whole thing, you
+know&mdash;one schooner of beer a day and made my own cigarettes: never
+could make up my mind which was the worst. The hours were easy, too:
+didn't have to get to work until five in the morning.... I lasted five
+weeks at that job, before I was taken sick: shows what a great
+constitution I've got."
+</p>
+<p>
+He laughed uncertainly and paused, thoughtful, his eyes vacant, fixed
+upon the retrospect that was a grim prospect of the imminent future.
+</p>
+<p>
+"And then&mdash;?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh&mdash;?" Duncan roused. "Why, then I fell in with Kellogg again; he
+found me trying the open-air cure on a bench in Washington Square.
+Since then he's been finding me one berth after another. He's a
+sure-enough optimist."
+</p>
+<p>
+Spaulding shifted uneasily in his chair, stirred by an impulse whose
+unwisdom he could not doubt. Duncan had assuredly done his case no good
+by painting his shortcomings in colours so vivid; yet, somehow
+strangely, Spaulding liked him the better for his open-hearted
+confession.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well...." Spaulding stumbled awkwardly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes; of course," said Duncan promptly, rising. "Sorry if I tired you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What do you mean by: 'Yes, of course'?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"That you called me in to fire me&mdash;and so that's over with. Only I'd be
+sorry to have you sore on Kellogg for saddling me on you. You see, he
+believed I'd make good, and so did I in a way: at least, I hoped to."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, that's all right," said Spaulding uncomfortably. "The trouble is,
+you see, we've nothing else open just now. But if you'd really like
+another chance on the road, I&mdash;I'll be glad to speak to Mr. Atwater
+about it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Don't you do it!" Duncan counselled him sharply, aghast. "He might say
+yes. And I simply couldn't accept; it wouldn't be fair to you, Kellogg,
+or myself. It'd be charity&mdash;for I've proved I can't earn my wages; and
+I haven't come to that yet. No!" he concluded with determination, and
+picked up his hat.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Just a minute." Spaulding held him with a gesture. "You're forgetting
+something: at least I am. There's a month's pay coming to you; the
+cashier will hand you the cheque as you go out."
+</p>
+<p>
+"A month's pay?" Duncan said blankly. "How's that? I've drawn up to the
+end of this week already, if you didn't know it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Of course I knew it. But we never let our men go without a month's
+notice or its equivalent, and&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"No," Duncan interrupted firmly. "No; but thank you just the same. I
+couldn't. I really couldn't. It's good of you, but ... Now," he broke
+off abruptly, "I've left my accounts&mdash;what there is of them&mdash;with the
+book-keeping department, and the checks for my sample trunks. There'll
+be a few dollars coming to me on my expense account, and I'll send you
+my address as soon as I get one."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But look here&mdash;" Spaulding got to his feet, frowning.
+</p>
+<p>
+"No," reiterated Duncan positively. "There's no use. I'm grateful to
+you for your toleration of me&mdash;and all that. But we can't do anything
+better now than call it all off. Good-bye, Mr. Spaulding."
+</p>
+<p>
+Spaulding nodded, accepting defeat with the better grace because of an
+innate conviction that it was just as well, after all. And,
+furthermore, he admired Duncan's stand. So he offered his hand: an
+unusual condescension. "You'll make good somewhere yet," he asserted.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I wish I could believe it." Duncan's grasp was firm since he felt more
+assured of some humanity latent in his late employer. "However ...
+Good-bye."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Good luck to you," rang in his ears as the door put a period to the
+interview. He stopped and took up the battered suitcase and rusty
+overcoat which he had left outside the junior partner's office, then
+went on, shaking his head. "Much obliged," he said huskily to himself.
+"But what's the good of that. There's no room anywhere for a
+professional failure. And that's what I am; just a ne'er-do-well. I
+never realised what that meant, really, before, and it's certainly
+taken me a damn' long time to find out. But I know now, all right...."
+</p>
+<p>
+Outside, on the steps of the building, he paused a moment, fascinated
+by the brisk spectacle afforded by lower Broadway at the hour when the
+cave-like offices in its cliff-like walls begin to empty themselves,
+when the overlords and their lieutenants close their desks and turn
+their faces homewards, leaving the details of the day's routine to be
+wound up by underlings. In the clear light of the late spring afternoon
+a stream of humanity was high and fluent upon the sidewalks. Duncan had
+glimpses of keen-faced men, bright-faced women, eager boys, quickened
+all by that manner of efficiency and intelligence which seems so
+integrally American. A well-dressed throng, well-fed, amiable and
+animated, looking ever forward, the resistless tide of affairs that
+gave it being bore it onward; it passed the onlooker as a strong
+current passes flotsam in a back-eddy, with no pause, no turning aside.
+Acutely he felt his aloofness from it, who had no part in its interests
+and scarcely any comprehension of them. The sunken look, the leanness
+of his young face, seemed suddenly accentuated; the gloom in his
+discontented eyes deepened; his slight habitual stoop became more
+noticeable. And a second time he nodded acquiescence to his unspoken
+thought.
+</p>
+<p>
+"There," said he, singling out a passer-by upon whose complacent
+features prosperity had set its smug hall-mark&mdash;"there, but for the
+grace of God, goes Nat Duncan!" He rolled the paraphrase upon his
+tongue and found it bitter&mdash;not, however, with a tonic bitterness.
+"Lord, what a worthless critter I am! No good to myself&mdash;nor to anybody
+else. Even on Harry I'm a drag&mdash;a regular old man of the mountains!"
+</p>
+<p>
+Despondently he went down to the sidewalk and merged himself with the
+crowd, moving with it though a thousand miles apart from it, and
+presently diverging, struck across-town toward the Worth Street subway
+station.
+</p>
+<p>
+"And the worst of it is, he's too sharp not to find it out&mdash;if he
+hasn't by this time&mdash;and too damn' decent by far to let me know if he
+has! ... It can't go on this way with us: I can't let him ... Got to
+break with him somehow&mdash;now&mdash;to-day. I won't let him think me ... what
+I've been all along to him.... Bless his foolish heart!..."
+</p>
+<p>
+This resolution coloured his reverie throughout the uptown journey. And
+he strengthened himself with it, deriving a sort of acrid comfort from
+the knowledge that henceforth none should know the burden of his
+misfortunes save himself. There was no deprecation of Kellogg's
+goodness in his mood, simply determination no longer to be a charge
+upon it. To contemplate the sum total of the benefits he had received
+at Kellogg's hands, since the day when the latter had found him ill and
+half-starved, friendless as a stray pup, on the bench in Washington
+Square, staggered his imagination. He could never repay it, he told
+himself, save inadequately, little by little&mdash;mostly by gratitude and
+such consideration as he purposed now to exhibit by removing himself
+and his distresses from the other's ken. Here was an end to comfort for
+him, an end to living in Kellogg's rooms, eating his food, busying his
+servants, spending his money&mdash;not so much borrowed as pressed upon him.
+He stood at the cross-roads, but in no doubt as to which way he should
+most honourably take, though it took him straight back to that from
+which Kellogg had rescued him.
+</p>
+<p>
+There crawled in his mind a clammy memory of the sort of housing he had
+known in those evil days, and he shuddered inwardly, smelling again the
+effluvia of dank oilcloth and musty carpets, of fish-balls and fried
+ham, of old-style plumbing and of nine-dollar-a-week humanity in the
+unwashen raw&mdash;the odour of misery that permeated the lodgings to which
+his lack of means had introduced him. He could see again, and with a
+painful vividness of mental vision, the degenerate "brownstone fronts"
+that mask those haunts of wretchedness, with their flights of crumbling
+brownstone steps leading up to oaken portals haggard with flaking
+paint, flanked by squares of soiled note-paper upon which inexpert
+hands had traced the warning, not: "Abandon hope all ye who enter
+here," but: "Furnished rooms to let with board." And pursuing this grim
+trail of memory, whether he would or no&mdash;again he climbed, wearily at
+the end of a wearing day, a darksome well of a staircase up and up to
+an eyrie under the eaves, denominated in the terminology of landladies
+a "top hall back"&mdash;a cramped refuge haunted by pitiful ghosts of the
+hopes and despairs of its former tenants. And he remembered with
+reminiscently aching muscles the comfort of such a "single bed" as is
+peculiar (one hopes) to top hall backs, and with a qualm what it was to
+cook a surreptitious meal on a metal heater clamped to the gas-bracket
+(with ears keen to catch the scuffle of the landlady's feet as she
+skulked in the hall, jealous of her gas bill).
+</p>
+<p>
+And to this he must return, to that treadmill round of blighted days
+and joyless nights must set his face....
+</p>
+<p>
+Alighting at the Grand Central Station he packed the double weight of
+his luggage and his cares a few blocks northward on Madison Avenue ere
+turning west toward the bachelor rooms which Kellogg had established in
+the roaring Forties, just the other side of <i>the</i> Avenue&mdash;Fifth
+Avenue, on a corner of which Duncan presently was held up for a time by
+a press of traffic. He lingered indifferently, waiting for the mounted
+policeman to clear a way across, watching the while with lack-lustre
+eyes the interminable procession of cabs and landaus, taxis and
+town-cars that romped by hazardously, crowding the street from curb to
+curb.
+</p>
+<p>
+The day was of young June, though grey and a little chill with the
+discouraged spirit of a retarded season. Though the hegira of the
+well-to-do to their summer homes had long since set in, still there
+remained in the city sufficient of their class to keep the Avenue
+populous from Twenty-third Street north to the Plaza in the evening
+hours. The suggestion of wealth, or luxury, of money's illimitable
+power, pervaded the atmosphere intensely, an ineluctable influence, to
+an independent man heady, to Duncan maddening. He surveyed the parade
+with mutiny in his heart. All this he had known, a part of it had
+been&mdash;upon a time. Now ... the shafts of his roving eyes here and there
+detected faces recognisable, of men and women whose acquaintance he had
+once owned. None recognised him who stood there worn, shabby and tired.
+He even caught the direct glance of a girl who once had thought him
+worth winning, who had set herself to stir his heart and&mdash;had been
+successful. To-day she looked him straight in the eyes, apparently,
+with undisturbed serenity, then as calmly looked over and through and
+beyond him. Her limousine hurried her on, enthroned impregnably above
+the envious herd.
+</p>
+<p>
+He sped her transit with a mirthless chuckle. "You're right," he said,
+"dead right. You simply don't know me any more, my dear&mdash;you musn't;
+you can't afford to any more than I could afford to know you."
+</p>
+<p>
+None the less the fugitive incident seemed to brim his disconsolate
+cup. In complete dejection of mind and spirit he pushed on to Kellogg's
+quarters, buoyed by a single hope&mdash;that Kellogg might be out of town or
+delayed at his office.
+</p>
+<p>
+In that event Duncan might have a chance to gather up his belongings
+and escape unhandicapped by the immediate necessity of justifying his
+course. At another time, surely, the explanation was inevitable; say
+to-morrow; he was not cur enough to leave his friend without a word.
+But to-night he would willingly be spared. He apprehended unhappily the
+interview with Kellogg; he was in no temper for argumentation, felt
+scarcely strong enough to hold his own against the fire of objections
+with which Kellogg would undoubtedly seek to shake his stand. Kellogg
+could talk, Heaven alone knew how winningly he could talk! with all the
+sound logic of a close reasoner, all the enthusiasm of youth and
+self-confidence, all the persuasiveness of profound conviction singular
+to successful men. Duncan had been wont to say of him that Kellogg
+could talk the hind-leg off of a mule. He recalled this now with a sour
+grin: "That means me..."
+</p>
+<p>
+The elevator boy, knowing him of old, neglected to announce his
+arrival, and Duncan had his own key to the door of Kellogg's apartment.
+He let himself in with futile stealth: as was quite right and proper,
+Kellogg's man Robbins was in attendance&mdash;a stupefied Robbins,
+thunderstruck by the unexpected return of his master's friend and
+guest. "Good Lord!" he cried at sight of Duncan. "Beg your pardon, sir,
+but&mdash;but it can't be you!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Your mistake, Robbins. Unfortunately it is." Duncan surrendered his
+luggage. "Mr. Kellogg in?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, sir. But I'm expecting him any minute. He'll be surprised to see
+you back."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Think so?" said Duncan dully. "He doesn't know me, if he is."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You see, sir, we thought you was out West."
+</p>
+<p>
+"So you did." Duncan moved toward the door of his own bedroom, Robbins
+following.
+</p>
+<p>
+"It was only yesterday I posted a letter to you for Mr. Kellogg, sir,
+and the address was Omaha."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I didn't get that far. Fetch along that suitcase, will you please? I
+want to put some clean things in it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then you're not staying in town over night, Mr. Duncan?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't know. I'm not staying here, anyway." Duncan switched on the
+lights in his room. "Put it on the bed, Robbins. I'll pack as quickly
+as I can. I'm in a hurry."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, sir, but&mdash;I hope there's nothing wrong?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then you lose," returned Duncan grimly: "everything's wrong." He
+jerked viciously at an obstinate bureau drawer, and when it yielded
+unexpectedly with the well-known impishness of the inanimate, dumped
+upon the floor a tangled miscellany of shirts, socks, gloves, collars
+and ties.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Didn't you like the business, sir?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, I didn't like the business&mdash;and it didn't like me. It's the same
+old story, Robbins. I've lost my job again&mdash;that's all."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm very sorry, sir."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Thank you&mdash;but that's all right. I'm used to it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And you're going to leave, sir?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I am, Robbins."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I&mdash;may I take the liberty of hoping it's to take another position?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"You may, but you lose a second time. I've just made up my mind I'm not
+going to hang round here any longer. That's all."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But," Robbins ventured, hovering about with exasperating
+solicitude&mdash;"but Mr. Kellogg'd never permit you to leave in this way,
+sir."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Wrong again, Robbins," said Duncan curtly, annoyed.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, sir. Very good, sir." With the instinct of the well-trained
+servant, Robbins started to leave, but hesitated. He was really very
+much disturbed by Duncan's manner, which showed a phase of his
+character new in Robbins' experience of him. Ordinarily reverses such
+as this had seemed merely to serve to put Duncan on his mettle, to
+infuse him with a determination to try again and win out, whatever the
+odds; and at such times he was accustomed to exhibit a mad
+irresponsibility of wit and a gaiety of spirit (whether it were a mask
+or no) that only outrivalled his high good humour when things
+ostensibly were going well with him.
+</p>
+<p>
+Intermittently, between his spasms of employment, he had been Kellogg's
+guest for several years, not infrequently for months at a time; and so
+Robbins had come to feel a sort of proprietary interest in the young
+man, second only to the regard which he had for his employer. Like most
+people with whom Duncan came in contact, Robbins admired him from a
+respectful distance, and liked him very well withal. He would have been
+much distressed to have harm happen to him, and he was very much
+concerned and alarmed to see him so candidly discouraged and sick at
+heart. Perhaps too quick to draw an inference, Robbins mistrusted his
+intentions; his dour habit boded ill in the servant's understanding:
+men in such moods were apt to act unwisely. But if only he might
+contrive to delay Duncan until Kellogg's return, he thought the former
+might yet be saved from the consequences of folly of some insensate
+sort. And casting about for an excuse, he grasped at the most sovereign
+solace he knew of.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Beg pardon, sir," he advanced, hesitant, "but perhaps you're just
+feeling a bit blue. Won't you let me bring you a drop of something?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Of course I will," said Duncan emphatically over his shoulder. "And
+get it now, will you, while I'm packing.... And, Robbins!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Sir?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Only put a little in it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"A little what, sir?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Seltzer, of course."
+</p>
+<br><br><br>
+<h3><a name="ii">
+	II
+</a></h3>
+<p class="ctr">
+TO HIM THAT HATH
+</p>
+<p>
+It had been a forlorn hope at best, this attempt of his to escape
+Kellogg: Duncan acknowledged it when, his packing rudely finished, he
+started for the door, Robbins reluctantly surrendering the suit-case
+after exhausting his repertoire of devices to delay the young man. But
+at that instant the elevator gate clashed in the outer corridor and
+Kellogg's key rattled in the lock, to an accompanying confusion of
+voices, all masculine and all very cheerful.
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan sighed and motioned Robbins away with his luggage. "No hope
+now," he told himself. "But&mdash;O Lord!"
+</p>
+<p>
+Incontinently there burst into the room four men: Jim Long, Larry
+Miller, another whom Duncan did not immediately recognise, and Kellogg
+himself, bringing with them an atmosphere breezy with jubilation.
+Before he knew it Duncan was boisterously overwhelmed. He got his
+breath to find Kellogg pumping his hand.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Nat," he was saying, "you're the only other man on earth I was wishing
+could be with me tonight! Now my happiness is complete. Gad, this is
+lucky!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"You think so?" countered Duncan, forcing a smile. "Hello, you boys!"
+He gave a hand to Long and Miller. "How're you all?" He warmed to their
+friendly faces and unfeigned welcome. "My, but it's good to see you!"
+There was relief in the fact that Kellogg, after a single glance,
+forbore to question his return; he was to be counted upon for tact, was
+Kellogg. Now he strangled surprise by turning to the fourth member of
+the party.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Nat," he said, "I want you to meet Mr. Bartlett. Mr. Bartlett, Mr.
+Duncan."
+</p>
+<p>
+A wholesome smile dawned on Duncan's face as he encountered the blank
+blue stare of a young man whose very smooth and very bright red face
+was admirably set off by semi-evening dress. "Great Scott!" he cried,
+warmly pressing the lackadaisical hand that drifted into his. "Willy
+Bartlett&mdash;after all these years!"
+</p>
+<p>
+A sudden animation replaced the vacuous stare of the blue eyes.
+"Duncan!" he stammered. "I say, this is rippin'!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"As bad as that?" Duncan essayed an accent almost English and nodded
+his appreciation of it: something which Bartlett missed completely.
+</p>
+<p>
+He was very young&mdash;a very great deal younger, Duncan thought, than when
+they had been classmates, what time Duncan shared his rooms with
+Kellogg: very much younger and suffering exquisitely from
+over-sophistication. His drawl barely escaped being inimitable; his air
+did not escape it. "Smitten with my old trouble," Duncan appraised him:
+"too much money... Heaven knows I hope he never recovers!"
+</p>
+<p>
+As for Willy, he was momentarily more nearly human than he had seemed
+from the moment of his first appearance. "You know," he blurted, "this
+is simply extraordinary. I say, you chaps, Duncan and I haven't met for
+years&mdash;not since he graduated. We belonged to the same frat, y'know,
+and had a jolly time of it, if he was an upper-class man. No side about
+him at all, y'know&mdash;absolutely none whatever. Whenever I had to go out
+on a spree, I'd always get Nat to show me round."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I was pretty good at that," Duncan admitted a trifle ruefully.
+</p>
+<p>
+But Willy rattled on, heedless. "He knew more pretty gels, y'know... I
+say, old chap, d'you know as many now?"
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan shook his head. "The list has shrunk. I'm a changed man, Willy."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Ow, I say, you're chawfin'," Willy argued incredulously. "I don't
+believe that, y'know&mdash;hardly. I say, you remember the night you showed
+me how to play faro bank?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'll never forget it," Duncan told him gravely. "And I remember what a
+plug we thought my room-mate was because he wouldn't come with us." He
+nodded significantly toward the amused Kellogg.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not him!" cried Willy, expostulant. "Not really? Why it cawn't be!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Fact," Duncan assured him. "He was working his way through college,
+you see, whereas I was working my way through my allowance&mdash;and then
+some. That's why you never met him, Willy: he worked&mdash;and got the
+habit. We loafed&mdash;with the same result. That's why he's useful and
+you're ornamental, and I'm&mdash;" He broke off in surprise. "Hello!" he
+said as Robbins offered a tray to the three on which were slim-stemmed
+glasses filled with a pale yellow, effervescent liquid. "Why the blond
+waters of excitement, please?" he inquired, accepting a glass.
+</p>
+<p>
+From across the room Larry Miller's voice sounded. "Are you ready,
+gentlemen? We'll drink to him first and then he can drink to his royal
+little self. To the boy who's getting on in the world! To the junior
+member of L.J. Bartlett and Company!"
+</p>
+<p>
+Long applauded loudly: "Hear! Hear!" And even Willy Bartlett chimed in
+with an unemotional: "Good work!" Mechanically Duncan downed the toast;
+Kellogg was the only man not drinking it, and from that the meaning was
+easily to be inferred. With a stride Duncan caught his hand and crushed
+it in his own.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Harry," he said a little huskily, "I can't tell you how glad I am!
+It's the best news I've had in years!"
+</p>
+<p>
+Kellogg's responsive pressure was answer enough. "It makes it doubly
+worth while, to win out and have you all so glad!" he said.
+</p>
+<p>
+"So you've taken him into the firm, eh?" Duncan inquired of Bartlett.
+</p>
+<p>
+The blue eyes widened stonily. "The governor has. I'm not in the
+business, y'know. Never had the slightest turn for it, what?" Willy set
+aside his glass. "I say, I must be moving. No, I cawn't stop, Kellogg,
+really. I was dressin' at the club and Larry told me about it, so I
+just dropped round to tell you how jolly glad I am."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Your father hadn't told you, then?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Who, the governor?" Willy looked unutterably bored. "Why, he gave up
+tryin' to talk business with me long ago. I can't get interested in it,
+'pon my word. Of course I knew he thought the deuce and all of you, but
+I hadn't an idea they were goin' to take you into the firm. What?"
+</p>
+<p>
+Long and Miller interrupted, proposing adieus which Kellogg vainly
+contended.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why, you're only just here&mdash;" he expostulated.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Cawn't help it, old chap," Willy assured him earnestly. "I must go,
+anyway. I've a dinner engagement."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You'll be late, won't you?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Doesn't matter in the least; I'm always late. 'Night, Kellogg.
+Congratulations again."
+</p>
+<p>
+"We just dropped round to take off our hats to you," Long continued,
+pumping Kellogg's hand.
+</p>
+<p>
+"And tell you what a good fellow we think you are," added Miller,
+following suit.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You don't know how good you make me feel," Kellogg told them.
+</p>
+<p>
+Under cover of this diversion Duncan was making one last effort to slip
+away; but before he could gather together his impedimenta and get to
+the door Willy Bartlett intercepted him.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I say, Duncan&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, hell!" said Duncan beneath his breath. He paused ungraciously
+enough.
+</p>
+<p>
+"We've got to see a bit of one another, now we've met again, y'know.
+Wish you'd look me up&mdash;Half Moon Club'll get me 'most any time. We'll
+have to arrange to make a regular old-fashioned night of it, just for
+memory's sake."
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan nodded, edging past him. "I've memories enough," he said.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Right-oh! Any reason at all, y'know, just so we have the night."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Good enough," assented Duncan vaguely. He suffered his hand to be
+wrung with warmth. "I'll not forget&mdash;good-night." Then he pulled up and
+groaned, for Willy's insistence had frustrated his design: Kellogg had
+suddenly become alive to his attitude and hailed him over the heads of
+Long and Miller.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Nat, I say! Where the devil are you going?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Over to the hotel," said Duncan.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The deuce you are! What hotel?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"The one I'm stopping at."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not on your life. You're not going just yet&mdash;I haven't had half a
+chance to talk to you. Robbins, take Mr. Duncan's things."
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan, set upon by Robbins, who had been hovering round for just that
+purpose, lifted his shoulders in resignation, turning back into the
+room as Miller and Long said good-night to him and left at Bartlett's
+heels, and smiled awry in semi-humorous deprecation of the way in which
+he let Kellogg out-manoeuvre him. When it came to that, it was hard to
+refuse Kellogg anything; he had that way with him. Especially if one
+liked him... And how could anyone help liking him?
+</p>
+<p>
+Kellogg had him now, holding him fast by either shoulder, at arm's
+length, and shaking a reproving head at his friend. "You big duffer!"
+he said. "Did you think for a minute I'd let you throw me down like
+that?"
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan stood passive, faintly amused and touched by the other's show of
+affection. "No," he said, "I didn't really think so. But it was worth
+trying on, of course."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Look here, have you dined?"
+</p>
+<p>
+'At this suggestion Duncan stiffened and fell back. "No, but&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+Kellogg swept the ground from under his feet. "Robbins," he told the
+man, "order in dinner for two from the club, and tell 'em to hurry it
+up."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, sir," said Robbins, and flew to obey before Duncan could get a
+chance to countermand his part in the order.
+</p>
+<p>
+"And now," continued Kellogg, "we've got the whole evening before us in
+which to chin. Sit down." He led Duncan to an arm-chair and gently but
+firmly plumped him into its capacious depths. "We'll have a snug little
+dinner here and&mdash;what do you say to taking in a show afterwards?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I say no."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You dassent, my boy. This is the night we celebrate. I'm feeling
+pretty good to-night."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You ought to, Harry." Duncan struggled to rouse himself to share in
+the spirit of gratulation with which Kellogg was bubbling. "I'm mighty
+glad, old man. It's a great step up for you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It's all of that. You could have knocked me over with a feather when
+Bartlett sprang it on me this morning. Of course, I was expecting
+something&mdash;a boost in salary, or something like that. Bartlett knew
+that other houses in the Street had made me offers&mdash;I've been pretty
+lucky of late and pulled off one or two rather big deals&mdash;but a
+partnership with L.J. Bartlett&mdash;! Think of it, Nat!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm thinking of it&mdash;and it's great."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It'll keep me mighty busy," Kellogg blundered blindly on; "it means a
+lot of extra work&mdash;but you know I like to work...."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's right, you do," agreed Duncan drearily. "It's queer to me&mdash;it
+must be a great thing to like to work."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You bet it's a great thing; why, I couldn't exist if I couldn't work.
+You remember that time I laid off for a month in the country&mdash;for my
+health's sake? I'll never forget it: hanging round all the time with my
+hands empty&mdash;everyone else with something to do. I wouldn't go through
+with it again for a fortune. Never felt so useless and in the way&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"But," interrupted Duncan, knitting his brows as he grappled with this
+problem, "you were independent, weren't you? You had money&mdash;could pay
+your board?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Of course; nevertheless, I felt in the way."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's funny...."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It's straight."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I know it is; it wouldn't be you if you didn't love work. It wouldn't
+be me if I did.... Look here, Harry; suppose you didn't have any money
+and couldn't pay your board&mdash;and had nothing to do. How'd you feel in
+that case?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't know. Anyhow, that's rot&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, it isn't rot. I'm trying to make you understand how I feel
+when&mdash;when it's that way with me.... As it generally is." He raised one
+hand and let it fall with a gesture of despondency so eloquent that it
+roused Kellogg out of his own preoccupation.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why, Nat!" he cried, genuinely sympathetic. "I've been so taken up
+with myself that I forgot.... I hadn't looked for you till to-morrow."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You knew, then?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I met Atwater at lunch to-day. He told me; said he was sorry, but&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes. Everybody is always sorry, <i>but</i>&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+Kellogg let his hand fall on Duncan's shoulder. "I'm sorry, too, old
+man. But don't lose heart. I know it's pretty tough on a fellow&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"The toughest part of it is that you got the job for me&mdash;and I
+<i>had</i> to fall down."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Don't think of that. It's not your fault&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"You're the only man who believes that, Harry."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Buck up. I'll stumble across some better opening for you before long,
+and&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Stop right there. I'm through&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Don't talk that way, Nat. I'll get you in right somewhere."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You're the best-hearted man alive, Harry&mdash;but I'll see you damned
+first."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Wait." Kellogg demanded his attention. "Here's this man Burnham&mdash;you
+don't know him, but he's as keen as they make 'em. He's on the track of
+some wonderful scheme for making illuminating gas from crude oil; if it
+goes through&mdash;if the invention's really practicable&mdash;it's bound to work
+a revolution. He's down in Washington now&mdash;left this afternoon to look
+up the patents. Now he needs me, to get the ear of the Standard Oil
+people, and I'll get you in there."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What right've you got to do that?" demanded Duncan. "What the dickens
+do I know about illuminating gas or crude oil? Burnham'd never thank
+you for the likes o' me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But&mdash;thunder!&mdash;you can learn. All you need&mdash;."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Now see here, Harry!" Duncan gave him pause with a manner not to be
+denied. "Once and for all time understand I'm through having you
+recommend an incompetent&mdash;just because we're friends."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But, Harry&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"And I'm through living on you while I'm out of a job. That's final."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But, man&mdash;listen to me!&mdash;when we were at college&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"That was another matter."
+</p>
+<p>
+"How many times did you pay the room-rent when I was strapped? How many
+times did your money pull me through when I'd have had to quit and
+forfeit my degree because I couldn't earn enough to keep on?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's different. You earned enough finally to square up. You don't
+owe me anything."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I owe you the gratitude for the friendly hand that put me in the way
+of earning&mdash;that kept me going when the going was rank. Besides, the
+conditions are just reversed now; you'll do just as I did&mdash;make good in
+the world and, when it's convenient, to me. As for living here, you're
+perfectly welcome."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I know it&mdash;and more," Duncan assented a little wearily. "Don't think I
+don't appreciate all you've done for me. But I know and you must
+understand that I can't keep on living on you,&mdash;and I won't."
+</p>
+<p>
+For once baffled, Kellogg stared at him in consternation. Duncan met
+his gaze steadily, strong in the sincerity of his attitude. At length
+Kellogg surrendered, accepting defeat. "Well...." He shrugged
+uncomfortably. "If you insist ..."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I do."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then that's settled."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, that's settled."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Dinner," said Robbins from the doorway, "is
+served."
+</p>
+<br><br><br>
+<h3><a name="iii">
+	III
+</a></h3>
+<p class="ctr">
+INSPIRATION
+</p>
+<p>
+"Look here, Nat," demanded Kellogg, when they were half way through the
+meal, "do you mind telling me what you're going to do?"
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan pondered this soberly. "No," he replied in the end.
+</p>
+<p>
+Kellogg waited a moment, but his guest did not continue. "What does
+that kind of a 'No' mean, Nat?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"It means I don't mind telling you."
+</p>
+<p>
+Again an appreciable pause elapsed.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, then, what do you mean to do?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm sure I don't know."
+</p>
+<p>
+Kellogg regarded him sombrely for a moment, then in silence returned
+his attention to his plate; and in silence, for the most part, the
+remainder of the dinner was served and eaten. Duncan himself had
+certainly enough to occupy his mind, while Kellogg had altogether
+forgotten his own cause for rejoicing in his concern for the fortunes
+of his friend. He was entirely of the opinion that something would have
+to be done for Nat, with or without his consent; and he sounded the
+profoundest depths of romantic impossibilities in his attempts to
+discover some employment suited to Duncan's interesting but
+impracticable assortment of faculties and qualifications, natural and
+acquired. But nothing presented itself as feasible in view of the fact
+that employment which would prove immediately remunerative was
+required. And by the time that Robbins, clearing the board, left them
+alone with coffee and cigars and cigarettes, Kellogg was fain to
+confess failure&mdash;though the confession was a very private one, confined
+to himself only.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Nat," he said suddenly, rousing that young man out of the dreariest of
+meditations, "what under the sun <i>can</i> you do?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Me? I don't know. Why bother your silly old head about that? I'll make
+out somehow."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But surely there's something you'd rather do than anything else."
+</p>
+<p>
+"My dear sir," Duncan told him impressively, "the only walk of life in
+which I am fitted to shine is that of the idle son of a rich and
+foolish father. Since I lost that job I've not been worth my salt."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's piffle. There isn't a man living who hasn't some talent or
+other, some sort of an ability concealed about his person."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You can search me," Duncan volunteered gloomily.
+</p>
+<p>
+His unresponsiveness irritated Kellogg; he thought a while, then
+delivered himself of a didactic conclusion:
+</p>
+<p>
+"The trouble with you is you were brought up all wrong."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, I've been brought down all right. Besides, that's a platitude in
+my case."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Let's see: I've know you&mdash;er&mdash;nine years."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Is it that long?" Duncan looked up from a gloomy inspection of the
+interior of his demitasse, displaying his first gleam of interest in
+this analysis of his character. "You are a long-suffering old duffer.
+Any man who'd stand for me for nine years&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"That'll be all of that," Kellogg cut in sharply. "I was going on to
+say that you can't room with a man for four terms at college and then
+know him, off and on, for five years more, pretty intimately, without
+forming a pretty clear estimate of what he's worth in your own mind."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And I don't mind telling you, Harry, I think you're the best little
+business man as well as the finest sort of an all-round good-fellow on
+this continent."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Thanks awfully. I presume that's why you're determined to throw me
+down just at the time you need me most.... What I was trying to get at
+is the fact that I've never doubted your ultimate success for an
+instant."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You'd be a mighty lonesome minority in a congress of my employers,
+Harry."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Given the proper opportunity&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Hold on," Duncan interrupted. "I know just what you're going to say,
+and it's all very fine, and I'm proud that you want to say it of me.
+But you're dead wrong, Harry. The truth is I haven't got it in me&mdash;the
+capacity to succeed. Just as much as you love work, I hate it. I ought
+to know, for I've had a good, hard try at it&mdash;several tries, in fact.
+And you know what they came to."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But if you persist in this way, Nat,&mdash;don't you know what it means?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"None better. It means going back to what you helped me out of&mdash;the
+life that nearly killed me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And you'd rather&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'd rather that a thousand years before I'd sponge on you another
+day.... But, on the level, I'd as lieve try the East River or turn on
+the gas.... What's the use? That's the way I feel."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's fool talk. Brace up and be a man. All you need is a way to earn
+money."
+</p>
+<p>
+"No," Duncan insisted firmly: "get it. I'll never be able to earn
+it&mdash;that's a cinch."
+</p>
+<p>
+Kellogg laughed a little mirthlessly, absorbed in revolving something
+which had popped into his head within the last few moments. "There are
+ways to get it," he admitted abstractedly, "if you're not too
+particular."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm not. I only wish I understood the burglar business."
+</p>
+<p>
+This time Kellogg laughed outright. He sat up with a new spirit in his
+manner. "You mean you'd steal to get money?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, well ..." Duncan smiled a trace sheepishly. "I can't think of
+anything hardly I wouldn't do to get it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Very well, my son. Now attend to uncle." Kellogg leaned across the
+table, fixing him with an enthusiastic eye. "Here, have a smoke. I'm
+going to demonstrate high finance to your debased intelligence." He
+thrust the cigarette case over to Duncan, who helped himself
+mechanically, his gaze held in wonder to Kellogg's face.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Fire when ready," he assented.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I know a way," said Kellogg slowly, "by which, if you'll discard a
+scruple or two, you can be worth a million dollars&mdash;or
+thereabouts&mdash;within a year."
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan held a lighted match until it singed his fingertips, the while
+he stared agape. "Say that again," he requested mildly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You can be worth a million in a year."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Ah!" Duncan nodded slowly and comprehendingly. He turned aside in his
+chair and raked a second match across the sole of his shoe. "Let him
+rave," he observed enigmatically, and began to smoke.
+ "No, I'm not dippy; and I'm perfectly serious."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Of course. But what'd they do to me if I were caught?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"This is not a joke; the proposition's perfectly legal; it's being done
+right along."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And I could do it, Harry?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"A man of your calibre couldn't fail."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Would you mind ringing for Robbins?" Duncan asked abruptly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Certainly." Kellogg pressed a button at his elbow. "What d'you want?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"A straight-jacket and a doctor to tell which one of us needs it."
+</p>
+<p>
+Kellogg, chagrined as he always was if joked with when expounding one
+of his schemes, broke into a laugh that lasted until Robbins appeared.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You rang, sir?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes. Put those decanters over here, and some glasses, please."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, sir."
+</p>
+<p>
+The man obeyed and withdrew. Kellogg filled two glasses, handing one to
+Duncan.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Now be decent and listen to me, Nat. I've thought this thing over
+for&mdash;oh, any amount of time. I'll bet anything it will work. What d'you
+say? Would you like to try it?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Would I like to try it?" A conviction of Kellogg's earnestness forced
+itself upon Duncan's understanding. "Would I&mdash;!" He lifted his glass
+and drained it at a gulp. "Why, that's the first laugh I've had for a
+month!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then I'll tell you&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan placed a pleading hand on his forearm. "Don't kid me, Harry," he
+entreated.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not a bit of it. This is straight goods. If you want to try it and
+will follow the rules I lay down, I'll guarantee you'll be a rich man
+inside of twelve months."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Rules! Man, I'll follow all the rules in the world! Come on&mdash;I'm
+getting palpitation of the heart, waiting. Tell it to me: what've I got
+to do?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Marry," said Kellogg serenely.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Marry!" Duncan echoed, aghast.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Marry," reaffirmed the other with unbroken gravity.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Marry&mdash;who?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"A girl with a fortune.... You see, I can't guarantee the precise size
+of her pile. That all depends on luck and the locality. But it'll run
+anywhere from several hundred thousand up to a million&mdash;perhaps more."
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan sank back despondently. "You ought to be ashamed of yourself,
+Harry," he said dully; "you had me all excited, for a minute."
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, but honestly, I mean what I say."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Now look here: do you really think any girl with a million would take
+a chance on me?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"She'll jump at it."
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan thought this over for a while. Then his lips twitched. "What's
+the matter with her?" he inquired. "I'm willing to play the game as it
+lies, but I bar lunatics and cripples."
+</p>
+<p>
+"There's no particular her&mdash;yet. You can take your pick. I've no more
+idea where she is than you have."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Now I know you're stark, staring, gibbering&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not a bit of it. I'm inspired&mdash;that's all. I've solved your
+problem&mdash;you only can't believe it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"How could I? What the devil are you getting at, anyhow?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"This pet scheme of mine. Lend me your ears. Have you ever lived in a
+one-horse country town&mdash;a place with one unspeakable hotel and about
+twenty stores and five churches?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"No ..."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I have; I was born in one of 'em.... Have you any idea what becomes of
+the young people of such towns?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not a glimmering."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then I'll enlighten your egregious density. ...The boys&mdash;those who've
+got the stuff in them&mdash;strike out for the cities to make their
+everlasting fortunes. Generally they do it, too."
+</p>
+<p>
+"The same as you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"The same as me," assented Kellogg, unperturbed. "But the yaps, the
+Jaspers, stay there and clerk in father's store. After office-hours
+they put on their very best mail-order clothes and parade up and down
+Main Street, talking loud and flirting obviously with the girls. The
+girls haven't much else to do; they don't find it so easy to get away.
+A few of 'em escape to boarding-schools and colleges, where they meet
+and marry young men from the cities, but the majority of them have to
+stay at home and help mother&mdash;that's a tradition. If there are two
+children or more, the boys get the chance every time; the girls stay
+home to comfort the old folks in their old age. Why, by the time
+they're old enough to think of marrying&mdash;and they begin young, for
+that's about the only excitement they find available&mdash;you won't find a
+small country town between here and the Mississippi where there aren't
+about four girls to every boy."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It's a horrible thought ..."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You'd think so if you knew what the boys were like. There isn't one in
+ten that a girl with any sense or self-respect could force herself to
+marry if she ever saw anything better. Do you begin to see my drift?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I do not. But go on drifting."
+</p>
+<p>
+"No? Why, the demand for eligible males is three hundred per cent. in
+excess of the supply. Don't you know&mdash;no, you don't: I got to that
+first&mdash;that there are twenty times as many old maids in small country
+towns as there are in the cities? It's a fact, and the reason for it is
+because when they were young they couldn't lower themselves to accept
+the pick of the local matrimonial market. Now, do you see&mdash;?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"You're as interesting as a magazine serial. Please continue in your
+next. I pant with anticipation."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You're an ass.... Now take a young chap from a city, with a good
+appearance, more or less a gentleman, who doesn't talk like a yap or
+walk like a yap or dress like a yap or act like a yap, and throw him
+into such a town long enough for the girls to get acquainted with him.
+He simply can't lose, can't fail to cop out the best-looking girl with
+the biggest bank-roll in town. I tell you, there's nothing to it!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"It's wonderful to listen to you, Harry."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm talking horse sense, my son. Now consider yourself: down on your
+luck, don't know how to earn a decent living, refusing to accept
+anything from your friends, ready (you say) to do almost anything to
+get some money.... And think of the country heiresses, with plenty of
+money for two, pining away in&mdash;in innocuous desuetude&mdash;hundreds of
+them, fine, straight, good girls, girls you could easily fall in love
+with, sighing their lives away for the lack of the likes of you....
+Now, why not take one, Nat&mdash;when you come to consider it, it's your
+duty&mdash;marry her and her bank-roll, make her happy, make yourself happy,
+and live a contented life on the sunny side of Easy Street for the rest
+of your natural born days? Can't you see it now?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes," Duncan admitted, half-persuaded of the plausibility of the
+scheme. "I see&mdash;and I admire immensely the intellect that conceived the
+notion, Harry. But ... I can't help thinking there must be a catch in
+it somewhere."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not if you follow my instructions. You see, having come from just such
+a hole-in-the-ground, I know just what I'm talking about. Believe me,
+everything depends on the way you go about it. There are a lot of
+things to contend with at first; you won't enjoy it at all, to begin
+with. But I can demonstrate how it can be managed so that you'll win
+out to a moral certainty."
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan drew a deep breath, sat back and looked Kellogg over very
+critically. There was not a suspicion of a gleam of humour in his face;
+to the contrary, it blazed with the ardour of the instinctive schemer,
+the man who, with the ability to originate, throws himself heart and
+soul into the promotion of the product of his imagination. Kellogg was
+not sketching the outlines of a gigantic practical joke; he believed
+implicitly in the feasibility of his project; and so strongly that he
+could infuse even the less susceptible fancy of Duncan with some of his
+faith.
+</p>
+<p>
+"If I didn't know you so well, Harry," said Duncan slowly, "I'd be
+certain you were mad. I'm not at all sure that I'm sane. It's raving
+idiocy&mdash;and it's a pretty damned rank thing to do, to start
+deliberately out to marry a woman for her money. But I've been through
+a little hell of my own in my time, and&mdash;it's not alluring to
+contemplate a return to it. There's nothing mad enough nor bad enough
+to stop me. What've I got to do?"
+</p>
+<p>
+Kellogg beamed his triumph. "You'll try it on, then?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'll try anything on. It's a contemptible, low-lived piece of
+business&mdash;but good may come of it; you can't tell. What've I got to
+do?"
+</p>
+<p>
+Slipping back, Kellogg knitted his fingers and stared at the ceiling,
+smiling faintly to himself as he enumerated the conditions that first
+appealed to his understanding as essentials toward success.
+</p>
+<p>
+"First, pick out your town: one of two or three thousand
+inhabitants&mdash;no larger. I'd suggest, at a hazard guess, some place in
+the interior of Pennsylvania. Most of such towns have at least one rich
+man with a marriageable daughter&mdash;but we'll make sure of that before we
+settle on one. Of course any suburban town is barred."
+</p>
+<p>
+"How so?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, they don't count. The girls always know people in the city&mdash;can
+get there easily. That spoils the game."
+</p>
+<p>
+"How about the game laws?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm coming to them. Of course there isn't an open or close season, and
+the hunting's always good, but there are a few precautionary measures
+to be taken if you want to be sure of bagging an heiress. You won't
+like most of 'em."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Like 'em! I'll live by them!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, here come the things you mustn't do. You mustn't swear or use
+slang; you mustn't smoke and you mustn't drink&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Heavens! are these people as inhuman as all that?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Worse than that. It might be fatal if you were ever seen in the hotel
+bar. And to begin with, you must refuse all invitations, of any sort,
+whether to dances, parties, church sociables, or even Sunday dinners."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why <i>Sunday</i> dinners?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Because Sunday's the only day you'll be invited. Dinner on week-days
+is from twelve to twelve-thirty, and it's strictly a business
+matter&mdash;no time for guests. But you needn't fret; they won't ask you
+till they've sized you up pretty carefully."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh!..."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Moreover, you must be very particular about your dress; it must be
+absolutely faultless, but very quiet: clothing sober&mdash;dark greys and
+blacks&mdash;and plain, but the very last word as to cut and fit. And
+everything must be in keeping&mdash;the very best of shirts, collars, ties,
+hats, socks, shoes, underwear&mdash;." Kellogg caught Duncan's look and
+laughed. "Your laundress will report on everything, you know; so you
+must be impeccable."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'll be even that&mdash;whatever it is."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Be very particular about having your shoes polished, shave daily and
+manicure yourself religiously&mdash;but don't let 'em catch you at it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Would they raid me if they did?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"And then, my son, you must work."
+</p>
+<p>
+Kellogg paused to let his lesson sink in. After a time Duncan observed
+plaintively: "I knew there was a catch in it somewhere. What kind of
+work?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"It doesn't make any difference, so long as you get and hold some job
+in the town."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, that lets me out. You'll have to sic some other poor devil on
+this glittering proposition of yours. I couldn't hold a job in&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Wait! I'll tell you how to do it in just a minute."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't mind listening, but&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"You'll cinch the whole business by going to church without a break.
+Don't ever fail&mdash;morning and evening every Sunday. Don't forget that."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"It's the most important thing of all."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Does going to church make such a hit with the young female
+Jasper&mdash;the Jasperette, as it were?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"It'll make you more solid than anything else with her popper and
+mommer, and that's very necessary when you're a candidate for their
+ducats as well as their daughter. You must work and you must go to
+church."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That can't be all. Surely you can think of something else?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Those are the cardinal rules&mdash;church and work until you've landed your
+heiress. After that you can move back to civilisation.... Now as soon
+as you strike your town you want to make arrangements for board and
+lodging in some old woman's house&mdash;preferably an old maid. You'll be
+sure to find at least half a dozen of 'em, willing to take boarders,
+but you want to be equally sure to pick out the one that talks the
+most, so that she'll tell the neighbours all about you. Don't worry
+about that, though, they all talk. When you've moved In, stock up your
+room with about twenty of the driest-looking books in the world&mdash;law
+books look most imposing; fix up a table with lots of stationery&mdash;pens
+and pencils, red and black ink and all that sort of thing; make the
+room look as if you were the most sincere student ever. And by no means
+neglect to have a well-worn Bible prominently in evidence: you can buy
+one second-hand at some book-store before you start out."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'd have to, of course. I thank you for the flattery. Proceed with the
+programme of the gay, mad life I must lead. I'm going to have a swell
+time: that's perfectly plain."
+</p>
+<p>
+"As soon as you're shaken down in your room, make the rounds of the
+stores and ask for work. Try and get into the dry-goods emporium if you
+can: the girls all shop there. But anything will do, except a grocery
+or a hardware store and places like that. You mustn't consider any
+employment that would soil your clothes or roughen your lily-white
+hands."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You expect me to believe I'd have any chance of winning a
+millionaire's daughter if I were a ribbon-clerk in a dry-goods store?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"The best in the world. The ribbon-clerk is her social equal; he calls
+her Mary and she calls him Joe."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Done with you: me for the ribbon counter. Anything else?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"The storekeepers aren't apt to employ you at first; they'll be
+suspicious of you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"They will be afterwards, all right. However&mdash;?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"So you must simply call on them&mdash;walk in, locate the boss and tell
+him: 'I'm looking for employment.' Don't press it; just say it and get
+out."
+</p>
+<p>
+"No trouble whatever about that; it's always that way when I ask for
+work."
+</p>
+<p>
+"They'll send for you before long, when they make up their minds that
+you're a decent, moral young man; for they know you'll draw trade. And
+every Sunday&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I know: church!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Absolutely.... Pick out the one the rich folks go to. Go in quietly
+and do just as they do: stand up and kneel, look up the hymns and sing,
+just when they do. Be careful not to sing too loud, or anything like
+that: just do it all modestly, as if you were used to it. Better go to
+church here two or three times and get the hang of it...."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Here, now&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Nearly all the wealthy codgers in such towns are deacons, you see, and
+though they may not speak to you for months on the street, it's their
+business to waylay you after the service is over and shake hands with
+you and tell you they hope you enjoyed the sermon and ask you to come
+again. And you can bank on it, they'll all take notice from the first."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It's no wonder Bartlett made you a partner, Harry."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Now behave. I want you to get in right. ... If you follow the rules
+I've outlined, not only will all the girls in town be falling over
+themselves to get to you first, but their fond parents will be egging
+them on. Then all you've got to do is to pick out the one with the
+biggest bundle and&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Make a play for her?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not on your life. That would be fatal. Your part is to put yourself in
+her way. She'll do all the courting, and when she scents the
+psychological moment she'll do the proposing."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It doesn't sound natural, but you certainly seem to know what you're
+drooling about."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You can anchor to that, Nat."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And are you finished?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I am. Of course I'll probably think of more things to wise you to,
+before you go."
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan laughed shortly and tilted back in his chair, selecting another
+cigarette. "And you're the chap who wanted me to go to some bromidic
+old show to-night! Harry, you're immense. Why didn't you ever let me
+suspect you had all this romantic imagination in your system?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Imagination be blowed, son. This is business." Kellogg removed the
+stopper from the decanter and filled both glasses again. "Well, what do
+you say?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I've just said my say, Harry. It's amazing; I'm proud of you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But will you do it?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Everything else aside, how can I? I've got to live, you know."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But I propose to stake you."
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan came down to earth. "No, you won't; not a cent. I'm in earnest
+about this thing: no more sponging on you, Harry. Besides&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, seriously, Nat: I mean this, every word of it. I want you to do
+it&mdash;to please me, if you like; I've a notion something will come of it.
+And I believe from the bottom of my heart there's not the slightest
+risk if you'll play the cards as they fall, according to Hoyle."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Harry, I believe you do."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I do, firmly. And I'll put the proposition on a business basis, if you
+like."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Go on; there's no holding you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You start out to-morrow and order your war kit. Get everything you
+need, and plenty of it, and have the bills sent to me. You can be ready
+inside a fortnight. The day you start I'll advance you five hundred
+dollars. When you're married you can repay me the amount of the
+advances with interest at ten per cent, and I'll consider it a mighty
+good deal for myself. Now, will you?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"You mean it?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Every word of it. Well?"
+</p>
+<p>
+For a moment longer Duncan hesitated; then the vision of what he must
+return to, otherwise, decided him. In desperation he accepted. "It's a
+drowning man's straw," he said, a little breathlessly. "I'm sure I
+shouldn't. But I will."
+</p>
+<p>
+Kellogg flung a hand across the table, palm uppermost.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Word of honour, Nat?"
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan let his hand fall into it. "Word of honour! I'll see it
+through."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Good! It's a bargain." Kellogg lifted his glass high in air. "To the
+fortune hunter!" he cried, half laughing.
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan nervously fingered the stem of his glass. "God help the future
+Mrs. Duncan!" he said, and drank.
+</p>
+<br><br><br>
+<h3><a name="iv">
+	IV
+</a></h3>
+<p class="ctr">
+TRIUMPH OF MR. HOMER LITTLEJOHN
+</p>
+<p>
+The twenty-first of June was a day of memorable triumph to me, a day of
+memorable events for Radville.
+</p>
+<p>
+Only the evening previous Will Bigelow and I had indulged in
+acrimonious argument in the office of the Bigelow House, the subject of
+contention being the importance of the work to which I am devoting my
+declining years, to wit, the recording of <i>The History of Radville
+Township, Westerly County, Pennsylvania</i>; Will maintaining with that
+obstinacy for which he is famous, that nothing ever had happened, does
+happen, can or will happen in our community, I insisting gently but
+firmly that it knows no day unmarked by important occurrence (for it
+would ill become me, as the only literary man in Radville, to yield a
+point in dispute with the proprietor of the town tavern). Besides, he
+was wrong, even as I was indisputably right&mdash;only he had not the grace
+to admit it. We ended vulgarly with a bet, Will wagering me the best
+five-cent Clear Havana in the Bigelow House sample-room that nothing
+worth mentioning would take place in Radville before sundown of the
+following day.
+</p>
+<p>
+I left him, returning to my room at Miss Carpenter's (Will and I are
+old friends, but I refuse to eat the food he serves his guests), warmed
+by the prospect of certain triumph if a little appalled by the prospect
+of winning the stake; and sympathising a little with Will, who, for all
+his egregious stubborness, has some excuse for upholding his
+unreasonable and ridiculous views. He knows no better, having never had
+the opportunity to find out for himself how utterly absurd are his
+claims for the outside world. Whereas I have.
+</p>
+<p>
+He's an adventurer at heart, Will Bigelow, a romantic soul crusted
+heavily with character&mdash;like a volcano smouldering beneath its lava.
+For many years he has managed the Bigelow House, with his thoughts
+apart from it, his eyes ever seeking the horizon that recedes beyond
+the soaring rim of our encircling cup of hills, his heart forever
+yearning forth to the outer world; which he erroneously conceives to be
+a theatre of events&mdash;as if outside of Radville only could there be
+things worth seeing, considering, or doing, or matters of any sort that
+move momentously! As long as I've known the man (and we played truant
+together fifty years ago&mdash;hookey, we called it then) he's had his heart
+set on going forth from Radville, "for to admire and for to see, for to
+view this wide world o'er"; always he has presented himself to me as
+one poised on the pinnacle of purpose, ready the next instant to dive
+and strike out into the teeming unknown beyond the barrier hills. But
+this promise he has never fulfilled. He still maintains that he will
+surely go&mdash;next week&mdash;after the hayin's over&mdash;as soon as the ice is
+in&mdash;the minute Mary graduates from High School. ... But I know he never
+will.
+</p>
+<p>
+So to Will Radville is as dull as ditchwater to a teamster; to me it's
+as fascinating as that same ditchwater to a biologist with a
+microscope. I see nothing going on in the world outside of Radville
+more important than our daily life. Too long I have lived away from it,
+a stranger in strange lands, not to appreciate its relative
+significance in the scheme of things. It makes all the difference&mdash;the
+view-point: Will sees Radville from its homely heart outwards, I stand
+on its boundaries, a native but yet, somehow in the local esteem (by
+reason of my long residence in the East) an outlander. Thus I get a
+perspective upon the place, to Will and his ilk denied.
+</p>
+<p>
+It seems curious that things should have fallen out thus for the two of
+us: that Will Bigelow, all afire with the lust for travel, should never
+have mustered up enterprise enough to break his home ties, whilst I
+whose dearest desire had always been to live no day of my alloted span
+away from Radville, should have been, in a manner which I'm bound
+presently to betray, forced out into the world; that he, the rebellious
+stay-at-home, cursing the destiny which chained him, should have
+prospered and become the man of substance he is, while I, mutinously
+venturing, should have returned only to watch my sands run out in
+poverty&mdash;what's little better.
+</p>
+<p>
+Not that I would have you think me whining: I have enough, little but
+ample for my simple needs, if inadequate for my ambitions or my
+neighbours' necessities. My editorial work for the <i>Radville
+Citizen</i> is quite remunerative, while my weekly column of local
+gossip for the <i>Westerly Gazette</i> brings me in a little, and I've
+one or two other modest sources of still more modest income. But
+Radville folks are poor, many of them, many who are very dear to me for
+old sake's sake. There's Sam Graham.... Though I wouldn't have you
+understand that as a community we are not moderately prosperous and
+contented, comfortable if not energetic and advanced. This is not a
+pushing town: it has never known a boom. That I'm sure will some day
+come, but I hope not in my time. I have faith in the mountains that
+fold us roundabout; they are rich with the possibilities of coal and
+iron, and year by year are being more and more widely opened up and
+developed; year by year the ranks of flaming, reeking coke ovens push
+farther on beside the railway that penetrates our valley. But as yet
+their smoke does not foul our skies, nor does their refuse pollute our
+river, nor their soot tarnish our vegetation. And as I say, I hope this
+is not to be while I live, though sometimes I have fears: Blinky
+Lockwood made a fortune selling the coal that was discovered beneath
+his father's old farm over Westerly way, and ever since that there's
+been more or less quiet prospecting going on in our vicinity. I shall
+be sorry to see the day when Radville is other than as it is: the
+quiet, peaceful, sleepy little town, nestling in the bosom of the
+hills, clean, sweet and wholesome....
+</p>
+<p>
+But this is rambling far from the momentous twenty-first of June, my
+day of triumph.
+</p>
+<p>
+I shall try to set down connectedly and coherently the events which
+culminated in the humbling of Will Bigelow to the dust.
+</p>
+<p>
+To begin with, we were early startled by the rumour that Hiram Nutt,
+theretofore deemed unconquerable, had been disastrously defeated at
+checkers in Willoughby's grocery&mdash;and that by Watty the tailor, of all
+men in Radville. The rumour was confirmed by eleven in the forenoon,
+and in itself should have provided us with a nine days' wonder.
+</p>
+<p>
+As it happened, an event happening almost simultaneously confused our
+minds. At eleven-fifteen Miss Carpenter's household was thrown into
+consternation by the scandalous behaviour of her black cat, Caesar, who
+chose suddenly to terminate a long and outwardly respectable career as
+Miss Carpenter's familiar by having kittens under the horse-hair sofa
+in the parlour. Incidentally this indelicate and ungentlemanly
+behaviour temporarily unloosed the hinges of Miss Carpenter's reason,
+so that my supper suffered that evening, and for several days she
+wandered round the house with blank and witless eyes. Perhaps I should
+have warned her, for I had latterly come to suspect Caesar of leading a
+double life; but for reasons which seemed sufficient I had refrained.
+</p>
+<p>
+By the noon train Roland Barnette received his new summer suit from
+Chicago. I did not see it till evening, but heard of it before one,
+since Roland donned it immediately and wore it to the bank that very
+afternoon. I understand it caused something very near a run on the
+bank; people came in to draw a dollar or so or get change and lingered
+to feast their outraged visions, so that Blinky Lockwood, the
+president, had to send Roland home to change before closing-time. He
+changed back, however, as soon as off duty, and spent the rest of the
+afternoon and evening hours in Sothern and Lee's, at the soda-fountain;
+which Sothern and Lee did not object to, since it drew trade.
+</p>
+<p>
+Pete Willing established a record by getting drunk at Schwartz's bar by
+three in the afternoon, his best previous time being four-thirty; and
+Mrs. Willing chased him up Centre Street until, at the corner of Main,
+he blundered into the arms of Judge Scott; who ordered him to arrest
+and lock himself up; which Pete, being the sheriff, solemnly did,
+saying that it was preferable to a return to home and wife.
+</p>
+<p>
+At five o'clock there was a dog-fight in front of Graham's drug-store.
+</p>
+<p>
+At five-forty-five the evening train lurched in, bearing The Mysterious
+Stranger.
+</p>
+<p>
+Tracey Tanner saw him first, having driven down to the station with his
+father's surrey on the off-chance of picking up a quarter or so from
+some drummer wishing to be conveyed to the Bigelow House. Only
+outlanders pay money for hacks in Radville; everybody else walks, of
+course. Naturally Tracey took The Mysterious Stranger for a drummer; he
+had three trunks and a heavy packing-box, so Tracey's misapprehension
+was pardonable. Instinctively he drove him to the Bigelow House; Will
+now and again makes Tracey a present of a bottle of sarsaparilla or
+lemon-pop, with the result that Tracey calls Tannehill, who runs the
+opposition hotel, a skinflint and never takes strangers there except on
+their express desire. The Mysterious Stranger merely asked to be driven
+to the best hotel. This is not like most commercial travellers, who as
+a rule know where they want to go, even in a strange town, having made
+inquiry in advance from their brothers of the road. Tracey made a note
+of this, and is further on record as having observed that this stranger
+was rather better dressed than the run of drummers, if not so nobbily.
+Moreover, he was reticent under the cross-fire of Tracey's
+irrepressible conversation, and failed to ask the name of the first
+pretty girl they passed; who happened to be Angle Tuthill. Finally The
+Mysterious Stranger actually tipped Tracey a whole quarter for carrying
+his suit-case into the hotel office.
+</p>
+<p>
+With these incitements it would have been unreasonable to expect Tracey
+to do otherwise than linger around for the good health of his sense of
+inquisitiveness, which would else have been severely sprained.
+</p>
+<p>
+Will Bigelow was dozing behind the desk, lulled by the sound of Hi
+Nutt's voice in the barroom, as he explained to all and sundry just how
+he had inadvertently permitted Watty the tailor to best him at checkers
+that morning. Otherwise the office was deserted. Tracey wakened Will by
+stamping heavily across the floor, and Will mechanically pushed down
+his spectacles and dipped a pen in ink, slewing the register round for
+the guest's signature. He says he knew at a glance that The Mysterious
+Stranger was no travelling man, but this is a moot point, Tracey's
+memory being minutely accurate and at variance with Will's assertion.
+</p>
+<p>
+The Mysterious Stranger was a young man, rather severely clothed in a
+dark suit which excited no interest in Bigelow's understanding,
+although I, when I saw him later, had no difficulty in realising that
+it had never been made by a tailor whose place of business was more
+than five doors removed from Fifth Avenue. He was tallish, but not
+really tall, and carried himself with a slight stoop which took way
+from his real height. Tracey says he had a way of looking at you as if
+he was smiling inside at some joke he'd heard a long time ago; and I
+don't know but that's a fairly apt description of his ordinary
+expression. He had a way, too, of nodding jerkily at you&mdash;just once&mdash;to
+show he recognised you or understood what you were driving at; at other
+times he carried his head a trifle to one side and slightly forward. He
+was a man you wouldn't forget, somehow, though what there was about him
+that was remarkable nobody seemed to know.
+</p>
+<p>
+He nodded that jerky way in answer to Will Bigelow's "G'devenin'," and
+without saying anything took the pen and started to register. He had to
+stop, however, for Tracey was pressing him so close upon the right that
+he couldn't get any play for his elbow, and after a minute or two he
+asked Tracey politely would he mind stepping round to the left, where
+he could see just as well. So Tracey did. Then he wrote his name in a
+good round hand: "Nathaniel Duncan, N.Y."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'd like a room with a bath," he told Will: "something simple and
+chaste, within the means of a man in moderate circumstances."
+</p>
+<p>
+Will thought he was joking at first, but he didn't smile, so Will
+explained that there was a bathroom on the third floor at the end of
+the hall, though there wasn't much call for it. "I could give you a
+room next to that," he said, "but you wouldn't want it, I guess."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why not?" asked The Mysterious Stranger.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Because," said Will, "'taint near the sample-room."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That doesn't make any difference; I'm on the wagon."
+</p>
+<p>
+The only sense Will could get out of that was that the young man was
+travelling for a buggy house and hadn't brought any samples with him.
+"I thought," he allowed, "as how you'd be wantin' a place to display
+your samples, but of course if you're in the wagon business&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh," said Mr. Duncan, "I thought you meant the 'sample-room' over
+there." He nodded toward the bar. "That's what you call the
+dispensaries of intoxicating liquors in this part of the country, is it
+not?"
+</p>
+<p>
+Will made a noise resembling an affirmative, and as soon as he got his
+breath explained that travelling men generally wanted a sort of a
+showroom next to theirs and that that was called a sample-room, too.
+</p>
+<p>
+"But I'm not a travelling man," said The Mysterious Stranger. "So I
+shall have as little use for the one as the other."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then the room on the third floor'll do for you," said Will. "How long
+do you calculate on stayin'?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"That will depend," said Mr. Duncan: "a day or so&mdash;perhaps longer;
+until I can find comfortable and more permanent quarters."
+</p>
+<p>
+In his amazement Will jabbed the pen so hard into the potato beside the
+ink-well that he never could get the nib out and had to buy a new one.
+"You don't mean to say you're thinkin' of coming here to live?" he
+gasped.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, I do," said the young man apologetically. "I don't think you'll
+find me in the way. I shall be very quiet and unobtrusive. I'm a
+student, looking for a quiet place in which to pursue my studies."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well," said Will, "you've found it all right. There ain't no quieter
+place in Pennsylvany than Radville, Mr. Duncan. I hope you'll like it,"
+he said, sarcastic.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I shall endeavour to," said the young man.
+</p>
+<p>
+"And now may I go to my room, please? I should like to renovate my
+travel-stained person to some extent before dinner."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You'll have time," said Will; "dinner's at noon to-morrow. I guess
+you're thinkin' about supper. That's ready now. Here, Tracey, you carry
+this gentleman's things up to number forty-three."
+</p>
+<p>
+But Tracey had already gone, and such was his haste to spread the news
+that he forgot to take the horse and surrey back to the stable, but
+left it standing in front of the hotel till eight o'clock; for which
+oversight, I am credibly informed, his father justly dealt with him
+before sending him to bed.
+</p>
+<p>
+I have never been able to understand how we failed to hear of it at
+Miss Carpenter's before seven o'clock. That was the hour when, having
+finished supper and my first evening pipe, I started down-town to the
+<i>Citizen</i> office, intending to stop in at the Bigelow House on the
+way and confound Will with the list of the day's happenings. Main
+Street was pretty well crowded for that hour, I remember noticing, and
+most of the townsfolk were grouped together on the corners, underneath
+the lamps, discussing something rather excitedly. I paid no particular
+attention, realising that between Caesar, Pete Willing, Roland
+Burnette's suit and the checker game, they had enough to talk about. So
+it wasn't until I walked into the Bigelow House office that I either
+heard or saw anything of The Mysterious Stranger.
+</p>
+<p>
+Will Bigelow was in his usual place behind the desk, and looked, I
+thought, rather disgruntled. His reply to my "Howdy, Will?" sounded
+somewhat snappish. But he got out of his chair and moved round the end
+of the desk just as the young man came out of the dining-room door.
+Then Will pulled up and I realised that he was calling my attention to
+the stranger.
+</p>
+<p>
+So far as I could see, he seemed an ordinary, everyday, good-looking,
+good-natured young man, whose naturally sunny disposition had been
+insulted by the food recently set before him. He wandered listlessly
+out upon the porch and stood there, with his hands in his pockets,
+looking up and down Centre Street, just then being shadowed into the
+warm, purple June dusk, beneath its double row of elms. We've always
+thought it a rather attractive street, and that night it seemed
+especially lively with its trickle of girls and boys strolling up and
+down, and the groups of grown folks on the corners, and Roland
+Burnette's summer suit conspicuous through Sothern and Lee's
+plate-glass windows; and I supposed the young man was admiring it all.
+But now I know him better. He felt just the same about Main Street,
+corner of Centre, Radville, as I should have about Broadway and
+Forty-second Street, New York, if you had set me down there and told me
+I'd got to get accustomed to the idea that I must live there. He was
+saying, deep down in his heart: "O <i>Lord</i>!"&mdash;with the rising
+inflection.
+</p>
+<p>
+Will grabbed my arm, without saying anything, and pulled me into the
+bar.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Hello!" I said, as he went round behind and opened the cigar-case,
+"what's up?"
+</p>
+<p>
+He took out two boxes of the finest five-centers in town and placed
+them before me. "Them's up," he said. "You win. Have one."
+</p>
+<p>
+It staggered me to have him give in that way; I had been looking
+forward to a long and diverting dispute. "I guess you've heard
+everything worth hearing about to-day's history," I said, disappointed,
+as I selected the least unpleasant looking of the cigars.
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, I haven't," he said. "I didn't have to hear anything. What earned
+you that smoke took place right here in this office.... Here," he said,
+striking a match for me.
+</p>
+<p>
+I had been trying to put the cigar away so that I might dispose of it
+without hurting Will's feelings, but he had me, so I recklessly poked
+the thing into the automatic clipper and then into my mouth. "What do
+you mean?" I asked, puffing.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Come 'long outside," said Will; and we went out on the porch just in
+time to see Mr. Duncan going wearily upstairs to his room. "I mean,"
+said Will, <i>"him"</i>. And then he told me all about it.
+</p>
+<p>
+"But things like that don't happen every day," he wound up defensively.
+"I'll go you another cigar on to-morrow."
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, you won't," I said indignantly; and furtively dropped the infamous
+thing over the railing.
+</p>
+<p>
+I am never successful in my little attempts at deception, even in
+self-defence. In all candour I believe my disposition of that cigar
+would have gone undetected but for my notorious bad luck. Of course
+Bigelow's setter, Pompey, had to be asleep right under the spot where I
+dropped the cigar, and equally of course the burning end had to make
+instantaneous connection with his nerve centres, via his hide, with such
+effect that he arose in agony and subsequently used coarse language.
+Investigation naturally discovered my empty-handed perfidy. To no one
+else in Radville would this have happened.
+</p>
+<p>
+On the other hand, no one else in Radville would have thrown away the
+cigar.
+</p>
+<br><br><br>
+<h3><a name="v">
+	V
+</a></h3>
+<p class="ctr">
+MARGARET'S DAUGHTER
+</p>
+<p>
+Discomfort roused Duncan from his rest at an early hour, the morning
+following his arrival in Radville. I must confess that the beds in the
+Bigelow House are no better than they should be; in fact, according to
+Duncan, not so good. Duncan ought to know; he has slept in one of them,
+or tried to; a trial thus far to me denied. From what he has said,
+however, I shudder to think what will become of me should I ever lose
+the shelter of Miss Carpenter's second-story front and be thrown out
+into a heartless world to choose between the Bigelow House and Frank
+Tannehill's Radville Inn....
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan arose and consulted the two-dollar watch which he had left on
+the pine washstand by the window. It was half-past seven o'clock, and
+that seemed early to him. He was tired and would willingly have turned
+in again, but a rueful glance at the couch of his night-long vigil
+sufficed him. He lifted a hand to Heaven and vowed solemnly: "Never
+again!"
+</p>
+<p>
+As he bent over the washstand and poured a cupful of water into the
+china basin, thus emptying the pitcher, he was conscious of a pain in
+his back; but a thought cheered him. "They must have decent stables in
+this town," he considered, brightening. "The haymows for mine, after
+this."
+</p>
+<p>
+He dressed with scrupulous care, mindful of Kellogg's parting words,
+the sense of which was that first impressions were most important. "All
+the same," Duncan thought, "I don't believe they count in a dead-and-
+alive place like this. There's no one here with sufficient animation to
+realise I'm in town." This shows how little he understood our little
+community. A day of enlightenment was in store for him.
+</p>
+<p>
+Pansy Murphy was scrubbing out the office when he came down for
+breakfast. She is large, of what is known as a full complexion,
+good-hearted and energetic. His pause at the foot of the stairs, as he
+surveyed in dismay the seven seas of soapy water that occupied the
+floor, aroused her. She sat back suddenly on her heels and looked her
+fill of him, with her blue Irish eyes very wide, and her mouth a trap.
+He bowed politely. Pansy saved herself from falling over backwards by a
+supreme effort, scrubbed her hair out of her eyes with a very wet hand,
+and gave him "Good-marrin', Misther Dooncan," in a brogue as rich as
+you could wish for.
+</p>
+<p>
+He started violently. "Heavens!" he said. "I am discovered!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Make yer moind aisy about thot," Pansy assured him. "'Tis known all
+over town who ye arre, what's yer name, how manny troonks ye've brought
+wid ye, and th' rayson f'r yer comin' here."
+</p>
+<p>
+"A comforting thought, thank you," he commented: "to awake to find
+one's self grown famous over-night!..."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Now ye know," she returned, emboldened, "what it is to be a big toad
+in a small puddle."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I thank you." He nodded again, with a comprehensive survey of the
+reeking floor. "I'm afraid I do." With which he slipped and slid over
+to and through the swinging wicker doors of the dining-room.
+</p>
+<p>
+It was deserted. From the negligée of the tables, littered with the
+plates and dishes, dreary survivors of a dozen breakfasts, he divined
+that he was the tardiest guest in the household. A slatternly young
+woman in a soiled shirt-waist&mdash;the waitress&mdash;received him with great
+calm and waved him toward a table by the window, where an unused cover
+was laid. He went meekly, dogged by her formidable presence. She stood
+over him and glared down.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Haman neggs," she said defiantly, "steakan nomlette."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'll be a martyr," he told her civilly. "Me for the steak."
+</p>
+<p>
+She frowned gloomily and tramped away. He folded his hands and, cheered
+by an appetising aroma of warm water and yellow soap from the office,
+considered the prospect from the window by his side. Three children and
+a yellow dog came along and watched him do it, dispassionately
+reviewing his points in clear young voices. Tracey Tanner ambled into
+view on the other side of the street and beamed at him generously, his
+round red face resembling, Duncan thought, more than anything else a
+summer sun rising through mist. Josie Lockwood (he was to discover her
+name later) passed with her pert little nose ostentatiously pointed
+away from him; none the less he detected a gleam in the corner of her
+eye.... Others went by, singly or in groups, all more or less openly
+interested in him.
+</p>
+<p>
+He tried to look unconscious, but with ill success. There was nothing
+particularly engaging in the view: the broad, dusty street lined with
+commonplace structures of "frame" and brick, glowing in the morning
+sunshine. There were, to be sure, cool shadows beneath the trees, but
+the suggestion was all of summer heat. There was a watering-trough and
+hitching-rail directly opposite, a little to one side of Hemmenway's
+feed-store, and there a well-fed mare stood, drooping dejectedly
+between the shafts of a dilapidated buggy. On the corner was a
+two-storey brick building with large plate-glass windows on the ground
+floor for the display of intimate articles of feminine apparel. The
+black and gold sign above proclaimed it: "The Fair. Dry Goods &amp;
+Notions. Leonard &amp; Call." Duncan considered it with grave respect. "The
+scene of my future activities," he observed.
+</p>
+<p>
+By this time his audience had become too large and friendly for his
+endurance. He rose and retired to a less public table.
+</p>
+<p>
+In her own good time the waitress returned with a plate, and a small
+oval platter in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. She placed
+them before him with a manner that told him plainly he could never make
+himself the master of her affections. The small oval platter was
+discovered to contain a small segment of dark-brown ham and two fried
+eggs swimming in grease.
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan questioned the woman with mute, appealing eyes.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Steak's run out," she told him curtly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Leaving no address?" he inquired with forced gaiety.
+</p>
+<p>
+A suppressed smile softened her austerity, and she turned away to hide
+it. "To think," he wondered, "that a sense of humour should inhabit
+that!" He broke a roll and munched it gloomily, pondering this
+revelation. "And such humour !" he added, with justice.
+</p>
+<p>
+After an interval the woman returned. He had refrained from the staple
+dish. She indicated it with a grimy forefinger.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Please!" he begged plaintively. "I'm never very hungry in the
+morning."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I guess you don't like the table here," she observed icily, clearing
+away.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Do you?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't have to; I live home."
+</p>
+<p>
+He stared. Could it be possible...?
+</p>
+<p>
+"I know a good old one, too," he ventured hopefully. "Now here." He
+drew his coffee cup toward him and began to stir with energy. "You say:
+'It looks like rain'; and I'll say: 'Yes, but it tastes a little like
+coffee.'"
+</p>
+<p>
+She clattered away indignantly. He rose, depressed, and sighing sought
+the outer air.
+</p>
+<p>
+In the course of a forenoon's stroll Radville discovered itself to him
+in all its squalor and its loveliness. It sits in the centre of a broad
+valley of rolling meadow-land, studded with infrequent homesteads,
+broken into rather extensive farms, threaded by a shallow silver stream
+that gives its all in tribute to the Susquehanna far in the south. The
+barrier mountains rise about it like the sides of a bowl, with a great
+V-shaped piece chipped out of the southern wall. This break we call the
+Gap; through it the railroad comes to us, through it the river escapes.
+The hills rear high and steep, their swelling flanks cloaked in sombre
+green and grey, with here and there a bald spot like a splash of ochre
+where there's been a landslide, climbing directly from the plain, with
+no foothills. A recluse, I have thought, must have chosen this spot for
+a town site; sickened of the world, he sought seclusion&mdash;and found it
+here to his heart's content. Until the coke-ovens come, following the
+miners, with their attendant hordes of Slovaks, Poles and Hungarians,
+we shall be near to God, for we shall know peace....
+</p>
+<p>
+The town has been laid out with great rectangularity; the river divides
+it unequally. On the western bank is the larger community&mdash;locally, the
+Old Town, retaining its characteristics of sobriety, quiet and comfort;
+here, also, is the business centre&mdash;such business as there is. Here
+Duncan found homely residences sitting back from the street in ample
+grounds&mdash;grounds, perhaps, not very carefully groomed, but in spite of
+that attractive and pleasant to the eye. With one or two exceptions,
+none were strongly suggestive of wealth. He detected a trace of
+ostentation, and no taste whatever, in Lockwood's new villa (I'm told
+that's the polite designation for the edifice he caused to be erected
+what time the plague of riches smote him and the old home on Cherry
+Street became too small for the collective family chest), and there was
+quiet dignity in the quaintly columned façade of the Bohun mansion, now
+occupied solely by old Colonel Bohun, lonely and testy, reputed the
+richest as well as the most miserable man in the county. But as to his
+wealth, I doubt if rumour runs by more than tradition; Blinky
+Lockwood's new-found hundred-thousands are growing rapidly toward the
+million mark, unless Blinky's a worse business man than the town takes
+him to be.
+</p>
+<p>
+An old stone arch (whereon lovers linger in the moonlight) spans the
+stream and links the Old Town with the new, which we sometimes term the
+Flats, but more often simply Over There. It is a sordid huddle of dingy
+and down-at-the-heel tenements, housing the poorer working classes and
+the frankly worthless and ruffianly riff-raff of the neighbourhood.
+There are eight gin-mills Over There as against two sample-rooms in the
+Old Town, and of the local constabulary two-thirds lead exciting lives
+patrolling the Flats; the remaining third is ordinarily to be found
+dozing in the backroom of Schwartz's, and if roused will answer to the
+name and title of Pete Willing, Sheriff and Chief of Police.
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan reviewed both sides of the municipal face with fine
+impartiality&mdash;the Flats last; and turned back to the Old Town. "There's
+one thing," he communed as he reached the bridge: "If these people ever
+find me out they'll run me across the river&mdash;sure."
+</p>
+<p>
+He paused there, looking up and down the valley with contemplative
+gaze; and it was there I found him.
+</p>
+<p>
+As is my custom, I had devoted the earlier morning hours to the
+compilation of that work which is to gain for the name of Littlejohn a
+trifle more respect than, I fear, it owns in Radville nowadays; and
+afterwards, again in accordance with habit, had started out for my
+morning constitutional. As I was about to leave the house Miss
+Carpenter waylaid me and, in a voice still tremulous from the shock of
+yesterday, asked me to hunt up Jake Sawyer in the Flats and tell him to
+come and cut the grass.
+</p>
+<p>
+I was not in the least unwilling, for the walk was not long, and the
+morning very pleasant&mdash;not too warm, and bright with the smiling spirit
+of June. I don't remember feeling more cheerful and at peace with the
+world than when I marched off on my mission. The cloud I might, of
+course, have anticipated: clouds always come, and a lifetime has taught
+me to be sceptical of that tale about the silver lining. And even when
+it came it seemed no more depressing, of no more significant moment,
+than the cloud shadow that scurries across a wheat-field with no effect
+other than to enhance the beauty of the sunshine that pursues it.
+</p>
+<p>
+Old Colonel Bohun was the cloud-shadow of that morning. I met him
+turning into Main Street from Mortimer&mdash;at the head of which his
+mansion stands. He came down the sidewalk, but with a hint of haste in
+his manner: a tall old man, bending beneath the burden of his years,
+his fierce old face and iron-grey hair shaded as always by the black
+slouch hat with the flapping brim, his rounded shoulders cloaked with
+the black Inverness cape he wore summer and winter. In spite of his age
+and evident decrepitude, he bodied forth the spirit of what he had
+been, and none could pass him without knowledge of his presence; he
+drew eyes as a magnet draws filings, and drawing, held them in respect.
+I doubted if there were a man in Radville who could meet the old
+colonel with anything but a mingling of fear and deference&mdash;with one or
+two exceptions. For myself I hated him heartily, and he, looking down
+at me from the peak of pride whereon his iron soul perched, despised me
+with equal intensity. So we got along famously at our infrequent
+encounters.
+</p>
+<p>
+This morning I caught a flash of fire from his red-rimmed old eyes, and
+told myself I was sorry for whoever crossed his path before he returned
+to his lonely castle. It was his habit at odd intervals to foray down
+the village streets with one grievance or another rankling in his
+bosom, seeking some unlucky one upon whose head to wreak his
+resentment. We had come to recognise the heavy, slow tapping of his
+thick cane as a harbinger of trouble, even as you might prognosticate a
+thunderstorm from the rumbling beneath the horizon.
+</p>
+<p>
+I saw he recognised me and gave him a civil salute, which he returned
+with a brusque nod and a sharper, "Good-morning, Littlejohn," as he
+passed. Then he swung into Main Street, paralleling my course on the
+opposite sidewalk, and went <i>thump-thumping</i> along, darting quick
+glances hither and yon beneath his heavy brows, like some dark
+incarnation of perverse pride and passion.
+</p>
+<p>
+Partly because the sight of him sensibly influenced my mood, and partly
+because inevitably he made me think of Sam Graham, I turned off at
+Beech Street, leaving him to pursue his way toward the centre of town.
+Graham's one-horse drug-store stood on Beech, a block south of Main.
+That being the least promising location in town for a business of any
+sort, Sam had naturally selected it when he concluded to set up shop.
+If Sam had ever in his life displayed any symptoms of business
+sagacity, Radville would never have recovered from the shock. I believe
+it was Legrand Gunn, our only really certificated village wit, who
+coined the epigram: "As useless as to take a prescription to Graham's."
+The implication being that Graham didn't carry sufficient stock to
+fill any prescription; which was largely true; he couldn't; he hadn't
+the money to stock up with. What little he took in from time to time
+went in part to the support of Betty and himself, but mainly to pay
+interest on his debts and buy raw materials for models of his
+thousand-and-one inventions. Most Radvillians firmly believed that Sam
+has at some time or other in his busy, worthless career invented
+everything under the sun, practicable or impracticable&mdash;the former
+always a few days after somebody else had taken out patents for the
+identical device. But at that time no one believed he would ever make a
+cent out of any one of the children of his ingenious brain; nor was I,
+in this respect, more credulous than any of my fellow-townsmen.
+</p>
+<p>
+I lingered a moment outside the shop, thinking of the change that had
+come over it since the death of Margaret Graham, Betty's mother. For,
+despite its out-of-the-way location, the shop had not always been
+unprofitable; while Margaret lived (my heart still ached with the
+memory of her name) Sam's business had prospered. She had been one of
+those woman who can rise to any emergency in the interest of her loved
+ones; the first to realise Sam's improvidence and lack of executive
+ability, she had taken hold of the business with a firm hand and made
+it pay&mdash;while she lived. It has never ceased to be a source of
+wondering speculation to me, that she, with her gentle training, so
+wholly aloof from every thought of commerce or economy, should have
+proven herself so thorough and level-headed a business woman. There's
+no accounting for it, indeed, save on the theory that she conceived it
+a woman's function to make up for man's deficiencies; Sam needed her,
+so she become his wife; he needed a manager, so she had became that
+also....
+</p>
+<p>
+During Margaret's régime, as I say, the shop had thrived. Sam had few
+ill-wishers in Radville; the trade came his way. Then Betty was born
+and Margaret died....
+</p>
+<p>
+Most of this I have on hearsay. I left Radville shortly after their
+marriage and did not return until some months after Margaret's burial.
+By that time the shop had begun to show signs of neglect; its stock was
+decimated, its trade likewise. Sam was struggling with his inventions
+more fiercely than ever&mdash;seeking forgetfulness, I always thought. The
+business was allowed to take care of itself. He had always a serene
+faith in his tomorrows.
+</p>
+<p>
+Now the little shop had been far distanced by the competition of
+Sothern and Lee. It was twenty years behind the times, as the saying
+is. Small, darksome, dreary and dingy, it served chiefly as a
+living-room for Sam, his daughter, and his cronies, as well as for his
+workshop. He had a bench and a ramshackle lathe in one corner, where
+you might be sure to find him futilely pottering at almost any hour. He
+owned the little building&mdash;or that portion in it which it were a farce
+to term the equity above the mortgage&mdash;and Betty kept house for him in
+three rooms above the store.
+</p>
+<p>
+I saw nothing of him as I stepped across the street, and was wondering
+if he were at home when, through the small, dark panes of glass in his
+show windows I discerned his white old head bobbing busily over
+something on the rear counter. I pushed the door open and entered. He
+looked up with his never-failing smile of welcome and a wave of his
+hand.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Howdy, Homer? Come in. Well, well, I'm glad to see you. Sit down&mdash;I
+think that chair there by the stove will hold together under you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What are you doing, Sam?" I asked.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Fixin' up the sody fountain. 'Meant to get it working last month,
+Homer, but somehow I kind of forgot."
+</p>
+<p>
+He rubbed away briskly at the single faucet which protruded above the
+counter, lathering it briskly with a metal polish that smelt to Heaven.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Do much sody trade, Sam?"
+</p>
+<p>
+He paused, passing his worn old fingers reflectively across a chin
+snowy with a stubble of neglected beard. "No," he allowed thoughtfully,
+"not so much as we used to, now that Sothern and Lee've got this
+new-fangled notion of puttin' ice cream in a nickel glass of sody. Most
+of the young folks go there, now, but still I get a call flow and
+then&mdash;and every little bit helps." He rubbed on ferociously for a
+moment. "'Course, I'd do more, likely, if I carried a bigger line of
+flavours."
+</p>
+<p>
+"How many do you carry?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"One," he admitted with a sigh, "vanilly."
+</p>
+<p>
+While I filled my pipe he continued to rub very industriously.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why don't you get more?"
+</p>
+<p>
+He flashed me one of his pale, genial smiles. "I'm thinkin' of it,
+Homer, soon's I get some money in. Next week, mebbe. There's a man in
+N'York that mebbe can be int'rested in one of my inventions, Roland
+Barnette says. Mebbe he'd be willin' to put a little money in it,
+Roland says, and of course if he does, I'll be able to stock up
+considerable."
+</p>
+<p>
+I sighed covertly for him. He rubbed, humming a tuneless rhythm to
+himself.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Roland's goin' to write to him about it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What invention?" I asked, incredulous.
+</p>
+<p>
+Sam put down his bottle of polish and came round the counter, beaming;
+nothing pleases him better than an opportunity to exhibit some one of
+his innumerable models. "I'll show you, Homer," he volunteered
+cheerfully, shuffling over to his work-bench. He rasped a match over
+its surface and applied the flame to a small gas-bracket fixed to the
+wall. A strong rush of gas extinguished the match, and he turned the
+flow half off before trying again. This time the vapour caught and
+settled to a steady, brilliant flame as white as and much softer than
+acetylene.
+</p>
+<p>
+"There!" he said in triumph. "What d'ye think of that, Homer?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why," I said, "I didn't know you had an acetylene plant."
+</p>
+<p>
+"No more have I, Homer."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But what is that, then?" I demanded.
+</p>
+<p>
+"It's my invention," he returned proudly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I've been workin' on it two years, Homer, and only got it goin'
+yestiddy. It's going to be a great thing, I tell you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But what <i>is</i> it, Sam?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"It's gas from crude petroleum, Homer. See ..." he continued,
+indicating a tank beneath the bench which seemed to be connected with
+the bracket by a very simple system of piping, broken by a smaller,
+cylindrical tank. "Ye put the oil in there&mdash;just crude, as it comes out
+of the wells, Homer; it don't need refinin'&mdash;and it runs through this
+and down here to this, where it's vaporised&mdash;much the same's they
+vaporise gasoline for autymobile engines, ye know&mdash;and then it just
+naturally flows up to the bracket&mdash;and there ye are."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It's wonderful, Sam," said I, wondering if it really were.
+</p>
+<p>
+"And the best part of it is the economy, Homer. A gallon will run one
+jet six weeks, day in and out. And simple to install. I tell ye&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Have you got it patented yet?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, siree! took out patents just as soon as it struck me how simple
+it 'ud be&mdash;more than two years ago. Only, of course, it took time to
+work it out just right, 'specially when I had to stop now and then
+'cause I needed money for materials. But it's all right now, Homer,
+it's all right now."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And you say Roland Barnette's writing to some one in New York about
+it?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes; he promised he would. I explained it to Roland and he seemed real
+int'rested. He's kind, very kind."
+</p>
+<p>
+I was inclined to doubt this, and would probably have said something to
+that effect had not a shadow crossing the window brought me to my feet
+in consternation. But before I could do more than rise, Colonel Bohun
+had flung open the door and stamped in. He stopped short at sight of
+me, misguided by his near-sighted eyes, and singled me out with a
+threatening wave of his heavy stick.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, sir!" he snarled. "I've come for my answer. Have you sense
+enough in your addled pate to understand that, man? I've come for my
+answer!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"And may have it, whatever it may be, for all of me," I told him.
+</p>
+<p>
+His face flushed a deeper red. "Oh, it's only you, is it, Littlejohn? I
+took you for that fool Graham, in this damned dark hole. Where is he?"
+</p>
+<p>
+I looked to Graham and he followed the direction of my gaze to the
+work-bench, where Sam stood with his back to it, his worn hands folded
+quietly before him. He seemed a little whiter than usual, I thought;
+and perhaps it was only my fancy that made him appear to tremble ever
+so slightly. For he was quite calm and self-possessed&mdash;so much so that
+I realised for the first time there was another man in Radville besides
+myself who did not fear old Colonel Bohun.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm here, colonel," he said quietly. "What is it you wish?"
+</p>
+<p>
+The colonel swung on him, shaking with passion. But he held his tongue
+until he had mastered himself somewhat: a feat of self-restraint on his
+part over which I marvel to this day.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You know well, Graham," he said presently. "You got my letter&mdash;the
+letter I wrote you a week ago?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes," said Sam, with a start of comprehension. "Yes, I got it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then why the devil, man, don't you answer it?"
+</p>
+<p>
+Sam's apologetic smile sweetened his face.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why," he said haltingly&mdash;"I'm sure I meant no offence, but&mdash;you see,
+I'm a very busy man&mdash;I forgot it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"The hell you forgot it. D'ye expect me to believe that, man?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm afraid you'll have to."
+</p>
+<p>
+Bohun was speechless for a moment, stricken dumb by a second seizure of
+fury. But again he calmed himself.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Very well. I'll swallow that insolence for the present&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"It wasn't meant as such, I assure&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Don't interrupt me! D'you hear? ... I've come for my answer. Yes, I've
+come down to that, Graham. If you can't accord me the common courtesy
+of a written reply&mdash;I've come to hear it from your mouth."
+</p>
+<p>
+Sam nodded thoughtfully. "Mebbe," he said, "you forgot you have failed
+to accord me the common courtesy of any sort of a communication
+whatever for twenty years, Colonel Bohun. Even when my wife, your
+daughter, died, you ignored my message asking you to her funeral...."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Be silent!" screamed the colonel. "Do you think I'm here to bandy
+words with you, fool? I demand my answer."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And as for that," continued Sam as evenly as if he had not been
+interrupted, "your proposition was so preposterous that it could have
+come only from you, and deserved no answer. But since you want it
+formally, sir, it's no."
+</p>
+<p>
+For a moment I feared Bohun would have a stroke. The back of the chair
+I had just vacated and his stick alone supported him through that dumb,
+terrible transport. He shook so violently that I looked momentarily to
+see the chair break beneath him. There was insanity in his eyes. When
+finally he was able to articulate it was in broken gasps.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't believe it," he stammered. "It's a lie. I don't believe it.
+It's madness&mdash;the girl wouldn't be so mad. ..."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What is it, father?"
+</p>
+<p>
+I don't know which of us three was the more startled by that simple
+question in Betty Graham's voice; Sam, at all events, showed the least
+surprise; the old colonel wheeled toward the back of the store, his jaw
+dropping and his eyes protruding as though he were confronted with a
+ghost. As, in a way, he was: even I had been struck by that strange,
+heartrending similarity to her mother's tone; and even I trembled a
+little to hear that voice, as it seemed, from beyond the grave.
+</p>
+<p>
+Betty stood at the foot of the staircase; alarmed by the noise of the
+colonel's raging, she had stolen down, unheard by any of us. And in
+that moment I realised as never before that the girl had more of her
+mother in her than lay in that marvellous reproduction of Margaret
+Graham's voice. As she waited there one detected in her pose something
+of her mother's quiet dignity, in her eyes more than a little of
+Margaret's tragedy. Of Margaret's beauty I saw scant trace, I own; but
+in those days my eyes were blinded by the signs of overwork and
+insufficient nourishment that marred her young features, by the
+hopeless dowdiness of her garments.
+</p>
+<p>
+Abruptly she moved swiftly to her father's side and slipped her hand
+into his. "What is it, father?" she repeated, eyeing Colonel Bohun
+coldly.
+</p>
+<p>
+I thought Sam's eyes filled. His lips trembled and he had to struggle
+to master his voice. He smiled through it all, tenderly at his girl,
+but there was in that smile the weakness of the child grown old, the
+dependence of the man whose womanfolk must ever mother him.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why, Betty," he said, tremulous&mdash;"why, Betty, your grandfather here
+has been kind enough to offer to take you and educate you and make a
+lady of you, and&mdash;and we were just talking it over, dear, just talking
+it over."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Do you mean that?" she flung at Bohun.
+</p>
+<p>
+He straightened up and held himself well in hand. "Is it the first you
+have heard of it?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes." She looked inquiringly at her father.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why didn't you tell her?" Bohun persisted harshly. "Were you afraid?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"No." Sam shook his head slowly. "I wasn't
+afraid. But it was unnecessary.... You see, Betty, Colonel Bohun is
+willing to do all this for you on several conditions. You must leave me
+and never see me again; you mustn't even recognise me should we meet
+upon the street; you must change your name to Bohun and never permit
+yourself to be known as Betty Graham. Then you must&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Never mind, daddy dear," said the girl. "That is enough. I know now&mdash;I
+understand why you never told me. It's impossible. Colonel Bohun knew
+that when he made the offer, of course; he made it simply to harass
+you, daddy. It's his revenge...."
+</p>
+<p>
+She looked Bohun up and down with a glance of contempt that would have
+withered another man, poor, wan, haggard little maid of all work that
+she was.
+</p>
+<p>
+"And that's your answer, miss?" he snapped, livid with wrath.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I would not," she told him slowly, "accept a favour from you, sir, if
+I were starving...."
+</p>
+<p>
+Bohun drew himself up. "Then starve," he told her; and walked out of
+the shop.
+</p>
+<p>
+I gaped after his retreating figure. It seemed impossible, incredible,
+that he should have taken such an answer without yielding to a fit of
+insensate passion. And I was still marvelling when I heard Graham
+saying in a broken voice: "Betty! Betty, my little girl!"
+</p>
+<p>
+Then I, too, went away, with a mist before my eyes to dim the golden
+grace of June.
+</p>
+<br><br><br>
+<h3><a name="vi">
+	VI
+</a></h3>
+<p class="ctr">
+INTRODUCTION TO MISS CARPENTER
+</p>
+<p>
+On my way back from the Flats I discovered Duncan sitting on the wall
+of the bridge, moodily donating pebbles to the water. His attitude
+suggested preoccupation with unhappy reflections, a humour from which
+the sound of my footsteps roused him. He looked up and caught my eye
+with an uncertain nod, as though he half recognised me&mdash;presumably
+having casually noticed me at the Bigelow House the previous evening.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Good-morning," said I cheerfully, with a slight break in my stride
+intended craftily to convey the impression that I was not altogether
+averse to a pause for gossip.
+</p>
+<p>
+He said "Good-morning," sombrely.
+</p>
+<p>
+"A pleasant day," I observed spontaneously, stopping.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes," he agreed. "By the way, have you a match about you?"
+</p>
+<p>
+I searched my pockets, found a box and handed it over.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I've been perishing for a ..." He slid his fingers into a waistcoat
+pocket, as one who should seek a cigarette-case; but the hand came
+forth empty. He bit his remark off abruptly, with a blank look in his
+eyes which was promptly succeeded by an expression of deepest chagrin.
+He got up and with a little bow returned the box.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I forgot," he said, apologetic.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm afraid I can't help you out," said I.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, that's all right. I'd just forgotten that I don't smoke."
+</p>
+<p>
+I pretended not to notice his disconcertion.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You're to be congratulated; it's a shameful waste of time and money."
+</p>
+<p>
+"A filthy habit," said he warmly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Indeed, yes," I chanted, finding my pipe and tobacco pouch.
+</p>
+<p>
+He caught my twinkle as I filled and lighted, and looked away, the
+shadow of a smile lurking beneath his small, closely clipped moustache.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I beg your pardon," he said a moment later, regarding me with more
+interest, "but&mdash;do you live here?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Certainly. Why?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I was sure of it," he replied soberly. "But don't you feel a bit
+lonesome, sometimes?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not in the least. Radville's one of the most interesting places on
+this side of the footstool." He sighed. "Indeed," I insisted, "you
+won't feel any more lonely after you've lived here a while, than I do
+now, Mr. Duncan."
+</p>
+<p>
+He opened his eyes at my acquaintance with his name, but jerked his
+head at me comprehendingly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"To be sure," he said. "You would know. But I'm only beginning to
+realise what it feels like to be a marked man."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I hear you intend to make Radville your permanent residence, Mr.
+Duncan?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"It's part of the system," he said obscurely. "It may prove a life
+sentence."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Don't you think you'll like it here?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, I'm strong for Radville," he declared earnestly. "It's all to the
+merry ... I beg your pardon."
+</p>
+<p>
+I stared curiously to see him colour like a school-girl. "What for?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"My mistake, sir; I forgot myself again. I don't use slang."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh!" I commented, wondering. He was beginning to puzzle me.
+</p>
+<p>
+In the pause the air began to rock with the heavy clanging of the clock
+in the Methodist Church steeple.
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's noon," I said. "We'll have to cut along: dinner's ready."
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan immediately replanted himself firmly upon the parapet. "I know
+it," he said with some indignation.
+</p>
+<p>
+Again bewildered, I hesitated, but eventually advanced: "Our ways run
+together, Mr. Duncan, as far as the Bigelow House. My name is
+Littlejohn&mdash;Homer Littlejohn."
+</p>
+<p>
+He rose again to take my hand and assured me he was glad to make my
+acquaintance. "But," he added morosely, "I'll be damned if I go back to
+that hotel before dinner's over.... Great Scott! I forgot again. I
+don't swear!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Have you any other unnatural accomplishments?" I inquired, chuckling.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm so full of 'em I can hardly stick," he assented gloomily. "I don't
+drink or smoke or swear or play pool or cards, and on Sundays I go to
+church."
+</p>
+<p>
+I laughed outright. "You've come to the right place for such exemplary
+virtues to be fully appreciated, Mr. Duncan."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's all right," he said with a return of his indignation, "but it
+wasn't in the bargain that I should starve to death. Do you realise,
+Mr. Littlejohn," he continued, warming, "that you behold in me a young
+man in the prime of health actually on the point of wasting visibly
+away to a shadow of my former hardy self? It's a fact: I am. For the
+past two days I've had nothing to eat except railway sandwiches and
+coffee and the kind of fodder they pitchfork you at the Bigelow House.
+And I came here with a mind coloured with rosy anticipations of real
+old-fashioned country cooking. It's an outrage!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Look here," said I: "why not come home with me for dinner? I'll be
+glad to have you, and Miss Carpenter won't mind your coming, I'm sure."
+</p>
+<p>
+He got up with alacrity. "Those are the first human words I've heard in
+Radville, sir! I accept with joy and gratitude. Come&mdash;lead me to it!"
+</p>
+<p>
+Now, Miss Carpenter doesn't like her meals delayed; so I would have
+been inclined to hasten this Mr. Duncan; but he saved me the trouble.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Miss Carpenter?" he asked without warning, as we hurried up Main
+Street.
+</p>
+<p>
+"My landlady, Mr. Duncan."
+</p>
+<p>
+"She takes boarders? An old maid?" he persisted eagerly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"An elderly spinster; boarders are her distraction as well as a source
+of income."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Do you think she'd take me in, Mr. Littlejohn?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm sure of it. There's a vacant room ..."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Does she talk?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Moderately."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not a regular walking newspaper&mdash;no?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not exactly&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then I'm afraid it's no use," he sighed.
+</p>
+<p>
+I glanced up at his face, but it was inscrutable.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You&mdash;you want a landlady who talks?" I gasped, incredulous.
+</p>
+<p>
+"It's one of the rules," he said, again obscurely.
+</p>
+<p>
+I could make nothing of him. And had I any right to introduce to Hetty
+Carpenter a guest who came without credentials and talked more or less
+like a lunatic at large?
+</p>
+<p>
+"Mr. Duncan&mdash;" I began, uncomfortable.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Don't say it," he anticipated me. "I know you think I'm crazy&mdash;but I'm
+not. You would think so, naturally, because you're the only man here
+who's ever lived away from Radville long enough&mdash;not counting those who
+went to the World's Fair&mdash;."
+</p>
+<p>
+"How did you know?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Bigelow told me last night; said you'd be glad to meet somebody from
+New York. I hope he's right. I'm glad, personally.... You see&mdash;May I
+request that you regard this as confidential?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes&mdash;yes!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I've come to Radville to make my fortune."
+</p>
+<p>
+The confession smote me witless: I could only gape. He nodded
+confirmation, with a most serious mien. At length I found strength to
+articulate. "From New York&mdash;?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes. It's a new scheme. You see, Mr. Littlejohn,
+matters have come to such a state that a city-bred boy practically
+doesn't stand any show on earth of making good in the cities; your
+country-bred boys crowd him to the wall, nine times out of ten. They
+invade us in hordes, fresh from the open, strong, vigorous,
+clear-headed, ambitious.... What chance have we got? ... I've been
+figuring it out, you see, and I've come to the conclusion that it's my
+only salvation to get back to the country and improve some of the
+opportunities&mdash;the golden opportunities&mdash;that your boys have neglected,
+overlooked, in their mad desire to invade the commercial centres of the
+country."
+</p>
+<p>
+He seemed very much in earnest; I was watching him as closely as I
+might without making my scrutiny offensive; and there seemed to be the
+ring of conviction in his voice, while the expression of his eyes
+indicated concentrated thought. And how was I to know, then, that the
+concentration was due to the necessity of invention?
+</p>
+<p>
+"You follow me, Mr. Littlejohn?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I was here first," I corrected. "Still, there's more in what you say
+than perhaps you realise."
+</p>
+<p>
+"If I'd made this discovery originally I'd agree with you, sir. But,
+quite to the contrary, it was pointed out to me by one of the shrewdest
+business minds in the United States&mdash;a man who'd been a country boy to
+begin with. And I've come to the conclusion that he's right."
+</p>
+<p>
+"So you're here."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Here I am."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And what do you propose doing?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm reading law, Mr. Littlejohn; that I shall continue. In the
+meantime, I shall keep my eyes open. At any day, at any amount, the
+opportunity may present itself, the opportunity I'm looking for."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Probably you're right," I assented, impressed, as we turned a corner.
+</p>
+<p>
+A young woman in a very attractive linen gown was strolling toward us,
+quite prettily engaged with a book which she read as she walked, her
+fair young head bowed beneath a sunshade which tinted her face
+becomingly. She gave me a shy smile and a low-voiced greeting as we
+passed. Only my knowledge of the young woman prevented me from being
+blinded by her engaging appearance.
+</p>
+<p>
+"That," said I, when we were out of earshot, "shows you what a furore a
+good-looking young man can create in a town like this. Josie Lockwood
+has put on her best bib-and-tucker to go walking in this afternoon, on
+the off-chance of meeting you, Mr. Duncan."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Flattery note," he commented. "Who's Josie Lockwood?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Daughter of Blinky Lockwood, the richest man in Radville."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Ah!" he said cryptically.
+</p>
+<p>
+We had come to Miss Carpenter's. I opened the gate for him, but he
+stood aside, refusing to precede me. And courtesy in the young folk of
+to-day warms my old heart.
+</p>
+<p>
+He had as much for Hetty Carpenter. Within an hour he had insinuated
+himself into her good graces with a deftness, an ease, that astounded.
+Within three hours he was established, bag and baggage, in her very
+best room.
+</p>
+<p>
+And thirty minutes after she had helped Duncan unpack, Hetty had to run
+downtown to buy a spool of thread.
+</p>
+<br><br><br>
+<h3><a name="vii">
+	VII
+</a></h3>
+<p class="ctr">
+A WINDOW IN RADVILLE
+</p>
+<p>
+A jealous secret, which has never heretofore been divulged, is
+responsible for the prosperity of the Radville <i>Citizen</i>&mdash;at
+least, in very great measure. As the discoverer of this recipe for
+circulation, I have kept it carefully locked in my guilty bosom for
+many a year, and if I now betray it I do so without scruple, for the
+<i>Gazette</i> is now established firmly in a groove of popularity from
+which you'd find it hard to oust the paper. So here's letting the cat
+out of the bag:
+</p>
+<p>
+The policy of the <i>Citizen</i> has long been to devote its columns
+mainly to the exploitation of what is known in newspaper terminology as
+"the local story." Of the news of the great outside world we're
+parsimonious, recognising the fact that the coronation of King Edward
+VII. is a matter of much less import to our community than the
+holocaust which was responsible for the destruction of Sir
+Higginbottom's new hen-house. Similarly a West Indian tornado involving
+losses running up into hundreds of thousands of dollars sinks into
+relative insignificance as compared with the local weather forecast and
+its probable effect on crops not worth ten thousand; while the enforced
+abdication of the Sultan of Turkey gets a "stick" (a space in a
+newspaper column about as long as your forefinger, if you have a small
+hand) as contrasted with the column and a half assigned to the death of
+old Colonel Bohun.
+</p>
+<p>
+Now, naturally, a paper in a small country town can't afford a large
+and hustling staff of enthusiastic reporters; and very probably the
+<i>Citizen</i> would overlook many items and stories of burning local
+interest were it not for the fact that the population has been
+cunningly made to serve in a reportorial capacity without either pay or
+its own knowledge. We literally get our local news by wireless; and
+from dawn to dark there's a constant supply of it on tap.
+</p>
+<p>
+It's this way: our editorial rooms are in the second storey of a
+building overlooking Court House Square. The lower floor is occupied by
+the Post Office, and in front of the Post Office are a hitching-post
+and two long, weather-scarred benches, while just across the road&mdash;I
+mean street&mdash;on the boundary of the square proper&mdash;is a near-bronze
+drinking-fountain and watering-trough erected from the proceeds of
+several fairs given by the local branch of the W. C. T. U. Naturally,
+indeed inevitably, all Radville gravitates to the Post Office, bringing
+the news with it, and stops to discuss it on the steps or the benches
+or by the fountain; and the acoustics are admirable. With a window open
+and scratch-pad handy, the keen-eared scribe at his desk in our offices
+can hardly fail to pick up every scrap of town information between
+sunrise and dusk.... Of course, in winter the supply's not so good.
+Winter before last we all suffered with colds acquired through keeping
+the windows open; and last winter our circulation fell off surprisingly
+through keeping them closed. This winter we contemplate cutting a
+trap-door through the floor for the ostensible purpose of ventilation.
+</p>
+<p>
+And thus it was that I managed to hear much of Mr. Duncan while I
+myself was engaged in formulating an estimate of the young man. He
+engaged the popular imagination no less than mine own, although I was
+more intimately associated with him&mdash;as a fellow-resident at Hetty
+Carpenter's. My professional duties making their habitual demands upon
+my time, I saw, it may be, less of him than many of our people.
+Certainly I learned less of his ways from first-hand knowledge. But
+from my desk (it's the nearest to the window right above the Post
+Office door) I was enabled to keep a pretty close line upon his habits
+and movements, during the first fortnight of his stay in Radville.
+</p>
+<p>
+At home I saw him with unvarying regularity at meal-times and less
+frequently after supper. Between whiles he seemed to observe a fairly
+regular routine: in the morning, after breakfast, he walked abroad for
+his health's sake; in the afternoon and evening he sequestered himself
+in his room for the pursuit of his legal studies. About the genuineness
+of these latter I was long without a question: having been privileged
+to inspect his room I found it redolent of an atmosphere of highly
+commendable application. His writing table was a model of neatness, and
+his store of legal treatises impressed one vastly. That no one, not
+even Hetty Carpenter, ever saw the room without remarking the open
+volume of "The Law of Torts," with its numerous pages painstakingly
+spaced by slips of paper by way of bookmarks, is an attested fact. That
+it was always the same volume is less widely known.
+</p>
+<p>
+Less directly (that is to say, via my window) I learned of him
+compendiously from sources which would have been anonymous but for my
+long acquaintance with the voices of the townspeople.... I write these
+pages at my desk at home and, if truth's to be told, somewhat
+surreptitiously; but with these voices ringing in my memory's ear I
+seem still to be sitting at my erstwhile desk by the window, looking
+out over Court House Square, chewing the rubber heel of my pencil the
+while I listen. It's summer weather and there's a smell in the air of
+dust and heat; the square simmers and shimmers in unclouded sunshine,
+its many green plots of grass a trifle grey and haggard with dust, the
+flagstaff with its two flanking cannon by the bandstand in the middle
+wavering slightly in the haze of heat; there are two rigs, a farm-wagon
+and a buckboard, hitched to the post below, and some boys are squirting
+water on one another by holding their hands over the lips of the
+fountain across the way. Immediately opposite, on the far side of the
+square, the Court House rises proudly in all the majesty of its
+columned front and clapboarded sides; farther along there's the
+Methodist Church, very severe, with its rows of sheds to one side for
+the teams of the more rural members. Behind them all bulk our hills,
+dim and purple against the overwhelming blue of the sky. It's very
+quiet: there are few sounds, and those few most familiar: the raucous
+war-cry of a rooster somewhere on the outskirts of town; an
+intermittent thudding of hoofs in the inch-deep dust of the roadway;
+Miles Stetson wringing faint but genuine shrieks of agony from his
+cornet, in a room behind the Opery House on the next street;
+periodically a shuffle of feet on the sidewalk below; less frequently
+the whine of the swinging doors at Schwartz's place; above it all,
+perhaps, the shrill but not unpleasant accents of Angie Tuthill as she
+pauses on the threshold downstairs and injects surprising information
+into the nothing-reluctant ears of Mame Garrison.
+</p>
+<p>
+" ... He's got six suits of clothes, three for summer and three for
+winter, and two others to wear to parties&mdash;one regular full-dress suit
+and another without any tails on the coat that he told Miss Carpenter
+was a dinner-coat, but Roland Barnette says he must've meant a Tuxedo,
+because nobody wears that kind of clothes except at night; so how could
+it be a dinner-coat?... And Miss Carpenter told Ma he's got twelve
+striped shirts and eight white ones and dozens of silk socks and two
+dozen neckties and handkerchiefs till you can't count and...."
+</p>
+<p>
+Mame punctuates this monologue with a regular and excusable "My land!"
+and the young voices fade away into the mid-summer afternoon quiet. I
+am free to resume my interrupted flight of fancy, but I refrain. The
+atmosphere is soporiferous, hardly conducive to editorial inspiration,
+and I find the commingled flavours of red-cedar, glue and rubber quite
+nourishing.
+</p>
+<p>
+Presently Dr. Mortimer, the minister, comes down the street in company
+with his deacon, Blinky Lockwood. They are discussing someone in
+subdued tones, but I catch references to a worthy young man and the
+vacancy in the choir.
+</p>
+<p>
+Josie Lockwood rustles into hearing with Bessie Gabriel in tow. Josie
+is rattling volubly, but with a hint of the confidential in her tone.
+She insists that: "Of course, I never let on, but every time we meet I
+can just feel him looking and...."
+</p>
+<p>
+Bessie interposes: "Why, Tracey Tanner's just crazy for fear he'll take
+on with Angie."
+</p>
+<p>
+I can see Josie's head toss at this. "I bet he don't know what Angie
+Tuthill looks like. That's too absurd..."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Absurd" is Josie's newest word. It's a very good word, too, but
+sometimes I fear she will wear it threadbare. It closes her remarks as
+the two girls dart into the Post Office, and there is peace for a time;
+then they emerge giggling, and I hear Josie declare: "I'd get Roland
+Barnette to do it, but he's so jealous. He makes me tired."
+</p>
+<p>
+Bessie's response is inaudible.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well," Josie continues, "I'm simply not going to send them out until I
+meet him. Father said I could give it a week from Saturday, but I won't
+unless&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+Bessie interrupts, again inaudibly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Of course I could do that, but ... if I just said 'Miss Carpenter and
+guests' that nosey old Homer Littlejohn'd think I meant him too, and if
+I only said 'guest' it'd look too pointed. Don't you think so?"
+</p>
+<p>
+To my relief they pass from hearing, and I feel for my pipe for
+comfort. Anyway, I never did like Josie Lockwood.... Smoking, I
+meditate on the astonishing power of personality. Here is Mr. Nathaniel
+Duncan no more than a fortnight in our midst (the phrase is used
+callously, as something sacred to country journalism) and, behold! not
+yet has the town ceased to discuss him. The control he has over the
+local mind and imagination is certainly wonderful: the more so since he
+has apparently made no effort to attract attention; rather, I should
+say, to the contrary. Quiet and unassuming he goes his way, minding his
+own business as carefully as we would mind it for him, with all the
+good will in the world, if only we could find out what it is. But we
+can't leave him alone....
+</p>
+<p>
+Tracey Tanner interrupts my musings.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Hello!" he twangs, like a tuneless banjo.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Lo, Tracey." This lofty and blase greeting can come from none other
+than Roland Barnette.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Where you goin'?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Over to the railway station."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What for?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"To give you something to talk about. I'm going to send a telegram to a
+friend of mine in Noo York."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Aw, you ain't the only one can send telegrams. Sam Graham sent one
+just now."
+</p>
+<p>
+"<i>He</i> did!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Uh-huh. I was sort of hangin' round, when he came in, and I seen him
+send it myself."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Sam Graham telegraphing! Do you know; who to, Tracey?" Roland's
+superiority is wearing thin under contact with his curiosity. This
+surprising bit of news makes him distinctly more affable and inclined
+to lower himself to the social level of the son of the livery-stable
+keeper.
+</p>
+<p>
+As for myself, I am inclined to lean out of the window and call Tracey
+up, lest he get out of hearing before I hear the rest of it.
+Fortunately I am not thus obliged to compromise my dignity. The two are
+at pause.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Gimme a cigarette 'nd I'll tell you," bargains Tracey shrewdly. "Lew
+Parker told me after Sam'd gone."
+</p>
+<p>
+The deal is put through promptly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"He was telegraphin' to&mdash;Got a match?"
+</p>
+<p>
+For once I am in sympathy with Roland, whose tone betrays his desire to
+wring Tracey's exasperating neck.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Aw, he was only telegraphing to Gresham an' Jones for some sody water
+syrups."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Where'd he get the money?" There's fine scorn in Roland's comment.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I dunno, but he handed Lew a five-dollar bill to pay for the message."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, if Sam Graham's got any money he'd better hold on to it, instead
+of buying sody-water syrups. I guess Blinky Lockwood'll get after him
+when he finds it out. He owes Blinky a note at the bank and it's coming
+due in a day or two and Blinky ain't going to renew, neither."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Sam seemed cheerful 'nough. Anyhow, it ain't my funeral."
+</p>
+<p>
+I have now something to think about, indeed, and am more than half
+inclined to stroll up to Graham's and find out what has happened, on my
+own account, when the voices of Hi Nutt and Watty the tailor drift up
+to me. The cronies are coming down for their regular afternoon session
+on the Post Office benches&mdash;a function which takes place daily, just as
+soon as the sun gets round behind the building, so that the seats are
+shaded. And I pause, true to the ethics of journalism; it's my duty not
+to leave just yet.
+</p>
+<p>
+Surprisingly enough these two likewise are discussing Sam Graham. At
+least I can deduce nothing else from Hiram's first words, though their
+subject is for the moment nameless.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, sir; he's the poorest man in this town."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes," Watty quavers; "yes, I guess he be."
+</p>
+<p>
+"An' he's got no more business sense <i>into</i> him than God give a
+goose."
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, I guess he ain't."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why, look at the way things has run down at his store since Margaret
+died. She kept things a-runnin' while she was alive."
+</p>
+<p>
+ "Yes, she was a fine woman, Margaret Bohun
+was."
+</p>
+<p>
+"An' they ain't no doubt about it, Sam had money into the bank when she
+died. But ever sinst then it's been all go out and no come in with him.
+He keeps fussin' and fussin' with them inventions of his, but no one
+ever heard tell of his gettin' anything out of 'em."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And what'd he do with all the money he had when Margaret died?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Spent it, what he didn't lend and give away and lose endorsin' notes
+for his friends and then havin' to pay 'em. An' speakin' of notes, I
+heard Roland Barnette say, t'other day, that old Sam had a note comin'
+due to the bank, an' Blinky wasn't goin' to renew it any more."
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Course Sam can't pay it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Certainly he can't. I was in his store day before yestiddy an' they
+wasn't nobody come in for nothin' while I was there. He don't do no
+business to speak of."
+</p>
+<p>
+"How long was you there, Hi?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"From nine o'clock to noon."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What doin'?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Nuthin'; jes' settin' round."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I seen him to-day goin' into the bank. Guess he must've gone to see
+Lockwood 'bout thet note."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, I don't envy him his call on Blinky Lockwood none."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Mebbe he went in to deposit his coupons," Watty chuckled.
+</p>
+<p>
+Hiram snorted and there was silence while he filled and lit his pipe.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I hearn tell this mornin'," he resumed, "that Josie Lockwood's goin'
+to give a party next week."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, I hearn it too. Angie Tuthill was talkin' 'bout it to Mame
+Garrison up to Leonard and Call's. She said they was goin' to have the
+biggest time this town ever see. Goin' to decyrate the grounds with
+lanterns an' have ice cream sent from Phillydelphy, and cakes, too.
+Can't make out what's come into Blinky to let that gal of his waste
+money like that."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I figger," says Hiram after a sapient pause, "she must be gettin' it
+up for thet New York dood."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Duncan?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Uh-huh."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I didn't know he was 'quainted with the Lockwoods."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I didn't know he was 'quainted with nobody."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Nobody 'ceptin' Homer Littlejohn an' Hetty Carpenter, an' they don't
+seem to know much about him. I call him darn cur'us. Hetty says he
+allus a-settin' in his room, a-studyin' an' a-studyin' an' a-studyin'."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He goes walkin' mornin's, Hetty told me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Wal, he don't come downtown much. Nobody hardly ever sees him 'cept to
+church."
+</p>
+<p>
+Hiram ponders this profoundly, finally delivering himself of an opinion
+which he has never forsaken. "I claim he's a s'picious character."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Don't look to me as though he knew 'nough to be much of anythin'."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Wal, now, if he's a real student an' they ain't no outs 'bout him,
+what in tarnation's he doin' here? Thet's jest what I'd like to have
+somebody tell me, Watty."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Hetty sez he sez he wants a quiet place to study."
+</p>
+<p>
+Hiram snorts with scorn. "Oh, fid-del! You don't catch no Noo York
+young feller a-settlin' down in Radville unless he's crazy or somethin'
+worse."
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Tain't no use tellin' Hetty Carpenter thet." "No; if anybody sez a
+word agin him she shets 'em right up."
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Tain't only Hetty, but all the wimmin's on his side."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Thet's proof enough to me he ain't right." "Wimmin," says Watty, as
+the result of a period of philosophical consideration, "is all crazy
+about clothes. When a feller's got good clothes you can't make them see
+no harm into him, no matter what he is. I pressed some of Duncan's last
+Satiddy. I never see clothes&mdash;such goods and linin's. They was made for
+him, too&mdash;made by a tailor on Fifth Avenue, Noo York. I fergit the name
+now."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Wal, Roland Barnette sez they ain't stylish. He sez they're too much
+like an undertaker's gitup."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Wal, Roland oughter know. He's the fanciest dressed-up feller in the
+county."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, I guess he be."
+</p>
+<p>
+The subject apparently languishes, but I know that it still occupies
+their sage meditations; and presently this is demonstrated by Hiram,
+who expectorates liberally by way of preface.
+</p>
+<p>
+"When this cuss Duncan fust come here," he says with a self-contained
+chuckle, "ev'rybody but me figgered he had stacks of money. Guess they
+be singin' a different tune, now, sinst he's been goin' round askin'
+for work."
+</p>
+<p>
+This is news to me, and I sit up, sharing Watty's astonishment.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Be he a-doin' thet, Hiram?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's what he's been a-doin'."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Funny I missed hearin' about it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He only started this mornin'. He went to Sothern and Lee's and Leonard
+and Call's and Godfrey's&mdash;'nd then I guess he must 'ev quit
+discouraged. They wouldn't none of them give him nothin'. Leastways,
+thet's what they said after he'd gone out. He didn't give anybody a
+reel chance to say anythin'. I was in Leonard and Call's and he came in
+an' asked for a job, but the minute Len looked at him he turned right
+round and slunk out without a-waitin' for Len to say a word." Hiram
+smoked in huge enjoyment of the retrospect. "He's the curiousest
+critter we ever had in this town."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes," agrees Watty, "I guess he be."
+</p>
+<p>
+At this juncture comes an interruption; Tracey Tanner returns,
+hot-foot. Either he has been running, or his breathlessness is due to
+excitement. Before the two upon the bench he pauses in agitated glee, a
+bearer of tremendous tidings.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Hello," he pants.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Now, you Tracey Tanner," Hiram cuts in sharply, "you run 'long an'
+don't be a-botherin' round. Seems like a body never can git a chance to
+rest, with you children allus a-buttin' in&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Aw, shet up," says Tracey dispassionately. "I only wanted to tell you
+the news."
+</p>
+<p>
+Watty quavers: "What news, Tracey?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well," says the boy, "I'll tell you, Watty, but I wouldn't 've told
+him after what he said."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But what's the news, Tracey?" There is suspense in the iteration.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, seein's it's you, Watty&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"You Tracey Tanner, you run 'long and stop your jokin'!" interrupts
+Hiram with authority.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Tain't no joke; it's news, I'm tellin' you. Sa-ay, what d'ye think,
+Watty?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, Tracey, yes? What is it, boy?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Thet&mdash;Noo&mdash;York&mdash;dood," drawls Tracey, "is a-workin' for Sam Graham!"
+</p>
+<p>
+A dramatic pause ensues. I rise and find my coat.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Tracey Tanner," shrills Hiram, "be you a-tellin' the truth?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Kiss my hand and cross my heart and vow Honest Injun, I seen him up
+there just now in the store, Watty, tendin' the sody fountain."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Wal," says Hiram, rising, "I don't believe a word of it, but if it's
+true we better be goin' round to see, Watty, 'cause it ain't a-goin' to
+last long. He won't stay after he finds out Sam ain't got no money to
+pay his wages with."
+</p>
+<br><br><br>
+<h3><a name="viii">
+	VIII
+</a></h3>
+<p class="ctr">
+THE MAN OF BUSINESS IN EMBRYO
+</p>
+<p>
+There's no questioning the fact that two weeks of Radville had driven
+Duncan to desperation; on the morning of the fifteenth day he wakened
+in his room at Miss Carpenter's and lay for a time abed staring
+vacantly at the gaudily papered ceiling, not through laziness remaining
+on his back, but through sheer inertia. The prospect of rising to
+ramble through another purposeless, empty day appalled his imagination;
+it had been all very well when the humour of his project intrigued him,
+when the village was a novelty and its inhabitants "types" to be
+studied, watched, analysed and classified with secret amusement; but
+now he felt that he had already exhausted its possibilities; he was a
+foreigner in thought and instinct, had as little in common with
+Radvillians as any newly imported Englishman would have had. In plain
+language, he was bored to the point of extinction.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why," he reflected aloud, "it doesn't seem reasonable, but I'm
+actually looking forward to the delirious dissipation of church next
+Sunday!
+</p>
+<p>
+"Me?...
+</p>
+<p>
+"If Kellogg could only see me now!"
+</p>
+<p>
+He laughed mirthlessly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I must have done something to deserve this in my misspent life...
+</p>
+<p>
+"Wonder if nothing ever happens here?.... I'd give a whole lot, if I
+had it, for a good rousing fire on Main Street&mdash;the Bigelow House, for
+choice....
+</p>
+<p>
+"And it's got me to the point of drooling to myself, like those fellows
+you read about who get lost in the desert....
+</p>
+<p>
+"Come! Get out of this! And, my boy, remember to 'count that day lost
+whose low descending sun sees nothing accomplished, nothing done.'...
+</p>
+<p>
+"Probably misquoted, at that."
+</p>
+<p>
+Sullenly he rose and dressed.
+</p>
+<p>
+He was late at the breakfast and silent and reserved throughout that
+meal. Poor Miss Carpenter thought him dissatisfied and hung round his
+chair, purring with a solicitude that almost maddened him. As soon as
+possible he made his escape from the house.
+</p>
+<p>
+The walk he indulged in that morning took him in a wide circle: south
+on the road to the Gap, then eastwards, crossing the railroad and the
+river, north through a smiling agricultural region, east to the Flats,
+and so across the stone bridge to the Old Town once more. He was
+trudging up Street toward Centre shortly after eleven&mdash;hot, a little
+tired, and utterly disgusted. The exercise, instead of exhilarating,
+had depressed him; the quickened flow of blood through his veins, the
+vigour of the clean air he inhaled, demanded of him action of some
+sort; and he had nothing whatever to do with himself all afternoon save
+drowse over "The Law of Torts."
+</p>
+<p>
+Recognition of Leonard and Call's familiar shop-front fired him with a
+spirit of adventure and enterprise. He stopped short, thoughtfully
+rubbing his small moustache the wrong way, his vision glued to the
+embarrassingly candid window displays.
+</p>
+<p>
+"It'd be an awful thing for me to do....
+</p>
+<p>
+"Think of yourself, man, jumping counters in and out amongst all
+hose&mdash;those <i>Things!</i> like a lunatic monkey performing on a Monday
+morning's clothes line!..."
+</p>
+<p>
+He thought deeply, and sighed. "It ain't moral....
+</p>
+<p>
+"But it's one of the rules, it must be did. Henry said a ribbon clerk
+was a social equal....
+</p>
+<p>
+"Come, now! No more shennanigan! Brace up! Be a man!...
+</p>
+<p>
+"A man? That's the whole trouble: I am a man; I've got no business in a
+place like that."
+</p>
+<p>
+He turned and moved away slowly. But the idea had him by the heels. He
+struggled against a growing resolution to return. Then enlightenment
+came to him suddenly. He paused again, grappling with this amazing
+revelation of self.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Great Scott! Harry was right, damn him! He said this place would
+reconstruct me from the inside out and vice versa, and by jinks! it
+has. I actually <i>want</i> to work!...
+</p>
+<p>
+"Can you beat that&mdash;<i>me</i>!"
+</p>
+<p>
+He swung back to Leonard and Call's, mentally reviewing his
+instructions.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Let's see. I was to wait at least a month, to let the shopkeepers get
+accustomed to the sight of me.... <i>Hmm</i>.... Harry certainly has a
+cute way of expressing his thought.... But it can't be helped; I can't
+wait. If I do, I'll throw up the job....
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm to walk in and say, politely: '<i>I'm looking for employment. If
+at any time you should have an opening here that you can offer me, I
+shall endeavour to give satisfaction. Good-day</i>.'...
+</p>
+<p>
+"But be careful not to press it. Just say it and get right out...."
+</p>
+<p>
+With the air of a man who knows his own mind he pulled open the wire
+screen-door and strode in.
+</p>
+<p>
+Two minutes later he emerged, breathing hard, but with the glitter of
+determination in his eye.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I wouldn't 've believed I could get away with it. Here goes for the
+next promising opening."
+</p>
+<p>
+He headed for Sothern and Lee's drug-store.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Wonder what that fellow would have said if I'd had the nerve to wait
+and listen...."
+</p>
+<p>
+In the drug-store he experienced less difficulty in making his speech
+and exit; he flattered himself that he accomplished both gracefully,
+even impressively. And indeed you may believe he left a gaping audience
+behind him. So likewise at Godfrey's notions and stationery shop.
+</p>
+<p>
+As he emerged from the latter the resonant clamour of the Methodist
+Church clock drove him home for dinner, hungry and glowing with
+self-approbation. At all events, no one had refused him: he had not
+been set upon and incontinently kicked out. He felt that he was getting
+on.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Now this afternoon," he mused, "I'll wind up the job. By night
+everyone in town will know I want work."
+</p>
+<p>
+But if he had thought a moment he would have realised that he might
+have spared himself the trouble; the consummation he so earnestly
+desired was already being brought about by resident and recognised, if
+unofficial, agents for the dissemination of news.
+</p>
+<p>
+It was two o'clock or thereabouts, I gather, when, shaping his course
+toward Radville's commercial centre, Duncan hesitated on the corner of
+Beech Street, cocking an incredulous eye up at the weather-worn sign
+which has for years adorned the side of Tuthill's grocery: a hand
+indicating fixedly:
+</p>
+<p class="ctr">
+THIS WAY TO GRAHAM'S DRUG STORE
+</p>
+<p>
+"Two druggists in Radville!" he mused. "Is it possible?... Then it's
+Harry's mistake if the scheme fails; he said this was a one-horse
+country town, but I'm blest if it isn't a thriving metropolis! Two!...
+Here, I'm going to have a look."
+</p>
+<p>
+He turned up Beech and presently discovered the object of his quest, a
+two-storey building of "frame," guiltless of the ardent caress of a
+paint-brush since time out of mind. On the ground floor the windows
+were made up of many small square panes, several of which had been
+rudely mended. Through them the interior glimmered darkly. In the
+foreground stood a broken bottle, shaped like a mortuary urn and half
+full of pink liquid. Beside it reposed a broken packing-box in which
+bleary camphor-balls nestled between torn sheets of faded blue paper.
+Of these a silent companion in misery stood on the far side of the
+window: a towering pagoda-like cage of wire in which (trapped,
+doubtless, by means of some mysterious bait known only to alchemists)
+three worn but brutal-looking sponges were apparently slumbering in
+exhaustion. Back of these a dusty plaster cast of a male figure lightly
+draped seemed to represent the survival of the fittest over some
+strange and deadly patent medicine. The recessed door bore an
+inscription in gold letters, tarnished and half obliterated:
+</p>
+<pre>
+AM GRAHAM
+ RUGS &amp; CHEM C LS
+
+ R SCRIPTION CAREF LY C POUNDED
+</pre>
+<p>
+"Looks like the very place for one of my acknowledged abilities," said
+Duncan. He turned the knob and entered, advancing to the middle of the
+dingy room. There, standing beside a cold and rusty stove whose pipe
+wandered giddily to a hole in the farthest wall (reminding him of some
+uncouth cat with its tail over its back), he surveyed with the single
+requisite comprehensive glance the tiers of shelves tenanted by a
+beggarly array of dingy bottles; the soda fountain with its company of
+glasses and syrup jars; the flanking counters with their broken
+show-cases housing a heterogenous conglomeration of unsalable wares;
+the aged and tattered posters heralding the virtues of potent affronts
+to the human interior&mdash;to say naught of its intelligence; the drab
+walls and debris-littered flooring.
+</p>
+<p>
+A slight grating noise behind him brought Duncan round with a start. At
+a work-bench near the window sat a white-haired man garbed baggily in
+an old crash coat and trousers. His head was bowed over something
+clamped in a vise, at which he was tinkering busily with a file. He did
+not look up, but, as his caller moved, inquired amiably: "Well?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Good-morning," stammered Duncan; "er&mdash;I should say afternoon."
+</p>
+<p>
+"So you should," Sam admitted, still fussing with his work. "Anything
+you want?"
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan swallowed hard and mastered his confusion. "Would it be possible
+for me to speak to the proprietor a moment?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I should jedge it would. Go right along." Sam filed vigorously.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Might I ask&mdash;are you Mr. Graham?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, sir; that's me."
+</p>
+<p>
+The filing continued stridently. Duncan moved closer. There was scant
+encouragement to be gathered from Graham's indifferent attitude; yet
+his voice had been pleasant, kindly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I&mdash;I'm looking for employment," said Duncan hastily. "If&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Employment!"
+</p>
+<p>
+Graham dropped his tools with a clatter and faced round. For a moment
+his eyes twinkled and a wintry smile lightened his fine old features.
+"Well, I declare!" he said, rising. "You must be the stranger the whole
+town's been talkin' about."
+</p>
+<p>
+"If at any time," Duncan pursued hastily, "you should have an opening
+here that you can offer me, I shall endeavour to give satisfaction.
+Good-day, sir." And he made for the door.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Eh, just a minute," said Graham. "Are you in a hurry?"
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan paused, smiling nervously. "Oh, no&mdash;only I mustn't press it, you
+know&mdash;just say it and get right&mdash;I mean I don't want to take up your
+valuable time, sir."
+</p>
+<p>
+Graham chuckled. "Guess the folks haven't been talking much to you
+about me," he suggested. "You seem to have a higher opinion of the
+value of my time than anybody else in Radville."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, but&mdash;that is to say&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"But if you're really looking for a job, I'd like to give you one first
+rate."
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan started toward him in breathless haste. "You&mdash;you'd like
+to!&mdash;You don't mean it!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes," Graham nodded, smiling with enjoyment of his little joke. It was
+harmless; he didn't for a moment believe that Duncan really needed
+employment; and on the other hand it tickled him immensely to think
+that anyone should apply to him for work.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well," said Duncan, staring, "you're the first man I ever met that
+felt that way about it."
+</p>
+<p>
+Sam's amusement dwindled. "The trouble is," he confessed&mdash;"the trouble
+is, my boy, my business is so small I don't need any help. There isn't
+much of anything to do here."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's just the sort of a place I'd like," said Duncan impulsively.
+Then he laughed a little, uneasily. "I mean, I'm willing to take any
+position, no matter how insignificant. I mean it, honestly."
+</p>
+<p>
+"This might suit you, then&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I wish you'd let me try it, sir."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But you don't understand." Graham was serious enough now; there wasn't
+any joke in what he had to say. "To tell you the truth, I can't afford
+it. When your pay was due, I'm afraid I shouldn't have any money to
+give you."
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan dismissed this paltry consideration with a princely gesture. "I
+don't mind that part," he insisted. "Mr. Graham, if you'll teach me the
+drug business I'll work for you for nothing."
+</p>
+<p>
+He said it earnestly, for he meant it just a bit more seriously than he
+himself realised at the moment; and I'm glad to think it was because
+Sam's serene and gentle, guileless nature had appealed to the young
+man. He had that in him, that instinct for decency and the right, that
+made him like this simple, sweet and almost childish old man at
+sight&mdash;like him and want to help him, though he was hardly conscious of
+this and believed his motive rather more than less selfish, that he was
+grasping at this opportunity for relief from the deadly ennui that
+oppressed him as madly as a famished man at a crust. Indeed, the boy
+was eager to deceive himself in this respect, with youth's wholesome
+horror of sentiment.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Between you and me," he hurried on, "it's this way: I've been here for
+two weeks with nothing to do but look at a book, and it's got me crazy
+enough to want to work!"
+</p>
+<p>
+But still I like to think it was for a better reason, that his conduct
+then bore out my theory that there are streaks of human kindliness and
+right-thinking in all of us&mdash;buried deep though they may be by many an
+acquired stratum of callousness and egoism: the sediment of life caking
+upon the soul....
+</p>
+<p>
+But as for Sam, as soon as he recovered he shook his head in thoughtful
+deprecation. "Well, I swan!" he said. "I guess you must find it pretty
+slow down here. But"&mdash;brightening&mdash;"if you feel that way about it, I'd
+better take you over to Sothern and Lee's. They'd be glad to get you at
+the price."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And in a week they'd think they were over-paying me," Duncan argued.
+"No&mdash;I've been there. Why not try me on here?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, I'm just a little bit afraid you wouldn't learn much, my boy. I
+don't do business enough to give you a good idea of it. Sothern and Lee
+get all the trade nowadays."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But look here, sir: don't you think if I came in here perhaps we could
+build up the business?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, I'm afraid not," Graham deprecated, pursing his lips and rubbing
+the white stubble of his beard with a toil-worn thumb.
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan eyed him in bitter humour. "No, of course not. You're right&mdash;but
+somebody must have tipped you off."
+</p>
+<p>
+Graham paid little heed, whose mind was bent upon his own parlous
+circumstances. "I haven't got capital enough to stock up the store," he
+explained; "that's the real trouble. Folks have got into the habit of
+going to the other store because I'm out of so many things."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, to be sure," said Duncan, a little dashed; "you can't expect to
+do business unless you've got things to sell...."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't expect it, my boy," Sam assented dolefully. "'Twouldn't be in
+reason.... You see," he added, hope lightening his gloom, "I'm working
+on an invention of mine, and if that should work out I'd get some money
+and be able to get a fresh stock. Then I'd be glad to have you."
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan brushed this impatiently aside. "How much business are you doing
+here now?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Some days"&mdash;Graham reckoned it on his fingers&mdash;"I take in a dollar or
+two, and some days... nothing.... There's my sody fountain," he said
+with a jerk of a thumb toward it: "got that fixed up a little while
+ago, and it's bringing in a little. Not much. You see, I need more
+syrups. I've only got vanilly now."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Soda water!" Duncan jumped at the idea. "Hold on! All the girls round
+here drink soda, don't they?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, yes," said Graham abstractedly.
+</p>
+<p>
+The thought infused new life into the younger man's waning purpose.
+"Mr. Graham, I wish you'd let me come in here for a while. I don't care
+about wages."
+</p>
+<p>
+Graham lifted his shoulders resignedly. "Well, my boy, it don't seem
+right, but if you really want to work here for nothing, I'll be glad to
+have you; and if things look up with me, I'll be glad to pay you."
+</p>
+<p>
+Abruptly he found his hand grasped and pumped gratefully.
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's mighty good of you, Mr. Graham. When can I start?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why... whenever you like."
+</p>
+<p>
+In a twinkling Duncan's hat and gloves were off. "I'd like to, now," he
+said. "Where can we get more syrups?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Unfortunately... I'll have to buy them."
+</p>
+<p>
+"How much?" Duncan's hand was in his pocket in an instant.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, no, you mustn't do that." Sam backed away in alarm. "I couldn't
+allow it, my boy. It's good of you, but..."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Either," Nat told himself, "I'm asleep or someone's refusing to take
+money from me." He grinned cheerfully. "Oh, that's all right," he
+contended aloud. "I'll draw it down as soon as we begin to sell soda."
+He selected a bill from his slender store. "Will five dollars be
+enough?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, yes, but it wouldn't be right for me to&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+But by this time Duncan was pressing the bill into his hand.
+"Nonsense!" he insisted. "How can we build up trade without syrup?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"But&mdash;but&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"And how can I learn the business without trade?" He closed Graham's
+unwilling fingers over the money and skipped away.
+</p>
+<p>
+Sighing, Graham gave over the unequal argument. "Well, if you're
+satisfied, my boy.... But I'll have to write to Elmiry for it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Telegraph."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Telegraph!" Graham laughed. "That'd kill Lew Parker, I guess."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Who's he?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Telegraph operator and ticket agent."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, he won't be missed much. Telegraph and tell 'em to send the
+goods C.O.D. Please, Mr. Graham. We want to get things moving here, you
+know; we've got to build up the business. We'll put out some signs and
+... and ... well, we'll get the people in the habit of coming here
+somehow. You'll see!"
+</p>
+<p>
+He raked the poverty-stricken shelves with a calculating eye, all his
+energy fired by enthusiasm at the prospect of doing something. Graham
+watched him with kindling liking and admiration. His old lips quivered
+a little before he voiced his thought.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You&mdash;you know, my boy, you've got splendid business ability," he
+asserted with whole-souled conviction.
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan almost reeled. "What?" he cried.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I was just saying, you have wonderful business ability."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You're the first man that ever said that. I wonder if it's so."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm sure of it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well," said Nat, chuckling, "I'll write that to my chum. He'll&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, I can tell," Graham interrupted. "Now, I ... Well, you see, I've
+been a failure in business. So far as that goes, I've been a failure in
+everything all my life."
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan stared for a moment, then offered his hand. "For luck," he
+explained, meeting Graham's puzzled gaze as his hand was taken.
+</p>
+<p>
+Wondering, Graham shook his head; and gratitude made his old voice
+tremulous. He put a hand over Duncan's, patting it gently.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I want you to know, my boy, that I appreciate..." His voice broke.
+"It's mighty kind of you to buy the syrup&mdash;very kind&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Nothing of the sort; it's just because I've got great business
+ability." Duncan laughed quietly and moved away. "We'll want to clean
+up a bit," said he; "got a broom? I'll raise the dust a bit while
+you're out sending that wire."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You'll find one in the cellar, I guess, but&mdash;your clothes&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, that's all right. Where's the cellar?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Underneath," Graham told him simply, taking down a battered hat from a
+hook behind the counter.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I know; but how do I get there?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"By the steps; you go through that door there into the hall. The steps
+are under the stairs to our rooms. I live above the store, you see."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes.... Good-bye, Mr. Graham."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Good-bye, my boy."
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan watched the old man move slowly out of sight, then with a groan
+sat down on the counter to think it over. "It wouldn't be me if I
+didn't make a mess of things somehow," he told himself bitterly. "Now
+you have gone and went and done it, Mr. Fortune Hunter. You stand a
+swell chance of getting away with the goods when you take a wageless
+job in a spavined country drug-store with no trade worth mentioning and
+nothing to draw it with... just because that old duffer's the only
+human being you've spotted in this burg!...
+</p>
+<p>
+"Wonder what Harry would say if he heard about that wonderful business
+ability thing...
+</p>
+<p>
+"But what in thunder can we do to bring business to this bum joint?"
+</p>
+<p>
+He raked his surroundings with a discouraged glance.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh," he said thoughtfully, "hell!"
+</p>
+<p>
+Five minutes later Ben Sperry found him in the same position, his head
+bent in perplexed reverie. Sperry had been travelling for Gresham and
+Jones, a wholesale drug-house in Elmira, more years than I can
+remember. His friendship for Sam Graham, contracted during the days
+when Graham's was the drug-store of Radville, has survived the decay of
+the business. He's a square, decent man, Sperry, and has wasted many an
+hour trying to persuade Sam to pay a little more attention to the
+business. I suspect he suffered the shock of his placid life when he
+found Sam absent and the shop in the care of this spruce, well set-up
+young man.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Anything I can do for you?" chirped Duncan cheerfully, dropping off
+the counter as Sperry entered.
+</p>
+<p>
+"No-o; I just wanted to see old Sam. Is he upstairs?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, Mr. Graham's not in at present," Duncan told him civilly.
+</p>
+<p>
+Sperry wrinkled his brows over this problem. "You working here?" he
+asked.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, sir."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, I'll be hanged!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Let us hope not," said Duncan pleasantly. He waited a moment, a little
+irritated. "Sure there's nothing <i>I</i> can do for you?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"No-o," said Sperry slowly, struggling to comprehend. "Thank you just
+the same."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not at all." Duncan turned away.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You see," Sperry pursued, "I don't buy from drug-stores: I sell to
+'em."
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan faced about with new interest in the man. "Yes?" he said
+encouragingly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"My card," volunteered Sperry, fishing the slip of pasteboard from his
+waistcoat pocket. He dropped his sample case beside the stove and
+plumped down in the chair, to the peril of its existence. "I don't make
+this town very often," he pursued, while Duncan studied his card.
+"Sothern and Lee are the only people I sell to here, but I never miss a
+chance to chin a while with old Sam. So, having half an hour before
+train time, I thought I'd drop in."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Mr. Graham doesn't order from your house, then?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Doesn't order from anybody, does he?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't know; I've just come here. He'll be sorry to have missed you,
+though. He's just stepped out to wire your house&mdash;I gather from the
+fact that it's in Elmira; he mentioned that town, not the firm
+name&mdash;for some syrups."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You don't mean it!" Sperry gasped. "What's struck him all of a sudden?
+He ain't put in any new stock for ten years, I reckon."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, you see," Duncan explained artfully, "I've persuaded him, in a
+way, to try to make something out of the business here. We're going to
+do what we can, of course, in a small way at first."
+</p>
+<p>
+Sperry wagged a dubious head. "I dunno," he considered. "Sam's a nice
+old duffer, but he ain't got no business sense and never had; you can
+see for yourself how he's let everything run to seed here. Sothern and
+Lee took all his trade years ago."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, I know; that's why he needs me," said Duncan brazenly. In his
+soul he remarked "O Lord!" in a tone of awe; his colossal impudence
+dazed even himself. "But don't you think he could get back some of the
+trade if the store was stocked up?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"No doubt about that at all," Sperry averred; "he'd get the biggest
+part of it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You think so?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Sure of it. You see, everybody round here likes Sam, and Sothern and
+Lee have always been outsiders. They'd swing to this shop in a minute,
+just on account of that. Fact is, I wasted a lot of talk on our firm a
+couple of years ago, trying to make our people give him some credit,
+but they couldn't see it. He owed them a bill then that was so old it
+had grown whiskers."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And still owes it, I presume?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"You bet he still owes it. Always will. It's so small that it ain't
+worth while suing for&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Look here, Mr. Sperry, how much is this bill with the whiskers?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"About fifty dollars, I think," said the travelling man, fumbling for
+his wallet. "I'm supposed to ask for payment every time I strike town,
+you know, so I always have it with me; but I haven't had the heart to
+say a word to Sam for a good long time.... Here it is."
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan studied carefully the memorandum: "To Mdse, as per bill
+rendered, $47.85." "I wonder..." he murmured.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Eh?" said Sperry.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I was wondering:... Suppose you were to tell your people that there's
+a young fellow here who'd like to give this store a boom.... Say he
+wants a little credit because&mdash;because Mr. Graham won't let him put in
+any cash&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not a bit of use," Sperry negatived. "I would, myself, but the
+house&mdash;no."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But suppose I pay this bill&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Pay it? You really mean that?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Certainly I mean it." Duncan produced the wad of bills which Kellogg
+had furnished him the night before his departure from New York. Thus
+far he had broken only one of the five-hundred-dollar gold
+certificates, and of that one he had the greater part left; living is
+anything but expensive in Radville.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm beginning to understand that I was cut out for an actor," he told
+himself as he thumbed the roll with a serious air and an assumed
+indifference which permitted Sperry to estimate its size pretty
+accurately.
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's quite a stack of chips you're carrying," Sperry observed.
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan's hand airily wafted the remark into the limbo of the
+negligible. "A trifle, a mere trifle," he said casually. "I don't
+generally carry much cash about me. Haven't for five years," he added
+irrepressibly. He extracted a fifty-dollar certificate from the sheaf,
+and handed it over.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'll take a receipt, but you needn't mention this to Mr. Graham just
+now."
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, certainly not." Sperry scrawled his signature to the bill.
+</p>
+<p>
+"And about that line of credit?&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, with this paid, I guess you could have what you needed, in
+moderation. Of course&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"My name is Duncan&mdash;Nathaniel Duncan." Sperry made a memorandum of it
+on the back of an envelope. "Any former business connections?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"None that I care to speak about," Duncan confessed glumly.
+</p>
+<p>
+Sperry's face lengthened. "No references?"
+</p>
+<p>
+It took thought, and after thought courage; but Duncan hit upon the
+solution at length. "Do you know L. J. Bartlett &amp; Company, the
+brokers?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Do I know J. Pierpont Morgan?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then that's all right. Tell your people to inquire of Harry Kellogg,
+the junior partner. He knows all about me."
+</p>
+<p>
+Noting the name, Sperry put away the envelope. "That's enough. If he
+says you're all right, you can have anything you want." He consulted
+his watch. "Hmm. Train to catch.... But let's see: what do you need
+here?"
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan reviewed the empty shelves, his face glowing. "Pills," he said
+with a laugh: "all kinds of pills and... everything for a regular,
+sure-enough drug-store, Mr. Sperry: everything Sothern and Lee carries
+and a lot of attractive things they don't.... Small lots, you know,
+until I see what we can sell."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I see. You leave it to me; I probably know what you need better than
+you do. I'll make out a list this afternoon and mail it to-night with
+instructions to ship it at the earliest possible moment."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Splendid!" Duncan told him. "You do that, and don't worry about our
+making good. I'm going to put all my time and energy into this
+proposition and&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then you'll make good all right," Sperry assured him. "All anybody's
+got to do is look at you to see you're a good business man." He
+returned Duncan's pressure and picked up his sample-case. "S'long,"
+said he, and left briskly, leaving Duncan speechless.
+</p>
+<p>
+As if to assure himself of his sanity he put a hand to his brow and
+stroked it cautiously. "Heavens!" he said, and sought the support of
+the counter. "That's twice to-day I've been told that in the same
+place!"...
+</p>
+<p>
+"It's funny," he said, half dazed, "I never could have pulled that off
+for myself!"
+</p>
+<br><br><br>
+<h3><a name="ix">
+	IX
+</a></h3>
+<p class="ctr">
+SMALL BEGINNINGS
+</p>
+<p>
+Presently Duncan moved and came out of his abstraction. "I'd better get
+that broom," he said slowly. "The place certainly needs some expert
+manicuring before we get that new stock in.... By George, I really
+begin to believe we've got a chance to do something, after all!...
+</p>
+<p>
+"Or else I'm dreaming...."
+</p>
+<p>
+He opened the back door and entered a narrow and dark hallway, almost
+stumbling over the lowest step of a flight of stairs communicating with
+the upper storey. From above he could hear a clatter of crockery,
+sounds of footsteps, a woman singing softly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Graham's wife, I presume. Never struck me he might be married....
+Well, I'll be quiet. If she catches me now, before we're introduced,
+she'll take me for a burglar."
+</p>
+<p>
+On tiptoes he found the descent to the cellar, where by the aid of a
+match he discovered a floorbrush whose reasons for retirement from
+active employment were most evident even to his inexpert eye. None the
+less nothing better offered, and he took it back with him to the shop.
+</p>
+<p>
+Graham's tinkering was never of a cleanly sort; the floor was thick
+with a litter of rubbish&mdash;shavings, old nuts and bolts, bits of scrap
+tin and metal, torn paper, charred ends of matches: an indescribable
+mess. Duncan surveyed it ruefully, but with the will to do strong in
+him, took off his coat, turned up his trousers, and fell to. The
+disposition of the sweepings troubled him far less than the dust he
+raised; obviously the only place to put it was behind the counters.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Nobody'll see it there," he said in a glow of satisfaction, pausing
+with the room half cleared. "I always wondered what they did with that
+sort of truck&mdash;under the beds, I suppose. Funny Graham never thought of
+this, himself&mdash;it's so blame' easy."
+</p>
+<p>
+He resumed his labours, thrilled with the sensation of accomplishment.
+"One thing at least that I can do," he mused; "never again shall I fear
+starvation... so long as there's a broom handy." Absorbed he brushed
+away, raising a prodigious amount of dust and utterly oblivious to the
+fact that he was observed.
+</p>
+<p>
+Two shadows moved slowly athwart the windows, to which his back was
+turned, paused, moved on out of sight, returned. It was only during a
+pause for breath that he became aware of the surveillance.
+</p>
+<p>
+Straightening up, he looked, gasped and fled for the back of the store.
+"Heavens!" he whispered, aghast to recognise Josie Lockwood and Angie
+Tuthill, of whose ubiquitous shadows in his way he had been conscious
+so frequently within the past several days. "I <i>thought</i> I must
+have made an impression.... Don't tell me they're coming in!"
+</p>
+<p>
+Behind the counter he struggled furiously into his coat. "They are," he
+said with a sinking heart; "and I'll bet a dollar my face is dirty!"
+</p>
+<p>
+Notwithstanding these misgivings, it was a very self-possessed young
+man, to all appearances, who moved sedately round the end of the
+counter to greet these possible customers. His bow was a very passable
+imitation of the real thing, he flattered himself; and there's no
+manner of doubt but that it flattered the two prettiest and most
+forward young women in Radville of that day.
+</p>
+<p>
+"May I have the honour of waiting on you, ladies?" he inquired with all
+the suavity of an accomplished salesman.
+</p>
+<p>
+Josie and Angie sidled together, giggling and simpering, quite overcome
+by his manner. A muffled "How de do?" from Angie and a half-strangled
+echo of the salutation from the other were barely articulate. But
+hearing them he bowed again, separately to each.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Good-afternoon," said he, and waited in an inquiring pose.
+</p>
+<p>
+"This&mdash;'this is Mr. Duncan, isn't it?" inquired Josie, controlling
+herself.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, and you are Miss Lockwood, if I'm not mistaken?"
+</p>
+<p>
+Renewed giggles prefaced her: "Oh, how <i>did</i> you know?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Could anyone remain two weeks in Radville and not hear of Miss
+Lockwood?"
+</p>
+<p>
+The shot told famously. "How nice of you! Mr. Duncan, I want you to
+meet my friend, Miss Tuthill."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I've had the honour of admiring Miss Tuthill from a distance," Duncan
+assured the younger woman. And, "She'll burn up!" he feared secretly,
+watching the conflagration of blushes that she displayed. "Just think
+of getting away with a line of mush like that! Harry was right after
+all: this is a country town, all right."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And&mdash;and are you working here, Mr. Duncan?" Josie pursued.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm supposed to be; I'm afraid I don't know the business very well, as
+yet."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, that's awf'ly nice," Angle thought.
+</p>
+<p>
+He thanked her humbly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"We didn't expect to see you here," Josie assured him. "We just thought
+we'd like some soda."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Soda!" he parroted, horrified. He cast a glance askance at the tawdry
+fountain. "Let's see: how d'you work the infernal thing?" he asked
+himself, utterly bewildered.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes," Angie chimed in; "it's so warm this afternoon, we&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I've got to put it through somehow," he thought savagely. And aloud,
+"Yes, certainly," he said, and smiled winningly. "Will you be pleased
+to step this way?"
+</p>
+<p>
+Out of the corners of his eyes he detected the amused look that passed
+between the girls. "Oh, very well!" he said beneath his breath. "You
+may laugh, but you asked for soda, and soda you shall have, my dears,
+if you die of it." He put himself behind the counter with an air of
+great determination, and leaned upon it with both hands outspread until
+he realised that this was the pose of a groceryman. "What'll you have?"
+he demanded genially. "Er&mdash;that is&mdash;I mean, would you prefer vanilla
+or&mdash;ah&mdash;soda?"
+</p>
+<p>
+A chant antiphonal answered him:
+</p>
+<p>
+"I hate vanilla."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And so do I."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, don't say that!" he pleaded. "Of course you know there's&mdash;ah&mdash;
+vanilla and vanilla..., Ah... some vanilla I know is detestable, but
+when you get a really fine vintage&mdash;ah&mdash;imported vanilla, it's quite
+another matter&mdash;ah&mdash;particularly at his season of the year&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+His confusion was becoming painful.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, is it?" asked Josie helpfully. Her eyes dwelt upon his with a
+confiding expression which he later characterised as a baby stare; and
+he was promptly reduced to babbling idiocy.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Indeed it is; no doubt whatever, Miss Lockwood. Especially just now,
+you know&mdash;ah&mdash;after the bock season&mdash;ah&mdash;I mean, when the weather is&mdash;
+is&mdash;in a way&mdash;you might put it&mdash;vanilla weather."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But I like chocolate best," Angle pouted. And he hated her consumedly
+for the moment.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Very well," Josie told him sweetly, "I'll have the vanilla."
+</p>
+<p>
+He thanked her with unnecessary effusion and turned to inspect the
+glassware. There could be no mistake about the right jar, however;
+there was nothing but vanilla, and seizing it he removed the metal cap
+and placed it before the girls. With less ease he discovered a whiskey
+glass and put it beside the bottle, with a cordial wave of the hand.
+</p>
+<p>
+A pause ensued. Duncan was smiling fatuously, serene in the belief that
+he had solved the problem: the way to serve soda was to make them help
+themselves. It was very simple. Only they didn't... With a start he
+became sensible that they were eyeing him strangely.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You&mdash;ah&mdash;wanted vanilla, did you not?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, thanks, vanilla," Josie agreed.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, that's it," he said firmly, indicating the jar and the glass.
+</p>
+<p>
+Josie giggled. "But I don't want to drink it clear. You put the syrup
+in the glass, you know, and then the soda."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, I see! You want to make a high-ba&mdash;ah&mdash;a long drink of it. Ah,
+yes!" He procured a glass of the regulation size. "Now I understand." A
+pause. "If you'll be good enough to help yourself to the syrup."
+</p>
+<p>
+"No; you do it," Josie pleaded.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Certainly." He lifted the whiskey-glass and the jar and began to pour.
+"If you'll just say when."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What? Oh, that's enough, thank you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"If I ever get out of this fix, I'll blow the whole shooting match," he
+promised himself, holding the glass beneath the faucet and fiddling
+nervously with the valves. For a moment he fancied the tank must be
+empty, for nothing came of his efforts. Then abruptly the fixture
+seemed to explode. "A geyser!" he cried, blinded with the dash of
+carbonated water and syrup in his face, while he fumbled furiously with
+the valves.
+</p>
+<p>
+As unexpectedly as it had begun the flow ceased. He put down the glass,
+found his handkerchief and mopped his dripping face. When able to see
+again he discovered the young women leaning against one of the
+show-cases, weak with laughter but at a safe remove.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Our soda's so strong, you know," he apologised. "But if you'll stay
+where you are, I'll try again."
+</p>
+<p>
+Warned by experience, he worked at the machine gingerly, finally
+producing a thin, spluttering trickle. Beaming with triumph, he looked
+up. "I think it's safe now," he suggested; "I seem to have it under
+control."
+</p>
+<p>
+Angie and Josie returned, torn by distrust but unable to resist the
+fascination of the stranger in our village. And there's no denying the
+boy was good-looking and a gentleman by birth: a being alien to their
+experience of men.
+</p>
+<p>
+He had filled one glass and was tincturing it with syrup when he caught
+again that confiding smile of Josie's, full upon him as the beams of a
+noon-day sun.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Haven't we seen you at church, Mr. Duncan?" she said prettily.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I think, perhaps, you may have," he conceded. "I have seen you, both."
+The second glass (for he was determined that Angie should not escape)
+took up all his attention for an instant. "Do you have to go, too?" he
+inquired out of this deep preoccupation.
+</p>
+<p>
+"What?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I mean, do you attend regularly?" he amended hastily.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, yes, of course," Josie simpered, accepting the glass he offered
+her. "You make it a rule to go every Sunday, don't you, Mr. Duncan?"
+</p>
+<p>
+He permitted himself an indiscretion, secure in the belief it would
+pass unchallenged: "It's one of the rules, but I didn't make it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Did you know there was a vacancy in the choir?" Angle asked, taking up
+her glass.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Choir?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes," Josie chimed in; "we were hoping you'd join. I want you to,
+awfully."
+</p>
+<p>
+"We're both in the choir," Angie explained.
+</p>
+<p>
+"And all the girls want you to join. Don't they, Angie?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, yes, indeed; they're all just dying to meet you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'll have to write and ask," he said abstractedly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why, what do you mean by that?"
+</p>
+<p>
+Josie's question struck him dumb with consternation. He made curious
+noises in his throat, and fancied (as was quite possible) that they
+eyed him in a peculiar fashion. "It's&mdash;I mean&mdash;a little trouble with my
+throat," he managed to lie, at length. "I must ask my physician if I
+may, first."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, I see," said Josie.
+</p>
+<p>
+"But," he hastened to change the subject, "you're not drinking, either
+of you. I sincerely hope it's not so very bad."
+</p>
+<p>
+Angie replaced her glass, barely tasted. "Do you like it, Josie?"
+</p>
+<p>
+To Josie's credit it must be admitted that she made a brave attempt to
+drink. But the mixture was undoubtedly flat, stale and unprofitable.
+She sighed, put it back on the counter, and rose to the emergency.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Mine's perfectly lovely"&mdash;with a ravishing smile&mdash;"but it's not very
+sweet."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I made them dry for you&mdash;thought you'd like 'em that way," he
+stammered. "Perhaps you'd like 'em better if I put a collar on 'em?"
+</p>
+<p>
+The chorus negatived this suggestion very promptly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why don't you try a glass, Mr. Duncan?" Angie added with malice.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm on the wagon&mdash;I mean, I don't drink at all," he said wretchedly;
+and was deeply grateful for the diversion afforded by the entrance of a
+third customer.
+</p>
+<p>
+It was Tracey Tanner, as usual swollen with important tidings, as usual
+propelling himself through the world at a heavy trot. It has always
+been a source of wonderment to me how Tracey manages to keep so stout
+with all the violent exercise he takes.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Say, Angle," he twanged at sight of her, "I've been lookin' for you
+everywhere. Did you hear that&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+He stopped instantaneously with open mouth as he saw Duncan behind the
+counter; and openmouthed he remained while the young man came round and
+advanced toward him, with a bland smirk accompanied by a professional
+bow and rubbing of hands.
+</p>
+<p>
+"May I have the pleasure of serving you, Mr. Tanner?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Huh?" bleated Tracey, dumbfounded.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Is there anything you wish to purchase?"
+</p>
+<p>
+A violent emotion stirred in Tracey. Sounds began to emanate from his
+heaving chest. "N-n-no, ma'am!" he breathed explosively.
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan bowed again, his face expressionless. "Then will you be good
+enough to excuse me?" He turned precisely and made his way back to the
+counter.
+</p>
+<p>
+As if released from some spell of strong enchantment by the movement,
+Tracey swung on his heel and lunged for the door.
+</p>
+<p>
+"What was it you wanted to ask me, Tracey?" Angie called after him.
+</p>
+<p>
+As the boy disappeared at a hand-gallop his response floated back: "I
+fergit."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm afraid I must have frightened him?" Duncan said inquiringly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, no, not at all," Josie reassured him; "he's just gone to tell
+everybody you're here."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Come, Josie, we've been here ever so long." Angie moved slowly toward
+the door, but Josie inclined to linger.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Don't hurry, I beg of you," Duncan interposed.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, we haven't hurried," she said with a gush of gratification that
+startled the man. "You'll remember what I said about the choir, won't
+you?"
+</p>
+<p>
+He braced himself to take advantage of the opening. "I shall never
+forget it," he said impressively.
+</p>
+<p>
+She gave him her hand. "Then good-bye."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not good-bye, I trust?" He retained the hand, despising himself
+inexpressibly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, we'll be in again, won't we Angie?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, yes, indeed."
+</p>
+<p>
+"My land, Angie! What do you think? I'd almost forgotten to pay for the
+soda?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Please don't speak of it, Miss Lockwood&mdash;the pleasure&mdash;."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But I must, Mr. Duncan. How much is it?"
+</p>
+<p>
+Josie fingered the contents of her purse expectantly, but Duncan hung
+in the wind. He had no least notion what might be the price of soda
+water. "Two for a quarter?" he hazarded with his disarming grin.
+</p>
+<p>
+Angle choked with appreciation of this exquisite sally. "Ain't you
+funny!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm afraid you're right," he conceded; "still I'd rather you didn't
+think so."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It's ten cents, isn't it, Mr. Duncan?"
+</p>
+<p>
+Josie was offering him a dime; he accepted it without question.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Thank you, very much," said he. "Good afternoon, ladies."
+</p>
+<p>
+He was aware of Angle's fluttering farewells on the sidewalk. Josie was
+lingering on the doorstep in an agony of untrained coquetry. He lowered
+his tone for her benefit, thereby adding new weight to his bombardment
+of her amateur defences.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Remember you promised to call again."
+</p>
+<p>
+Her giggles tore his ear-drums. "Th-thank you, I'm sure," she
+stammered, and fled.
+</p>
+<p>
+They disappeared. He wandered to the chair and threw himself limply
+into it. "That voice!" he said stupidly. "That giggle! I've got to woo
+and win... <i>that!</i>...
+</p>
+<p>
+"It serves me right," he concluded.
+</p>
+<p>
+The most hopeless of humours assailed him, and he yielded to it without
+a struggle. His attitude expressed his mood with relentless verity.
+Chin sunken upon his breast, eyes fairly distilling gloom, legs
+stretched out carelessly before him, he sat motionless, suffocating at
+the bottom of a gulf of discontent. His lips moved, sometimes
+noiselessly, again in whispers barely audible.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Years of this!... A matter of human endurance&mdash;no, superhuman!... If
+it wasn't for the bargain, I'd chuck it all and...
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, the only way to forget your misery is to work, I suppose."
+</p>
+<p>
+He pulled himself together and stood up, wondering where he had left
+his broom, and simultaneously stiffened with surprise, aware that he
+was not alone. A glance, however, established the connection between
+the rear door, which stood ajar, and the young woman who stood staring
+at him in utterest stupefaction. This, he thought, must be the woman of
+the voice, upstairs.
+</p>
+<p>
+But she couldn't be Graham's wife. She was too young. Even beneath the
+mask of care and weariness, the all too plain evidences of privation,
+spiritual and mental as well as physical, that Betty wore unceasingly
+in those days, he could discern youth and grace and gentleness, and the
+nascent promise of prettiness that longed to be, to have the chance to
+show itself and claim its meed of deference and love. He was quick to
+see the intelligence in her mutinous eyes, and the sweet lines of her
+mouth, too often shaped in sullen mould, and no less quick to recognise
+that she would carry herself well, with spirit and dignity, once she
+were relieved of household toil and moil, once given the chance to
+discard her shapeless, bedraggled and threadbare garments for those
+dainty and beautiful things for which her starved heart must be sick
+with longing....
+</p>
+<p>
+"Good Lord!" he thought, pitiful, "it's worse here than I dreamed. Old
+Graham must need a keeper&mdash;and this child has been trying to be that,
+with nothing to keep him on."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Who are you?" the girl demanded sullenly, in a voice a little harsh
+and toneless. "What are you doing here? Where's my father?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Mr. Graham has stepped out on business," Duncan replied. "You are his
+daughter, I believe?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, I'm his daughter, but&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"My name is Nathaniel Duncan. Mr. Graham has been kind enough to take
+me on as apprentice, so to speak."
+</p>
+<p>
+Her stare continued, intense, resentful, undeviating.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You mean you're going to work here?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"That my intention, Miss Graham." He nodded gravely.
+</p>
+<p>
+"What for?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"To learn the drug business."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh-h!" She flung herself a pace away, impatiently. "I'm not a child,
+and I don't want to be talked to like one."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I didn't mean to annoy you&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+
+
+
+<p class="ctr">
+<a href="images/illp154.jpg"><img src="images/illp154_th.jpg" width="150"
+alt="'You Mean You're Going to Work Here?'"></a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Well, you do. You've got no business in a run-down place like this&mdash;
+you with your fine clothes and your fine airs. You didn't come here to
+learn the drug business; you know as well as I do you've got some other
+motive."
+</p>
+<p>
+There was a truth in that to sting him. He smarted under its lash, but
+held his temper in check because he was sorry for the girl. "Perhaps
+you're right," he conceded; "perhaps I have some other motive. But
+that's neither here nor there. I'm here, and it is my present intention
+to learn the drug business in your father's store."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't believe you, Mister Duncan&mdash;or whatever your name is."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm sorry," he said patiently.
+</p>
+<p>
+Betty's lips twitched, contemptuous. "Well, saying you do mean to work
+here&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I do."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Where do you think your pay's going to come from?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Heaven, perhaps."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I guess you think that's funny, don't you?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I confess, at the moment I did. But now I realise it's probably a
+bitter truth."
+</p>
+<p>
+He was too much for her, she saw, and the knowledge only served to fan
+her indignation and suspicions.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You're making a mistake," she snapped. "Father can't pay you nothing."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He'll pay me all I'm worth," said Duncan meekly.
+</p>
+<p>
+She glared at him an instant longer, then mute for lack of a
+sufficiently scornful retort, turned and ran back up the steps,
+slamming the door behind her.
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan drew a rueful face, contemplating the place where she had been.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I didn't think this was going to be a bed of roses&mdash;and it isn't," he
+concluded.
+</p>
+<br><br><br>
+<h3><a name="x">
+	X
+</a></h3>
+<p class="ctr">
+ROLAND BARNETTE'S FRIEND
+</p>
+<p>
+Nat had a busy day or two after that, trying to set things to rights in
+the store for the better reception and display of the new stock. Sperry
+dropped him a line saying that the goods would arrive on the third day,
+and there was much to do to make way for it. He managed to get the shop
+cleaned up thoroughly with Betty's not unwilling but distinctly
+suspicious aid; the girl was apparently convinced that Duncan meant
+business, and that this would ostensibly work for her father's benefit,
+but she was distinctly dubious as to the <i>deus ex machina</i>. Duncan
+now and again would catch her watching him, her eyes dark with
+speculation; but when she detected his gaze her look would change
+instantly to one of hostility and defiance. He suspected that only her
+father's wishes prevented an open break with her; as it was he was
+conscious that there was no more than an armed truce between them. And
+he did not like it; it made him uncomfortable. He wasn't hardened
+enough to have an easy conscience, and Betty's open doubts as to the
+reason for his coming to Radville disturbed Duncan more than he would
+have cared to own.
+</p>
+<p>
+For all that, they worked together steadily, and accomplished a rather
+sensational transformation in the appearance of the place. The floor,
+counter and shelves were swept, washed, dusted and garnished with
+paint; that is, all but the floor received the attention of the
+paint-brush; Duncan managed to smuggle a quantity of oil-cloth into the
+shop and get it down before Graham could enter any protest: the effect
+approximated tiling nearly enough to brighten the room up wonderfully.
+Aside from this the old stock was routed out and, for the greater part,
+donated to the rubbish-heap. Teddy Smart, the glazier, was commissioned
+to repair the broken window-panes and show-cases. A can of metal polish
+freshened up the nickel and brass trimmings and rendered the single
+upright of the soda fountain almost attractive. The stove was uprooted
+and stored away, and its aspiring pipes dispensed with. Finally, after
+considerable argument, Graham consented to the removal of his
+work-bench to a shed in the back-yard. The model was suffered to
+remain, the tanks and burner being stored out of sight beneath one of
+the window-seats, more because Duncan considered it would be a good
+thing to have the light than because he understood or attached much
+importance to the contrivance. For that matter, he hadn't the time to
+listen to an exposition of its advantages, and Graham, recognising
+this, was content to abide his time, serene in the conviction that he
+would presently find in his assistant a willing and sympathetic
+listener.
+</p>
+<p>
+Between spasms of work Duncan had his hands full attending to the soda
+fountain. Soda water being practically the only salable thing in the
+store, it had to serve as an excuse for the inquisitiveness of many of
+my fellow-citizens, to say nothing of&mdash;I should put it, but
+especially&mdash;their wives and daughters. The consumption of vanilly sody
+in those two days broke all known Radville records, and stands a
+singular tribute to the Spartan fortitude of Radville womanhood,
+particularly the young strata thereof. Duncan, after he had succeeded
+in taming the fountain, seemed rather to enjoy than object to
+dispensing sody, standing inspection and receiving adulation and
+nickels in unequal proportions. By the end of the second day he could
+not truthfully have told his friend Willy Bartlett: "The list has
+shrunk." It had swollen enormously. There isn't any doubt but that he
+had a nodding acquaintance with every pretty girl in town, as well as
+with most not considered pretty.
+</p>
+<p>
+From my window in the <i>Citizen</i> office I was able to keep a
+tolerably close account of events and obtain a consensus of public
+opinion. So far as the latter bore upon Duncan, it was divided into two
+rather distinct parties, one of course favouring him; and this was
+feminine almost exclusively. Tracey Tanner, to be sure, confessed
+within my hearing to a predilection for the Noo York dood, but was
+inclined to hedge and climb the fence when assailed by Roland's
+strictures. Roland, I suspect, was a wee mite jealous; he had been
+paying attention to&mdash;I mean, going with&mdash;Josie Lockwood for several
+months. Instinctively he must have divined his danger; and it's not in
+reason to exact admiration of the usurper from the usurped, even when
+the act of usurpation has not yet been definitely consummated. Roland
+went to the length of labelling Duncan "sissy," and professed to
+believe that Hiram Nutt was justified in calling him a "s'picious
+character"; Roland hinted darkly that Duncan knew New York no better
+than Will Bigelow.
+</p>
+<p>
+"And if he did come from there," he asseverated, "I betcher he didn't
+leave for no good purpose."
+</p>
+<p>
+His temper inspired me with the sapient reflection that it's a terrible
+thing to be in love, even if only with an old man's millions.
+</p>
+<p>
+"There's goin' to be a real Noo Yorker here before long," Roland
+boasted; "he's comin' to see me on some 'special private bus'ness of
+ourn."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Huh," commented Tracey, the sceptical. "What kind of a Noo Yorker'd
+come all the way here to see you?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's all right. You'll see when he gets here. He's a pro-motor."
+</p>
+<p>
+"A what?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"A pro-motor, a financier." Roland pronounced it "finnan seer," thus
+betraying symptoms of culture and bewildering Tracey beyond expression.
+</p>
+<p>
+"What's that?" he demanded aggressively.
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's a feller 't can take nothing at all and incorporate it and make
+money out of it," Roland defined with some hesitancy.
+</p>
+<p>
+"And that's why he's coming down here to take a look at you?" inquired
+Tracey, skipping nimbly round the corner.
+</p>
+<p>
+Curiously enough in my understanding (for I own to no great faith in
+Roland's statements, taking them by and large) his friend from New York
+put in an unheralded appearance in Radville that same night, on the
+evening train. The Bigelow House received him to its figurative bosom
+under the name of W.H. Burnham. He sent for Roland promptly and treated
+him to a dinner at the hotel; something which I have always regarded as
+a punishment several sizes too large for the crime. Later, having
+displayed him on the streets in witness to his good faith, Roland spent
+the evening with Mr. Burnham mysteriously confabulating behind closed
+doors in the hotel. Speculation ran rife through the town until nine
+o'clock, and land for several days basked in the heat of public
+interest.
+</p>
+<p>
+I happened accidentally to get a glimpse of Mr. Burnham after supper,
+although I had to miss my baked apple in order to get down town in
+time. He was a disappointment to some extent, although his mode of
+dress attracted much comment as being far more sprightly than Duncan's
+and less startling than Roland's. He had a self-confident air and a bit
+of swagger that filled the eye, but a face and a voice that detracted,
+the one too boldly good-looking, with eyes roving and predaceous, the
+other a suggestion too loud and domineering. ... I fear association
+with Duncan had vitiated my taste.
+</p>
+<p>
+However that may be, Roland got an hour off at the bank the following
+morning, and the pair of them, after wandering with evident aimlessness
+round the town, drifted as it were on the tide of hap-chance into
+Graham's drug-store.
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan was at the station, superintending the transportation of the new
+stock, which had come by the early local; Betty was busy with her
+housework upstairs; and only old Sam kept the shop.
+</p>
+<p>
+Sam wasn't in the best of spirits. His evergreen optimism seldom
+withered, but in spite of all that had already been accomplished in
+behalf of the store, in spite of the rosier aspect of his declining
+fortunes and his confidence in and affection for Duncan, Sam was
+worried. He had been over to the bank once, even at that early hour,
+but Blinky Lockwood had driven out of town to see about foreclosing one
+of his numerous mortgages in the neighbourhood, and his note, which
+fell due at the bank that day, was still a weight upon Sam's mind.
+</p>
+<p>
+Roland and Burnham found him wandering nervously round the store,
+alternately taking his hat down from the peg, as if minded to make a
+second trip to the bank, and replacing it as he realised that patience
+was his part. He looked older and more worn than ordinarily, and seemed
+distinctly pleased to be distracted by his callers.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why, hello, Roland!" he cried cheerfully, hanging up his hat for
+perhaps the twentieth time. And, "How de doo, sir?" he greeted the
+stranger.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Good-morning, sir," said Burnham pleasantly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Say, Sam," Roland blundered with his usual adroitness, "this
+gentleman&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+Burnham's hand fell heavily on his forearm and he checked as if
+throttled.
+</p>
+<p>
+"What's that, Roland?" Sam turned curiously to them.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, nothin'; I was&mdash;er&mdash;just going to say that this gentleman's my
+friend from Noo York, Mr. Burnham. I was showin' him round the town and
+we just happened to look in."
+</p>
+<p>
+"The friend you were going to write to about my burner?" inquired Sam.
+"Well, I'm right glad to meet you, sir."
+</p>
+<p>
+It was here that Roland got a look from Mr. Burnham that withered him
+completely. His further contributions to the conversation were somewhat
+spasmodic and ineffectual.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why, no, Mr. Graham," Burnham interposed deftly. "Mr. Barnette must've
+been talking of someone else he knew in New York. I&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Didn't know he knew more'n one there," Sam observed mildly.
+</p>
+<p>
+Burnham's glance jumped warily to Sam's face, but withdrew reassured,
+having detected therein nothing but the old man's kindly and simple
+nature. "At all events," he continued, "I don't remember hearing
+anything about the matter (what did you call it? A burner, eh?) from
+Mr. Barnette."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I s'pose Roland forgot," Sam allowed. "He's so busy courtin' our
+pretty girls, Mr. Burnham&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, that was it," Roland put in hastily, seeing his chance to mend
+matters. "I did intend to write you about it, Mr. Burnham, but it kind
+of slipped my mind. We've had a lot of important business over to the
+bank recently."
+</p>
+<p>
+"By the way, Roland, did you just come from the bank? Is Mr. Lockwood
+back yet?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"No; I got off this morning. I don't think he is, Sam. Did you want to
+see him?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, yes," Sam admitted. "I guess you know about that, Roland."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Mean business, sometimes, asking favours of these bankers, eh, Mr.
+Graham?" Burnham remarked, much too casually to have deceived anybody
+but old Sam.
+</p>
+<p>
+Graham nodded, dolefully. "Yes, it is unpleasant," he admitted
+confidingly. "You see, there's a note of mine come due to-day, and I'm
+not able to take care of it or pay the interest just now...." He
+thought it over gravely for a moment, then brightened. "But I guess
+it'll be all right. Mr. Lockwood's kind, very kind."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm afraid you're a little too sure, Sam," Roland contributed
+tactfully. "When there's money due Lockwood, he wants it, and most
+times he gets it or its equivalent."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes," Sam assented sadly, "I guess he does, mostly."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But," Burnham changed the subject adroitly, "what was this&mdash;burner,
+did you say?&mdash;that Mr. Barnette forgot to tell me about?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, just one of my inventions, sir."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I understand you're quite an inventor?"
+</p>
+<p>
+Sam's smile lightened his face like sunlight striking a snow-bound
+field. He nodded slowly, thinking of his past enthusiasms, his hopes
+and discouragements. "I've spent most of my life at it, sir, but
+somehow nothing has ever turned out well... not so far, I mean. But I
+mean to hit it yet."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's the way to talk," Burnham cried heartily; "never give up, I
+say!... But tell me about some of these inventions, won't you?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Wel-l"&mdash;Sam knitted his fingers and pursed his lips reflectively&mdash;"I
+patented a new type threshing machine, once, but I couldn't get anybody
+to take hold of it. You see, I haven't any money, Mr. Burnham."
+</p>
+<p>
+"How would you like to talk it over with me, some time? I'm interested
+in such things&mdash;as a sort of side issue."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Will you?" Sam's eagerness was not to be disguised.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Be glad to. Tell me, how did you get your power?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"From gas, sir&mdash;though coal will do 'most as well. You see, I've got
+this burner patented, that makes gas from crude oil&mdash;no waste, no odour
+nor trouble, and little expense. It'd be cheaper than coal, I thought;
+that's why I invented it. I could get steam up mighty quick with that
+gas arrangement. I use it for lighting here in the store, now."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Do you, indeed?" Burnham's tone indicated failing interest, but such
+diplomacy was lost on Sam.
+</p>
+<p>
+"If you've got time, I could show you; it's right over here."
+</p>
+<p>
+A glance at his watch accompanied Burnham's consent to spare a few
+minutes. "There's a telegram I must send presently," he said. "But I'd
+like to see this burner, if it won't take long."
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, not long; just a minute or two." Sam was already dragging the
+affair out from under the window box. "You see..."
+</p>
+<p>
+He went on to expound its virtues with all the fond enthusiasm of a
+father showing off his firstborn, and wound up with a demonstration of
+the illuminating appliance. I'm afraid, though, he got little
+encouragement from Mr. Burnham. He considered the machine with a
+dispassionate air, it's true, and admitted its practical advantages,
+but wasn't at all disposed to take a roseate view of its future.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes," he grudged, when Sam put a match to the jet, "that's certainly a
+very good light."
+</p>
+<p>
+"All right, ain't it?" chimed Roland, enthusiastic.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, it may amount to something. It's hard to tell. Of course you know,
+sir," he continued, addressing Graham directly, "you've got competition
+to overcome."
+</p>
+<p>
+Sam's old fingers trembled to his chin. "No-o," he said, "I didn't know
+that. I've got the patent&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Of course that's something. But the Consolidated Petroleum crowd has
+another machine, slightly different, which does the same work, and, I
+should say, does it better."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Is&mdash;is that so?" quavered Sam. "My patent&mdash;&mdash;."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Now see here, Mr. Graham," Burnham argued, "we're practical men, both
+of us&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"No; I shouldn't say that about myself," Sam interrupted. "Now you,
+sir&mdash;&mdash;I can see you're a man who understands such things. But I&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Nevertheless, you must know that a patent isn't everything. You said a
+moment ago a man had to have money to make anything out of his
+inventions."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Did I?" Sam interjected, surprised.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Certainly you did; and dead right you are. A patent's all very well,
+but supposing you're up against a powerful competitor like the
+Consolidated Petroleum Company. They've got a patent, too. Granted it
+may be an infringement of yours even&mdash;what can you do against them."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why, if it's an infringement&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Sue, of course. But do you suppose they're going to lie down just
+because an unknown and penniless inventor sues them? Bless you, no!
+They'll fight to the last ditch, they'll engage the best legal talent
+in the country. You'll have to carry the case to the Supreme Court of
+the United States if you want a winning decision. And that's going to
+cost you thousands&mdash;hundreds of thou-sands&mdash;a million&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Never mind; a thousand's enough," said Sam gently. "I see what you
+mean, sir. It's just another case where I've got no chance."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, I wouldn't put it as strong as that&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"But I have no money."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Still, you never can tell. I'll think it over, if I get time."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why, that's kind of you, sir, very kind."
+</p>
+<p>
+It was at this point that Roland rose to the occasion like the noble
+ass he is. Roland never could see more than an inch beyond the end of
+his nose.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Say, Mr. Burnham," he floundered, "don't you think you could help Sam
+to&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I think," said Mr. Burnham, with additional business of looking at his
+watch, "I'd like to send that wire I spoke of."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, Roland," Sam agreed meekly; "you mustn't keep your friend from
+his business. I'm glad you looked in, sir. You'll call again, I hope."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Thank you," said Burnham, moving toward the door.
+</p>
+<p>
+It was too much for Roland's sense of opportunity. He rolled in
+Burnham's wake, sullenly reluctant. "Say, Mr. Burnham," he exploded as
+they got to the door, "if you'll just offer Sam five&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+<i>"That will do!"</i> Roland collapsed as if punctured. Burnham turned
+to Graham with a wave of his hand. "I'm leaving on the afternoon train,
+but if I get time I may drop in again and talk things over with you.
+There might be something in that threshing machine you mentioned."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'll be glad to show you anything I've got here..."
+</p>
+<p>
+"All right. Good-day. I'll see you again, perhaps."
+</p>
+<p>
+This cavalier snub was lost on Sam, an essential of whose serene soul
+is the quality of humility. He followed them to the door, as grateful
+as a lost dog for a stray pat instead of a kick. "Good-day, sir.
+Good-day, Roland," he sped their parting cheerfully.
+</p>
+<p>
+But it was a broken man who shut the door behind them and turned back,
+fingering his grey chin. There must have been a dimness in his eyes and
+a quiver to his wide-lipped, generous mouth.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Perhaps Mr. Burnham was right. Only I was kind of hopin'... Now Mr.
+Lockwood over there..."
+</p>
+<p>
+He shook himself to throw off the spell of depression and somehow
+managed to quicken again his abiding faith in the essential goodness of
+the world.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, well! He's kind, very kind."
+</p>
+<p>
+He began to restore his model to its hiding place, musing upon the
+ebb-tide in his affairs in his muddle-headed way, and in the process
+managed to convince himself that "it 'ud all come right."
+</p>
+<p>
+"With this young man in here, and everythin' gettin' fixed up, and new
+stock comin' in ... I'm sure Mr. Lockwood'll see it the right way ...
+for us.... He's kind, very kind."
+</p>
+<p>
+Thus it was that he presently called up the stairs in a very cheerful
+voice: "Betty, are you pretty near through up there?"
+</p>
+<p>
+The girl's weary voice came down to him without accent: "Yes, father,
+almost."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, then, you keep an eye on the store, please. I'm goin' to step
+out for a minute."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, father."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And if&mdash;if anybody asks for me, I'll most likely be down to the depot,
+with Mr. Duncan."
+</p>
+<p>
+He didn't mention that he contemplated calling on Lockwood, because he
+feared it might worry Betty. ... As if a woman doesn't always
+understand when things are going wrong!
+</p>
+<p>
+Betty knew, or rather divined. And she had no hope, no faith such as
+made Sam what he was. She came down the steps listlessly, overborne by
+her knowledge of the world's wrongness. The glance with which she
+comprehended the renovated shop was bitter with contempt. What was the
+worth of all this? Nothing good would come of it; nothing good came of
+anything. Life was drab and dreary, made up of weary, profitless years
+and months and weeks and days, to each its appointed disappointment.
+</p>
+<p>
+Only her sense of duty sustained her. She owed something to old Sam for
+the gift of life, dismal though she found it. He needed her; what she
+could do for him she would. I have always thought that her affection
+for her father was less filial than maternal. He seemed such a child,
+she&mdash;so very old! She mothered him; it was her only joy to care for
+him. Her care was constant, unfailing, omniscient. In return she got
+only his love. But it was almost enough&mdash;almost, not quite, dearly as
+she prized it. There were other things a girl should have&mdash;indeed, must
+have, if her life were to be rounded out in fulness. And these, she
+understood, were forever denied her: apples of Paradise growing in her
+sight, heartrending in their loveliness so far beyond her reach....
+</p>
+<p>
+Sighing, she went to work. In work only could she forget.... The soda
+glasses needed cleaning, and the syrup jars replenishing (for the new
+order of syrups had come in the previous evening).
+</p>
+<p>
+After a time, to a tune of pounding feet, Tracey Tanner pranced into
+the shop with all the graceful abandon of a young elephant feeling its
+oats. His face was fairly scarlet from exertion and his eyes bulging
+with a sense of importance. The girl looked up without interest,
+nodding slightly in response to his breathless: "'Lo, Betty."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Father's gone out," she said, holding a glass to the light, suspicious
+of the lint from her dish towel.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I know&mdash;seen him down the street." The boy halted at the counter,
+producing a handful of square envelopes. "Note for you from the
+Lockwoods, Betty," he panted. "Josie ast me to bring it round."
+</p>
+<p>
+Betty put down her glass in consternation. From the Lockwoods?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Uh-huh." Tracey offered it, but she withheld her hand, dubious.
+</p>
+<p>
+"For me, Tracey?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Uh-huh. It's a ninvitation. I got four more to take." He thrust it
+into her reluctant fingers. "Got five, really, but one of 'em's for
+me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"An invitation, Tracey!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yeh. Hope you have a good time when it comes off." Already he was
+bouncing toward the door. "Goo'-bye."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But what is it, Tracey?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Aw, it tells in the ninvitation. S'long."
+</p>
+<p>
+"From the Lockwoods!" she whispered.
+</p>
+<p>
+Suddenly she tore it open, her hands unsteady with nervousness.
+</p>
+<p>
+The envelope contained a square of heavy cardboard of a creamy tint
+with scalloped edges touched with gold. On the face of the card a round
+and formless hand had traced with evident pains the information:
+</p>
+<p>
+Miss Josephine Mae Lockwood
+</p>
+<p>
+Requests the Pleasure of your Company at a Lawn Fête and Dance to be
+held at the residence of her Parents, Mr. &amp; Mrs. Geo. Lockwood,
+Saturday July 15, at 8 p. m. R.S.V.P.
+</p>
+<p>
+The envelope fluttered to the floor while the card was crushed between
+the girl's hands. For a moment her face was transfigured with delight,
+her eyes blank with rapturous visions of the joys of that promised
+night.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh!... it 'ud be grand!..."
+</p>
+<p>
+Then suddenly the light faded. Her eyes clouded, her face settled into
+its discontented lines. She stuffed the card heedlessly into the pocket
+of her dingy apron, and took up another glass.
+</p>
+<p>
+"But I can't go; I've got nothin' to wear...."
+</p>
+<br><br><br>
+<h3><a name="xi">
+	XI
+</a></h3>
+<p class="ctr">
+BLINKY LOCKWOOD
+</p>
+<p>
+She was scrubbing blindly at the same glass when, a quarter of an hour
+later, Blinky Lockwood strode into the store, his right eye twitching
+more violently than usual, as it always does in his phases of mental
+disturbance&mdash;as when, for instance, he fears he's going to lose a
+dollar.
+</p>
+<p>
+Lockwood is that type of man who was born to grow rich. He inherited a
+farm or two in the vicinity of Radville and the one over Westerly way,
+to which I have referred, and ... well, we've a homely paraphrase of a
+noted aphorism in Radville: "Them as has, gits." Lockwood had, to begin
+with, and he made it his business to get; and, as is generally the case
+in this unbalanced world of ours, things came to him to which he had
+never aspired. Fortune favoured him because he had no need of her
+favours; the discovery of coal under his Westerly acres was wholly
+adventitious, but it made him far and away the richest man in
+Radville&mdash;with the possible exception of old Colonel Bohun's
+traditional millions.
+</p>
+<p>
+In person he is as beautiful as a snake-fence, as alluring as a stone
+wall. Something over six feet in height, he walks with a stoop (one
+hand always in a trouser-pocket jingling silver) that materially
+detracts from his stature. His face, like his figure, is gaunt and
+lanky, his nose an emaciated beak; his mouth illustrates his attitude
+toward property&mdash;is a trap from which nothing of value ever escapes;
+his eyes are small and hard and set close together under lowering
+brows. He's grizzled, with hair not actually white, but grey as the iron
+from which his heart was fashioned. Aside from these characteristics his
+principal peculiarity is a nervous twitching of the right eye which has
+earned him his sobriquet of Blinky. Legrand Gunn said he contracted the
+affliction through squinting at the silver dollar to make sure none of
+its milling had been worn off. ... I have never known the man to wear
+anything but a rusty old frock coat, black, of course, and black and
+shiny broadcloth trousers, with a hat that has always a coating of dust
+so thick that it seems a mottled grey.
+</p>
+<p>
+He grunts his words, a grunt to each. He grunted at Betty when he saw
+her.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Where's your father?"
+</p>
+<p>
+She put down her glass and dish-rag. "I don't know, sir."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Don't know, eh?" he asked in an indescribably offensive tone.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I think he went to the bank to see you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, he did, eh? Did he have anything for me."
+</p>
+<p>
+The girl took up another glass. "I don't know, sir," she said wearily.
+"I'm afraid not."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, if he didn't there's no use see in' me. It won't do him any
+good."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I guess he knows that," she returned with a little flash of spirit.
+</p>
+<p>
+Lockwood looked her up and down as if he had never seen her before,
+then summarised his resentful impression of her attitude in an open
+sneer. "Does, eh? Well, that's a good thing; saves talk."
+</p>
+<p>
+She contained herself, saying nothing. He glared round the place,
+remarking the improvements.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You don't do no business here, not to speak of, do ye?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"No," she admitted without interest, "not to speak of."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then what's the good of all this foolishness, fixing up?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't know."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Costs money, don't it?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I guess so."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And that money belongs to me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It's Mr. Duncan's doing. Father ain't paying for it. He can't."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What's he doin', then? Sittin' round foolin' with his inventions,
+ain't he?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What's he inventin' now?"
+"I don't know much about it." She pointed to the model beneath the
+window. "That's the last thing, I guess."
+</p>
+<p>
+Blinky snorted and stamped over to the window, stooping to peer at the
+machine. "What's the good of that?" he demanded, disdainful; and
+without waiting for her response went on nagging. "Foolishness! That's
+what it is. Why don't you tell him not to waste his time this way?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Because he likes it," said Betty hopelessly. "It's the only thing that
+makes life worth while to him. So I let him alone."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What difference does that make? It don't bring him in nothin', does
+it?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"No ..."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Nor do any good?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"No."
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, siree, it don't. He'd oughter stop it. What does he do with them
+things when he gets 'em finished?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Patents them."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And then what?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Nothin' that I know of."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's it; nothing&mdash;nor ever will. Well, he's been getting money from
+me for those patents&mdash;I thought at fust there might be somethin' in
+'em&mdash;but he won't any more. I'd oughter had more sense."
+</p>
+<p>
+A little colour spotted the girl's sallow cheeks. "He'd never ha' got
+money from you if he hadn't thought he could pay it back," she told
+Blinky hotly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, nor if I hadn't thought he could&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+She interjected a significant "Huh!" He broke off abruptly, pale with
+anger.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, I want to see him, and I want to see him before noon," he
+snapped. "I'm goin' over to the bank, an' if he knows what's good for
+him he'll come there pretty darn quick."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'll try to find him for you; he must be somewhere round," she
+offered.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, you better. I ain't got much patience to-day."
+</p>
+<p>
+He swung on one heel and slouched out, as Betty turned to go upstairs.
+Presently she reappeared pinning on her sad little hat, and left the
+store.
+</p>
+<p>
+It was upwards of an hour before she returned, walking quickly and very
+erect, with her head up and shoulders back, her eyes suspiciously
+bright, the spots of colour in her cheeks blazing scarlet, her mouth
+set and hard, the little work-worn hands at her sides clenched tightly
+as if for self-control. Even old Sam, who had returned from the depôt
+after missing Blinky at the bank&mdash;even he, blind as he ordinarily was,
+saw instantly that something was wrong with the child.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why, Betty!" he cried in solicitude as she flung into the
+store&mdash;"Betty, dear, what's the matter?"
+</p>
+<p>
+For an instant she seemed speechless. Then she tore the hat from her
+head and cast it regardlessly upon the counter. "Father!" she cried.
+"Father!"&mdash;and gulped to down her emotion. "Can you get me some money?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Money? Why, Betty, what&mdash;?"
+</p>
+<p>
+Her foot came down on the floor impatiently. "Can you get me some
+money?" she repeated in a breath.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well&mdash;er&mdash;how much, Betty?" He tried to touch her, to take her to his
+arms, but she moved away, her sorry little figure quivering from head
+to feet.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Enough," she said, half sobbing&mdash;"enough to buy a dress&mdash;a nice
+dress&mdash;a dress that will surprise folks&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"But tell me what the matter is, Betty. Wanting a dress would never
+upset you like this."
+</p>
+<p>
+She whipped the cracked and crumpled card from her pocket and pushed it
+into his hand. "Look at that!" she bade him, and turned away,
+struggling with all her might to keep back the tears.
+</p>
+<p>
+He read, his old face softening. "Josie Lockwood's party, eh? And she's
+sent you an invitation. Well, that was kind of her, very kind."
+</p>
+<p>
+She swung upon him in a fury. "No, it was not kind. It was mean... It
+was mean!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, Betty," he begged in consternation, "don't say that. I'm sure&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, you don't know... I heard the girls talking in the post-office&mdash;
+Angle Tuthill and Mame Garrison and Bessie Gabriel... I was round by
+the boxes where they couldn't see me, but I could hear them, and they
+were laughing because I was invited. They said the reason Josie did it
+was because she knew I didn't have anything to wear, and she wanted to
+hear what excuse I'd make for not going. Ah, I heard them!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, but Betty, Betty," he pleaded; "don't you mind what they say.
+Don't&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"But I do mind; I can't help mindin'. They're mean." She paused, her
+features hardening. "I'm going to that party," she declared tensely:
+"I'm goin' to that party and&mdash;and I'm goin' to have a dress to go in,
+too! I don't care what I do&mdash;I'm goin' to have that dress!"
+</p>
+<p>
+Sam would have soothed her as best he might, but she would neither look
+at nor come near him.
+</p>
+<p>
+"We'll see," he said gently. "We'll see. I'll try&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+She turned on him, exasperated beyond thought. "That only means you
+can't help me!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, no, it doesn't. I'll do what I can&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Have you got any money now?"
+</p>
+<p>
+He hung his head to avoid her blazing eyes. "Well, no&mdash;not at present,
+but here's this new stock and&mdash;."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That doesn't mean anything, and you know it. You owe that note to Mr.
+Lockwood, don't you? And you can't pay it?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not to-day, Betty, but he'll give me a little more time, I'm sure.
+He's kind, very kind."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You don't know him. He's as mean&mdash;as mean as dirt&mdash;as mean as Josie."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Betty!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then if you did get any money you'd have to give it to him, wouldn't
+you?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, but&mdash;I'm sure&mdash;I think it'll come all right."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Ah, what's the use of talkin' that way? What's the use of talkin' at
+all? I know you can't do anything for me, and so do you!"
+</p>
+<p>
+Sam had dropped into his chair, unable to stand before this storm; he
+stared now, mute with amazement, at this child who had so long, so
+uncomplainingly, shared his poverty and privations, grown suddenly to
+the stature of a woman&mdash;and a tormented, passionate woman, stung to the
+quick by the injustice of her lot. He put out a hand in a feeble
+gesture of placation, but she brushed it away as she bent toward him,
+speaking so quickly that her words stumbled and ran into one another.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I can't understand it!" she raged. "Why is it that I have to be more
+shabby than any other girl in town? Why is it that the others have all
+the fun and I all the drudgery? Why is it that I can't ever go anywhere
+with the boys and girls and laugh and&mdash;and have a good time like the
+rest do?..."
+</p>
+<p>
+Sam bent his head to the blast. In his lap his hands worked nervously.
+But he could not answer her.
+</p>
+<p>
+"It ain't that I mind the cookin' and doin' the housework and&mdash;all the
+rest&mdash;but&mdash;why is it you can never give me anything at all? Why must it
+be that everyone looks down on us and sneers and laughs at us? Why is
+it that half the time we haven't got enough to eat?... Other men manage
+to take care of their families and give their children things to wear.
+You've got only us two to look after, and you can't even do that. It
+isn't right, it isn't decent, and if I were you I'd be ashamed of
+myself&mdash;!"
+</p>
+<p>
+Her temper had spent itself, and with this final cry she checked
+abruptly, with a catch at her breath for shame of what she had let
+herself say. But, childlike, she was not ready to own her sorrow; and
+she turned her back, trembling.
+</p>
+<p>
+Sam, too, was shaken. In his heart he knew there was justification for
+her indictment, truth in what she had said. And he was heartbroken for
+her. He got up unsteadily and put a gentle hand upon her shoulder.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why, Betty&mdash;I&mdash;I&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+A dry sob interrupted him. He pulled himself together and forced his
+voice to a tone of confidence. "Just be a little patient, dear. I'm
+sure things will be better with us, soon. Just a little more patience&mdash;
+that's all... Why, there was a gentleman here this morning, from Noo
+York City, talkin' about an invention of mine."
+</p>
+<p>
+The girl moved restlessly, shaking off his hand. "Invention!" she
+echoed bitterly. "Oh, father! Everybody knows they're no good. You've
+been wastin' time on 'em ever since I can remember, and you've never
+made a dollar out of one yet."
+</p>
+<p>
+He bowed to the truth of this, then again braced up bravely. "But this
+gentleman seemed quite interested. He's over to the Bigelow House now.
+I think I'll step over and have a talk with him&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"You'd much better go and have a talk with Blinky Lockwood," she told
+him brutally. "He's waitin' for you at the bank, and said he wasn't
+goin' to wait after twelve o'clock, neither!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Wel-l, perhaps you're right. I'll go there. It's after twelve, but..."
+He started to get his hat and stopped with an exclamation: "Why, Nat!
+I didn't know you'd got back!"
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan was at the back of the store, clearing the last remnants of the
+old stock from the shelves. "Yes," he said pleasantly, without turning,
+"I've been here some time, cleaning up the cellar, to make room for the
+stuff that's coming in. I came upstairs just a moment ago, but you were
+so busy talking you didn't notice me."
+</p>
+<p>
+He paused, swept the empty shelves with a calculating glance, and came
+out around the end of the counter. "Everything's in tip-top shape," he
+said. "I checked up the bill of lading myself, and there's not a thing
+missing, not a bit of breakage. Mr. Graham," he continued, dropping a
+gentle hand on the old man's shoulder, "you're going to have the finest
+drug-store in the State within six months. With the stuff that Sperry
+has sent us we can make Sothern and Lee look like sixty-five cents on
+the dollar.... We're going to make things hum in this old shop, and
+don't you forget it." He laughed lightly, with a note of encouragement.
+But he avoided Graham's eyes even as he did Betty's. He could not meet
+the pitiful look of the former, any more than that stare of hostility
+and defiance in the latter.
+</p>
+<p>
+"It's good of you, my boy," Graham quavered. "I&mdash;but I'm afraid it
+won't&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Now don't say that!" Duncan interposed firmly. "And don't let me
+keep you. I think you said you were going out on business? And I'll be
+busy enough right here."
+</p>
+<p>
+And without exactly knowing how it had come about, Graham found himself
+in the street, stumbling downtown, toward the bank.
+</p>
+<p>
+When he had gone, Duncan would have returned to the shelves for a final
+redding-up. He desired least of all things an encounter with Betty in
+her present frame of mind, and he tried his level best to seem as one
+who had heard nothing, who was only concerned with his occupation of
+the moment. But from the instant that she had been made aware of his
+presence Betty had been watching him with smouldering eyes, wondering
+how much he had heard and what he was thinking of her. The keen
+repentance that gnawed at her heart, allied with shame that an alien
+should have been private to her exhibition, half maddened the child.
+With a sudden movement she threw herself in front of Duncan, thrusting
+her white, drawn face before his, her gaze searching his half in anger,
+half in morose distrust.
+</p>
+<p>
+"So you were listening!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm sorry," he said uncomfortably.
+</p>
+<p>
+She drew a pace away, holding herself very straight while she threw him
+a level glance of unqualified contempt.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I didn't mean to hear anything," he argued plaintively. "I was in
+the room before I understood, and by the time I did, it was too late&mdash;
+you had finished."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, don't try to explain. I&mdash;I hate you!"
+</p>
+<p>
+He held her eyes inquiringly. "Yes," he said in the tone of one who
+solves a puzzling problem, "I believe you do."
+</p>
+<p>
+She looked away, shaking with passion. "You just better believe it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But," he went on quietly, "you don't hate your father, too, do you,
+Miss Graham?"
+</p>
+<p>
+She swung back to meet his stare with one that flamed with indignation.
+</p>
+<p>
+"What do you mean by that, Mr. Duncan?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I mean," he said, faltering in where one wiser would have feared to
+venture&mdash;"I'm going to give you a bit of advice. Don't you talk to your
+father again the way you did just now."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What business is that of yours?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"None," he admitted fairly. "But just the same I wouldn't, if I were
+you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, you ain't me!" she cried savagely. "You ain't me! Understand
+that? When I want advice from you, I'll ask for it. Until I do, you
+let me alone."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Very well," he replied, so calmly that she lost her bearings for a
+moment. And inevitably this, emphasising as it did all that she
+resented most in him&mdash;his education, wit, address, his advantages of
+every sort&mdash;only served further to infuriate the child.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, I know why you talk that way," she said, rubbing her poor little
+hands together.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Do you?" he asked in wonder.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, I do&mdash;you!..."
+</p>
+<p>
+Suddenly she found words&mdash;poverty-stricken words, it's true, but the
+best she had wherewith to express herself. And for a little they flowed
+from her lips, a scalding, scathing torrent. "It's because you go to
+church all the time and try to look like a saint and&mdash;and try to make
+out you're too religious for anything, and like to hear yourself givin'
+Christian advice to poor miserable sinners&mdash;like me. You think that's
+just too lovely of you. That's why you said it, if you want to know.
+... Folks wonder what you're doing here, don't they? Guess you know
+that&mdash;and like it, too. It makes 'em look at you and talk about you,
+and that's what you like. <i>I</i> could tell 'em. You're only here to
+show off your good clothes and your finger-nails and the way you part
+your hair and&mdash;and all the other things you do that nobody in Noo York
+would pay any attention to!"
+</p>
+<p>
+He faced her soberly, attentively. She was a little fool, he knew, and
+making a ridiculous figure of herself. But&mdash;his innate honesty told him
+&mdash;she was right, in a way; she had hit upon his weakest point. He was
+in Radville to "show off," as she would have said, to make an
+impression and ... to reap the reward thereof. The way she spoke was
+ludicrous, but what she said was mostly plain truth. He nodded
+submissively.
+</p>
+<p>
+"A pretty good guess at that," he acknowledged candidly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, it is, and I know it, and you know it. ... Oh, it's easy enough
+to give advice when you've got plenty of money and fine clothes and ...
+but..."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I understand," he said when she paused to get a grip upon herself and
+find again the words she needed. "You needn't say any more. The only
+reason I said what I did was because I'm strong for your father and ...
+well, I wanted to do you a good turn, too."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't want any of your good turns!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then I apologise."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And I don't want your apologies, neither!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"All right, only ... think over what I said, some time."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I had a good reason for saying what I did."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I know you had."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You know I had!" She looked at him askance. She had been on the point
+of relenting a little, of calming, of being a bit ashamed of herself.
+But his quiet acquiescence rekindled her resentment. "How do you know?
+You!" she said bitterly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Because I'm not what you think I am, altogether."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I guess you're not," she observed acidly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"But I don't mean what you mean. I mean you think I'm conceited and
+rich and don't know what trouble is. Well, you're mistaken. I've been
+up against it the worst way for five years, and I know just how it
+feels to see other people getting up in the world when you're at the
+bottom of the heap with no chance of squirming out&mdash;to know that they
+have things you haven't got any chance of getting. I've been through
+the mill myself. Why, I've kept out of the way for days and days rather
+than let my prosperous friends see how shabby I was. Many's the time
+I've dodged round corners to avoid meeting men I knew would invite me
+to have dinner or luncheon or a drink&mdash;of soda&mdash;or something, for fear
+they'd find out that I couldn't treat in return. Many a time I've gone
+hungry for days and weeks and slept on park benches ... until an old
+friend found me and took me home with him."
+</p>
+<p>
+The ring of sincerity in his manner and tone silenced the girl,
+impressed her with the conviction of his absolute sincerity. The tumult
+in her mind quieted. She eyed him with attention, even with interest
+temporarily untinged with resentment. And seeing that he had succeeded
+in gaining this much ground in her regard, Duncan dared further,
+pushing his advantage to its limits.
+</p>
+<p>
+"But it's your father I wanted to talk about," he hurried on. "I'd bet
+a lot he knows more than any other man in this town; and besides, he's
+a fine, square, good-hearted old gentleman. Anybody can see that.
+Only, he's got one terrible fault: he doesn't know how to make money.
+And that's mighty tough on you&mdash;though it's just as tough on him. But
+when you roast him for it, like you did just now ... you only make him
+feel as miserable as a yellow dog ... and that doesn't help matters a
+little bit. He can't change into a sharp business crook now; ... he's
+too old a man. ... Before long he ... he won't be with you at all and
+... when he's gone you'll be sore on yourself ... sure! ... if you keep
+on throwing it into him the way I heard you. ... And that's on the
+level."
+</p>
+<p>
+He paused in confusion; the role of preacher sat upon him awkwardly, a
+sadly misfit garment. He felt self-conscious and ill at ease, yet with
+a trace of gratulation through it all. For he felt he'd carried his
+point. He could see no longer any animus in the pale, wistful little
+face that looked up into his&mdash;only sympathy, understanding, repentance
+and (this troubled him a bit) a faint flush of dawning admiration.
+Presently she grew conscious of herself again, and looked aside, humbled
+and distressed.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I&mdash;I won't do it again," she faltered, twisting her hands together.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Bully for you!" he cried, and with an abrupt if artificial resumption
+of his business-like air turned away to a show-case&mdash;to spare her the
+embarrassment of his regard.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I didn't think," said the voice behind him; "I didn't mean to&mdash;
+something happened that almost drove me wild and..."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I know," he said gently.
+</p>
+<p>
+After a bit she spoke again: "I'll go up and get dinner ready now."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's all right," he returned absently. "I'll tend the store."
+</p>
+<p>
+He heard her footsteps as she crossed to the door and opened it. There
+followed a pause. Then she came hurriedly back. He faced about to meet
+her eyes shining with wonder.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I wanted to ask you," she said hastily, "if&mdash;was it this friend you
+spoke about&mdash;that found you in the park&mdash;who set you on the road to
+fortune?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's what he said," Duncan answered, twisting his brows whimsically.
+</p>
+<br><br><br>
+<h3><a name="xii">
+	XII
+</a></h3>
+<p class="ctr">
+DUNCAN'S GRUBSTAKE
+</p>
+<p>
+Like almost all business Radville, Duncan went home for his midday
+meal. It wasn't much of a walk from Sam Graham's store to Miss
+Carpenter's, and he didn't mind in the least.
+</p>
+<p>
+On this particular day he was sincerely hungry, but he had much to
+think about besides, and between the two he just bolted his food and
+made off, hot-foot for the store, greatly to the distress of his
+landlady.
+</p>
+<p>
+Naturally, knowing nothing about Sam's note, although he knew Pete
+Willing by sight as the sheriff and town drunkard in one, it didn't
+worry him at all to discover that gentleman tacking toward the store as
+he hurried up Beech Street, eager to get back to his job. The first
+intimation that he had of anything seriously amiss was when he entered,
+practically on Pete's heels.
+</p>
+<p>
+Pete Willing is the best-natured man in the world, as a general rule;
+drunk or sober, Radville tolerates him for just that quality. On only
+two occasions is he irritable and unmanageable: when his wife gets
+after him about the drink (Mrs. Willing is an able-bodied lady of Irish
+descent, with a will and a tongue of her own, to say nothing of
+an arm a blacksmith might envy) and when he has a duty to perform in
+his official capacity. It is in the latter instance that he rises
+magnificently to the dignity of his position. The majesty of the law in
+his hands becomes at once a bludgeon and a pandemonium. No one has ever
+been arrested in Radville, since Pete became sheriff, without the
+entire community becoming aware of it simultaneously. Pete's voice in
+moments of excitement carries like a cannonade. Legrand Gunn said that
+Pete had only to get into an argument in front of the Bigelow House to
+make the entire disorderly population of the Flats, across the river,
+break for the hills. (This is probably an exaggeration.)
+</p>
+<p>
+Tall, gaunt, gangling and loose-jointed, Duncan found Pete standing in
+the middle of the floor, hands in pockets and a noisome stogie thrust
+into a corner of his mouth, swaying a little (he was almost sober at
+the moment) and explaining his mission to old Sam in a voice of
+thunder.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm sorry about this, Sam," he bellowed, "but there ain't no use
+wastin' words 'bout it. I'm here on business."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But what's the matter, Sheriff?" Graham asked, his voice breaking.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Ah, you know you got a note due at the bank, don't you?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, but&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, it's protested. Y'un'erstand that, don't you?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why, Pete!" Graham swayed, half-dazed.
+</p>
+<p>
+"An' I'm here to serve the papers onto you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But&mdash;but there must be some mistake." Sam clutched blindly for his
+hat. "I'll step over and see Mr. Lockwood. He'll arrange to give me a
+little more time, I'm sure. He's always been kind, very kind."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Naw!" Pete bawled, "Mr. Lockwood don't want to see you unless you can
+settle. Y'can save yourself the trouble. Y'gottuh put up or git out!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"But, Pete&mdash;Mr. Lockwood said he didn't want to see me?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yah, that's what he said, and I got orders from him, soon's I got
+judgment to close y'up. And that goes, see!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"To&mdash;to turn me out of the store, Pete?" Graham's world had slipped
+from beneath his feet. He was overwhelmed, witless, as helpless as a
+child. And it was with a child's look of pitiful dismay and perplexity
+that he faced the sheriff.
+</p>
+<p>
+The father who has fallen short of his child's trust and confidence
+knows that look. To Duncan its appeal was irresistible. He had his
+hand in his pocket, clutching the still considerable remains of what
+Kellogg had termed his grubstake, before he knew it.
+</p>
+<p>
+"But&mdash;there must be some mistake," Graham repeated pleadingly. "It
+can't be&mdash;Mr. Lockwood surely wouldn't&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Now there ain't no use whinin' about it!" Willing roared him into
+silence. "Law is Law, and&mdash;&mdash;" He ceased quickly, surprised to find
+Duncan standing between him and his prey. "What&mdash;&mdash;!" he began.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Wait!" Duncan touched him gently on the chest with a forefinger, at
+the same time catching and holding the sheriff's eye. "Are you," he
+inquired quietly, "labouring under the impression that Mr. Graham is
+deaf?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"What&mdash;&mdash;!"
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan turned to Sam, apologetically. "He said 'what.' Did you hear it,
+sir?"
+</p>
+<p>
+But by this time Pete was recovering to some degree. "What've you got
+to say about this?" he demanded, crescendo.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'll show you," Duncan told him in the same quiet voice, "what I've
+got to say if you'll just put the soft pedal on and tell me the amount
+of that note."
+</p>
+<p>
+Pete struggled mightily to regain his vanished advantage, but try as he
+would he could not escape Duncan's cool, inquisitive eye. Visibly he
+lost importance as he yielded and dived into his pocket. "With interest
+and costs," he said less stridently, "it figgers up three hundred 'n'
+eighty dollars 'n' eighty-two cents."
+</p>
+<p>
+There's no use denying that Duncan was staggered. For the moment his
+poise deserted him utterly. He could only repeat, as one who dreams:
+<i>"Three hundred and eighty dollars!..."</i>
+</p>
+<p>
+His momentary consternation afforded Pete the opening he needed. The
+room shook with his regained sense of prestige.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, three hundred 'n' eighty dollars 'n'&mdash;say, you look a-here!&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+Again the calm forefinger touched him, and like a hypnotist's pass
+checked the rolling volume of noise. "Listen," begged Duncan: "if
+you've got anything else to tell me, please retire to the opposite side
+of the street and whisper it. Meanwhile, <i>be quiet!"</i>
+</p>
+<p>
+Pete's jaw dropped. In all his experience no one had ever succeeded in
+taming him so completely&mdash;and in so brief a time. He experienced a
+sensation of having been robbed of his spinal column, and before he
+could pull himself together was staring in awe, while with one final
+admonitory poke of his finger Duncan turned and made for the soda
+counter, beneath which was the till. His scanty roll of bills was in
+his right hand, and there concealed. He stepped behind the counter (old
+Sam watching him with an amazement no less absolute than Pete's),
+pulled out the till, bent over it with an assured air, and pushed back
+the coin slide. Then quite naturally, he produced&mdash;with his right
+hand&mdash;his four-hundred-and-odd dollars from the bill drawer, stood up
+and counted them with great deliberation.
+</p>
+<p>
+"One ... two ... three ... four."
+He smiled winningly at Pete. "Four hundred dollars, Mr. Sheriff. Now
+will you be good enough to hand over that note and the change and then
+put yourself, and that pickle you're wearing in your face, on the other
+side of the door?"
+</p>
+<p>
+Pete struggled tremendously and finally succeeded in producing from
+his system a still, small voice:
+</p>
+<p>
+"I ain't got the note with me, Mr. Duncan."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then perhaps you won't mind going to the bank for it?"
+</p>
+<p>
+Half suffocated, Pete assented. "Aw'right, I'll go and git it. Kin I
+have the money?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Certainly." Duncan extended the bills, then on second thought withheld
+them. "I presume you're a regular sheriff?" he inquired.
+</p>
+<p>
+Very proudly Pete turned back the lapel of his coat and distended the
+chest on which shone his nickel-plated badge of office. Duncan examined
+it with grave admiration.
+</p>
+<p>
+"It's beautiful," he said with a sigh. "Here."
+</p>
+<p>
+Gingerly, Pete grasped the bills, thumbed them over to make sure they
+were real, and bolted as for his life, his coat-tails level on the
+breeze.
+</p>
+
+
+
+<p class="ctr">
+<a href="images/illp198.jpg"><img src="images/illp198_th.jpg" width="150"
+alt="'Four Hundred Dollars, Mr. Sheriff'"></a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There floated back to Duncan and old Sam his valedictory: "Wal, I'll be
+damned!"
+</p>
+<p>
+With a short, quiet laugh Duncan made as though to go out to the
+back-yard, where the new stock was being delivered, having been carted
+up from the station through the alley&mdash;thereby doing away with the
+necessity of cluttering up the store with a débris of packing. His
+primal instinct of the moment was to get right out of that with all the
+expedition practicable. He didn't want to be alone with old Sam another
+second. The essential insanity of which he had just done was patent;
+there was no excuse for it, and he was like to suffer severely as a
+consequence. But he wasn't sorry, and he did not want to be thanked.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm going," he said hurriedly, "to find me a hatchet and knock the
+stuffing out of some of those packing-cases. Want to get all that truck
+indoors before nightfall, you know&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+But old Sam wasn't to be put off by any such obvious subterfuge as
+that. He put himself in front of Duncan.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Nat, my boy," he said, tremulous, "I can't let this go through&mdash;I
+can't allow you&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"There, now!" Duncan told him, unconcernedly yet kindly, "don't say
+anything more. It's over and done with."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But you mustn't&mdash;I'll turn over the store to you, if&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"O Lord!" Duncan's dismay was as genuine as his desire to escape
+Graham's gratitude. "No&mdash;don't! Please don't do that!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"But I must do something, my boy. I can't accept so great a kindness&mdash;
+unless," said Graham with a timid flash of hope&mdash;"you'll consider a
+partnership&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's it!" cried Duncan, glad of any way out of the situation.
+"That's the way to do it&mdash;a partnership. No, please don't say any more
+about it, just now. We can settle details later. ... We've got to get
+busy. Tell you what I wish you'd do while I'm busting open those boxes:
+if you don't mind going down to the station to make sure that
+everything's&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, I'll go; I'll go at once." Sam groped for Duncan's hand, caught
+and held it between both his own. "If&mdash;if fate&mdash;or something hadn't
+brought you here to-day&mdash;I don't know what would've happened to Betty
+and me. ..."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Never mind," Duncan tried to soothe him. "Just don't you think about
+it."
+</p>
+<p>
+Graham shook his head, still bewildered. "Perhaps," he stumbled on, "to
+a gentleman of your wealth four hundred dollars isn't much&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"No," said Duncan gravely, without the flicker of an eyelash:
+"nothing." Then he smiled cheerfully. "There, that's all right."
+</p>
+<p>
+"To me it's meant everything. I&mdash;I only hope I'll be able to repay
+you some day. God bless you, my boy, God bless you!"
+</p>
+<p>
+He managed to jam his hat awry on his white old head and found his way
+out, his hands fumbling with one another, his lips moving inaudibly&mdash;
+perhaps in a prayer of thanksgiving.
+</p>
+<p>
+Motionless, Duncan watched him go, and for several minutes thereafter
+stood without stirring, lost in thought. Then his quaint, deprecatory
+grin dawned. He found a handkerchief and mopped his forehead.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Whew!" he whistled. "I wouldn't go through that again for a million
+dollars."
+</p>
+<p>
+Gradually the smile faded. He puckered his brows and drew down the
+corners of his mouth. Thoughtfully he ran a hand into his pocket and
+produced the little crumpled wad of bills of small denominations,
+representing all he had left in the world. Smoothing them out on the
+counter, he arranged them carefully, summing up; then returned them to
+his pocket.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Harry," he observed&mdash;"Harry said I couldn't get rid of that stake in a
+year!...
+</p>
+<p>
+"He doesn't know what a fast town this is!"
+</p>
+<br><br><br>
+<h3><a name="xiii">
+	XIII
+</a></h3>
+<p class="ctr">
+THE BUSINESS MAN AND MR. BURNHAM
+</p>
+<p>
+It was, perhaps, within the next thirty minutes that Betty (who had
+been left in charge of the store while Duncan, with coat and collar off
+and sleeves rolled above his elbows, hacked and pounded and pried and
+banged at the packing-cases in the backyard) sought him on the scene of
+his labours.
+</p>
+<p>
+She waited quietly, a little to one side, watching him, until he should
+become aware of her presence. What she was thinking would have been
+hard to define, from the inscrutable eyes in her set, tired face of a
+child. There was no longer any trace of envy, suspicion or resentment
+in her attitude toward the young man. You might have guessed that she
+was trying to analyse him, weighing him in the scales of her
+impoverished and lopsided knowledge of human nature, and wondering if
+such conclusions as she was able to arrive at were dependable.
+</p>
+<p>
+In the course of time he caught sight of that patient, sad little
+figure, and, pausing, panting and perspiring under the July sun,
+cheerfully brandished his weapon from the centre of a widespread
+area of wreckage and destruction.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Pretty good work for a York dude&mdash;not?" he laughed.
+</p>
+<p>
+There was a shadowy smile in her grave eyes. "It's an improvement," she
+said evenly.
+</p>
+<p>
+He shot her a curious glance. "<i>Ouch!</i>" he said thoughtfully.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I just came to tell you," she went on, again immobile, "you're wanted
+inside."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Somebody wants to see <i>me?</i>" he demanded of her retreating back.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But who&mdash;?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Blinky Lockwood," she replied over her shoulder, as she went into the
+house.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Lockwood?" He speculated, for an instant puzzled. Then suddenly:
+"Father-in-law!" he cried. "Shivering snakes! he mustn't catch me like
+this! I, a business man!"
+</p>
+<p>
+Hastily rolling down his shirt-sleeves and shrugging himself into his
+coat, he made for the store, buttoning his collar and knotting his tie
+on the way.
+</p>
+<p>
+He found Blinky nosing round the room, quite alone. Betty had
+disappeared, and the old scoundrel was having quite an enjoyable time
+poking into matters that did not concern him and disapproving of them
+on general principles. So far as the improvements concerned old Sam
+Graham's fortunes, Blinky would concede no health in them. But with
+regard to Duncan there was another story to tell: Duncan apparently
+controlled money, to some vague extent.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You're Mr. Duncan, ain't you?" he asked with his leer, moving down to
+meet Nat.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, sir. Mr. Lockwood, I believe?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's me." Blinky clutched his hand in a genial claw. "I'm glad to
+meet you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Thank you," said Duncan. "Something I can do for you, sir?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Wal, Pete Willin' was tellin' me you'd just took up this note of
+Graham's?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not exactly; the firm took it up."
+</p>
+<p>
+Blinky winked savagely at this. "The firm? What firm?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Graham and Duncan, sir. I've been taken into partnership."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Have, eh?" Blinky grunted mysteriously and fished in his pocket for
+some bills and silver. "Wal, here's some change comin' to the firm,
+then; and here," he added, producing the document in question, "is
+Sam's note."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Thank you." Duncan ceremoniously deposited both in the till, going
+behind the soda fountain to do so, and then waited, expectant. Blinky
+was grunting busily in the key of one about to make an important
+communication.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm glad you're a-comin' in here with Sam," he said at length, with an
+acid grimace that was meant to be a smile.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, it may be only temporary." Nat endeavoured to assume a seraphic
+expression, and partially succeeded. "I'm devoting much of my time to
+my studies," he pursued primly; "but nevertheless feel I should be
+earning something, too."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's right; that's the kind of spirit I like to see in a young
+man.... You always go to church, don't you?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, sir&mdash;Sundays only."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's what I mean. D'you drink?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, no, sir," Duncan parroted glibly: "don't smoke, drink, swear, and
+on Sundays I go to church."
+</p>
+<p>
+The bland smile with which he faced Lockwood's keen scrutiny disarmed
+suspicion.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm glad to hear that," Blinky told him. "I'm at the head of the
+temp'rance movement here, and I hope you'll join us, and set an example
+to our fast young men."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I feel sure I could do that," said Duncan meekly.
+</p>
+<p>
+Lockwood removed his hat, exposing the cranium of a bald-headed eagle,
+and fanned himself. "Warm to-day," he observed in an endeavour to be
+genial that all but sprained his temperament.
+</p>
+<p>
+Indeed, so great was the strain that he winked violently.
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan observed this phenomenon with natural astonishment not unmixed
+with awe. "Yes, sir, very," he agreed, wondering what it might portend.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I believe I'll have a glass of sody."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Certainly." Duncan, by now habituated to the formulae of soda
+dispensing, promptly produced a bright and shining glass.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I see you've been fixin' this place up some."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, yes," said Nat loftily. "We expect to have the best drugstore in
+the State. We're getting in new stock to-day, and naturally things are
+a little out of order, but we'll straighten up without delay. We'll try
+to deserve your esteemed patronage," he concluded doubtfully, with a
+hazy impression that such a speech would be considered appropriate
+under the circumstances.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You shall have it, Mr. Duncan, you shall have it!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Thank you, I'm sure.... What syrup would you prefer?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Just sody," stipulated Lockwood.
+</p>
+<p>
+His spasmodic wink again smote Duncan's understanding a mighty blow.
+Unable to believe his eyes, he hedged and stammered. Could it be&mdash;?
+This from the leader of the temperance movement in Radville?
+</p>
+<p>
+"I beg pardon&mdash;&mdash;?"
+</p>
+<p>
+His denseness irritated Blinky slightly, with the result that the right
+side of his face again underwent an alarming convulsion. "I say," he
+explained carefully, "just&mdash;<i>plain</i>&mdash;sody."
+</p>
+<p>
+"On the level?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"What?" grunted Blinky; and blinked again.
+</p>
+<p>
+A smile of comprehension irradiated Nat's features. "Pardon," he said,
+"I'm a little new to the business."
+</p>
+<p>
+Blinky, fanning himself industriously, glared round the store while
+Duncan, turning his back, discreetly found and uncorked the whiskey
+bottle. He was still a trifle dubious about the transaction, but on the
+sound principles of doing all things thoroughly, poured out a liberal
+dose of raw, red liquor. Then, with his fingers clamped tightly about
+the bottom of the glass, the better to conceal its contents from any
+casual but inquisitive passer-by, he quickly filled it with soda and
+placed it before Blinky, accompanying the action with the sweetest of
+childlike smiles.
+</p>
+<p>
+Lockwood, nodding his acknowledgments, lifted the glass to his lips.
+Duncan awaited developments with some apprehension. To his relief,
+however, Blinky, after an experimental swallow, emptied the mixture
+expeditiously into his system; and smacked his thin lips resoundingly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"How," he demanded, "can anyone want intoxicatin' likers when
+they can get such a bracin' drink as that?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I pass," Nat breathed, limp with admiration of such astounding
+hypocrisy.
+</p>
+<p>
+Blinky reluctantly pried a nickel loose from his finances and placed it
+on the counter. Duncan regarded it with disdain.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Ten cents more, please," he suggested tactfully.
+</p>
+<p>
+"What for?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Plain sody." The explanation was accompanied by a very passable
+imitation of Blinky's blink.
+</p>
+<p>
+Happily for Duncan, Blinky has no sense of humour: if he had he would
+explode the very first time he indulged in introspection.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not much," said he with his sour smile. "I guess you're jokin'....
+Well, good luck to you, Mr. Duncan. I'd like to have you come round and
+see us some evenin'."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Thank you very much, sir." Duncan accompanied Blinky to the door.
+"I've already had the pleasure of meeting your daughter, sir. She's a
+charming girl."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm real glad you think so," said Blinky, intensely gratified. "She
+seems to've taken a great shine to you, too. Come round and get
+'quainted with the hull family. You're the sort of young feller I'd
+like her to know." He paused and looked Nat up and down captiously,
+as one might appraise the points of a horse of quality put up for sale.
+"Good-day," said he, with the most significant of winks.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, that's all right," Nat hastened to reassure him. "I won't say a
+word about it."
+</p>
+<p>
+Blinky, on the point of leaving, started to question this (to him)
+cryptic utterance, but luckily had the current of his thoughts diverted
+by the entrance of Roland Barnette, in company with his friend Mr.
+Burnham.
+</p>
+<p>
+Roland's consternation at this unexpected encounter was, in the mildest
+term, extreme. At sight of his employer he pulled up as if slapped.
+"Oh!" he faltered, "I didn't know you was here, sir."
+</p>
+<p>
+"No," said Blinky with keen relish, "I guess you didn't."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I&mdash;ah&mdash;come over to see Sam about that note," stammered Roland.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Wal, don't you bother your head 'bout what ain't your business, Roly.
+Come on back to the bank."
+</p>
+<p>
+"All right, sir." Roland grasped frantically at the opportunity to
+emphasise his importance. "Excuse me, Mr. Lockwood, but I'd like to
+interdoos you to a friend of mine, Mr. Burnham from Noo York."
+</p>
+<p>
+Amused, Burnham stepped into the breach. "How are you?" he said with
+the proper nuance of cordiality, offering his hand.
+</p>
+<p>
+Lockwood shook it unemotionally. "How de do?" he said, perfunctory.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I brought Mr. Burnham in to see Sam&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes," Burnham interrupted Roland quickly; "Barnette's been kind enough
+to show me round town a bit."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Here on business?" inquired Lockwood pointedly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, not exactly," returned Burnham with practised ease, "just looking
+round."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Only lookin', eh?" Blinky's countenance underwent one of its erratic
+quakes as he examined Burnham with his habitual intentness.
+</p>
+<p>
+The New Yorker caught the wink and lost breath. "Ah&mdash;yes&mdash;that's all,"
+he assented uneasily. And as he spoke another wink dumbfounded him.
+"Why?" he asked, with a distinct loss of assurance. "Don't you believe
+it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Don't see no reason why I shouldn't," grunted Blinky. "Hope you'll
+like what you see. Good day."
+</p>
+<p>
+"So long ... Mr. Lockwood," returned Burnham uncertainly.
+</p>
+<p>
+Lockwood paused outside the door. "Come 'long, Roland."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, sir; right away; just a minute." Roland was lingering
+unwillingly, detained by Burnham's imperative hand. "What d'you want? I
+got to hurry."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What was he winking at me for?" demanded Burnham heatedly. "Have
+you&mdash;&mdash;?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh!" Roland laughed. "He wasn't winking. He can't help doing that.
+It's a twitchin' he's got in his eye. That's why they call him Blinky."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, that was it!" Burnham accepted the explanation with distinct
+relief, while Duncan, who had been an unregarded spectator, suddenly
+found cause to retire behind one of the show-cases on important
+business.
+</p>
+<p>
+So that was the explanation!...
+</p>
+<p>
+After his paroxysm had subsided and he felt able to control his facial
+muscles, Duncan emerged, suave and solemn. Roland had disappeared with
+Blinky, and Burnham was alone.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Anything you wish, sir?" asked Nat.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Only to see Mr. Graham."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He's out just at present, but I think he'll be back in a moment or so.
+Will you wait? You'll find that chair comfortable, I think."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Believe I will," said Burnham with an air. He seated himself. "I can't
+wait long, though," he amended.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, sir. And if you'll excuse me&mdash;&mdash;?"
+</p>
+<p>
+Burnham's hand dismissed him with a tolerant wave. "Go right on about
+your business," he said with supreme condescension.
+</p>
+<p>
+And Duncan returned to his work in the backyard. It wasn't long before
+he found occasion to go back to the store, and by that time old Sam was
+there in conversation with Burnham. Neither noticed Nat as he entered,
+and to begin with he paid them little heed, being occupied with his
+task of depositing an armful of bottles without mishap and then placing
+them on the shelves. The hum of their voices from the other side of the
+counter struck an indifferent ear while he busied himself, but
+presently a word or phrase caught his interest, and he found himself
+listening, at first casually, then with waxing attention.
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's part of my business," he heard Burnham say in his sleek,
+oleaginous accents. "Sometimes I pick up an odd no-'count contraption
+that makes me a bit of money, and more times I'm stung and lose on it.
+It's all a gamble, of course, and I'm that way&mdash;like to take a gambling
+chance on anything that strikes my fancy&mdash;like that burner of yours."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes," Graham returned: "the gas arrangement."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It's a curious idea&mdash;quite different from the one I told you about;
+but I kinda took to it. There might be something to it, and again there
+mightn't. I've been thinking I might be willing to risk a few dollars
+on it, if we could come to terms."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Do you mean it, really?" said old Sam eagerly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not to invest in it, so to speak; I don't think it's chances are
+strong enough for that. But if you'd care to sell the patent outright
+and aren't too ambitious, we might make a dicker. What d'you say?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why, yes," said Graham, quivering with anticipation. "Yes, indeed,
+if&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"If you really think it's worth anything, sir."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, as I say, there's no telling; but I was thinking about it at
+dinner, and I sort of concluded I'd like to own that burner, so I made
+out a little bill of sale, and I says to myself, says I: 'If Graham
+will take five hundred dollars for that patent, I'll give him spot
+cash, right in his hand,' says I."
+</p>
+<p>
+With this Burnham tipped back in his chair, and brought forth a wallet
+from which he drew a sheet of paper and several bills.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Five hundred dollars!" repeated Graham, thunderstruck by this
+munificence.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, sir: five hundred, cash! To tell you the truth&mdash;guess you don't
+know it&mdash;I heard at the bank that they didn't intend to extend the time
+on that note of yours, and I thought this five hundred would come in
+handy, and kind of wanted to help you out. Now what do you say?"
+</p>
+<p>
+He flourished the bills under Graham's nose and waited, entirely at
+ease as to his answer.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well," said the old man, "it is kind of you, sir&mdash;very kind. Everybody's
+been good to me recently&mdash;or else I'm dreamin'."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then it's a bargain?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why, I hope it won't lose any money for you, Mr. Burnham," Sam
+hesitated, with his ineradicable sense of fairness and square-dealing.
+"Making gas from crude oil ought to&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan never heard the end of that speech. For some moments he had been
+listening intently, trying to recollect something. The name of Burnham
+plucked a string on the instrument of his memory; he knew he had heard
+it, some place, some time in the past; but how, or when, or in respect
+to what he could not make up his mind. It had required Sam's reference
+to gas and crude oil to close the circuit. Then he remembered: Kellogg
+had mentioned a man by the name of Burnham who was "on the track of" an
+important invention for making gas from crude oil. This must be the
+man, Burnham, the tracker; and poor old Graham must be the tracked....
+</p>
+<p>
+Without warning Duncan ran round and made himself an uninvited third to
+the conference.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Mr. Graham, one moment!" he begged, excited. "Is this patent of yours
+on a process of making gas from crude oil?"
+</p>
+<p>
+Burnham looked up impatiently, frowning at the interruption, but Graham
+was all good humour.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why, yes," he started to explain; "it's that burner over there that&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"But I wouldn't sell it just yet if I were you," said Nat. "It may be
+worth a good deal&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Now look here!" Burnham got to his feet in anger. "What business 've
+you got butting into this?" he demanded, putting himself between Duncan
+and the inventor.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Me?" Duncan queried simply. "Only just because I'm a business man. If
+you don't believe it, ask Mr. Graham."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He's got a perfect right to advise me, Mr. Burnham," interposed
+Graham, rising.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, but&mdash;but what objection 've you got to his making a little money
+out of this patent?" Burnham blustered.
+</p>
+<p>
+"None; only I want to look into the matter first. I think it might be&mdash;
+ah&mdash;advisable."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What makes you think so?" demanded Burnham, his tone withering.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well," said Nat, with an effort summoning his faculties to cope with a
+matter of strict business, "it's this way: I've got an <i>idea</i>," he
+said, poking at Burnham with the forefinger which had proven so
+effective with Pete Willing, "that you wouldn't offer five hundred iron
+men for this burner unless you expected to make something big out of
+it, and... it ought to be worth just as much to Mr. Graham as to you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Ah, you don't know what you're talking about."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I know that," Nat admitted simply, "but I do happen to know you're
+promoting a scheme for making gas from crude oil, and if Mr. Graham
+will listen to me you won't get his patent until I've consulted my
+friend, Henry Kellogg."
+</p>
+<p>
+"<i>Kellogg!</i>"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes. You know&mdash;of L.J. Bartlett &amp; Company." Nat's forefinger continued
+to do deadly work. Burnham backed away from it as from a fiery brand.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, well!" he said, dashed, "if you're representing Kellogg"&mdash;and Nat
+took care not to refute the implication&mdash;"I&mdash;I don't want to interfere.
+Only," he pursued at random, in his discomfiture, "I can't see why he
+sent you here."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'd be ashamed to tell you," Nat returned with an open smile. "Better
+ask him."
+</p>
+<p>
+Burnham gathered his wits together for a final threat. "That's what I
+will do!" he threatened. "And I'll do it the minute I can see him. You
+can bet on that, Mister What's-Your-Name!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, I can't," said Nat naïvely. "I'm not allowed to gamble."
+</p>
+<p>
+His ingenuous expression exasperated Burnham. The man lost control of
+his temper at the same moment that he acknowledged to himself his
+defeat. In disgust he turned away.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, there's no use talking to you&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's right," Nat agreed fairly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"But I'll see you again, Mr. Graham&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not alone, if I can help it, Mr. Burnham," Duncan amended sweetly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"But," Burnham continued, severely ignoring Nat and addressing himself
+squarely to Graham, "you take my tip and don't do any business with
+this fellow until you find out who he is." He flung himself out of the
+shop with a barked: "Good-day!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, Mr. Graham?" Duncan turned a little apprehensively to the
+inventor. But Sam's expression was almost one of beatific content. His
+weak old lips were pursed, his eyes half-closed, his finger tips
+joined, and he was rocking back and forth on his heels.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Margaret used to talk that way, sometimes," he remarked. "She was the
+best woman in the world&mdash;and the wisest. She used to take care of me
+and protect me from my foolish impulses, just as you do, my boy...."
+</p>
+<p>
+For a space Duncan kept silent, respecting the old man's memories, and
+a great deal humbled in spirit by the parallel Sam had drawn. Then: "I
+was afraid what I said would sound queer to you, sir," he ventured&mdash;
+"that you mightn't understand that I'm not here to do you out of your
+invention..."
+</p>
+<p>
+"There's nothing on earth, my boy,"&mdash;Graham's hand fell on Nat's arm&mdash;
+"could make me think that. But five hundred dollars, you see, would
+have repaid you for taking up that note, and&mdash;and I could have bought
+Betty a new dress for the party. But I'm sure you've done what's best.
+You're a business man&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Don't!" Nat pleaded wildly. "I've been called that so much of late
+that it's beginning to hurt!"
+</p>
+<br><br><br>
+<h3><a name="xiv">
+	XIV
+</a></h3>
+<p class="ctr">
+MOSTLY ABOUT BETTY
+</p>
+<p>
+Sam Graham said to me, that night: "I don't know when so many things
+have happened to me in so short a time. It don't seem hardly possible
+it's only four days since that boy came in here asking for a job. It's
+wonderful, simply wonderful, the change he's made."
+</p>
+<p>
+He waved a comprehensive hand, and I, glancing round the transformed
+store, agreed with him. Everything was spick and span and mighty
+attractive&mdash;clean and neat-looking&mdash;with the new stock in the shining
+cases and arranged on the glistening white shelves: not all of it set
+out by any means, of course, but no unplaced goods in sight, cluttering
+up the counters or kicking round the floor.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The way he's worked&mdash;&mdash;! You'd hardly believe it, Homer. He said he
+wanted to get home early so's to write a letter to a friend of his in
+New York, a Mr. Kellogg, junior member of L. J. Bartlett &amp; Company,
+about my invention. But he insisted on leaving everything to rights for
+business to-morrow. And just look!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"But I thought Roland Barnette&mdash;&mdash;?" I suggested with guile. Of
+course I'd heard a rumour of what had happened&mdash;'most everyone in town
+had&mdash;and how Roland and his friend, Mr. Burnham, had sort of fallen out
+on the way from the Bigelow House to the train; but no one knew
+anything definite, and I wanted to get "the rights of it," as Radville
+says.
+</p>
+<p>
+So I had dropped in at Graham's, on my way home from the office, as I
+often do, for an evening smoke and a bit of gossip: something I rarely
+indulge in, but which I've found has a curious psychological effect on
+the circulation of the <i>Citizen</i>&mdash;like a tonic. Sam was just at
+the point of closing up. He was alone, Duncan having gone home about an
+hour earlier, and Betty being upstairs, while (since it was quite
+half-past nine) all the rest of Radville, with few exceptions (chiefly
+to be noted at Schwartz's and round the Bigelow House bar) was making
+its final rounds of the day: locking the front door, putting out the
+lamp in its living-room, banking the fire in the range, ejecting the
+cat from the kitchen and wiping out the sink, and finally, odoriferous
+kerosene lamp in hand, climbing slowly to the stuffy upstairs
+bed-chamber. Indeed, the lights of Radville begin to go out about
+half-past eight; by ten, as a rule, the town is as lively as a
+cemetery.
+</p>
+<p>
+But I am by nature inexorable and merciless, a masterful man with such
+as old Sam; and it was an hour later before I left him, drained of
+the last detail of the day. He was a weary man, but a happy one, when
+he bade me good-night, and I myself felt a little warmed by his
+cheerfulness as I plodded up Main Street through the thick oppression
+of darkness beneath the elms.
+</p>
+<p>
+After a time I became aware that someone was overtaking me, and waited,
+thinking at first it would be one of my people. But it wasn't long
+before I recognised from the quick tempo of the approaching footfalls
+that this was no Radvillian. There was just light enough&mdash;starlight
+striking down through the thinner spaces in the interlacing foliage&mdash;to
+make visible a moving shadow, and when it drew nearer I saluted it with
+confidence.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Good-evening, Mr. Duncan."
+</p>
+<p>
+He stopped short, peering through the gloom. "Good-evening, but&mdash;Mr.
+Littlejohn? Glad to see you." He joined me and we proceeded homeward,
+he moderating his stride a trifle in deference to my age. "Aren't you
+late?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"A bit," I admitted. "I've been gossiping with Sam Graham."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh...?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"You're out late yourself, Mr. Duncan, for one of such regular, not to
+say abnormal, habits."
+</p>
+<p>
+He laughed lightly. "Had a letter I wanted to catch the first morning
+train."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then you're interested in Sam's burner?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, I'm not, but I hope to interest others....Oh, yes: Mr. Graham
+told you about it, of course.... It just struck me that if a man of
+Burnham's stamp was willing to risk five hundred dollars on the
+proposition, he very likely foresaw a profit in it that might as well
+be Mr. Graham's. So I've sent a detailed description of the thing to a
+friend in New York, who'll look into it for me."
+</p>
+<p>
+He was silent for a little.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Who's Colonel Bohun?" he asked suddenly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why do you ask?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I saw him this evening. He was passing the store and stopped to glare
+in as if he hated it&mdash;stopped so long that I got nervous and asked Miss
+Lockwood (she'd just happened in for a parting glass&mdash;of soda) whether
+he was an anarchist or a retired burglar. She told me his name, but was
+otherwise inhumanly reticent."
+</p>
+<p>
+"For Josie?" I chuckled; but he didn't respond. So I took up the tale
+of the first family of Radville.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The story runs," said I, "that the Bohuns were one of the F.F.V.'s;
+that they sickened of slavery, freed their slaves and moved North, to
+settle in Radville. I <i>believe</i> they came from somewhere round
+Lynchburg; but that was a couple of generations ago. When the Civil War
+broke out the old Colonel up there"&mdash;I gestured vaguely in the general
+direction of the Bohun mansion&mdash;"couldn't keep out of it, and
+naturally he couldn't fight with the North. He won his spurs under
+Lee.... After the war had blown over he came home, to find that his
+only son had enlisted with the Radville company and disappeared at
+Gettysburg. It pretty nearly killed the old man&mdash;though he wasn't so
+old then; but there's fire in the Bohun blood, and his boy's action
+seemed to him nothing less than treason."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And that's what soured him on the world?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not altogether. He had a daughter&mdash;Margaret. She was the most
+beautiful woman in the world...." I suspect my voice broke a little
+just there, for there was a shade of respectful sympathy in the
+monosyllable with which he filled the pause. "He swore she should never
+marry a Northerner, but she did; I guess, being a Bohun, she had to,
+after hearing she must not. There were two of us that loved her, but
+she chose Sam Graham...."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why," he said awkwardly&mdash;"I'm sorry."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm not: she was right, if I couldn't see it that way. They ran away&mdash;
+and so did I. I went East, but they came back to Radville. Colonel
+Bohun never forgave them, but they were very happy till she died.
+Betty's their daughter, of course: Sam's not the kind that marries more
+than once."
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan thought this over without comment until we reached our gate.
+There he paused for a moment.
+</p>
+<p>
+"He's got plenty of money, I presume&mdash;old Bohun?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"So they say. Probably not much now, but a great deal more than he
+needs."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then why doesn't somebody get after the old scoundrel and make him do
+something for that poor&mdash;for Miss Graham?" he asked indignantly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"He tried it once, but they wouldn't listen. His conditions were
+impossible," I explained. "She was to renounce her father and take the
+name of Bohun&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What rot!" Duncan growled. "What an old fiend he must be! Of course he
+knew she'd refuse."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I suspect he did."
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan hesitated a bit longer. "Anyhow," he said suddenly, "somebody
+ought to get after him and make him see the thing the right way."
+</p>
+<p>
+"S'pose you try it, Mr. Duncan?" I suggested maliciously, as we went up
+the walk.
+</p>
+<p>
+He stopped at the door. "Perhaps I shall," he said slowly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'd advise you not to. The last man that tried it has no desire to
+repeat the experiment."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Who was he?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"An old fool named Homer Littlejohn."
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan put out his hand. "Shake!" he insisted. "We'll talk this over
+another time."
+</p>
+<p>
+We went in very quietly, lit our candles, and with elaborate care
+avoided the home-made burglar-alarm (a complicated arrangement of
+strings and tinpans on the staircase, which Miss Carpenter insists on
+maintaining ever since Roland Barnette missed a dollar bill and
+insisted his pocket had been picked on Main Street) and so mounted to
+our rooms. As we were entering (our doors adjoin) a thought delayed my
+good-night.
+</p>
+<p>
+"By the way, did you get your invitation to Josie Lockwood's party, Mr.
+Duncan? I happened to see it on the hall table this evening."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes," he assented quietly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"It's to be the social event of the year. I hope you'll enjoy it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm not going."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not going!... Why not?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"It's against the rules at first&mdash;I mean, business rules. I'll be so
+busy at the store, you know."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Josie'll be disappointed."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Thank you," said he gratefully. "Good-night."
+</p>
+<p>
+Alone, I was fain to confess he baffled my understanding.
+</p>
+<p>
+The rush of business to Graham's began the following morning: Duncan's
+hands were full almost from the first, and he had to relegate such
+matters as making final disposition of his stock and getting acquainted
+with it to the intervals between waiting upon customers. Old Sam must
+have put up more prescriptions in the next few days than he had within
+the last five years. Everybody wanted to take a look at the renovated
+store, shake Sam's hand, and see what the new partner was really like.
+Sothern and Lee's was for some days quite deserted, especially after
+Duncan took a leaf out of their book, bought an ice-cream freezer and
+began to serve dabs of cream in the sody. I've always maintained that
+our Radville folks are pretty thoroughly sot in their ways (the phrase
+is local), but the way they flocked to Graham's forced me to amend the
+aphorism with the clause: "except when their curiosity is aroused."
+Every woman in town wanted to know what Graham and Duncan carried that
+Sothern and Lee didn't, and how much cheaper they were than the more
+established concern; also they wanted to know Mr. Duncan. I suspect no
+drug-store ever had so many inquiries for articles that it didn't
+carry, but might possibly, or ought to, in the estimation of the
+prospective purchasers, as well as that at no time had Radvillians
+happened to think of so many things that they could get at a
+druggist's. People drove in from as far as twenty miles away, as soon
+as the news reached them, to buy notepaper and stamps&mdash;people who
+didn't write or receive a letter a month. Will Bigelow, even, dropped
+round and bought samples of the tobacco stock, from two-fors up to
+ten-centers&mdash;and smoked them with expressive snorts. Tracey Tanner's
+soda and cigarette trade was transferred bodily to Graham's from the
+first, and Roland Barnette gave it his patronage, albeit grudgingly, as
+soon as he found it impossible to shake Josie Lockwood's allegiance. I
+say grudgingly, because Roland didn't like the new partner, and had
+said so from the first. But everyone else did like him, almost without
+exception. His attentiveness and courtesy were not ungrateful after the
+way things were thrown at you at Sothern and Lee's, we declared.
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan certainly did strive to please. No man ever worked harder in a
+Radville store than he did. And from the time that he began to believe
+there would be some reward for his exertions, that the business was
+susceptible to being built up by the employment of progressive methods,
+he grew astonishingly prolific of ideas, from our sleepy point of view.
+The window displays were changed almost daily, to begin with, and were
+made as interesting as possible; we learned to go blocks out of our way
+to find out what Graham and Duncan were exploiting to-day. And daily
+bargain sales were instituted&mdash;low-priced articles of everyday use,
+such as shaving soap, tooth brushes, and the like, being sold at a
+few cents above cost on certain days which were announced in advance by
+means of hand-lettered cards in the show-windows; whereas formerly we
+had always been obliged to pay full list-prices. An axiom of his creed
+as it developed was to the effect that stock must not be allowed to
+stand idle upon the shelves; if there were no call for a certain line
+of articles, it must be stimulated. I remember that, some time along in
+August, he began to worry about the inactivity in cough-syrups.
+</p>
+<p>
+"No one wants cough-syrups in summer," he told Graham; "that stuff's
+been here six weeks and more. It's getting out of training. Needs
+exercise. Look at this bottle: it says: 'Shake well.' Now it hasn't
+been shaken at all since it was put on the shelves, and I haven't got
+time to shake it every morning. We must either hire a boy to give it
+regular exercise, or sell it off and get in a fresh supply for the
+winter. I'll have to think up some scheme to make 'em take it off our
+hands."
+</p>
+<p>
+He did. Somehow or other he managed to convince us that forewarned was
+forearmed, that it was better to have a bottle or two of cough-syrup in
+our medicine chests at home than on the shelves of the drug-store, when
+the chill autumnal winds began to blow, especially when you could buy
+it now for thirty-nine cents, whereas it would be fifty-four in
+October.
+</p>
+<p>
+Still earlier in his career as a business man he noticed that the local
+practitioners wrote their prescriptions on odd scraps of paper.
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's all wrong," he declared. "We'll have to fix it." And by next
+morning the job-printing press back of the Court House was groaning
+under an order from Graham and Duncan's, and a few days later every
+physician within several miles of Radville received half a dozen neat
+pads of blanks with his name and address printed at the top and the
+advice across the bottom: "Go to Graham's for the best and purest drugs
+and chemicals." The backs of the blanks were utilised to request people
+living out of reach, but on rural free delivery routes, either to mail
+their prescriptions and other orders in, or have the physicians
+telephone them, promising to fill and despatch them by the first post.
+</p>
+<p>
+For he had a telephone installed within the first fortnight, and the
+next day advertised in the <i>Gazette</i> that orders by telephone
+would receive prompt attention and be delivered without delay. Tracey
+Tanner became his delivery-boy, deserting his father's stables for the
+obvious advantages of three dollars a week with a chance to learn the
+business.... Sothern and Lee were quick to recognise the advantage the
+telephone gave Graham and Duncan, and promptly had one put in their
+store; but the delay had proven almost fatal: Radville had already
+got into the habit of telephoning to Graham's for a cake of soap, or
+whatnot, and it's hard to break a Radville habit.
+</p>
+<p>
+As business increased and the stock turned itself over at a profit,
+Duncan began to branch out, to make improvements and introduce new
+lines of goods. He it was who inoculated Radville with the habit of
+buying manufactured candies. Up to the time of his advent, we had been
+accustomed to and content with home-made taffies and fudges&mdash;and were,
+I've no doubt, vastly better off on that account. But Duncan, starting
+with a line of five- and ten-cent packages of indigestible sweets, in
+time made arrangements with a big Pittsburgh confectionery concern to
+ship him a small consignment of pound and half-pound "fancy" boxes of
+chocolates and bonbons twice a week. And taffy-pulls and fudge parties
+lapsed into desuetude.
+</p>
+<p>
+Later, Sperry introduced him to an association of druggists, of which
+he became a member, for the maintenance and exploitation of the cigar
+and tobacco trade in connection with the drug business. They installed
+at Graham's a handsome show-case and fixtures especially for the sale
+and display of cigars, and thereafter it was possible to purchase
+smokable tobacco in our town.
+</p>
+<p>
+Again, he treated Radville to its first circulating library,
+establishing a branch in the store. One could buy a book at a moderate
+price, and either keep it or exchange it for a fee of a few cents. I
+disputed the wisdom of this move, alleging, and with reason, that
+Radville didn't read modern fiction to any extent. But Duncan argued
+that it didn't matter. "They're going to try it on as a novelty, to
+begin with," he said, "and it'll bring 'em into the store for a few
+exchanges, at least. That's all I want. Once we get 'em in here, it'll
+be hard if we can't sell them something else. You'll see."
+</p>
+<p>
+He was right.
+</p>
+<p>
+Undoubtedly he made the business hum during those first few months; and
+after that it settled down to a steady forward movement. The store
+became a social centre, a place for people to meet. In time Tracey was
+promoted to be assistant and another boy engaged to make deliveries.
+... And Duncan had never been happier; he had found something he could
+understand and, understanding, accomplish; there was work for his hands
+to do, and they had discovered they could do it successfully. I don't
+believe he stopped to think about it very much, but he was conscious of
+that glow of achievement, that heightening of the spirits, that comes
+with the knowledge of success, be that success however insignificant,
+and it benefited him enormously....
+</p>
+<p>
+But this chronicle of progress has run away altogether with a desultory
+pen, which started to tell why Duncan didn't want to go to Josie
+Lockwood's party. I was long in finding out, but not so long as Duncan
+himself, perhaps; by which I mean to say that he was conscious of the
+desire not to go, and determined not to, without stopping to analyse
+the cause of that desire more than very superficially.
+</p>
+<p>
+It happened, toward the close of the eventful day already detailed at
+such length, that as Duncan was entering the house with a load of boxed
+goods, he heard voices in the store&mdash;young voices, of which one was
+already too familiar to his ears. He paused, waiting for them to get
+through with their business and go; for he had no time to waste just
+then, even upon the heiress of his manufactured destiny. Betty was
+keeping shop at the time (old Sam having gone upstairs for a little
+rest, who was overwrought and weary with the excitement of that day)
+and it was Duncan's hope that she would be able to serve the customers
+without his assistance.
+</p>
+<p>
+There were two of them, you see&mdash;Josie and Angle Tuthill&mdash;hunting as
+usual in couples; and while he waited, not meaning to eavesdrop but
+unwilling to betray his whereabouts by moving, he heard very clearly
+their passage with Betty.
+</p>
+<p>
+He overheard first, distinctly, Betty responding in expressionless
+voice: "Hello, Angie.... Hello, Josie."
+</p>
+<p>
+There ensued what seemed a slightly awkward pause. Then Josie,
+painfully sweet: "Did you get the invitation, Betty?"
+</p>
+<p>
+Betty moved into Duncan's range of vision, apparently intending to come
+and call him. She turned at the question, and he saw her small, thin
+little body and pinched face <i>en silhouette</i> against the fading
+light beyond. He saw, too, that she was stiffening herself as if for
+some unequal contest.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The invitation?" she questioned dully, but with her head up and
+steady.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why," said Josie, "I sent you one. To the party, you know&mdash;my lawn
+feet next week."
+</p>
+<p>
+I give the local pronunciation as it is.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Did you?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I gave it to Tracey for you," persisted the tormentor. "Didn't you get
+it?"
+</p>
+<p>
+Betty caught at her breath, inaudibly; only Duncan could see the little
+spasm of mortification and anger that shook her.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, perhaps I did," she said shortly. "I&mdash;I'll ask Mr. Duncan to wait
+on you."
+</p>
+<p>
+She swung quickly out into the hallway, slamming the door behind her
+and so darkening it that she didn't detect Duncan's shadowed figure.
+And if she had meant to call him, she must have forgotten it; for an
+instant later he heard her stumbling up the stairs, and as she
+disappeared he caught the echo of a smothered sob.
+</p>
+<p>
+He waited, motionless, too disturbed at the time to care to enter the
+store and endure Josie's vapid advances; and through the thin partition
+there came to him their comments on Betty's ungracious behaviour.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well!... <i>did</i> you ever!"
+</p>
+<p>
+That was Angle; Josie chimed in the same key: "Oh, what did you expect
+from that kind of a girl?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"<i>Ssh!</i> maybe he's coming!"
+</p>
+<p>
+After a moment's silence, Josie: "Oh, come on. Don't let's wait any
+longer. I don't think it's healthy to drink sody so soon before dinner,
+anyway."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And, besides, we only wanted to hear&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+Their voices with their footsteps diminished. Duncan allowed a prudent
+interval to elapse, entered the store and began to bestow the goods he
+had brought in.
+</p>
+<p>
+While he was at work the light failed. He stopped for lack of it just
+as Betty came downstairs.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Hello!" he said cheerfully. "Know where the matches are?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes." She moved behind a counter and fetched him a few. "Are you 'most
+done?" she inquired, not unfriendly, as he took down from its bracket
+one of the oil lamps.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Hardly," he responded, touching a light to the wick and replacing the
+chimney. "It's a good deal of a job."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes..."
+</p>
+<p>
+He replaced the lamp, and in the act of turning toward another caught a
+glimpse of the girl's face, pale and drawn, her eyes a trifle reddened.
+And with that commonsense departed from him, leaving him wholly a prey
+to his impulse of pity. "Oh, thunder!" he told himself, thrusting a
+hand into his pocket. "I might as well be broke as the way I am now."
+He produced the scanty remains of his "grubstake."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Miss Graham..."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes?" she asked, wondering.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Could you get a party dress for thirty-four dollars?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Thirty-four dollars!" she faltered.
+</p>
+<p>
+He discovered what small change he had in his pocket: it was like him
+to be extravagant, even extreme. "And fifty-three cents?" he pursued,
+with a nervous laugh.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Heavens!" the girl gasped. "I should think so!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then go ahead!" He offered her the money, but she could only stare,
+incredulous. "I'll stake you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh...<i>no</i>, Mr. Duncan," she managed to say.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, yes!" He tried to catch one of the hands that involuntarily had
+risen toward her face in a gesture of wonder. "Please do," he begged,
+his tone persuasive, "as a favour to me."
+</p>
+<p>
+But she evaded him, stepping back. "I couldn't take it; I couldn't
+really."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, you can. Just try it once, and see how easy it is," he persisted,
+pursuing.
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, I can't." She looked up shyly and shook her head, that smile of
+her mother's for the moment illuminating her face almost with the
+radiance of beauty. "But I&mdash;I thank you very much&mdash;just the same."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But I want you to go to that party..."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You're awful' kind," she said softly, still smiling, "but I don't care
+to go, now. I&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Don't care to! Why, you were insisting on going, a little while ago."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes," she admitted simply, "I know I was. But ... I've been thinking
+over what you said, since then, and I ... I've made up my mind I'd be
+out of place there."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Out of place!" he echoed, thunderstruck.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes. I've concluded I belong here in the store with father." She half
+turned away. "And I guess folks is better off if they stay where they
+belong...."
+</p>
+<p>
+She went slowly from the room, and he remained staring, stupefied.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You never can tell about a woman," he concluded with all the gravity
+of an original philosopher.
+</p>
+<br><br><br>
+<h3><a name="xv">
+	XV
+</a></h3>
+<p class="ctr">
+MANOEUVRES OF JOSIE
+</p>
+<p>
+Nat didn't go to the Lockwood lawn fête, and did excuse himself on the
+plea of being unable to leave the store. I'm afraid the young man had a
+faint, fond hope that Josie would be offended; but his excuse was
+accepted without remonstrance. And, indeed, it was at that time quite a
+reasonable one. Tracey had not been added to the staff, although
+business was booming, and Saturday night is, as everyone who has lived
+in a Radville knows, the busiest of the week; all the stores keep open
+late on Saturday&mdash;some as late as eleven&mdash;and frequently take in half
+the week's income between noon and the closing hour. Duncan really
+couldn't be spared; so it's probable that Josie cloaked her
+disappointment and comforted herself with the assurance that her
+selection of the day had been an error in judgment, of which she would
+not again be guilty.
+</p>
+<p>
+But the party came off, without fail, and that on a wonderful, still,
+moonlit night; and everybody voted it a splendid success. The
+<i>Citizen</i> in its next issue recorded the event to the extent of a
+column and a half of reading matter, called it a social function, and
+described the gowns of the leading ladies of society present in
+bewildering phrases. I was not invited, but the owner of the paper was,
+and his wife wrote the description with the assistance of the entire
+editorial and reportorial force, a dictionary and some evil if
+suppressed language from the foreman of the composing-room. I read
+the proofs with an admiration strongly tinctured with awe, and found
+it lacking in one particular only: no mention was made of Roland
+Barnette's first open-faced suit.
+</p>
+<p>
+Roland had ordered it from a clothing-house in Chicago, and it arrived
+just in time. Having heard all about it from Roland's own lips (they
+dilated upon the matter to Watty the tailor, just beneath my window), I
+sort of hung round downtown Saturday evening in the hope of catching
+a glimpse of it, and was not disappointed. I was loitering in Graham's
+when Roland sauntered nonchalantly in at about a quarter to eight and
+called for a pack of "Sweets." Sam served him, and Duncan, happily for
+him disengaged at the moment, after one look at Roland retired
+precipitately behind the prescription counter&mdash;overcome, I judged from
+Roland's triumphant smirk, by deepest chagrin. Well, thought I, might
+he have been: he could never, by whatever wildest endeavour, have
+approximated Roland's splendour.
+</p>
+<p>
+The coat was bob-tailed (at least, so Watty described it within my
+hearing) and curiously double-breasted, caught together at the waist
+with a single button, thus revealing a shining expanse of very stiff
+shirt-bosom; which creaked, for some reason. With this Roland wore a
+ribbed white-silk waistcoat, very brilliant low-cut patent leather
+shoes, and white-silk socks. The trousers were strikingly cut, as to
+each leg, after the physical configuration of the domestic pear, and
+the effect of the whole was measurably enhanced by an opera-hat&mdash;one
+of those tall and striking contraptions that you can shut up by
+pressing gently but firmly upon the human midriff and looking
+unconscious, but which is apt to open with a resounding report if
+you're not careful... I am glad to be able to report that Roland failed
+to commit the solecism of wearing a red string tie; his tie was a
+sober black, firmly knotted at the factory. I'm glad too, for the
+sartorial honour of Radville, that Roland knew how to wear such
+fixin's: that is to say, with an expression of proud defiance.
+</p>
+<p>
+After he had departed, stepping high, Sam called me behind the counter
+to assist in reviving Duncan. We found him leaning upon the counter,
+his forehead resting upon a mortar, very red in the face and breathing
+stertorously; and when Sam addressed him, to learn what was the matter,
+he seemed unable to speak, but choked and beat the air feebly with his
+hands. Sam concluded he had swallowed something, and was, I think,
+right; he was plainly half strangled, and only recovered after we had
+beaten his back severely. Then he refused any explanation, beyond
+saying that he was subject to such seizures.
+</p>
+<p>
+After the party the town's excitement simmered down and subsided; we
+had become moderately accustomed to the presence of Duncan in our midst
+(strange as this may sound), and for some time nothing happened germane
+to the fate of the Fortune Hunter.
+</p>
+<p>
+On his part, he fell into a routine without the least evidence of
+discontent. He was early to rise and early to work, and rarely left the
+store save at meal hours and closing-up time. And in the course of our
+serene days, I began to notice in him an increasing interest in the
+affairs of the church; he seemed to look forward with a not uneager
+anticipation to the fixtures of its calendar. He attended with
+admirable regularity both morning and evening services, on Sunday, the
+mid-weekly prayer-meeting, and Friday evening choir practice. For in
+the course of time he had been won over to join the choir, and modestly
+discovered to our edification a barytone voice, wholly untrained but
+not unpleasing. Mrs. Rogers, our organist, averred his superiority to
+Packy Soule, whom he superseded, and was supported in this estimate by
+the remainder of the choir, with the exception of Roland Barnette,
+who helped with his reedy tenor. Josie Lockwood sang contralto and Bess
+Gabriel what we were informed was soprano&mdash;only Radville called it a
+treble. Tracey Tanner pumped the organ and puffed audibly in the
+pauses&mdash;a singular testimony to his devotion to Angie Tuthill, who
+"just sang" with the others, chiefly because she was Josie's nearest
+friend.
+</p>
+<p>
+I remember that, one Sunday night after evening service, Duncan
+confided to me, quite seriously, "that the church thing was getting to
+him." He seemed somewhat surprised, to a degree indignant, as if he
+suspected religion of having taken an advantage of him in some
+roundabout, underhand way.... He wondered audibly what Harry would
+think if he could see him now.
+</p>
+<p>
+He had settled down to a pretty steady correspondence with Kellogg,
+chiefly on business matters. Kellogg was investigating old Sam's
+burner, and seemed quite impressed with its possibilities. He had
+quarrelled with Roland's friend, Burnham, on Duncan's representations,
+and ordered him out of the offices of L. J. Bartlett &amp; Company, it
+seemed. Later he opened up negotiations with a corporation known as the
+Modern Gas Company, I believe, a competitor of Consolidated Petroleum,
+and in due course representatives of both concerns came to Radville,
+examined the burner, and retired, non-committal. Then Bartlett sent
+a requisition for a model, and supplied the funds for making it&mdash;thus
+demonstrating his confidence. Sam never had such a good time in his
+life as when occupied with that model, and in his elation was inspired
+to invent two notable improvements on the machine&mdash;which were promptly
+patented. Then the model was despatched, receipt acknowledged, and
+nothing ensued for three or four months. Radville, which had been
+watching and wondering with open incredulity and dissatisfaction (this
+latter because neither Graham nor Duncan would talk about the matter),
+concluded that the whole business had gone up in smoke, said "I told ye
+so," and forgot it completely. Roland Barnette, I believe, drove the
+last nail in the coffin of our expectations that anything would ever
+come of it, by writing to Burnham that Duncan's negotiations had
+failed, and inviting him to renew his offer if he thought it worth
+while. Presumably he didn't, for Roland received no reply, and told the
+town so....
+</p>
+<p>
+I don't remember just how soon it was, but it was shortly after the
+formation of the firm of Graham and Duncan that the young man received
+his first invitation to dinner at the Lockwoods'. He accepted, of
+course, whether he wanted to or not, for there could be no excuse for
+his refusing a Sunday bid, and the Lockwoods made quite an event of
+it. The Soules were invited, because they were Araminta Lockwood's
+brother and sister-in-law, and the Godfreys came over from Westerly to
+grace the board as representatives of the Lockwood strain. Also Ben
+Lockwood attended&mdash;Blinky's first cousin and senior.
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan described the function in a letter to Kellogg as the time of his
+young life. Undoubtedly it was in certain respects singular in his
+experience. The entire party walked home from church through a hot
+August noon, with that air of chastened joy common to a gathering of
+relations&mdash;an atmosphere of festive gloom and funeral baked meats
+painfully enlivened by exhilarating jests from old Ben, who was a
+connoisseur of vintages when it came to jokes. Duncan wished
+fervently, first that he might expire; secondly, and with greater
+intensity of feeling, that they all might die. Minta Lockwood, he felt,
+was slowly but expertly greasing him with adulation&mdash;as a python
+prepares its prey before dining (or is it a python?)&mdash;and he knew he
+was presently to be swallowed alive.
+</p>
+<p>
+They dined protractedly. The meal, consisting of baked chicken, mashed
+potatoes, boiled onions with cream sauce, boiled beets and green corn,
+followed by rhubarb pie and ice cream, was served by an independent,
+bony and red-faced specimen of the "help" genus. The atmosphere was
+stifling, with the heat of the day thickened by the steam and odour of
+cooked food. Duncan was seated consciously beside Josie&mdash;a circumstance
+of which, in fact, everyone else seemed tolerantly aware. He writhed in
+impotent agony, confronted alone by the consciousness he had brought
+this thing upon himself: it was a part of his punishment.
+</p>
+<p>
+At the conclusion of the meal, which endured throughout two
+interminable hours, the elder menfolk withdrew to the garden and the
+lawn, where they strolled about, sleepy eyes glistening with repletion,
+until finally they disappeared, to each his doze. The ladies
+foregathered in the parlour, conversing in undertones, with significant
+glances and liftings of their eyebrows. Nat was left to Josie, who
+conducted him to the side porch, out of sight of everybody, and planted
+herself in the baggy hammock there. She was gay, even brilliant within
+her limitations, arch, naïve, coquettish, shy, petulant, by turns:
+animated by a sense of conquest. She supplied the major part of the
+conversation, chatting volubly on the thousand subjects she didn't
+understand, the dozen she did. In the most ingenuous manner imaginable
+she laid herself open to advances, not once, but a score of times; and
+when he failed to respond according to the code of Radville, had the
+wit to mask her chagrin, did she feel any: very probably she laid his
+lack of responsiveness at the door of his shyness (a quality he was
+wholly without) and liked him the better for it.
+</p>
+<p>
+It was on this day that she extracted from him his promise to join the
+choir; he acceded through apathy alone.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't care whether you can sing or not," she confessed, with a look.
+"But I do want somebody to walk home with me that ... I like."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's a nice way of putting it," Duncan considered without emphasis.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Roland Barnette's always walked home with me, but I think he's just
+tiresome."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why?" inquired the young man, with some interest.
+</p>
+<p>
+She averted her head, plucking at the strands of the hammock. "Oh,
+<i>you</i> know," she said diffidently.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh?" Nat was enlightened. "Then I'm sorry for Roland."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I can't blame him, you know." He couldn't help this: the time, the
+place, the girl inspired, indeed incited, one to banality.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why?" she persisted.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, <i>you</i> know." He caught the intonation of her previous words
+precisely.
+</p>
+<p>
+She had the grace to blush and hang her head; but he received a
+thrilling sidelong glance.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Ah... aren't you awful to talk that way, Mr. Duncan?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes," he admitted meekly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then you will join the choir?" she pursued, failing to fathom the
+meaning of that humble acquiescence. Any other boy or man of her
+acquaintance would have taken her remark as openly provocative.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, yes," he agreed listlessly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm so glad..."
+</p>
+<p>
+He thanked her, but avoided her eye.
+</p>
+<p>
+"We might's well begin to-night," she suggested presently, with
+diffident, downcast eyes.
+</p>
+<p>
+"What&mdash;the choir?" He was startled. "Oh, I couldn't without a
+rehearsal&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, I didn't mean that..."
+</p>
+<p>
+"No?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I mean about Roland." She was paying minute attention to the lace
+insertion of her skirt. From this circumstance he divined that he was
+on dangerous ground, but could not, in his stupidity, understand just
+what made it dangerous.
+</p>
+<p>
+"About Roland&mdash;?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes; I mean... You know what I mean, Mr. Duncan?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I assure you I do not, Miss Lockwood."
+</p>
+<p>
+"About not walking home with him any more. I don't want to. I wish
+you'd commence to-night, instead of choir practice night. I'd much
+rather walk home with you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"After evening service, you mean?" She nodded. "It'll be a great
+pleasure."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Really?" She gave him her eyes now.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Really," he assured her.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Ah, I don't believe you mean that!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"But indeed I do...."
+</p>
+<p>
+It was not until nearly five o'clock that he was given a chance to
+escape. He had, even then, to refuse inflexibly an invitation to stay
+to supper.
+</p>
+<p>
+Minta Lockwood&mdash;an expansive woman, generously convex&mdash;almost
+smothered him with appreciation of his thanks. She held his hand in a
+large, moist palm and beamed upon him, saying: "Now't you know the way,
+Mr. Duncan...."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes," Blinky insisted, blinking roguishly, "drop in any time. Take pot
+luck. We're plain people, Mr. Duncan, but allus glad to see our
+friends. Drop in any time."
+</p>
+<p>
+Josie accompanied him to the front gate, where etiquette required him
+to linger for a parting chat....
+</p>
+<p>
+"Good-bye." The girl gave him her hand. "I'm real glad you came&mdash;at
+last."
+</p>
+<p>
+"The pleasure has been all mine," insisted the gallant bromide, fishing
+the trite phrase desperately from the grey vacuity of his thoughts.
+"You won't forget?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Forget what?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"About to-night?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Do you imagine I could?..."
+</p>
+<p>
+Josie returned to the family conclave, to interrupt a symposium on
+Duncan's qualities. He was unanimously approved, on every point. She
+took no part in the conversation, but listened, aglow with the pride of
+triumph, until old Ben chose to observe:
+</p>
+<p>
+"He seems to've taken a right smart set for Josie."
+</p>
+<p>
+Then she rose, blushing, and tossed her pretty, pert head. "How you all
+do talk!" she cried. "I'm not thinking about Mr. Duncan that way." And
+she left the gathering.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You might's well begin now as later," pursued her, accompanied by
+chucklings; and she tossed her head, but wasn't at all displeased, be
+sure.
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan wrote to Kellogg in his room that night after church: "I don't
+want to sound immodest, but it looks as if you were right, old man:
+apparently there's nothing to it...
+</p>
+<p>
+"Probably I should have stayed on for supper, but I couldn't; I should
+have choked. As it was, my soul was curdling. Another ten minutes and I
+should have jumped down on the lawn and run round the house on all
+fours, yapping and foaming at the mouth, and have wound up by
+biting old Blinky..
+</p>
+<p>
+"The worst of it all is, I know I'm ungrateful: I know they mean well.
+But why is it that people who mean well almost invariably grate upon
+your sensibilities like the screeching of a slate-pencil?
+</p>
+<p>
+"In this case, I suspect it's a case of when Snob meets Snob. A snob, I
+take it, is a fellow who holds himself your superior because he looks
+at things in a different way. That counts me a snob in my mental
+attitude toward the Lockwoods. I don't understand their conception of
+life&mdash;wasn't brought up to understand it. And yet I know they're not a
+bad sort, though they bore me to death what time I'm not laughing in my
+sleeve at them. Blinky, for instance, is an old screw, but he can't
+help that; he was born that way; and aside from the fact that money has
+made him snobbish toward his neighbours, he's a simple, honest,
+square-dealing (according to his lights) old Jasper. He's not snobbish
+toward me, because I've got something he admires but can't understand
+and never can acquire; but he's a snob of the first water when it comes
+to somebody like this old prince I'm working for&mdash;Graham&mdash;and his
+daughter. And so is Josie....
+</p>
+<p>
+"But I mustn't say mean things about my future spouse, I presume....
+That is the great trouble with your infernal scheme, Harry: it seems
+to be working like a charm, and now that I've got something to do I'm
+not so strong for it as I was. But I gave you my word. ... Only, mind
+this: if the rules prescribe a perpetual course of Sunday dinners,
+<i>en famille</i>, it's going to break down and turn out a natural-born
+flivver. There are limits to human endurance, and I'm human, whatever
+else I am not...."
+</p>
+<br><br><br>
+<h3><a name="xvi">
+	XVI
+</a></h3>
+<p class="ctr">
+WHERE RADVILLE FEARED TO TREAD
+</p>
+<p>
+Summer slumbered to its close, a drowsy autumn settled upon our valley,
+in which its traditional peace seemed but the more profound. The skies
+darkened to an ineffable intensity of blue; the livery of the fields
+was changed, green giving place to gold; the woodlands and lower slopes
+of our hills flamed with the scarlet of dying sumach, with the russet
+and orange and crimson of a foliage making merry against its moribund
+to-morrows; a drought parched the land, and our little river lessened
+to a mere trickle of water. The daylight hours became sensibly
+abbreviated; while they endured they were golden and warm and hazy:
+faint veils of purple shrouded the distances. Twilight fell early, its
+air sweet with the tang of dead leaves raked into heaping bonfires by
+the children of the town. The nights were long and cool, with a hint of
+frosts to come. Day dissolved into day almost imperceptibly. ...
+</p>
+<p>
+Josie Lockwood announced that she was going away to school in New York
+for the winter. Pete Willing took the pledge and kept it almost a
+month. Will Bigelow secured time-tables and laboriously mapped out his
+semi-annually contemplated trip to the East: like the others
+destined never to come off. Tracey Tanner went to work for Graham and
+Duncan. The <i>Citizen</i> gained eighteen subscribers; four old ones
+paid up their accounts. Babies were born, people married and died,
+loved and hated, lived in striving or sloth, accomplished or failed.
+Roland Barnette paid ostentatious attentions to Bess Gabriel, who
+tolerated him simply because she didn't much like Josie; but, blighted
+by Josie's supreme indifference, this budding passion drooped and
+failed by mutual consent of both parties concerned. Angie Tuthill
+became more conspicuously than ever the orb of Tracey's universe.
+Duncan walked home with Josie on two weekday evenings and twice on
+Sundays, and learned how to play Halma and Parcheesi, as well as how
+long to linger at the front gate in the gloaming, saying good-night.
+Eight young women of the town set their caps for him, at one time or
+another and... set them back again, because he was too blind to see. As
+a body they united with the female element in Radville in condemning
+Josie for a heartless flirt, and sympathising with Nat, behind his
+back, for being so nice and at the same time so easily taken in. Mrs.
+Lockwood gave a Bridge party which failed as such because Radville knew
+not Bridge; but everybody went and played progressive euchre, instead.
+The drug-store prospered in moderation, Sothern and Lee vainly
+contesting its conquering campaign. And Duncan grew thoughtful.
+</p>
+<p>
+One has more time to think unselfishly in Radville than in a great
+city, where there's rarely more time than enough to think of one's own
+concerns. And Duncan was making time to think about others&mdash;notably,
+Betty Graham. The girl was, as usual, shy, reticent, reserved; she kept
+her thoughts to herself, sharing the most intimate not even with old
+Sam, who <i>would</i> talk; but Duncan divined that she was unhappy.
+The easier circumstances of the family had provided her with a few
+simple frocks, adequate clothing which she had gone without for years,
+and with a sufficiency of wholesome and appetising food: with these,
+peace of mind should likewise have come to her, and content. But Duncan
+thought they hadn't. Relieved, on Tracey's engagement, of any share in
+the store service, she had only the housework for herself and father to
+occupy her; her associations with the girls of her age were distant and
+constrained. Usage wears into tradition in the Radvilles of our land;
+even with the young folks this is so; and in Betty's case, the girl had
+for so long been "out of it," debarred by her unfortunate circumstances
+from participation in the pastimes, pleasures and duties of her
+generation, that by common consent, unspoken but none the less
+absolute, she remained an outsider. You might say that she relied on
+her father alone for companionship. Duncan she avoided, unobtrusively
+but with pains; he consorted with those with whom she had nothing in
+common, and she would not thrust herself upon him or seem to seek his
+notice. Her early suspicion and sullen resentment of his intrusion into
+their affairs had vanished; there remained only a gnawing consciousness
+that to him she was little or nothing, that his vision ranged above her
+humble head. She was not the sort to take this ill; she was reasonable
+enough to believe it natural. But she would not willingly intrude upon
+his thoughts&mdash;who little knew how much she did occupy his leisure
+moments.
+</p>
+<p>
+He saw her go and come, a wistful shadow on the borders of his
+occupations, self-contained, a little timid, but at the same time brave
+in her own quiet, uncomplaining fashion. And the distant look in those
+soft eyes he divined to be one of longing for that which she might not
+possess&mdash;the advantages that other girls had, socially and
+educationally, the pleasures they contrived, the attentions they
+received, the thousand and one slight things that make existence life
+for a woman. He saw her drooping insensibly day by day, growing a
+little paler, a shade more aloof and listless. And he became infinitely
+concerned for her.
+</p>
+<p>
+He told himself he had solved the problem of her disease, but its
+remedy remained beyond his reach. The business was doing very well
+indeed, but it was still young and must be subjected to as few
+financial drains as possible; as it ran, there was an income sufficient
+to board, lodge and clothe the three of them, maintain the credit of
+the partnership, and now and again admit of a slight but advantageous
+addition to the stock or fixtures. Things would certainly be better in
+the course of time, but... Kellogg he would not beg another dollar of,
+the bank was an equally impossible resource; there wasn't a chance in a
+hundred that Lockwood would refuse to accommodate the growing concern
+with money in reason, but the concern, individually and collectively,
+would never ask it of him. There remained&mdash;?
+</p>
+<p>
+It came to pass that he left the store early one evening, excusing
+himself on the plea of some slight indisposition, and lost himself for
+the space of two hours. I mean to say, that no one knew where he went
+until long after. When he came home some time after ten he told me he
+had been for a walk....
+</p>
+<p>
+He found himself shortly after eight at pause by the gate to the Bohun
+place. The night was dark and murmurous with a sibilant wind that sent
+the leaves drifting, softly clashing one with another. At the far end
+of the straight brick walk, up through the formal grounds, he could
+just see the glimmer of the stately columns, and, between them, to one
+side, a little twinkling light. The gate was closed, but he tried it
+and found it on the latch. He entered and scuffled up the walk, ankle
+deep in fallen leaves. His footfalls as he crossed the porch sounded
+startlingly loud by contrast; he even fancied a note of indignation in
+the cavernous echoes of the knocker on the front door. He waited with a
+thumping heart, aware that he was venturing where even fools would fear
+to tread.
+</p>
+<p>
+An aged negro butler, one of the freed slaves brought from Virginia by
+the Bohuns, admitted him to the hall and took his card, smothering his
+own wonderment. For in those days nobody disturbed the silence and the
+peace of decay of the Bohun mansion save its master. And Duncan had
+long to wait in the wide, gloomy, musty hall before the servant
+returned.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Cunnul Bohun will see yo', suh," he said, and ushered him into the
+library&mdash;a great, high-ceiled, shadowy room illuminated by a single
+lamp, tenanted by the old colonel alone.
+</p>
+<p>
+Bohun received the young man standing: he was as courteous beneath his
+own roof as he was impossible away from it. A quaint old figure, with
+his grey hair tousled and his dressing-gown draped grotesquely from his
+shoulders, he stood by the fireplace, Duncan's card between his
+fingers, and bowed ceremoniously.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Mr. Duncan, I believe?"
+</p>
+<p>
+Nat returned the bow. "Yes, sir," he said. "Will you be good enough to
+pardon this intrusion, Colonel Bohun, and spare me five minutes of your
+time?"
+</p>
+<p>
+The colonel nodded. "At your service, sir," he replied, and waited
+grimly&mdash;perhaps not unsuspicious of the nature of his visitor's errand,
+since he could not have been ignorant of his place in Radville.
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan had his own way of getting at things&mdash;generally more circuitous
+than now, though he struck on a tangent sufficiently acute momentarily
+to puzzle Bohun.
+</p>
+<p>
+"May I inquire, sir, if you are acquainted with the firm of L.J.
+Bartlett &amp; Company of New York?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I have heard of it, Mr. Duncan, through the newspapers."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You know that it ranks pretty high, then, I presume?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I understand that such is the case."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then would you mind doing me the favour of writing to Mr. Henry
+Kellogg, the junior partner, and asking him about me?"
+</p>
+<p>
+The colonel stiffened. "May I ask why I should do anything so
+uncalled-for?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Because it isn't uncalled-for, sir. I mean, you won't think so after
+I've explained."
+</p>
+<p>
+Bohun inclined his head, searching Nat's face with his keen, bright
+eyes.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You see, sir, it's this way: I want you to entrust me with a
+considerable sum of money, and naturally you wouldn't do that without
+knowing something about me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I incline very much to doubt that I should do it in any event, Mr.
+Duncan."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, don't say that. You don't know the circumstances, as yet." Nat
+jerked his head earnestly at the colonel. "You see, you're said to be
+one of the richest men in town, and I'm certainly one of the poorest,
+so of course I turn to you in a case like this."
+</p>
+<p>
+"In a case like what, Mr. Duncan?" Something in the young man's manner
+seemed to tickle the colonel; Duncan could have sworn that the eyes
+were twinkling beneath the savagely knitted brows.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, you must understand I'm in business here in Radville&mdash;a partner
+in a growing and prospering concern&mdash;ah&mdash;doing&mdash;very well, in point of
+fact."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"But we haven't any spare capital; in fact, we haven't got any capital
+worth mentioning. But the business is entirely sound and solvent."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I congratulate you, sir."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Thank you very much.... Now I'm interested in a rather singular
+case: that of a young woman&mdash;a girl, I should say&mdash;daughter of my
+partner. She's a good girl and wonderfully sweet and fine, sir. She
+comes of one of the best families in these parts&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"On her mother's side," suggested the colonel drily.
+</p>
+<p>
+"So I'm told, sir. But she's been neglected. Circumstances have been
+against her. She hasn't had a real chance in life, but she ought to
+have it, and I'm going to see that she gets it, one way or another."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You haven't finished?" said the colonel coldly, as he paused for
+breath and thought.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not quite, sir," said Duncan. "Good sign!" he told himself: "he hasn't
+ordered me thrown out yet." And he hurried on, speaking quickly in the
+semi-humorous style he had, more arresting to the attention than
+absolute gravity would have been.
+</p>
+<p>
+"To come down to cases, sir, she ought to be sent to a good
+boarding-school for a few years. It'll make a new woman of her&mdash;a woman
+to be proud of. She's got that in her&mdash;it only needs to be brought
+out."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And before you leave, sir," said the colonel with significant
+precision, "will you be so kind as to inform me why you think this
+should interest me?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"No," said Duncan candidly; "I haven't got the nerve to. But what I
+wanted to propose was this: that you lend me five hundred dollars to
+cover the expense of the first year, on condition that I represent the
+money as coming from the profits of the business and, in short, keep
+the transaction between ourselves absolutely quiet. If you'll inquire
+of Mr. Kellogg he'll tell you I can be trusted to keep my word.
+Furthermore"&mdash;he galloped, suspecting that his time was perilously
+short and desiring to get it all out of his system&mdash;"I'll guarantee you
+repayment within a year, and that you shan't be annoyed this way a
+second time."
+</p>
+<p>
+Bohun looked him over from head to foot, bowed in silence, and
+turning&mdash;both had stood throughout this passage&mdash;grasped a bell-rope by
+the chimney, and pulled it violently.
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan turned to the door, hat in hand, realising that he had his
+answer and was lucky to get away with one so mild. Only the emergency
+could have spurred him to the point of so outrageous an impertinence.
+</p>
+<p>
+In the desolate fastnesses of that dreary house somewhere a bell
+tinkled discordantly. A moment later the white-headed darky butler
+opened the door.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Suh?" he said.
+</p>
+<p>
+Colonel Bohun essayed to speak, cleared his throat angrily, and
+indicated Duncan with a courteous gesture.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Scipio," said he, "this gentleman will have a glass of wine with me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yassuh!" stammered the negro, overcome with astonishment.
+</p>
+<p>
+Bohun turned to his guest. "Won't you be seated, Mr. Duncan?" he said.
+"You have interested me considerably, sir, and I should be glad to
+discuss the matter with you."
+</p>
+<p>
+Speechless, Duncan gasped incoherently and moved toward a chair as the
+servant reappeared with a tray on which was a decanter of sherry and
+two old-fashioned, thin-stemmed crystal glasses. He placed this on the
+library table, filled the glasses, and at a sign from Bohun retired.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Sir," said the colonel, indicating the tray, "to you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I&mdash;I thank you, sir." Duncan lifted one of the glasses. Bohun took up
+the one remaining, and held it toward his guest with the gracious
+gesture of a bygone day.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I hold it a privilege, sir," he said, "to drink to the only gentleman
+of spirit it's been my good fortune to meet this many a year."
+</p>
+<p>
+By way of an aside, it should be mentioned that this was the first and
+only drink Duncan took while he lived in Radville.
+</p>
+<br><br><br>
+<h3><a name="xvii">
+	XVII
+</a></h3>
+<p class="ctr">
+TRACEY'S TROUBLES
+</p>
+<p>
+Probably nothing ever gave rise to more comment in Radville than Betty
+Graham's departure to spend the winter at a boarding-school near
+Philadelphia. Hardly anyone knew anything about it&mdash;in fact, the rumour
+of it was just being noised about and contemptuously discredited on all
+hands&mdash;when Tracey galloped down Main Street Monday morning with the
+news that she had left on the early train. He himself had remained in
+ignorance of the impending event until requested to carry Betty's bag
+down to the station....
+</p>
+<p>
+She left under convoy of a certain Mrs. Hamilton, who lived in
+Philadelphia and had been visiting her cousin, Mrs. Will Bigelow.
+Duncan had met this lady at a church sociable and, apparently, taken a
+liking to her; for he prevailed upon her, via Sam Graham and Will
+Bigelow, to see the girl safely to her school, after superintending the
+purchase of a suitable wardrobe in Philadelphia.
+</p>
+<p>
+So Betty was gone&mdash;herself, I believe, no less surprised and
+incredulous than the rest of us.
+</p>
+<p>
+Radville was at first stupefied, then clamorous; but there was little
+information to be got out of old Sam. I found him busy working on his
+new model and much preoccupied with that. When interrogated and given
+to understand that I would not be put off, he roused a bit, but beyond
+being unquestionably a very happy man, seemed himself slightly dazed by
+the amazing circumstances. I learned from him that Nat had evidently
+made all his plans in advance, but had withheld his announcement of
+them until the Saturday prior to that Monday; and then he had fairly
+whirled Betty and her father off their feet and left them no time to
+think or to raise objections.
+</p>
+<p>
+"There's no use at all arguing with that boy," Sam told me, with the
+fond smile that I was beginning to recognise as the invariable
+accompaniment of his thoughts about Nat; "when he says a thing must
+be, it must. When he first came here I told him he was a wonderful
+business man, and he laughed at me, but now I know he is. Why, he gave
+Betty a hundred dollars to buy clothes with in Philadelphia, and said
+he'd have more for her by Christmas, besides paying all the expenses of
+that school&mdash;which must be considerable. I don't see how the store's
+going to stand the strain&mdash;though it's doing splendidly since he came
+in, splendidly!&mdash;but he says it's all right, and so it must be...."
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan himself refused to be interviewed. He told everybody who had
+the impudence to mention the matter to him, that it was Mr. Graham's
+affair: Mr. Graham was a substantial business man, he said, and if he
+chose to send his daughter away to school he had a perfect right to do
+so. I don't believe even Josie Lockwood got more than that out of him,
+for if she had we would have heard of it; and Josie was unmistakably a
+little jealous, and undoubtedly questioned Nat.
+</p>
+<p>
+One direct result of it all was to hasten Josie's own leave-taking. It
+would never do to let the Grahams eclipse the Lockwoods, you see. Josie
+had been talking of going to a school in Maryland, but Betty's move to
+a fashionable centre like Philadelphia made her change her mind; and
+arrangements were made by which Josie was able to go Betty one better:
+a young ladies' seminary in New York City itself received Josie. She
+left us bereaved about a week after Betty vanished from our ken, but
+promised to be back for the Christmas holidays&mdash;an announcement which
+Duncan received with expressions of chastened joy, as he did her
+promise to write to him regularly, in return for his covenant to
+respond promptly.... Betty, by the way, had made no such arrangement;
+but she wrote twice a week to old Sam, and I understand she never
+failed to include a message to Nat.
+</p>
+<p>
+Betty was happy, she protested in every communication, and wholly
+content. She was getting along. The other girls liked her and she liked
+them (these statements being made in the order of their relative
+importance). Lots of them, of course, were frightfully swell (Betty
+annexed "frightfully" at school, by the by) and had all sorts of
+clothes; but Betty was perfectly content with her modest outfit, and
+none of the other girls seemed to mind how she dressed. They were all
+kind and nice, and she'd never had such a good time.... I quote these
+expressions from memory of Sam's digest of her letters.
+</p>
+<p>
+Of Josie I heard less; I know that Graham and Duncan's mail seldom
+lacked a personal communication to Duncan, postmarked at New York; our
+postmaster told me so. But Duncan was reticent, and the Lockwoods said
+little. I gathered an impression that Josie was not altogether happy
+in her new surroundings.... One inferred there was a difference between
+New York and Philadelphia, that one was less friendly and sociable
+than the other.
+</p>
+<p>
+Josie kept her promise and came home for Christmas. She was reticent as
+to her impressions of the New York seminary, but seemed extremely glad
+to be home, notwithstanding the fact that Nat had apparently contracted
+no disturbing alliances with the other belles of our village. And
+Roland remained true&mdash;a reliable second string to Josie's bow. Roland
+was working hard at the bank, with an application that earned Blinky
+Lockwood's regard and outspoken approbation; and his Christmas raiment
+proved the sensation of the season. But none of us believed he had any
+chance against Duncan: Josie's attitude toward the latter was such
+that we confidently anticipated the announcement of their engagement
+before she went away again. But it didn't come, for some reason. We
+bore up under the disappointment bravely, all things considered,
+sustained by a very secure feeling that the proclamation couldn't be
+long deferred.
+</p>
+<p>
+In passing, I should mention that Betty didn't come home once
+throughout the entire school term. The Christmas and Easter holidays
+she spent with a girl friend at her Philadelphia home.
+</p>
+<p>
+Meanwhile, life in our town simmered gently. Things went on much as
+they might have been expected to. I don't recall much essential to this
+narrative, in the way of events; and part of the ground I've covered on
+earlier pages. Duncan continued to make progress: for one thing, I
+recall that he put in hot soda with whipped cream, which helped a lot
+to hold the trade regained in the summer from Sothern and Lee. And he
+bought a new soda fountain, a very magnificent affair, installing it in
+the early spring. Graham and Duncan's, in short, became a town
+institution: to it Radville pointed with pride....
+</p>
+<p>
+He remained reserved, retiring, inconspicuous, and puzzling to our
+understanding. In his effort (never very successful) to strike off the
+shackles of modern slang, he fell into a way of speech that bewildered
+those unable to realise what an abiding sense of humour underlay it&mdash;as
+water runs beneath ice&mdash;more, I think, a matter of intonation and
+significant silences, than a mere play upon words and phrases; which,
+coupled with an unshakable sobriety of demeanour, furnished us with
+wonder and some admiration, but no resentment. We liked him pretty
+well and mostly unanimously: he was a good fellow, if queer; entitled
+to his idiosyncrasy, if he chose to keep one....
+</p>
+<p>
+There was a certain night, by way of illustration&mdash;a bitter night,
+along toward the first of January&mdash;when trade was dull, as it always is
+after Christmas, and there was nobody in the store save Nat and Tracey.
+Each had their task, whatever it may have been, and each was busied
+with it, but of the two Tracey seemed the more restless. His ample, if
+low, forehead was decidedly corrugated; his always rosy face owned an
+added trace of scarlet&mdash;a flush of perturbation; his chubby hands were
+inexpert, clumsy. He stumbled, fumbled, forgot and (in our homely
+phrase) flummoxed generally; his mind was elsewhere, and his hands and
+feet went anywhere but where they should have gone: a condition which
+eventually excited Duncan's attention.
+</p>
+<p>
+He broke a long silence in the store. "What's the trouble, Tracey?"
+</p>
+<p>
+Tracey pulled up with a stare of confusion. "I&mdash;I dunno, Mr. Duncan; I
+was thinkin', I guess."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Anything gone wrong?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not yet." Niobe would have made the response with a greater show of
+cheer.
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan looked up curiously, struck by the boy's tone. "Somebody been
+demonstrating that your doll's stuffed with sawdust, Tracey?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"No-o, but..."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Say, Mr. Duncan&mdash;" Tracey's confusion became terrific.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Say on, Mr. Tanner."
+</p>
+<p>
+The interjection diverted Tracey's train of thought to an
+inconsiderable siding. "I only called you Mr. Duncan," he said,
+aggrieved, "'cause you're my boss."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's a poor excuse, Tracey. You call Mr. Graham 'Sam,' and he's
+likewise your boss."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I know. But it's diff'runt."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't see it. Even Nats have their place in the cosmic system,
+Tracey."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I dunno what that is, but you ain't like Sam."
+</p>
+<p>
+"The loss is mine, Tracey. Proceed."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But, Mr. Duncan..."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I beg of you, speak to me as to a friend."
+</p>
+<p>
+Tracey struggled perceptibly. The words, when they came, were blurted.
+"Ah... I was only thinkin' 'bout Angie."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Do you ever think about anything else?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"No," Tracey admitted honestly, "not much. But I was wonderin'&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Are you stuck on Angie, Mr. Duncan?" demanded Tracey desperately.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Great snakes! I hope not!" Duncan cast an anxious glance about him,
+and discovered the poster depicting the gentleman in strange attire
+vainly endeavouring to free his overcoat (I believe it's his overcoat)
+from the bench upon which a pot of glue has been spilled. He lifted a
+reverent hand to the card. "Tracey," he said solemnly, "I swear to you
+that not even that indispensable article of commerce could stick me on
+Angie."
+</p>
+<p>
+The boy sighed. "Thank you, Mr. Duncan. I was only worryin' because you
+and Angie is singin' together in the choir, now Josie Lockwood's gone
+to school, an'&mdash;an' Angie's the purtiest girl in town&mdash;and I was 'fraid
+'t you might like her best, when Josie's away. An' I wanted to ask you
+to pick out s'mother girl."
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan chuckled silently. "Tracey," he said presently, "it strikes me
+you must be in love with Angie."
+</p>
+<p>
+The boy gulped. "I&mdash;I am."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And I think she's rather partial to you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Do you, really, Mr. Duncan?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I do. Do you want to marry her?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Gee! I can't hardly wait!... Only," Tracey continued, disconsolate,
+"it ain't no use, really. She's so purty and swell and old man
+Tuthill's so rich&mdash;not like the Lockwoods, but rich, all the same&mdash;an'
+I'm only the son of the livery-stable man, an' fat an'&mdash;all that&mdash;an'&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Nonsense, Tracey!" Nat interrupted firmly. "If you really want her and
+will follow the rules I give you, it's a cinch."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Honest, Mr. Duncan?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I guarantee it, Tracey. Listen to me...." And Duncan expounded
+Kellogg's rules at length, adapting them to Tracey's circumstances, of
+course; and throughout maintained the gravity of a graven image. "You
+try, and you'll see if I'm not right," he concluded.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Gosh! I b'lieve you are!" Tracey cried admiringly. "I'm just going to
+see how it works."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Do, if you'd favour me, Tracey."
+</p>
+<p>
+Tracey was quiet for a time, working with the regularity of a mind
+relieved. But presently he felt unable to contain himself. Gratitude
+surged in his bosom, and he had to speak.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Sa-y, lis'en...."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Proceed, Tracey."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Say, Mist&mdash;Nat, you've treated me somethin' immense."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Your mistake, Tracey. I haven't treated anybody since I've been here:
+I'm on the wagon."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I mean just now, when we was talkin' 'bout me an' Angie. I'd&mdash;I'd like
+to help you the same way, if I could."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You would?" Duncan eyed the boy apprehensively, wondering what was
+coming.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, indeedy, I would. An' p'rhaps I kin tell you somethin' that
+will."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Speak, I beg."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You&mdash;er&mdash;you're tryin' to court Josie Lockwood, ain't you?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh!" said Nat. "So that was it! That's a secret, Tracey," he averred.
+</p>
+<p>
+"All right. Only, if you are, she's your'n."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Just how do you figure that out?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, I kin tell. She was in here to-night with Roland."
+</p>
+<p>
+"To-night?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, just afore you come home from prayer-meetin'. She was lookin'
+for you, and when she seen you wasn't here, she wouldn't wait for no
+soda nor nothin'. Said she had a headache an' was goin' home. Roland
+went with her, but she didn't want him to. You just missed seein'
+her."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Heavens, what a blow!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"But Roland's takin' her home needn't upset you none."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Thank you for those kind words, Tracey." Nat sighed and passed a
+troubled hand across his brow. "You're a true friend."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm tryin' to be, Nat, same's you are to me." Tracey thought this
+over. "But you ain't foolin' me, are you?" he asked presently. "I mean
+'bout bein' a true friend?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why should I?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Ah, I dunno. You're so cur'us, sometimes. I ain't never sure whether
+you mean what you're sayin' or not."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, don't say that."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, I ain't the only one. Everybody in town says they don't
+understand you, half the time."
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan left his counter and moved over to that at which Tracey was
+occupied. His face was entirely serious, his manner deeply
+sympathetic. "Tracey," he said, dropping a hand on the boy's shoulder,
+"do you know, nothing in life is harder to bear than not to be
+understood?"
+</p>
+<p>
+Tracey wrestled with this for a moment, but it was beyond him.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then why the hell don't you talk so's folks'll know what it's about?"
+he demanded heatedly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Because... <i>Hm</i>." Duncan hesitated, with his enigmatic smile.
+"Well, because the rules don't require it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What d'you mean by <i>that</i>?" Tracey exploded.
+</p>
+<p>
+Nat couldn't explain, so he countered neatly. "This is one of your
+Angie... evenings, isn't it, Tracey?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yep, but&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, you hurry along. I'll close up the shop."
+</p>
+<p>
+Tracey had slammed on his hat and was struggling into his overcoat
+almost as soon as the words were out of Nat's mouth.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Kin I?" he cried excitedly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes," said Nat, watching the boy turn up his collar and button his
+overcoat to the throat, "I haven't got the heart to keep you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Ah, thanks, Mr. Duncan."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But, Tracey..."
+</p>
+<p>
+The boy paused at the door. "What?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Remember what I told you. Don't you make too much love. Let Angie do
+that."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Gosh, that'll be the hardest rule of all for me!" A shadow clouded
+Tracey's honest eyes. "But I got to do it that way, anyway. I can't
+ask her to marry me yit. I can't afford to get married."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It's a contrary world, Tracey, a contrary world!" sighed Nat in a tone
+of deepest melancholy.
+</p>
+<p>
+"What makes you say that? You kin git married's soon's you want to."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You think so, Tracey?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"All you got to do's ask Josie&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm almost afraid you're right."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why? Don't you want to git married?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well"&mdash;Nat smiled&mdash;"no. Don't believe I do. Not just now, at any
+rate."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, you don't have to if you don't want to.... G'd-night."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, I do," Nat told Tracey's back. "The rules say so. If the girl
+asks me, I must."
+</p>
+<p>
+He grimaced ruefully beneath his wisp of a moustache. "Anyhow, I've got
+a few months left...."
+</p>
+<br><br><br>
+<h3><a name="xviii">
+	XVIII
+</a></h3>
+<p class="ctr">
+A BARGAIN IS A BARGAIN
+</p>
+<p>
+So the winter wore away.... And as spring drew nigh upon our valley,
+Duncan seemed to grow perturbed, even as he had been in the autumn
+before Betty went away. He was pondering another scheme for the
+betterment of the condition of those he cared for, and gave it ample
+consideration before he broached it to old Sam, after swearing him to
+secrecy.
+</p>
+<p>
+He had to propose nothing more or less than an abandonment of the old
+Graham housekeeping quarters above the store and a removal of the
+<i>ménage</i> bodily to a vacant house on Beech Street, near the store,
+which could be rented, partly furnished, at a moderate rate.
+</p>
+<p>
+To begin with (thus ran his argument) the store itself was growing too
+small for the volume of business it commanded. More room was needed,
+both for storage and laboratory purposes, to say nothing of
+accommodation for Sam's models and work-bench. The latter had already
+been moved upstairs for the winter, the shed in the backyard being too
+cold to work in; and the laboratory end of the business was growing at
+such a rate that it was crowding the prescription counter to the
+wall&mdash;so to speak. You see, there really wasn't a more clever
+analytical chemist in the northern part of the State than Sam Graham,
+and now that the drug-store was becoming an influence in the
+neighbourhood he was receiving commissions from physicians operating in
+districts as far as fifty miles away. So a room was needed for that
+branch of the business alone.
+</p>
+<p>
+Moreover, a separate residence distinctly befitted the dignity of a
+man who was at once a prominent inventor and one of Radville's leading
+merchants (vide a "Personal" in the late issue of the Radville
+<i>Citizen</i>), to say nothing of the social position of his
+daughter&mdash;meaning Betty. And the house Duncan had his metaphorical eye
+upon was large enough to shelter Nat himself in addition to the Graham
+family. Thus they might pool their living expenses to the economical
+advantage of each.
+</p>
+<p>
+Finally, it would be a great and glad surprise for Betty on her
+homecoming.
+</p>
+<p>
+Graham fell in with the scheme without a murmur of dubiety or dissent.
+Whatever Nat proposed in Sam's understanding was right and feasible;
+and even if it wasn't really so, Nat would make it so.... They engaged
+the house and moved. Miss Ann Sophronsiba Whitmarsh, a maiden lady of
+forty-five or thereabouts, popularly known as "Phrony," had been coming
+in by the day to "do for" old Sam in the rooms above the shop. She was
+engaged as resident housekeeper for the new establishment, and entered
+upon her duties with all the discreet joy of one whose maternal
+instincts have been suppressed throughout her life. She mothered Sam
+and she mothered Nat and she panted in expectation of the day when she
+would have Betty to mother. Incidentally, she was one of the best
+housekeepers in Radville, and cooperated with all her heart with Nat
+in the task of making a home out of the new house. They arranged and
+disarranged and rearranged and discarded old furniture and bought new
+with almost the abandon of a newly married couple fitting out their
+first home.... It was surprising what they managed to accomplish with
+it; when they were finished, there wasn't a prettier nor a more
+home-like residence in all Radville&mdash;and Phrony Whitmarsh was Nat's
+slave, even as Miss Carpenter had been. She gave him all the credit for
+everything praiseworthy about the place: and with some reason; for, as
+a matter of fact, he had spared himself not at all in the business of
+scheming and contriving to make the new home suitable for the
+reception of Betty Graham....
+</p>
+<p>
+It's interesting when one has come to my time of life, to sit and
+speculate on the singular mental blindness of mortal man, such as that
+which kept Nat unaware of the real, rock-bottom reason why he was
+working so hard on the Beech Street house. I daresay the young idiot
+thought his motives as much selfish as anything else&mdash;told himself that
+he wanted a comfortable home&mdash;and this was his way of securing one&mdash;and
+all that rot. At all events, he told me as much, quite seriously&mdash;
+seemed to believe it himself; and this, in spite of the fact that Miss
+Carpenter had done everything imaginable to make him comfortable....
+</p>
+<p>
+Josie Lockwood came home again for the Easter holidays, but didn't
+return to finish her term in the New York school. Just why, we never
+discovered: the Lockwoods furnished us with no really satisfying
+explanation; they said that Josie didn't like New York, but I've always
+doubted that, especially since Josie married and insisted on moving
+straightway to that metropolis. I suspect she didn't get along with
+the class of young women with whom she was thrown at school, and I'm
+pretty certain she was uneasy about Nat all the time she was so far
+away from him. Anyway, she elected to remain in Radville and keep the
+young man dancing attendance on her day in and out. Which he did, as in
+duty bound; he liked the game less and less all the time, but Kellogg
+held his promise....
+</p>
+<p>
+It was during this period, between the Easter vacation and the end of
+the spring school term, that Roland Barnette's animosity toward Duncan
+became virulent. Looking back, I can recall the symptoms of his waxing
+hostility&mdash;as, for instance, the evening he spent in the
+<i>Citizen</i> office, poring over back files of our exchanges. That
+seemed innocent enough at the time, a harmless freak on the part of the
+young man, and no one paid much attention to it; but it led to great
+things, in the end, and incidentally did Duncan a service which
+probably could have been accomplished through no other agency. This,
+however, is something that Roland doesn't realise to this day; and I'm
+inclined to doubt if you could ever make him understand it.
+</p>
+<p>
+Josie, of course, was prompt to oust Angie Tuthill from her place in
+the choir. After that she sang with Nat on Friday nights as well as
+Wednesdays and twice per Sunday. Between whiles she was a pretty
+constant patron of the store. There was no longer the least doubt in
+the collective mind of the town as to the inclination of Josie's
+affections. Nat himself gave evidence of his appreciation of the
+gravity of the situation, managing by some admirable diplomacy to evade
+the issue until the very last moment. But with the three&mdash;Roland, Nat,
+and Josie&mdash;so involved, we sensed a storm below the horizon, and
+awaited its breaking, if not with avidity, at least with quickened
+apprehension.
+</p>
+<p>
+The culmination came the day before Betty was to return&mdash;a day late in
+May, I remember, and a Friday at that.
+</p>
+<p>
+It began along toward evening. Duncan, alone in the store, was busy
+behind the prescription counter. The day had been humid, warm and
+sultry, and the doors and windows were open. The air was bland and
+still, and sound travelled easily. He could hear the musical clanking
+of hammers in Badger's smithy, on the next block, the deep-throated
+<i>hoot-toot</i> of the late afternoon train as it rushed down the
+valley, sounds of fierce altercation from the home of Pete Willing near
+by, a boy rattling a stick along palings down on Main Street.... But he
+did not hear anybody enter the store: absorbed with his task, he
+thought himself quite alone until a well-kenned voice reached his ear.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well!" it said, unctuous with appreciation of the sight of him.
+"<i>Old</i> Doctor Duncan!"
+</p>
+<p>
+He let the pestle fall from his hand and jumped as if he had been stuck
+with a pin. His jaw dropped and his eyes bulged. "Great Scott!" he
+cried; and in a twinkling was round the counter, throwing himself into
+the arms of a man whom he hailed ecstatically: "Harry, by all that's
+wonderful!" He fairly danced with delight. "Henry Kellogg, Esquire!"
+he cried, holding him at arms' length and looking him over. "What in
+thunderation are you doing here?"
+</p>
+<p>
+Kellogg freed himself, only to seize both Nat's hands and squeeze them
+violently. "Wanted to see you," he replied, beaming. "On my way to
+Cincinnati on business&mdash;thought I'd drop off for a night and size you
+up. My, but it's good to get a look at you! How are you?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Me? Look at me&mdash;picture of health. Harry, you've made a new man of
+me." Duncan pranced round his friend in a mild frenzy. "No booze&mdash;no
+smokes&mdash;no swears&mdash;work! I feel like a two-year-old: I could do a
+Marathon without turning a hair. Watch me kick up my heels and neigh!"
+He paused for breath. "And you?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Fine as silk&mdash;but you've got it on me, Nat, physically. You're a sight
+to heal the blind."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And listen!" Nat crowed: "I'm a business man. Didn't you believe it?
+Pipe my shop!"
+</p>
+<p>
+Kellogg checked to obey the admonition of Duncan's gesticulations, and
+took a long look round the store. "Gad!" said he. "I'm blowed if it
+isn't true! It <i>was</i> hard to credit your letters. But it's great,
+old man. I congratulate you, with all my heart."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Just wait and I'll tell you all about it. But first tell me how long
+you're going to be here."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, I plan to hang around with you a couple of days. My business in
+the West isn't pressing."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Good!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Which is the least worst hotel?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"There ain't no such thing in the whole giddy town.... No, none of that
+hotel stuff, now I I'm going to put you up&mdash;and I'll do it in style,
+too. I wrote you about taking a new place for the Grahams?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, and I'm mighty keen to meet 'em. The girl here?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Betty? No; she's coming home to-morrow. But Graham himself is upstairs
+in the laboratory. Take you up in a minute, but not before I've had a
+good look at you."
+</p>
+<p>
+Kellogg found himself a chair. "Well," he inquired, twinkling, "how's
+the scheme working out? Are you really living up to all the rules?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Every singletary one."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You have got a strong constitution.... Even prayer-meetings?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"The church thing? Honest, Harry, I <i>own</i>
+it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Bully for you, Nat. But how does it work? Was I right?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I should say you were. It's so easy it's a shame to do it. If this
+thing ever should get into the papers there'd be a swarm of city men
+lighting out for the Rube centres so thick you wouldn't be able to see
+the sky."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I knew it! Trust your Uncle Harry." Kellogg waited a time for further
+particulars, but Duncan seemed stuck; his transports of the few
+minutes just gone were sensibly abated; and the sidelong look he gave
+Kellogg was both uneasy and rueful&mdash;apprehensive, indeed. So Kellogg
+had to pump for news. "And you've made a strong play for the fond
+affections of Lockwood's daughter?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Certainly not!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not&mdash;?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"You forget your rules." Nat grinned, whimsical. "I let her to make a
+play for me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Of course. My mistake.... But how has it worked?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh! immense." Duncan's tone, however, was wholly destitute of
+enthusiasm. He stuck his hands in his trousers' pockets and half turned
+away from his friend, looking out of the window.
+</p>
+<p>
+Kellogg smiled secretly. "You mean you've won her already?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, there's nothing to it," said Duncan, shaking his head and meaning
+just the exact opposite of what his words conveyed, for of such is our
+modern slang.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then you're engaged?" Kellogg had understood perfectly, you see.
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, not <i>yet</i>. I've got two months left&mdash;almost."
+</p>
+<p>
+"So you have. And since she's so strong for you, there's no hurry: let
+her take her time."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I only wish she would." Duncan removed one hand from the pocket the
+better to tug at his moustache. "It's got beyond that&mdash;to the point
+where I have to keep dodging her."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You don't mean it! That's splendid." Kellogg got up and slapped Nat's
+shoulder heartily. "But don't overdo the dodging. She might get her
+back up."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not she. She'd eat out of my hand, if I'd let her. You don't
+understand."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What's the matter, then? Aren't you strong for her?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I wish I were."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But why? Is there another&mdash;&mdash;?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"No." Nat shook his head, honestly believing he was telling the truth.
+"Only ... I don't look at things the way I did once."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Just what do you mean by that?"
+</p>
+<p>
+Nat, squaring himself to face Kellogg, was very serious, now, and
+troubled. "See here, Harry," he said: "do you really want me to carry
+out the rest of the agreement?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Most certainly I do. Why not?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Because I'm pretty well fixed here. The business is making good&mdash;and
+so am I. It won't be long before I can pay you back, with interest, as
+we agreed, without having to marry that poor girl and ... and draw on
+her money to make good to you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You want to go back on our agreement?" demanded Kellogg, with a show
+of disappointment and disgust.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes and no. I won't break faith with you, if you insist, but I'd give
+a lot if you'd let me off&mdash;let me pay back what you advanced and cry
+quits.... When you outlined this scheme I was down and three times
+out&mdash;willing to take a chance at anything, no matter how contemptible.
+Now... well, it's different."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Good heavens! You don't mean you'd be willing to <i>live</i> here?"
+</p>
+<p>
+Nat smiled, but not mirthfully. "I don't know," he hesitated; "I'm
+afraid I'm beginning to like it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You, Nat?" Kellogg's amazement was unfeigned. "You, ready to spend
+your life here slaving away in this measly store?"
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan grunted indignantly. "Hold on, now. Don't you call this a measly
+store. There isn't a more complete drug-store in the State!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Do you hear that?" Kellogg appealed vehemently to the universe at
+large. "Is it possible that this is Nat Duncan, the fellow who hated
+work so hard he couldn't earn a living?... Gad, I believe I've arrived
+just in time!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"In time for what?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"To save you from yourself, old man. Here's the heiress you came here
+to cop out, ready and anxious, everything else coming your way and ...
+and you're more than half inclined to back out.... You make me tired."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I suppose I must. But I can't help it. I can't make you see how the
+thing looks to me. You know&mdash;I've written you all about everything&mdash;
+what this place has meant to me. Until I came here I never realised it
+was in me to make good at anything. But here I have; I'm doing so well
+that I'd actually have some self-respect if I wasn't bound to play this
+low-down trick on Josie Lockwood. I've worked and succeeded and been
+of some service to people who were worth it&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Who? Sam Graham?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"He and his daughter&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, his daughter!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Now get that foolish idea out of your head; there's nothing in it.
+Betty's just a simple, sweet little girl, who's had a pretty hard time
+and never a real chance in life&mdash;until I managed to give it to her. And
+I'd feel pretty good about that if ... Oh, there's no use talking to
+you!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"No; go on; you're very entertaining." Kellogg laughed mockingly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, I have tried to keep to the terms of our understanding; I
+singled out this Lockwood girl and worked all the degrees&mdash;didn't say
+much, you know&mdash;no love-making&mdash;just let her catch me looking sadly
+at her once in a while..."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's the way to work it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, that's the way," Nat assented gloomily. "But the longer I keep it
+up the meaner I feel and... I wish you'd agree to call it off. ...
+These Rubes at first struck me as being nothing but a lot of jay
+freaks, but when I got to know them I realised they were just as human
+as we are. I like them now and... on the level, I'm getting kind of
+stuck on church.... As for work, why, I eat it up!"
+</p>
+<p>
+Kellogg laughed with delight "Nat," he cried, "my poor crazy friend,
+listen to me: This working and church-going and helping old Graham is
+all very noble and fine, and I'm glad you've done it. This drug-store
+is a monument to the business ability that I always knew was latent in
+you. And clean living hasn't done you any harm.... But now you're due
+to come down to earth. This place pays you a neat profit. Well and
+good! That's all it'll ever do. It's new to you now and you like the
+novelty and you're having the time of your life finding out you're good
+for something. But pretty soon it'll begin to stale on you, and before
+long you'll find yourself hating it and the town&mdash;and then you'll be
+back where you started. Now, I'm going to hold you to our bargain for
+your own sake. If you're stuck on the town and the work you can keep
+right on just as well after you're married; but when you do begin to
+tire of it, you'll want that fortune to fall back on and do what you
+like with. Don't let this chance slip&mdash;not on your life!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"But," Nat argued feebly, "think of the injustice to the girl. From
+the way I've behaved since I struck this burg she thinks I'm closely
+related to the saints."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Very well, then; I'll concede a point. If you really think you're
+taking a mean advantage of her, when she proposes to you tell her all
+about yourself&mdash;just the sort of a chap you've been. You needn't
+mention our agreement, however. Then if she wants to drop you, I'll
+have nothing to say."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Thank you for nothing," said Duncan bitterly. "A bargain's a bargain.
+I gave you my word of honour I'd go through with this thing, and I'll
+stick to it. But I tell you now, I don't like it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, I know how you feel, Nat. But I <i>know</i> that some day you'll
+come to me and say: 'Harry, if you had let me back out, I'd never have
+forgiven you.'"
+</p>
+<p>
+"All right," said Nat impatiently. "I presume you know best."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You can bet I do. And now I'd like to meet old Graham."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'll take you right up&mdash;no, I can't. Here comes a customer. But you
+just go through that door and upstairs; he'll be in the laboratory&mdash;the
+front room&mdash;and he knows all about you. I'll join you just as soon as
+Tracey gets back."
+</p>
+<br><br><br>
+<h3><a name="xix">
+	XIX
+</a></h3>
+<p class="ctr">
+PROVING THE PERSPICUITY OF MR. KELLOGG
+</p>
+<p>
+A customer came and went, and then Nat noticed that twilight was
+beginning to darken the store. Though the hour wasn't late and the
+evenings were long at that season, the windows faced the east, and
+there were huge, overshadowing elms outside&mdash;just then heavy with
+luxuriant foliage; so dusk was always early in the room.
+</p>
+<p>
+It was one of Nat's axioms that a store, to be successful, should be
+always brilliantly lighted. It was a bit expensive, perhaps, but in the
+long run it paid. For that reason he installed electric light as soon
+as he felt the business could afford it.
+</p>
+<p>
+Now he moved to the windows and switched on the bulbs behind the huge
+glass jars filled with tinted water. Returning, he was about to connect
+up the remainder of the illuminating system, when Josie, entering,
+stayed him. Later he was glad of this.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Nat..."
+</p>
+<p>
+He knew that voice. "Why, Josie!" he exclaimed in surprise, swinging
+about to discover her standing on the threshold&mdash;very dainty and
+fetching, indeed, in one of the summery frocks she had brought back
+from New York.
+</p>
+<p>
+She moved over to him, holding out her hand. He took it with disguised
+reluctance. "Where's Tracey?" she asked with a look that first held his
+eyes, then reviewed the store.
+</p>
+<p>
+"This is his afternoon off," Nat reminded her.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then you're all alone?" she deduced archly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, quite...."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm so glad." She sighed and dropped into a chair by the soda-water
+counter. "I wanted to see you&mdash;to talk to you alone."
+</p>
+<p>
+He bit his lip in his annoyance, shivering with a presentiment. "What
+about, Josie?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"About Wednesday night&mdash;after prayer meeting. Why didn't you wait for
+me?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why&mdash;ah&mdash;I had to get back to the store, you know&mdash;there were some
+cheques to be made out and sent off, and I'd forgotten them. Besides,"
+he added on inspiration, "you were talking with Roland and I didn't
+want to interrupt you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"So you left me to go home with him?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why, what else&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"You're making me awful' unhappy." Her voice trembled.
+</p>
+<p>
+"<i>I</i>, Josie?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes. You knew I didn't want to walk home with Roland."
+</p>
+<p>
+"How could I know that?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I should think you ought to know it, Nat, unless you're blind.
+Besides, I told you once."
+</p>
+<p>
+"True," he fenced desperately, "but that was a long time ago; and how
+could I be sure you hadn't changed your mind? Besides, you know, I
+mustn't monopolise you. If I do...."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well?" she inquired sweetly as he paused on the lip of a break.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why, if I do&mdash;ah&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"If you're afraid people will talk about us, seeing us so much
+together, you needn't worry. They're doing that now."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why, Josie!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, they are. We've been going together so long, and then suddenly
+you don't seem to care about&mdash;care to be alone with me at all. This
+is the first chance I've had to talk to you, when there wasn't somebody
+else round, for I don't know how long. And even now you don't seem glad
+to see me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You should <i>know</i> I am...."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You don't act like it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It's so unexpected," he muttered wretchedly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You didn't really think I wanted Roland Barnette to go home with me
+Wednesday night, did you, Nat?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"It seemed so, but ... that's all right. Why shouldn't you?"
+</p>
+<p>
+She turned to him, trembling a little. "Must I tell you, Nat?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"O, no!" he cried in dismay. "Please don't&mdash;&mdash;!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I see I must," she persisted. "You're so blind. It&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Josie, don't say anything you'll be sorry for," he entreated wildly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I can't help it: I've got to. It was&mdash;it was because I wanted to be
+with you.... There!" she gasped, frightened by her own forwardness.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Now I've said it!"
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan grasped frantically at straws. "But you don't really mean it,
+Josie: you know you don't," he floundered. "You're just saying that
+because you&mdash;you have such a kind heart and&mdash;ah&mdash;don't want to hurt
+me&mdash;ah&mdash;because&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+She stemmed the flood of his protestations with a hand on his arm.
+"Nat," she said gently, looking up into his face, "would it make you
+happy to know I really meant it?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why&mdash;ah&mdash;why shouldn't it, Josie?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then please believe me, when I say it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But I do believe it. I..." He stammered and fell still.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Because I do like you, Nat, very much, and&mdash;and it's very hard for me
+to know that folks think I'm pursuing you and that you're trying to
+avoid me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Josie!" he exclaimed reproachfully.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, that's the way it looks," she affirmed plaintively. "You don't
+want it to, do you?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why, no; of course I don't."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then why don't you stop it?" She watched his face, her manner coy and
+yielding. "Nat," she said in a softer voice, "if you like me as well as
+I like you&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+He moved away a pace or two. "Ah, child!" he said, with a feeling that
+the term was not misapplied, somehow, "you don't know what you're
+saying."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, I do." She pouted. "I don't believe you... care anything about
+me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, Josie, please&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, anyway, you've never told me so." She turned an indignant
+shoulder to him.
+</p>
+<p>
+"How could I?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why couldn't you?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"But don't you see that I shouldn't, Josie?" He turned back to her
+side, looked down at her, pleaded his defence with the fire of
+desperation.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Just think: you are an only daughter." Just what this had to do with
+the case was not plain even to him. "An only daughter," he repeated&mdash;
+"ah&mdash;not only your father's only daughter, but your mother's only
+daughter. Your father&mdash;ah&mdash;is my friend. How unfair it would be to him."
+</p>
+<p>
+But the girl interrupted with decision. "But papa wants you to... He
+told me so."
+</p>
+<p>
+He could only pretend not to understand. "But consider, Josie: you are
+rich, an heiress: I'm a poor man. Would you like it to be said I was
+after your money?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"No one would dare say such a thing," she asserted with profound
+conviction.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, yes, they would. You don't know the world as I do. And for all you
+know, they might be right. How do you know that&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Nat!" A catch in her voice stopped him. "Don't say such horrid things!
+I could tell: a woman always can. I know you would be incapable of such
+a thing. Papa knows it, too. No one has ever got ahead of papa, and
+<i>he</i> says you are a fine, steady, Christian man, and he would
+rather see me your wife than any&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;"'
+</p>
+<p>
+"Josie!"
+</p>
+<p>
+The interjection was so imperative that she was silenced. "Why, what,
+Nat?" she asked, rising.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The time has come," he declared; "you must know the truth."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, Nat!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm <i>not</i> what you think me," he continued, dramatic.
+</p>
+<p>
+<i>"Oh, Nat!"</i>
+</p>
+<p>
+"Nor what your father thinks me, nor what anybody else in this town
+thinks me. I'm not a regular Christian&mdash;it's all a bluff: I didn't
+know anything about a church till I came here. I smoke and I drink and
+I swear and I gamble, and I only cut them all out in order to trick you
+into caring for me!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, Nat, I don't believe it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Alas, Josie!" he protested violently, "it's true, only too true!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"But you did it to win my love, Nat?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Ye-es." He saw suddenly that he had made a fatal mistake.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then, Nat, I will be your wife in spite of all!"
+</p>
+<p>
+He found himself suddenly caught about the neck by the girl's arms. His
+head was drawn down until her cheek caressed his and he felt her lips
+warm upon his own.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Josie!" he gasped.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Nat, my darling!"
+</p>
+<p>
+With a supreme effort he pulled himself together and embraced the girl.
+"Josie," he said earnestly, "I&mdash;I'm going to try to be a good husband
+to you.... And that," he concluded, <i>sotto voce</i>, "wasn't in the
+agreement!"
+</p>
+<p>
+She held him to her passionately. "Dearest, I'm so glad!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"It makes me very happy to know you are, Josie," he murmured miserably.
+And to himself, while still she trembled in his embrace: "What a cur
+you are!... But I won't renege now; I'll play my hand out on the
+square, with her...."
+</p>
+<p>
+Upon this tableau there came a sudden intrusion. The back door opened
+and Graham came in, Kellogg at his heels. It was the voice of the
+latter that told the two they were discovered: a hearty "Hello! What's
+this?" that rang in Nat's ears like the trump of doom.
+</p>
+<p>
+In a flash the girl disengaged herself, and they were a yard apart by
+the time that Graham, blundering in his surprise, managed to turn on
+the lights at the switchboard. But even in the full glare of them he
+seemed unable to credit his sight.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why, Nat!" he quavered, coming out toward the guilty pair. "Why,
+Nat...!"
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan took a long breath and Josie's hand at one and the same time.
+"Mr. Graham," he said coolly, "I'm glad you're the first to know it.
+Josie has just ask&mdash;agreed to be my wife."
+</p>
+<p>
+Old Sam recovered sufficiently to take the girl's hand and pat it. "I'm
+mighty glad, my dear," he told her. "I congratulate you both with all
+my heart."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And so will I, when I have the right," Kellogg added, smiling.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, I forgot." Nat hastened to remedy his oversight. "Josie, this is
+my dearest friend, Mr. Kellogg; Harry, this is Miss Lockwood."
+</p>
+<p>
+Josie gave Kellogg her hand. "I&mdash;I," she giggled&mdash;"I'm pleased to meet
+you, I'm sure."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm charmed. I've heard a great deal of you, Miss Lockwood, from Nat's
+letters, and I shall hope to know you much better before
+long."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It's awful' nice of you to say so, Mr. Kellogg."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And, Nat, old man!" Kellogg threw an arm round Duncan's shoulder. "I
+congratulate you! You're a lucky dog!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm a dog, all right," said Nat glumly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"But we mustn't disturb these young people, Mr. Kellogg," Graham broke
+in nervously.
+</p>
+<p>
+"They'll&mdash;they'll have a lot to say to one another, I'm sure; so we'll
+just run along. I'm taking Mr. Kellogg up to the house, Nat. You'll
+follow us as soon as you can, won't you?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes&mdash;sure."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I've got some news for you, too, that'll make you happy."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Never mind about that; it'll keep till supper, Mr. Graham." Kellogg
+laughed, taking the old man's arm. "Good-bye, both of you&mdash;good-bye for
+a little while."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Good-bye..."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Wasn't that terrible!" Josie turned back to Nat when they were alone.
+"I think it was real mean of Mr. Graham to turn on all the lights
+that way," she simpered. "Somebody else might've seen."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes," agreed the young man, half distracted; "but of course I daren't
+turn them off again."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Never mind. We can wait." Josie blushed.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'll just sit here and wait&mdash;we can talk till Tracey comes, and then
+you can walk home with me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, that'll be nice," he agreed, but without absolute ecstasy.
+</p>
+<p>
+Fortunately for him, in his temper of that moment, Pete Willing reeled
+into the shop, two-thirds drunk, with his face smeared with blood from
+a cut on his forehead.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Scuse me," he muttered huskily. "Kin I see you a minute, Doc?"
+</p>
+<p>
+He reeled and almost fell&mdash;would have fallen had not Duncan caught his
+arm and guided him to a chair. "Great Scott, Pete!" he cried. "What's
+happened to you?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"M' wife..." Pete explained thickly.
+</p>
+<br><br><br>
+<h3><a name="xx">
+	XX
+</a></h3>
+<p class="ctr">
+ROLAND SHOWS HIS HAND
+</p>
+<p>
+"Perhaps I'd better go." Josie, fluttering with alarm and a little
+pale, went quickly to the door.
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan followed her a pace or two. "I can't leave just now," he
+stammered.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't mind one bit. I don't want to be in the way. I'll telephone
+from home.... Good-night, dearest!" On tiptoes she drew his face down
+to hers and kissed him. "I'm so happy..."
+</p>
+<p>
+Half dazed, Nat stared after her until her lightly moving figure merged
+with the shadows beneath the trees and was lost. Then, with a sigh, he
+turned back to Pete.
+</p>
+<p>
+The sheriff had undoubtedly suffered at the hands of that militant
+person, Mrs. Willing. "Great Scott!" Duncan exclaimed as he examined
+the two-inch gash in his head. "That's a bird, Pete."
+</p>
+<p>
+"M' wife done it," Willing muttered huskily. "Sh' threw side 'r th'
+house at me, I think."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Wife, eh?" The coincidence smote Duncan with redoubled force. He
+shivered "Well, she certainly gave it to you good." He went behind the
+counter to prepare a dressing for the wound, which, if wide, was
+neither deep nor serious and gave him little concern for Pete.
+</p>
+<p>
+The latter ruminated on the event, breathing stertorously, while Duncan
+was fixing up a wash of peroxide. "She'll kill me some day," he
+announced suddenly, with intense conviction in his tone.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, don't say that...."
+</p>
+<p>
+Opposition roused Pete to a fury of assertion. "Yes, she will, sure!"
+he bawled. Then his emotion quieted. "But I'd 'bout as soon be dead's
+live with her, anyway."
+</p>
+<p>
+"<i>Um</i>." Nat got some absorbent cotton and adhesive plaster. "Been
+drinking again, hadn't you?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yesh," Pete admitted with a leer of drunken cunning. "But she druv me
+to it." He was quiet for a moment. "Mish'r Duncan," he volunteered
+cheerfully, "you ain't got <i>no</i> idee how lucky y'are y'aint married."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Is that so?" Nat returned with the dressings.
+</p>
+<p>
+"No idee'tall." Pete surrendered his head to Nat's ministrations. "'Nd
+I hope y' won't never have."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But I'm going to be married, Pete."
+</p>
+<p>
+The sheriff assimilated this information and became abruptly
+intractable. He jerked his head away and swung round in his chair to
+argue the matter.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, no!" he expostulated. "Don't, Mish'r Duncan. Don't never do it.
+Take warnin' from me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But I'm engaged, Pete."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Maksh no diff'runsh&mdash;break it off." His voice rose to a howl of alarm.
+"F'r Gaw's sake, break it off!&mdash;now, before it's too late! Do anythin'
+rather'n that: drink&mdash;lie&mdash;steal&mdash;murder&mdash;c'mit suicide&mdash;don't care
+what&mdash;only <i>keep single!</i>" "Here," said Duncan, laughing, "sit back
+there and let me'tend to your head." He began to wash the wound with
+the peroxide. "There: that'll sting a bit, but not long.... But
+suppose, Pete, I'd get a lot of money by marrying?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"No matter how mush y'get, 'tain't enough!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm inclined to think you're about right, Pete."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You bet I'm right. I'm married 'nd <i>I know</i>."
+</p>
+<p>
+Nat finished dressing the cut, smoothed down the ends of the adhesive
+tape, and stood back. "That's all right, now. Go home, wash your face,
+and sleep it off. Let me see you sober in the morning."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Huh!" Pete chuckled derisively. "Ain't goin' home t'night."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You've got to get some sleep: that's the only way for you to
+straighten up."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well," agreed Pete, rising, "then I'll go over to the barn 'nd sleep
+with the horse."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Aren't you afraid he'll step on you?" asked Nat, amused.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Maybe he will," Pete replied fairly, "but I'd ruther risk that 'n m'
+wife."
+</p>
+<p>
+He swerved and lurched toward the door. "Thanks, doc, 'nd g'night," he
+mumbled, and incontinently collided with Roland Barnette.
+</p>
+<p>
+Roland was working under a full head of steam, apparently; his
+naturally sanguine complexion was several shades darker than the
+normal, and he was seething with repressed emotion&mdash;excitement,
+anticipated triumph, jealousy, envy and hatred: all centring upon the
+hapless head of Nat Duncan. Plunging along with his head down, his
+thoughts wholly preoccupied with his grievance and its remedy, he
+bumped into Willing and cannoned off, recognising him with an angry
+growl. The result of this was to stay Pete's departure; he grasped
+the frame of the door and steadied himself, glaring round at the
+aggressor.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Lo, Roland," he said, focussing his vision. "Whash masser?"
+</p>
+<p>
+Roland disregarded him entirely. "Say, you!" he snorted, catching sight
+of Nat. "I want to see you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh?" Nat drawled exasperatingly. He had never had much use for Roland,
+and now with hidden joy he read the signs of passion on the boy's
+inflamed countenance. Happy he would be, thought Nat, if Roland were to
+be delivered into his hands that night. He owed the world a grudge,
+just then, and needed nothing more than an object to wreak his
+vengeance upon. "Well, I'll stake you to a good long look," he added
+sweetly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Ah-h! don't you try to be so funny; you might get hurt."
+</p>
+<p>
+Pete seemed to be suddenly electrified by Ro-land's matter. "Here!" he
+interposed. "Whajuh mean by that?" And relinquishing his grasp on the
+door, he reeled between the two and thrust his face close to Roland's.
+"Who're you talkin' to, an'way?" he demanded, truculent.
+</p>
+<p>
+Nat stepped forward quickly and grabbed Pete's arm. "That's all right,
+Pete," he soothed him. "Don't get nervous. Roly won't hurt anybody."
+</p>
+<p>
+The diminutive stung Roland to exasperation. "Why, damn you&mdash;&mdash;!" he
+screamed, and promptly became inarticulate with rage.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Ah! ah! ah!" Nat wagged a reproving forefinger. "Naughty word, Roly!
+Careful, or you'll sour your chewing gum."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Now, say! Do you think&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+At this juncture Pete drowned his words with an incoherent roar, having
+apparently reached the conclusion that the time had now arrived when it
+would be his duty and pleasure to eat Roland alive. Nat saved the young
+man by the barest inch; he grappled with Pete and drew himself aside
+just in time.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Steady, Pete!" he said quietly. "Steady, old man. Let Roland alone."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Awrh, I ain't 'fraid of him!" spluttered Pete.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Neither am I. Get out, won't you, and leave him to me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Aw'right." Pete became more calm. "I'll leave him 'lone, but all the
+same I wan' it 'stinctly un'erstood I kin lick any man in town 'ceptin'
+m' wife. G'night, everybody."
+</p>
+<p>
+He gathered himself together and by a supreme effort lunged through the
+door and into the deepening dusk.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, Roly?" Nat asked, turning back.
+</p>
+<p>
+His ironic calm gave Roland pause. For a moment he lost his bearings
+and stammered in confusion. "I come in to tell you that me and you's
+apt to have trouble," he concluded.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh? And are you thinking of starting it?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"You bet I'll start it, and I'll start it damn' quick if you don't
+leave Josie Lockwood alone."
+</p>
+<p>
+"So that's the trouble, is it?" commented Nat thoughtfully.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, that's the trouble. From now on I want you to let her alone, and
+you'll do it, too, if you know what's best for you."
+</p>
+<p>
+A suggestion of menace in his manner, unconnected with any hint of
+physical correction, caught Nat's attention. He frowned over it.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Just what do you mean by this line of talk?" he inquired blandly,
+stepping nearer.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'll tell you what I mean." Roland clenched both fists and thrust his
+chin out pugnaciously. "I'd been a-goin' steady with Josie Lockwood for
+more'n a year before you come here and thought that, on account of her
+money, you could sneak in and cut me out...."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Was her money the reason you were after her, Roly?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"What&mdash;&mdash;?" The question brought Roland momentarily up in the wind.
+"'Tain't none of your business if it was!" he snapped, recovering. "But
+here's what I'm gettin' at." He tapped his breast-pocket with a sneer
+of bucolic triumph. "Just about ten months ago," he continued
+meaningly, "they was a cashier skipped out of the Longacre National
+Bank in Noo Yawk, and they ain't got no track of him yet."
+</p>
+<p>
+So this was why Roland had been so assiduous a student of the back
+files in the Citizen office!
+</p>
+<p>
+"Indeed?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, indeed. I had my suspicions all along, but didn't say nothin',
+but just to-day I got a description of him, and the description just
+fits, Mr. Mortimer Henry."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Just fits Mr. Mortimer Henry? But what has that&mdash;&mdash;?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Ah, don't you try to seem too darn' innocent," Roland snarled. "You
+can't fool me!"
+</p>
+<p>
+A light dawned upon Nat, and laughter flooded his being, although
+outwardly he remained imperturbable&mdash;merely mildly curious. But his
+fingers were itching.
+</p>
+<p>
+"So you think I'm the absconding cashier, eh, Roly?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"You keep away from Josie 'r you'll find out what I think." Nat's
+placidity deceived Roland, who drew the wholly erroneous conclusion
+that he had succeeded in frightening his rival, and consequently dared
+a few lengths further in his tirade. "Why, if I was to go to Mr.
+Lockwood and tell him you're Mortimer Henry, alias Nat Duncan&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan's temper suddenly snapped like a taut violin string.
+</p>
+<p>
+"That will do," he said icily. "That will be all for this evening,
+thanks."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Ah... Are you going to quit chasin' after Josie?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'll begin chasing after you if you don't clear out of here."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You better agree&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+
+
+
+<p class="ctr">
+<a href="images/illp308.jpg"><img src="images/illp308_th.jpg" width="150"
+alt="'Betty!'"></a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Just there the storm burst. Ten seconds later Roland, with a confused
+impression of having been kicked by a mule, picked himself up out of
+the dust in the middle of the street and stared stupidly back at the
+store. Nat was waiting in the doorway for a renewal of hostilities, if
+any such there were to be. Seeing, however, that Roland had apparently
+sated his appetite for personal conflict, he picked up a dark object at
+his feet and held it out.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Here's your hat, Roly," he called.
+</p>
+<p>
+Roland spat out a mouthful of dust and swore beneath his breath. "Throw
+it out here," he replied prudently.
+</p>
+<p>
+Tossing him the hat, Nat turned contemptuously. "Come in again, any
+time you want to apologise," he shouted over his shoulder, as an
+afterthought.
+</p>
+<p>
+He paused in the middle of the store and felt of his necktie. It proved
+to be a little out of place, but otherwise he was as immaculate as was
+his wont. He reviewed the encounter and laughed quietly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"There's no cure for a fool," he mused....
+</p>
+<p>
+The telephone bell roused him from his reverie. He went over to the
+instrument, sat down, and put the receiver to his ear.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Hello?" he said.... "Oh, hello, Josie! ... What's that?... That's
+right, but I'm not used to it yet, you know.... Well, I'll try again.
+Now&mdash;ready?"
+</p>
+<p>
+He schooled his voice to a key of heartrending sentiment: "Hello,
+darling.... How's that? ... Told your father? Told him what?... Oh,
+about the engagement! Was he angry? ... Oh, he wasn't, eh? What did he
+say? ... Wasn't that nice of him!..."
+</p>
+<p>
+Conscious of a slight noise in the store he looked up. A young woman
+had just entered. She paused just inside the door, smiling at him a
+little timidly.
+</p>
+<p>
+Without another word to his fiancee Nat put down the telephone and
+hooked up the receiver.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Betty!" he cried wonderingly.
+</p>
+<br><br><br>
+<h3><a name="xxi">
+	XXI
+</a></h3>
+<p class="ctr">
+AS OTHERS SAW HIM
+</p>
+<p>
+If Nat's cry of recognition had been wondering, it was no less one of
+delight. The surprise he felt was perfectly natural; Betty wasn't to
+have returned until the morrow, and was therefore the last person he
+had expected to see when he looked up from the telephone desk. But it
+was the change in the girl that most stirred him: the change he had
+prophesied, planned for, anticipated eagerly throughout the long seven
+months of her absence; to have his expectations so wonderfully
+fulfilled, and more than fulfilled, pleased him beyond expression. And
+it's curious to speculate upon the fact that he fancied his greatest
+pleasure came from the knowledge that old Sam would be so overjoyed....
+</p>
+<p>
+It was really only a paraphrase of the old story of the grub and the
+butterfly. The little, starveling drudge who had found him in the
+store, that first day, had completely vanished; it was as if she had
+never been. In her place he discovered a girl all grace and loveliness,
+her slender figure ripening into gracious womanhood; a girl of mind and
+heart and understanding, all fire and tenderness; demure, intelligent,
+with a pretty pose of independence and sureness of herself moderated by
+modesty and reserve. Her travelling dress of sober colouring and severe
+lines became her bewitchingly. Beneath the brim of her dainty hat, with
+veil thrown back, her dark hair waved back, glossy with the sheen of
+perfect well-being, from a face serenely charming&mdash;the more so for her
+slightly deepened flush; and the eyes that shone into Nat's danced with
+the light of enjoyment, bred of his supreme astonishment....
+</p>
+<p>
+"Nat, I'm so glad to see you again!"
+</p>
+<p>
+He was speechless.
+</p>
+<p>
+She laughed, put down her suit-case, and moved toward him, offering him
+both her hands. He took them, stammering.
+</p>
+<p>
+"It's such a surprise, Betty&mdash;&mdash;!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I knew it would be. I just couldn't wait, Nat, when I found I could
+get here by the night train instead of tomorrow morning. I haven't been
+home, you know, but I couldn't resist the temptation to stop in here
+and see&mdash;what the store looked like after all these months. Besides, I
+thought that you or father&mdash;&mdash;" Her eyes fell and she faltered,
+withdrawing her hands.
+</p>
+<p>
+By now he had himself in hand. "Why," he laughed, "you nearly took my
+breath away. Even now I can hardly believe it..."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Believe what, Nat?" she asked quickly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"That you're the same little Betty Graham. I never saw such a change."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It's a change for the better, isn't it, Nat?" she asked with a smile
+half wistful.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I should think it was. It's just marvellous!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Did I seem so very awful, then?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Nonsense. You know you didn't, only, now..."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then you think father will be pleased?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"If he isn't, I'm blind!"
+</p>
+<p>
+She looked away, embarrassed, and touched by his interest and his
+feeling. "And does it make you a little proud, Nat?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Proud!" he exclaimed blankly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Because you know you've done it all. If there's any improvement in
+Betty Graham to-day, it's because of you. If it hadn't been for
+you&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Never in the world; you don't know what you're talking about, Betty.
+Nobody but yourself could have brought about this change. It had to be
+in you before it could come out. You know that."
+</p>
+<p>
+She shook her head very decidedly, seating herself on one of the chairs
+by the soda-fountain. "Oh, no," she contradicted calmly and sincerely.
+"Why, Nat, don't you suppose I have any memory? You began making me a
+better girl the very first day we met here in the store, by the things
+you said to me. And ever since I've been watching you, while you were
+making life a Heaven for father and me, and thinking that if I were a
+man I'd try to be as near like you as I could."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, don't say that," he pleaded wretchedly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"It's true.... And when you sent me away to school I promised myself
+I'd try to repay you for the sacrifice you must be making for me; that
+I'd follow your example as nearly as ever I could; that I'd work hard
+and try to treat people the way you do&mdash;kindly, Nat, and considerately,
+and bravely and tenderly and honestly&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+He dropped into a chair near her and buried his head in his hands.
+"Don't!" he begged huskily. "Please, Betty, don't!"
+</p>
+<p>
+But she wouldn't stop, little guessing how she was racking his heart in
+her innocent desire to make him understand how deeply she appreciated
+all he had done for her. "And, O Nat, it's worked so wonderfully! It's
+made all the girls at school like me, and it's made me understand and
+like everybody else better; and now, what's ten thousand times the best
+of all, you notice an improvement the minute you see me! And I&mdash;I never
+was so happy in all my life." She bent forward and took one of his
+hands, patting it softly. "Nat, I think you're the very best man in the
+whole world!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Don't!" he groaned. "Don't, for Heaven's sake!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, I know, Nat&mdash;I know you don't like me to say this, but I must,
+just the same, tell you the truth about yourself. It's so splendid to
+live the life you do. You're all unconscious of it, but I want you to
+realise it and know that I do, too. You've made everybody love you
+and..."
+</p>
+<p>
+But confusion silenced her, and she gently replaced his hand. For
+several moments neither spoke. Then Nat broke the tension with a short,
+hard laugh.
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's right," he said inscrutably; "that was the idea...."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Nat, what do you mean?"
+</p>
+<p>
+He turned to her. "Betty, does it make you&mdash;feel that way toward me?"
+</p>
+<p>
+She coloured divinely. "Why, Nat, of course ... Why, everyone..."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's why I came here, Betty," he pursued, blind to her
+embarrassment. "I came here with the idea... of getting married...."
+</p>
+<p>
+He was staring gloomily at the floor and could not see the light that
+dawned upon the girl's face. Absorbed in the struggle with his
+conscience he had no least suspicion of how his words were affecting
+her. He knew only that he must somehow make a confession to her, that
+to own her regard and gratitude on the terms that then existed between
+them was utterly intolerable.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You never guessed that, did you?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"No," she breathed brokenly. "No, Nat, I&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, it's the truth and...." He rose and moved away. "But I can't
+tell you just now&mdash;not now...."
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, not now, Nat." Betty, too, got up. "I think I'd better go home and
+see father&mdash;I mustn't forget&mdash;" she faltered, half blinded by the mist
+of the happiness before her eyes.
+</p>
+<p>
+"No&mdash;wait." She stopped to find his gaze full upon her; for the first
+time he comprehended that she had not understood, that, worst of all,
+she had misunderstood. "I must tell you," he blurted desperately, "I
+must."
+</p>
+<p>
+Instinctively she moved a step toward him. He hung his head.
+</p>
+<p>
+"To-night, Betty&mdash;this evening, just a little while ago, I became
+engaged to Josie Lockwood."
+</p>
+<p>
+She stood as if petrified throughout a wait that seemed to both
+interminable. Then he heard her catch her breath sharply. He looked up,
+frightened, but she was smiling steadily into his face. Somehow he
+found her hand in his.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, Nat dear," she said, "I'm so glad for you.... I wish you all the
+happiness in the world. I ... Good-night."
+</p>
+<p>
+The hand slipped out of Nat's. He did not move, but waited there with
+his empty palm outstretched, despair in his eyes and hell in his heart,
+while she walked quietly from the store.
+</p>
+<p>
+After some time he awoke to the knowledge that she was gone.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Blithering fool!" he growled. "Why didn't I know I loved her like
+this?" He took a turn to and fro, distracted. "And now I've made a mess
+of everything! Good Lord! what can I do? I must do something or go
+mad!" He swung round behind the soda-fountain counter and seized a
+bottle. "I know what! The rules are off! I can have a drink! I can have
+two drinks! I can have a million drinks if I want 'em!"
+</p>
+<p>
+Pouring a generous dose of raw whiskey into the glass he lifted it to
+his lips and threw back his head. But the heavy bouquet of the liquor
+was stifling in his nostrils, and the first mouthful of it almost
+choked him. In a fury he flung the glass from him, so that it crashed
+and splintered upon the floor. "Great Heavens!" he cried. "I don't like
+the stuff any more.... But"&mdash;his gaze fell upon the cigar case&mdash;"I can
+have a smoke. That'll help some!"
+</p>
+<p>
+With feverish haste he snatched a cigar from the nearest box, gnawed
+off one end, and thrusting the other into the alcohol lighter, puffed
+vigorously. But to his renovated palate the potent fumes of the tobacco
+were no less repugnant than the whiskey had been. Half strangled, he
+plucked the cigar from his mouth and stamped on it.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh," he cried wildly, "I'll be&mdash;I'll be damned!"
+</p>
+<p>
+He paused, staring vacantly at nothing. "And even that doesn't do any
+good! God help me, I've forgotten how to swear!"
+</p>
+<p>
+To him, in this overwrought state, came Tracey, lumbering cheerfully
+in, his mouth shaped for a whistle. At sight of Nat he pulled up as if
+hit by a club.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Evenin', Mister Duncan. What's the matter?"
+</p>
+<p>
+By an effort Nat brought his gaze to bear upon the boy and comprehended
+his existence.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Ain't you feeling well, Mr. Duncan?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"No&mdash;rotten!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"What's the matter?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"<i>Nothing</i>!" Nat shouted ferociously.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Anything I kin&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"<i>No</i>!"
+</p>
+<p>
+At that instant Kellogg appeared. "Hello, Nat! What's been keeping you?
+I came down to bring you home to supper."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Go to blazes with your supper! Keep away from me! Don't talk to me! I
+don't want anything to do with you, d'you understand? You and your
+confounded systems have got me into all this&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+He caught sight of his hat abruptly, ceased talking, grabbed the hat
+and jammed it on his head, muttering; then started on a run for the
+door.
+</p>
+<p>
+"But what's the matter?" demanded Kellogg, thunderstruck. "Here! Hold
+on! Where are you going?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"To the only place I can get any consolation&mdash;church!"
+</p>
+<br><br><br>
+<h3><a name="xxii">
+	XXII
+</a></h3>
+<p class="ctr">
+ROLAND'S TRIUMPH
+</p>
+<p>
+But at the doorstep of the Methodist Church Nat hesitated. The building
+was dimly lighted, for it was choir practise night, and the door was
+ajar; but he couldn't bring himself to enter. He would not long have
+peace and quiet in which to think, there; presently would come Angle
+and Josie and Roland and...
+</p>
+<p>
+"I couldn't stand it; I'd probably murder Roland....
+</p>
+<p>
+"Besides, I've no right there&mdash;an impostor&mdash;a contemptible low-lived
+pup like me!...
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why the thunderation did I ever allow myself to be persuaded to come
+here? Why was I ever such a fool?...
+</p>
+<p>
+"How <i>could</i> I be such a fool?..."
+</p>
+<p>
+He was walking, now, striding swiftly through the silent village
+streets, meeting few wayfarers and paying them no heed, whether they
+knew and greeted him or not. His entire consciousness was obsessed by
+regret, repentance and remorse. He had ruined everything, deceived
+everybody&mdash;even himself for a time&mdash;played the cad and the bounder with
+consummate address. There were no bounds to the contempt he felt for
+the man who had tricked these simple, kindly folk into believing him
+immaculate, impeccable; who had hoodwinked "that old prince, Graham,"
+and under false pretences gained his confidence and affection; who had
+deliberately set out to snare an innocent and trusting girl for the
+sake of the filthy money her father owned; who had made another and a
+better girl love him, though that he had done so unconsciously, only to
+break her heart; who had sacrificed everything, honour and decency and
+self-respect, to his greed for money.
+</p>
+<p>
+But it should go no further. He'd given what he called his word of
+honour to a despicable compact; there could be no dishonour so great as
+holding by that word, sticking to his bargain, maintaining the
+deception and&mdash;ruining the life of one woman&mdash;perhaps two: Josie
+Lockwood's, for he could never love her; and possibly Betty Graham's,
+for she was of that sort that loves once and once only. If she truly
+loved him...
+</p>
+<p>
+But by his own act he had placed himself forever beyond the joy of her
+love. He could never accept it, desire it as passionately as he
+might&mdash;and did. He could never consent to drag her down to his base
+level...
+</p>
+<p>
+To-morrow&mdash;no, to-night, that very night, he would unmask himself,
+declare his character to them all, pillory himself that all might see
+how low a man could fall. And to-morrow he would go, leave Radville,
+lose himself to all that had come to be so dear to him, forever....
+</p>
+<p>
+So, raving and ranting with the extravagance of youth, he passed
+through the village, out into the open country, and in the course of an
+hour and a half, back&mdash;all blindly: circling back to the store, in the
+course of his wanderings, as instinctly as a carrier pigeon shapes its
+course for home.
+</p>
+<p>
+It was with incredulity that he found himself again in that cheerful,
+cherished, homely place. But there he was when he came out of his
+abstraction: there in those familiar surroundings, with Tracey's round
+red face beaming at him over the cigar-stand like a lively counterfeit
+of the round red moon he had watched lift up into the skies, back there
+in the still countryside, just as he paused to turn back to town.
+</p>
+<p>
+He recollected his faculties and resumed command of himself
+sufficiently to acknowledge Tracey's greeting with a moody word.
+</p>
+<p>
+"All right, Tracey," he said abruptly. "You may go, now. I'll shut up
+the store."
+</p>
+<p>
+He looked at his watch, and was surprised to discover that it was no
+later than half-past eight. He seemed to have lived a lifetime in the
+last few hours.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Thank you, sir," said Tracey with a gush of gratitude. "I'll be glad
+to get off. Angle's waiting."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Angle&mdash;&mdash;?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Good-evening, Mr. Duncan."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, Miss Tuthill!" Nat discovered that little rogue, all smiles and
+dimples and blushes, not distant from his elbow. "I didn't see you&mdash;I
+was thinking."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Guess we know what you was thinkin' about," observed Tracey, bringing
+his hat round the counter. "Everybody in town's talkin' about it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"About what?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Ah, you know about what, and we're mighty glad of it, and we want to
+congratulate you, don't we, Angie."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, yes, indeed, Mr. Duncan. It's just too sweet for anything."
+</p>
+<p>
+"O Lord!" groaned Nat.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm awful glad you done it when you did," pursued Tracey, oblivious to
+Nat in his own ecstatic temper. "I guess I wouldn't never 've got up
+the spunk to&mdash;to tell Angie what I did to-night, 'f it hadn't been we
+was talkin' 'bout your engagement to Josie. Then, somehow, it just
+seemed to bust right out of me, like I couldn't hold it no longer.
+Didn't it, Angie?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, Tracey, how can you talk so!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then you're engaged, too?" Nat inquired, rousing himself a little and
+smiling feebly upon them.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, sir."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm glad to hear it. It's great news. Now run along, both of you, and
+don't forget you'll never be so happy again." With what he thought an
+expiring flash of humour he raised his hands above their heads. "Bless
+you, my children!" he said solemnly. "Now, for Heaven's sake, beat it!"
+</p>
+<p>
+Alone he went to the prescription desk and opening one of the drawers
+took out the firm's books. After that for some fifteen minutes there
+was nothing to be heard in the store save Nat's breathing and the
+scratching of his pen as he figured out a trial balance....
+</p>
+<p>
+Brisk footfalls disturbed him. He sighed and moved out into the store
+to find Kellogg there, suave and easy as always, yet with that in his
+manner, perceptible perhaps only to a friend of long-standing like Nat,
+to betray a mind far from complacent.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, you're here!" he cried, with a distinct start of relief. "I've
+been looking all over for you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I just got in." Nat brushed aside explanations curtly, intent upon his
+purpose. "Harry, I've got something to say to you: I'm not going
+through with this thing."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You're not?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"No; and that's final. I was just on the point of drawing you a cheque
+for three-hundred; that's all my share of the profits of this concern,
+so far; and my note for the balance. I'll pay that up as soon as I'm
+able&mdash;and I'll work like a terrier until I do. But as for the rest of
+it, I'm through."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, you are?" Kellogg took a chair and tipped back, frowning gravely.
+"But what about your word to me?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Damn that," said Duncan without heat. "The word of honour of a man
+who'd stoop to a trick as vile as I have doesn't amount to a
+continental shinplaster. I'll rather be dishonoured by breaking it than
+by ruining a woman's life."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Very well, if you feel that way about it," said Kellogg as coolly.
+"And you may keep your cheque and note: I wouldn't take them. You can
+pay me back when it's convenient&mdash;I don't care when. But what I want to
+know is what you mean to do?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I mean to do the only thing left to do. I'm going to shut up here and
+then see Lockwood and Josie and tell them the whole story."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Hm," Kellogg reflected, quizzical. "You've got a pleasant little job
+ahead of you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't care about that: I deserve all that's coming to me. I owe
+Josie a duty. Why, it's awful, Harry, to trick a girl into caring for
+you and then to&mdash;to&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Break her heart?" Kellogg's tone was sardonic.
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's what I meant."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Don't flatter yourself, my boy. Josie Lockwood doesn't love you; she
+just set herself to win you because you're the best chance she's seen."
+Kellogg laughed quietly. "The system would have worked just as well if
+anyone else had tried it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Do you think so&mdash;honest?" Nat's eagerness to believe him was
+undisguised.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm sure of it. The trouble is that people will say you've thrown her
+over&mdash;there isn't anyone in Radville who hasn't heard the news by this
+time; and that's going to make the girl feel pretty cheap. But only for
+a while: she'll get over it and solace herself with the next best
+thing.... And don't forget; you lose a fortune."
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, I don't," Duncan disclaimed. "I never had it and now I don't want
+it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's true enough," Kellogg admitted evenly. "And I hope you'll
+always feel that way about it; but, believe me, you'll find plenty of
+money a great help if you want to live a happy life."
+</p>
+<p>
+"There are better things than money to make a man happy; I'll pass up
+the money and try for the others."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's true, too; but when did you find it out?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Here&mdash;this last year.... You know I had everything my heart desired
+until the governor cashed in; and I used to think I was a pretty happy
+kid in those days. But now I've learned that you can beat that kind of
+happiness to death. Harry"&mdash;Duncan was growing almost sententious&mdash;"the
+real way to be happy is to work and have your work amount to something
+and&mdash;and to have someone who believes in you to work for."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Is this a sermon, Nat?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Call it what you like: it goes, just the same. ... That's what I've
+found out this year."
+</p>
+<p>
+Kellogg let his chair fall forward and rose, imprisoning Nat's
+shoulders with two heavy but kindly hands. "And you're right!" he cried
+heartily. "I'm glad you had the backbone to back out, Nat. It was a
+low-down trick and I'm ashamed of myself for proposing it. I did it, I
+presume, simply because I'm a schemer at heart, and I knew it would
+work. It did work, but it's worked a finer way than I dreamed of: it's
+made a man of you, Nat, and I'm mightly glad and proud of you!"
+</p>
+<p>
+Nat swayed with amazement. "What's changed you all of a sudden?" he
+demanded blankly.
+</p>
+<p>
+Releasing him, Kellogg resumed his seat, laughing. "Well, a number of
+things. Among others, I've talked with Graham and I've met his
+daughter."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh-h!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"And that reminds me," Kellogg changed the subject briskly; "I
+understood from you that Graham was sole owner of that patent burner."
+</p>
+<p>
+"So he is."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He says not. I had a proposition to make him from the Mutual people,
+and he referred me to you, saying that you controlled the matter."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I've not the slightest interest in it!" Nat protested.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I know you haven't, but Graham insisted you owned the whole thing. I
+pressed him for an explanation, and he finally furnished one in his
+rambling, inconsequent, fine old way. He admitted that there wasn't any
+sort of an existing contract or agreement of any sort, even oral,
+between you, but just the same you'd been so good to him and his girl
+that he'd made up his mind&mdash;some time ago, I gather&mdash;to make you a
+present of the burner; but naturally he forgot to tell you about an
+insignificant detail like that."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Of course that's nonsense; I wouldn't and shant accept."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Of course you won't. I did you the honour to discount that. But he
+wouldn't say a word about the offer&mdash;yes or no&mdash;just left it all up to
+you. He says you're a business man, and that he's often thought what a
+help you must have been to me before you left New York."
+</p>
+<p>
+Nat laughed outright. "Can you beat that? ... But what is the offer?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Fifty thousand cash and ten thousand shares of preferred
+stock&mdash;hundred dollars par."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What's that worth?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"At the market rate when I left town, seventy-eight." Kellogg waited a
+moment. "Well, what do you say?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Say? Great Caesar's Ghost! What is there to say? Wire 'em an
+acceptance before they get their second wind.... You don't know how
+good this makes me feel, Harry; I can't thank you enough for what
+you've done. This'll square me with Graham to some extent, and I can
+clear out&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, you can't, Mr. Smarty! You ain't been 'cute enough."
+</p>
+<p>
+Both men, startled by the interruption, wheeled round to discover
+Roland Barnette dancing with excitement in the doorway, the while he
+beckoned frantically to an invisible party without. "Come on!" he
+shouted. "Here he is!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"What's eating you, Roly-Poly?" inquired
+</p>
+<p>
+Nat, too happy for the money to cherish animosity even toward his
+one-time rival.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You'll find out soon enough," snarled Roland. "Mr. Lockwood's got
+something to say to you, I guess."
+</p>
+<p>
+And on the heels of this announcement Lockwood strode into the store,
+Josie clinging to his arm, Pete Willing&mdash;a trifle more sanely drunk
+than he had been some hours previous&mdash;bringing up the rear.
+</p>
+<p>
+"So!" snarled Blinky, halting and transfixing Nat with the stare of his
+cold blue eyes. "So we've found you, eh?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh? I didn't know I was lost."
+</p>
+<p>
+"No nonsense, young man. I ain't in the humour for foolin'." Blinky was
+unquestionably in no sort of a humour at all beyond an evil one. "I
+come here to have a word with you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, sir?" Nat's tone and attitude were perfectly pacific.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Ah, there ain't no use beatin' 'round the bush. You've behaved
+yourself ever since you come to Radville, and insinooated yourself into
+our confidence, 'spite of the fact that nobody in town knows who you
+were before you came. But now Roland's laid a charge again' you, and I
+want to know the rights to it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well," Roland interposed cockily, "I accused him of it to-night and he
+didn't deny it."
+</p>
+
+
+
+<p class="ctr">
+<a href="images/illp330.jpg"><img src="images/illp330_th.jpg" width="150"
+alt="'You're a Thief With a Reward out for You!'"></a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"What's more," Lockwood continued with rising colour, "Roland says he
+can prove it?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Prove what?" Nat insisted. "Get down to facts, can't you?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"That you're a thief with a reward out for you," said Roland. "You're
+that Mortimer Henry what absconded from the Longacre National Bank in
+Noo York."
+</p>
+<p>
+There fell a brief pause. Nat bowed his head and tugged at his
+moustache, his shoulders shaking with emotion variously construed by
+those who watched him. Presently he looked up again, his features
+gravely composed.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Roly," said he, "Balaam must miss you terribly."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That ain't no answer." Lockwood put himself solidly between Nat and
+the object of his obscure remark&mdash;who was painfully digesting it. "I
+want to know about this. You got my daughter to say she'd marry you
+this evenin', and you've got to explain to me about this bank business
+before it goes any further."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes?" commented Nat civilly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes!" thundered Blinky. "Do you deny it? ... Answer me."
+</p>
+<p>
+To Kellogg's huge diversion, Nat struck an attitude, "I refuse to
+answer," said he.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Aha! What'd I tell you?" This was Roland's triumphant crow.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Nat!" Josie advanced, trembling with excitement. "Tell me, what does
+this mean?"
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan perforce avoided her gaze. "Don't ask," he said sadly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Is it true?" she insisted.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You heard what Roly said," he replied, with a chastened expression.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then you admit it?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I admit nothing."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh-h!" The girl drew away from him as from defilement. "I&mdash;I hate
+you!" she cried in a voice of loathing
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's all right," he told her serenely; "I've despised myself all
+evening."
+</p>
+<p>
+The girl showed him a scornful back. "Papa&mdash;&mdash;" she began.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Don't thank me, Josie. Roland done it all: he got onto him." Lockwood
+continued to watch Duncan with the air of a cat eyeing a mouse.
+</p>
+<p>
+Impulsively Josie moved to Roland's side and caught his arm. He drew
+himself up proudly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I do thank you, Roland; I can never be grateful enough. I've been so
+foolish.
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's all right." Roland tucked the girl's hand beneath his arm and
+patted it down. "You wasn't to blame. I never seen anyone from Noo York
+yet that wasn't a crook."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Won't you please take me away from this&mdash;place, Roland?" she appealed.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'll be mighty glad to see you home, Josie," he assured her
+generously, turning.
+</p>
+<p>
+In the act of leaving, Josie caught Nat's eye. She hung back for an
+instant, withering him with a glare. "Oh-h!" she cried. "How did you
+dare pretend to care for me?"
+</p>
+<p>
+He bowed politely. "It was one of the rules, Josie."
+</p>
+<p>
+"There's no need to tell you, I guess, that the engagement is broken."
+</p>
+<p>
+"None whatever, Miss Lockwood. Good-evening."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Come, Roland!"
+</p>
+<p>
+Arm in arm they left, with the haughty tread of the elect, while Pete
+Willing lurched to Duncan's side and caught his arm.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Come 'long to jail, Mish'r Duncan," he said with sympathy. "Mush
+bessher."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You look after him, Pete." Lockwood turned to leave with a final shot
+for Duncan. "I'll 'tend to your case in the mornin', young man, and
+I'll make you wish you never came to this town."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You needn't trouble. I feel that way about it already. <i>Good</i>-night."
+</p>
+<p>
+Lockwood left them, snarling. Nat caught Kellogg's eye and began to
+giggle. But Pete was still holding him fast, partially, beyond doubt,
+for support.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You've been saved just in time, Mish'r Duncan," he commented; "y'are
+mighty lucky man. Now lissen: you better make tracks. I ain't got no
+warrant to hold you, 'nd I wouldn't if I had."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You're a good fellow, Pete; but you needn't worry. I'm not the man
+they think me, and it'll be easy to prove."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Wal," said Pete, "jus' the same, you better git out, 'r you may have
+to marry her aft'all."
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, I won't."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Thank Gawd f'r that!" Pete exclaimed in maudlin gratitude. He swung
+widely toward the door, and by a miracle found it. "G'night, Mish'r
+Duncan. I feel s' good 'bout thish I'm goin' try goin' home 'nd face m'
+wife. G'night."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Good-night, Pete."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well!" said Kellogg after a pause, "that was a bit of luck!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Luck!" Nat seized his hat and began to turn off the lights. "It's more
+luck than I thought there was in the whole world. Come along."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Where are you going?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"First, to see Lockwood and have it out with him."
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, you aren't," Kellogg laughed as Nat locked the door. "You're going
+to leave Lockwood to me; I'll manage to ease his mind. You've got
+infinitely more important matters to attend to&mdash;and the sooner you find
+her, the better, Nat!"
+</p>
+<br><br><br>
+<h3><a name="xxiii">
+	XXIII
+</a></h3>
+<p class="ctr">
+THE RAINBOW'S END
+</p>
+<p>
+The air was heavy with moisture and very still and warm; a heady
+fragrance of precocious blooms flavoured the air, vying with the scent
+of rain. The silence was profound, but shaken now and then by a grumble
+of distant thunder. The world hung breathless on the issue of the night.
+</p>
+<p>
+Since evenfall a wall of cloud, massive and portentous, had been
+climbing up over the western hills, slowly but with ominous steadiness
+obscuring the moon-swept sky with its far, pale wreaths of stars,
+blotting it out with monstrous folds and convolutions of impenetrable
+purple-black. Along its crest fire played like swords in the sunlight,
+and now and again sheeted flame lightened the monstrous expanse so that
+it glowed with the pale phosphorescence of a summer sea.
+</p>
+<p>
+As Duncan hurried homeward over sidewalks chequered in silver and ink,
+the advance of the cloud army seemed to become accelerated. With
+increasing frequency gusts of air set the trees a-shiver until their
+sibilant whispers of warning filled the valley. The rolling of the
+thunder grew more sharp, more instant upon the flashes.... When there
+was no wind the air seemed to quiver with terror&mdash;as a dog cringes to
+the whip....
+</p>
+<p>
+But of this Duncan was barely conscious.
+</p>
+<p>
+He gained the gate in the fence of wood paling, opened it, and entered.
+The lawn and house were lit with the unearthly radiance of moonlight
+threatened by eclipse. He could see the light in Graham's study and,
+through the open doors, the faint glow of the hall-lamp. But there was
+no one visible.
+</p>
+<p>
+He hurried up the path, tortured by impatience, fear, longing,
+despair....
+</p>
+<p>
+Then he saw what seemed at first a pale shadow detach itself from
+darker shades in the shrubbery and move toward him.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Nat, is it you?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Betty!"
+</p>
+<p>
+His whole heart was in that cry; the girl thrilled to its timbre as
+though a master hand had struck a chord upon her heart-strings.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Nat, what&mdash;what is it?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Betty, I want to tell you something."
+</p>
+<p>
+She came very slowly toward him, torn alternately by fear and hope.
+What did he mean?
+</p>
+<p>
+"Do you happen to remember that I told you a while ago I was engaged to
+Josie Lockwood?"
+</p>
+
+
+
+<p class="ctr">
+<a href="images/illp336.jpg"><img src="images/illp336_th.jpg" width="150"
+alt="'Forever and Ever and a Day'"></a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Nat! Could I forget? ... Why?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Because ... it's broken off, Betty."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Broken off! ... How? Why?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Because it had to be, sweetheart: because I love you."
+</p>
+<p>
+She was very close to him then. Her uplifted face shone like marble in
+the fading light. "Nat, I ... I don't understand."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then, listen&mdash;I must tell you. It was all a plan, a scheme, my coming
+here, Betty. Everything I did, said, thought, was part of a
+contemptible trick.... I meant to marry Josie Lockwood, whom I'd never
+seen, for her money. ... Now you know what I was, dear.... But it's
+different, now. I'm not the same man who came to Radville ten months
+ago. I've learned a little to understand the right, I hope: I've
+learned to love and reverence goodness and purity and unselfishness and
+... And I want to be a man, the kind of a man you thought me: a man
+worthy of you and your love, Betty.... Because I love you. I want you
+to be my wife. ... And, O Betty, Betty, I need you to help me!"
+</p>
+<p>
+His voice broke. He waited, every nerve and fibre of him tense for her
+answer. While he had been speaking, the onrush of the storm had blotted
+out the moon. There was only darkness there in the garden&mdash;deep, dense
+darkness, so thick he could not even see the shimmer of her dress....
+</p>
+<p>
+Then suddenly she was in his arms, shaking and sobbing, straining him
+to her.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, Nat, my Nat! I've loved you from the first day I ever saw you! You
+know I have."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Betty! ... sweetheart..."
+</p>
+<p>
+There came an abrupt, furious patter of heavy drops of water, beating
+upon the foliage, splashing and rebounding from the house.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Forever and ever, Nat?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Forever and ever and a day, my dear ... my dear!"
+</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Fortune Hunter, by Louis Joseph Vance
+
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+</pre>
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+</body>
+</html>
+
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@@ -0,0 +1,9726 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Fortune Hunter, by Louis Joseph Vance
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Fortune Hunter
+
+Author: Louis Joseph Vance
+
+Illustrator: Arthur William Brown
+
+Posting Date: November 15, 2011 [EBook #9747]
+Release Date: January, 2006
+First Posted: October 15, 2003
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FORTUNE HUNTER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Suzanne Shell, Anuradha Valsa Raj, Tonya Allen
+and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: "You can be worth a million ... within a year"]
+
+
+THE FORTUNE HUNTER
+
+By
+
+Louis Joseph Vance
+
+Author Of "The Brass Bowl,"
+"The Bronze Bell," Etc.
+
+_With illustrations by_
+Arthur William Brown
+
+1910
+
+
+To
+George Spellvin, Esq.,
+
+_This book is cheerfully dedicated_
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+CHAPTER
+
+
+I.       FROM HIM THAT HATH NOT
+
+II.      TO HIM THAT HATH
+
+III.     INSPIRATION
+
+IV.      TRIUMPH OF MR. HOMER LITTLE JOHN
+
+V.       MARGARET'S DAUGHTER
+
+VI.      INTRODUCTION TO MISS CARPENTER
+
+VII.     A WINDOW IN RADVILLE
+
+VIII.    THE MAN OF BUSINESS IN EMBRYO
+
+IX.      SMALL BEGINNINGS
+
+X.       ROLAND BARNETTE'S FRIEND
+
+XI.      BLINKY LOCKWOOD
+
+XII.     DUNCAN'S GRUBSTAKE
+
+XIII.    THE BUSINESS MAN AND MR. BURNHAM
+ XIV.     MOSTLY ABOUT BETTY
+
+XV.      MANOEUVRES OF JOSIE
+
+XVI.     WHERE RADVILLE FEARED TO TREAD
+
+XVII.    TRACEY'S TROUBLES
+
+XVIII.   A BARGAIN IS A BARGAIN
+
+XIX.     PROVING THE PERSIPICUITY OF MR. KELLOGG
+
+XX.      ROLAND SHOWS HIS HAND
+
+XXI.     AS OTHERS SAW HIM
+
+XXII.    ROLAND'S TRIUMPH
+
+XXIII.   THE RAINBOW'S END
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+"You can be worth a million ... within a year"
+
+"You mean you're going to work here?"
+
+"Four hundred dollars, Mr. Sheriff"
+
+"Betty!"
+
+"You're a thief with a reward out for you"
+
+"Forever and ever and a day"
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+
+FROM HIM THAT HATH NOT
+
+Receiver at ear, Spaulding, of Messrs. Atwater & Spaulding, importers
+of motoring garments and accessories, listened to the switchboard
+operator's announcement with grave attention, acknowledging it with a
+toneless: "All right. Send him in." Then hooking up the desk telephone
+he swung round in his chair to face the door of his private office, and
+in a brief ensuing interval painstakingly ironed out of his face and
+attitude every indication of the frame of mind in which he awaited his
+caller. It was, as a matter of fact, anything but a pleasant one: he
+had a distasteful duty to perform; but that was the last thing he
+designed to become evident. Like most good business men he nursed a pet
+superstition or two, and of the number of these the first was that he
+must in all his dealings present an inscrutable front, like a
+poker-player's: captains of industry were uniformly like that,
+Spaulding understood; if they entertained emotions it was strictly in
+private. Accordingly he armoured himself with a magnificent
+imperturbability which at times almost deceived its wearer.
+
+Occasionally it deceived others: notably now it bewildered Duncan as he
+entered on the echo of Spaulding's "Come!" He had apprehended the
+visage of a thunderstorm, with a rattle of brusque complaints: he
+encountered Spaulding as he had always seemed: a little, urbane figure
+with a blank face, the blanker for glasses whose lenses seemed always
+to catch the light and, glaring, mask the eyes behind them; a
+prosperous man of affairs, well groomed both as to body and as to mind;
+a machine for the transaction of business, with all a machine's
+vivacity and temperamental responsiveness. It was just that quality in
+him that Duncan envied, who was vaguely impressed that, if he himself
+could only imitate, however minutely, the phlegm of a machine, he might
+learn to ape something of its efficiency and so, ultimately, prove
+himself of some worth to the world--and, incidentally, to Nathaniel
+Duncan. Thus far his spasmodic attempts to adapt to the requirements
+and limitations of the world of business his own equipment of misfit
+inclinations and ill-assorted abilities, had unanimously turned out
+signal failures. So he envied Spaulding without particularly admiring
+him.
+
+Now the sight of his employer, professionally bland and capable, and
+with no animus to be discerned in his attitude, provided Duncan with
+one brief, evanescent flash of hope, one last expiring instant of
+dignity (tempered by his unquenchable humour) in which to face his
+fate. Something of the hang-dog vanished from his habit and for a
+little time he carried himself again with all his one-time grace and
+confidence.
+
+"Good-afternoon, Mr. Spaulding," he said, replying to a nod as he
+dropped into the chair that nod had indicated. A faint smile lightened
+his expression and made it quite engaging.
+
+"G'dafternoon." Spaulding surveyed him swiftly, then laced his fat
+little fingers and contemplated them with detached intentness. "Just
+get in, Duncan?"
+
+"On the three-thirty from Chicago...."
+
+There was a pause, during which Spaulding reviewed his fingernails with
+impartial interest; in that pause Duncan's poor little hope died a
+natural death. "I got your wire," he resumed; "I mean, it got
+me--overtook me at Minneapolis.... So here I am."
+
+"You haven't wasted time."
+
+"I fancied the matter might be urgent, sir."
+
+Spaulding lifted his brows ever so slightly. "Why?"
+
+"Well, I gathered from the fact that you wired
+me to come home that you wanted my advice."
+
+A second time Spaulding gestured with his eyebrows, for once fairly
+surprised out of his pose. "_Your_ advice!..."
+
+"Yes," said Duncan evenly: "as to whether you ought to give up your
+customers on my route or send them a man who could sell goods."
+
+"Well...." Spaulding admitted.
+
+"Oh, don't think I'm boasting of my acuteness: anybody could have
+guessed as much from the great number of heavy orders I have not been
+sending you."
+
+"You've had bad luck...."
+
+"You mean you have, Mr. Spaulding. It was good luck for me to be
+drawing down my weekly cheques, bad luck to you not to have a man who
+could earn them."
+
+His desperate honesty touched Spaulding a trifle; at the risk of not
+seeming a business man to himself he inclined dubiously to relent, to
+give Duncan another chance. The fellow was likeable enough, his
+employer considered; he had good humour and even in dejection,
+distinction; whatever he was not, he was a man of birth and breeding.
+His face might be rusty with a day-old stubble, as it was; his
+shirt-cuffs frayed, his shoes down at the heel, his baggy clothing
+weirdly ready-made, as they were: there remained his air. You'd think
+he might amount to something, to somewhat more than a mere something,
+given half a chance in the right direction. Then what?... Spaulding
+sought from Duncan elucidation of this riddle.
+
+"Duncan," he said, "what's the trouble?"
+
+"I thought you knew that; I thought that was
+why you called me in with my route half-covered."
+
+"You mean--?"
+
+"I mean I can't sell your line."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"God only knows. I want to, badly enough. It's just general
+incompetence, I presume."
+
+"What makes you think that?"
+
+Duncan smiled bitterly. "Experience," he said.
+
+"You've tried--what else?"
+
+"A little of everything--all the jobs open to a man with a knowledge of
+Latin and Greek and the higher mathematics: shipping clerk,
+time-keeper, cashier--all of 'em."
+
+"And yet Kellogg believes in you."
+
+Duncan nodded dolefully. "Harry's a good friend. We roomed together at
+college. That's why he stands for me."
+
+"He says you only need the right opening--."
+
+"And nobody knows where that is, except my unfortunate employers: it's
+the back door going out, for mine every time.... Oh, Harry's been a
+prince to me. He's found me four or five jobs with friends of his--like
+yourself. But I don't seem to last. You see I was brought up to be
+ornamental and irregular rather than useful; to blow about in motor
+cars and keep a valet busy sixteen hours a day--and all that sort of
+thing. My father's failure--you know about that?"
+
+Spaulding nodded. Duncan went on gloomily, talking a great deal more
+freely than he would at any other time--suffering, in fact, from that
+species of auto hypnosis induced by the sound of his own voice
+recounting his misfortunes, which seems especially to affect a man down
+on his luck.
+
+"That smash came when I was five years out of college--I'd never
+thought of turning my hand to anything in all that time. I'd always had
+more coin than I could spend--never had to consider the worth of money
+or how hard it is to earn: my father saw to all that. He seemed not to
+want me to work: not that I hold that against him; he'd an idea I'd
+turn out a genius of some sort or other, I believe.... Well, he failed
+and died all in a week, and I found myself left with an extensive
+wardrobe, expensive tastes, an impractical education--and not so much
+of that that you'd notice it--and not a cent.... I was too proud to
+look to my friends for help in those days--and perhaps that was as
+well; I sought jobs on my own.... Did you ever keep books in a
+fish-market?"
+
+"No." Spaulding's eyes twinkled behind his large, shiny glasses.
+
+"But what's the use of my boring you?" Duncan made as if to rise,
+suddenly remembering himself.
+
+"You're not. Go on."
+
+"I didn't mean to; mostly, I presume, I've been blundering round an
+explanation of Kellogg's kindness to me, in my usual ineffectual
+way--felt somehow an explanation was due you, as the latest to suffer
+through his misplaced interest in me."
+
+"Perhaps," said Spaulding, "I am beginning to understand. Go on: I'm
+interested. About the fish-market?"
+
+"Oh, I just happened to think of it as a sample experience--and the
+last of that particular brand. I got nine dollars a week and earned
+every cent of it inhaling the atmosphere. My board cost me six and the
+other three afforded me a chance to demonstrate myself a captain of
+finance--paying laundry bills and clothing myself, besides buying
+lunches and such-like small matters. I did the whole thing, you
+know--one schooner of beer a day and made my own cigarettes: never
+could make up my mind which was the worst. The hours were easy, too:
+didn't have to get to work until five in the morning.... I lasted five
+weeks at that job, before I was taken sick: shows what a great
+constitution I've got."
+
+He laughed uncertainly and paused, thoughtful, his eyes vacant, fixed
+upon the retrospect that was a grim prospect of the imminent future.
+
+"And then--?"
+
+"Oh--?" Duncan roused. "Why, then I fell in with Kellogg again; he
+found me trying the open-air cure on a bench in Washington Square.
+Since then he's been finding me one berth after another. He's a
+sure-enough optimist."
+
+Spaulding shifted uneasily in his chair, stirred by an impulse whose
+unwisdom he could not doubt. Duncan had assuredly done his case no good
+by painting his shortcomings in colours so vivid; yet, somehow
+strangely, Spaulding liked him the better for his open-hearted
+confession.
+
+"Well...." Spaulding stumbled awkwardly.
+
+"Yes; of course," said Duncan promptly, rising. "Sorry if I tired you."
+
+"What do you mean by: 'Yes, of course'?"
+
+"That you called me in to fire me--and so that's over with. Only I'd be
+sorry to have you sore on Kellogg for saddling me on you. You see, he
+believed I'd make good, and so did I in a way: at least, I hoped to."
+
+"Oh, that's all right," said Spaulding uncomfortably. "The trouble is,
+you see, we've nothing else open just now. But if you'd really like
+another chance on the road, I--I'll be glad to speak to Mr. Atwater
+about it."
+
+"Don't you do it!" Duncan counselled him sharply, aghast. "He might say
+yes. And I simply couldn't accept; it wouldn't be fair to you, Kellogg,
+or myself. It'd be charity--for I've proved I can't earn my wages; and
+I haven't come to that yet. No!" he concluded with determination, and
+picked up his hat.
+
+"Just a minute." Spaulding held him with a gesture. "You're forgetting
+something: at least I am. There's a month's pay coming to you; the
+cashier will hand you the cheque as you go out."
+
+"A month's pay?" Duncan said blankly. "How's that? I've drawn up to the
+end of this week already, if you didn't know it."
+
+"Of course I knew it. But we never let our men go without a month's
+notice or its equivalent, and--"
+
+"No," Duncan interrupted firmly. "No; but thank you just the same. I
+couldn't. I really couldn't. It's good of you, but ... Now," he broke
+off abruptly, "I've left my accounts--what there is of them--with the
+book-keeping department, and the checks for my sample trunks. There'll
+be a few dollars coming to me on my expense account, and I'll send you
+my address as soon as I get one."
+
+"But look here--" Spaulding got to his feet, frowning.
+
+"No," reiterated Duncan positively. "There's no use. I'm grateful to
+you for your toleration of me--and all that. But we can't do anything
+better now than call it all off. Good-bye, Mr. Spaulding."
+
+Spaulding nodded, accepting defeat with the better grace because of an
+innate conviction that it was just as well, after all. And,
+furthermore, he admired Duncan's stand. So he offered his hand: an
+unusual condescension. "You'll make good somewhere yet," he asserted.
+
+"I wish I could believe it." Duncan's grasp was firm since he felt more
+assured of some humanity latent in his late employer. "However ...
+Good-bye."
+
+"Good luck to you," rang in his ears as the door put a period to the
+interview. He stopped and took up the battered suitcase and rusty
+overcoat which he had left outside the junior partner's office, then
+went on, shaking his head. "Much obliged," he said huskily to himself.
+"But what's the good of that. There's no room anywhere for a
+professional failure. And that's what I am; just a ne'er-do-well. I
+never realised what that meant, really, before, and it's certainly
+taken me a damn' long time to find out. But I know now, all right...."
+
+Outside, on the steps of the building, he paused a moment, fascinated
+by the brisk spectacle afforded by lower Broadway at the hour when the
+cave-like offices in its cliff-like walls begin to empty themselves,
+when the overlords and their lieutenants close their desks and turn
+their faces homewards, leaving the details of the day's routine to be
+wound up by underlings. In the clear light of the late spring afternoon
+a stream of humanity was high and fluent upon the sidewalks. Duncan had
+glimpses of keen-faced men, bright-faced women, eager boys, quickened
+all by that manner of efficiency and intelligence which seems so
+integrally American. A well-dressed throng, well-fed, amiable and
+animated, looking ever forward, the resistless tide of affairs that
+gave it being bore it onward; it passed the onlooker as a strong
+current passes flotsam in a back-eddy, with no pause, no turning aside.
+Acutely he felt his aloofness from it, who had no part in its interests
+and scarcely any comprehension of them. The sunken look, the leanness
+of his young face, seemed suddenly accentuated; the gloom in his
+discontented eyes deepened; his slight habitual stoop became more
+noticeable. And a second time he nodded acquiescence to his unspoken
+thought.
+
+"There," said he, singling out a passer-by upon whose complacent
+features prosperity had set its smug hall-mark--"there, but for the
+grace of God, goes Nat Duncan!" He rolled the paraphrase upon his
+tongue and found it bitter--not, however, with a tonic bitterness.
+"Lord, what a worthless critter I am! No good to myself--nor to anybody
+else. Even on Harry I'm a drag--a regular old man of the mountains!"
+
+Despondently he went down to the sidewalk and merged himself with the
+crowd, moving with it though a thousand miles apart from it, and
+presently diverging, struck across-town toward the Worth Street subway
+station.
+
+"And the worst of it is, he's too sharp not to find it out--if he
+hasn't by this time--and too damn' decent by far to let me know if he
+has! ... It can't go on this way with us: I can't let him ... Got to
+break with him somehow--now--to-day. I won't let him think me ... what
+I've been all along to him.... Bless his foolish heart!..."
+
+This resolution coloured his reverie throughout the uptown journey. And
+he strengthened himself with it, deriving a sort of acrid comfort from
+the knowledge that henceforth none should know the burden of his
+misfortunes save himself. There was no deprecation of Kellogg's
+goodness in his mood, simply determination no longer to be a charge
+upon it. To contemplate the sum total of the benefits he had received
+at Kellogg's hands, since the day when the latter had found him ill and
+half-starved, friendless as a stray pup, on the bench in Washington
+Square, staggered his imagination. He could never repay it, he told
+himself, save inadequately, little by little--mostly by gratitude and
+such consideration as he purposed now to exhibit by removing himself
+and his distresses from the other's ken. Here was an end to comfort for
+him, an end to living in Kellogg's rooms, eating his food, busying his
+servants, spending his money--not so much borrowed as pressed upon him.
+He stood at the cross-roads, but in no doubt as to which way he should
+most honourably take, though it took him straight back to that from
+which Kellogg had rescued him.
+
+There crawled in his mind a clammy memory of the sort of housing he had
+known in those evil days, and he shuddered inwardly, smelling again the
+effluvia of dank oilcloth and musty carpets, of fish-balls and fried
+ham, of old-style plumbing and of nine-dollar-a-week humanity in the
+unwashen raw--the odour of misery that permeated the lodgings to which
+his lack of means had introduced him. He could see again, and with a
+painful vividness of mental vision, the degenerate "brownstone fronts"
+that mask those haunts of wretchedness, with their flights of crumbling
+brownstone steps leading up to oaken portals haggard with flaking
+paint, flanked by squares of soiled note-paper upon which inexpert
+hands had traced the warning, not: "Abandon hope all ye who enter
+here," but: "Furnished rooms to let with board." And pursuing this grim
+trail of memory, whether he would or no--again he climbed, wearily at
+the end of a wearing day, a darksome well of a staircase up and up to
+an eyrie under the eaves, denominated in the terminology of landladies
+a "top hall back"--a cramped refuge haunted by pitiful ghosts of the
+hopes and despairs of its former tenants. And he remembered with
+reminiscently aching muscles the comfort of such a "single bed" as is
+peculiar (one hopes) to top hall backs, and with a qualm what it was to
+cook a surreptitious meal on a metal heater clamped to the gas-bracket
+(with ears keen to catch the scuffle of the landlady's feet as she
+skulked in the hall, jealous of her gas bill).
+
+And to this he must return, to that treadmill round of blighted days
+and joyless nights must set his face....
+
+Alighting at the Grand Central Station he packed the double weight of
+his luggage and his cares a few blocks northward on Madison Avenue ere
+turning west toward the bachelor rooms which Kellogg had established in
+the roaring Forties, just the other side of _the_ Avenue--Fifth
+Avenue, on a corner of which Duncan presently was held up for a time by
+a press of traffic. He lingered indifferently, waiting for the mounted
+policeman to clear a way across, watching the while with lack-lustre
+eyes the interminable procession of cabs and landaus, taxis and
+town-cars that romped by hazardously, crowding the street from curb to
+curb.
+
+The day was of young June, though grey and a little chill with the
+discouraged spirit of a retarded season. Though the hegira of the
+well-to-do to their summer homes had long since set in, still there
+remained in the city sufficient of their class to keep the Avenue
+populous from Twenty-third Street north to the Plaza in the evening
+hours. The suggestion of wealth, or luxury, of money's illimitable
+power, pervaded the atmosphere intensely, an ineluctable influence, to
+an independent man heady, to Duncan maddening. He surveyed the parade
+with mutiny in his heart. All this he had known, a part of it had
+been--upon a time. Now ... the shafts of his roving eyes here and there
+detected faces recognisable, of men and women whose acquaintance he had
+once owned. None recognised him who stood there worn, shabby and tired.
+He even caught the direct glance of a girl who once had thought him
+worth winning, who had set herself to stir his heart and--had been
+successful. To-day she looked him straight in the eyes, apparently,
+with undisturbed serenity, then as calmly looked over and through and
+beyond him. Her limousine hurried her on, enthroned impregnably above
+the envious herd.
+
+He sped her transit with a mirthless chuckle. "You're right," he said,
+"dead right. You simply don't know me any more, my dear--you musn't;
+you can't afford to any more than I could afford to know you."
+
+None the less the fugitive incident seemed to brim his disconsolate
+cup. In complete dejection of mind and spirit he pushed on to Kellogg's
+quarters, buoyed by a single hope--that Kellogg might be out of town or
+delayed at his office.
+
+In that event Duncan might have a chance to gather up his belongings
+and escape unhandicapped by the immediate necessity of justifying his
+course. At another time, surely, the explanation was inevitable; say
+to-morrow; he was not cur enough to leave his friend without a word.
+But to-night he would willingly be spared. He apprehended unhappily the
+interview with Kellogg; he was in no temper for argumentation, felt
+scarcely strong enough to hold his own against the fire of objections
+with which Kellogg would undoubtedly seek to shake his stand. Kellogg
+could talk, Heaven alone knew how winningly he could talk! with all the
+sound logic of a close reasoner, all the enthusiasm of youth and
+self-confidence, all the persuasiveness of profound conviction singular
+to successful men. Duncan had been wont to say of him that Kellogg
+could talk the hind-leg off of a mule. He recalled this now with a sour
+grin: "That means me..."
+
+The elevator boy, knowing him of old, neglected to announce his
+arrival, and Duncan had his own key to the door of Kellogg's apartment.
+He let himself in with futile stealth: as was quite right and proper,
+Kellogg's man Robbins was in attendance--a stupefied Robbins,
+thunderstruck by the unexpected return of his master's friend and
+guest. "Good Lord!" he cried at sight of Duncan. "Beg your pardon, sir,
+but--but it can't be you!"
+
+"Your mistake, Robbins. Unfortunately it is." Duncan surrendered his
+luggage. "Mr. Kellogg in?"
+
+"No, sir. But I'm expecting him any minute. He'll be surprised to see
+you back."
+
+"Think so?" said Duncan dully. "He doesn't know me, if he is."
+
+"You see, sir, we thought you was out West."
+
+"So you did." Duncan moved toward the door of his own bedroom, Robbins
+following.
+
+"It was only yesterday I posted a letter to you for Mr. Kellogg, sir,
+and the address was Omaha."
+
+"I didn't get that far. Fetch along that suitcase, will you please? I
+want to put some clean things in it."
+
+"Then you're not staying in town over night, Mr. Duncan?"
+
+"I don't know. I'm not staying here, anyway." Duncan switched on the
+lights in his room. "Put it on the bed, Robbins. I'll pack as quickly
+as I can. I'm in a hurry."
+
+"Yes, sir, but--I hope there's nothing wrong?"
+
+"Then you lose," returned Duncan grimly: "everything's wrong." He
+jerked viciously at an obstinate bureau drawer, and when it yielded
+unexpectedly with the well-known impishness of the inanimate, dumped
+upon the floor a tangled miscellany of shirts, socks, gloves, collars
+and ties.
+
+"Didn't you like the business, sir?"
+
+"No, I didn't like the business--and it didn't like me. It's the same
+old story, Robbins. I've lost my job again--that's all."
+
+"I'm very sorry, sir."
+
+"Thank you--but that's all right. I'm used to it."
+
+"And you're going to leave, sir?"
+
+"I am, Robbins."
+
+"I--may I take the liberty of hoping it's to take another position?"
+
+"You may, but you lose a second time. I've just made up my mind I'm not
+going to hang round here any longer. That's all."
+
+"But," Robbins ventured, hovering about with exasperating
+solicitude--"but Mr. Kellogg'd never permit you to leave in this way,
+sir."
+
+"Wrong again, Robbins," said Duncan curtly, annoyed.
+
+"Yes, sir. Very good, sir." With the instinct of the well-trained
+servant, Robbins started to leave, but hesitated. He was really very
+much disturbed by Duncan's manner, which showed a phase of his
+character new in Robbins' experience of him. Ordinarily reverses such
+as this had seemed merely to serve to put Duncan on his mettle, to
+infuse him with a determination to try again and win out, whatever the
+odds; and at such times he was accustomed to exhibit a mad
+irresponsibility of wit and a gaiety of spirit (whether it were a mask
+or no) that only outrivalled his high good humour when things
+ostensibly were going well with him.
+
+Intermittently, between his spasms of employment, he had been Kellogg's
+guest for several years, not infrequently for months at a time; and so
+Robbins had come to feel a sort of proprietary interest in the young
+man, second only to the regard which he had for his employer. Like most
+people with whom Duncan came in contact, Robbins admired him from a
+respectful distance, and liked him very well withal. He would have been
+much distressed to have harm happen to him, and he was very much
+concerned and alarmed to see him so candidly discouraged and sick at
+heart. Perhaps too quick to draw an inference, Robbins mistrusted his
+intentions; his dour habit boded ill in the servant's understanding:
+men in such moods were apt to act unwisely. But if only he might
+contrive to delay Duncan until Kellogg's return, he thought the former
+might yet be saved from the consequences of folly of some insensate
+sort. And casting about for an excuse, he grasped at the most sovereign
+solace he knew of.
+
+"Beg pardon, sir," he advanced, hesitant, "but perhaps you're just
+feeling a bit blue. Won't you let me bring you a drop of something?"
+
+"Of course I will," said Duncan emphatically over his shoulder. "And
+get it now, will you, while I'm packing.... And, Robbins!"
+
+"Sir?"
+
+"Only put a little in it."
+
+"A little what, sir?"
+
+"Seltzer, of course."
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+TO HIM THAT HATH
+
+It had been a forlorn hope at best, this attempt of his to escape
+Kellogg: Duncan acknowledged it when, his packing rudely finished, he
+started for the door, Robbins reluctantly surrendering the suit-case
+after exhausting his repertoire of devices to delay the young man. But
+at that instant the elevator gate clashed in the outer corridor and
+Kellogg's key rattled in the lock, to an accompanying confusion of
+voices, all masculine and all very cheerful.
+
+Duncan sighed and motioned Robbins away with his luggage. "No hope
+now," he told himself. "But--O Lord!"
+
+Incontinently there burst into the room four men: Jim Long, Larry
+Miller, another whom Duncan did not immediately recognise, and Kellogg
+himself, bringing with them an atmosphere breezy with jubilation.
+Before he knew it Duncan was boisterously overwhelmed. He got his
+breath to find Kellogg pumping his hand.
+
+"Nat," he was saying, "you're the only other man on earth I was wishing
+could be with me tonight! Now my happiness is complete. Gad, this is
+lucky!"
+
+"You think so?" countered Duncan, forcing a smile. "Hello, you boys!"
+He gave a hand to Long and Miller. "How're you all?" He warmed to their
+friendly faces and unfeigned welcome. "My, but it's good to see you!"
+There was relief in the fact that Kellogg, after a single glance,
+forbore to question his return; he was to be counted upon for tact, was
+Kellogg. Now he strangled surprise by turning to the fourth member of
+the party.
+
+"Nat," he said, "I want you to meet Mr. Bartlett. Mr. Bartlett, Mr.
+Duncan."
+
+A wholesome smile dawned on Duncan's face as he encountered the blank
+blue stare of a young man whose very smooth and very bright red face
+was admirably set off by semi-evening dress. "Great Scott!" he cried,
+warmly pressing the lackadaisical hand that drifted into his. "Willy
+Bartlett--after all these years!"
+
+A sudden animation replaced the vacuous stare of the blue eyes.
+"Duncan!" he stammered. "I say, this is rippin'!"
+
+"As bad as that?" Duncan essayed an accent almost English and nodded
+his appreciation of it: something which Bartlett missed completely.
+
+He was very young--a very great deal younger, Duncan thought, than when
+they had been classmates, what time Duncan shared his rooms with
+Kellogg: very much younger and suffering exquisitely from
+over-sophistication. His drawl barely escaped being inimitable; his air
+did not escape it. "Smitten with my old trouble," Duncan appraised him:
+"too much money... Heaven knows I hope he never recovers!"
+
+As for Willy, he was momentarily more nearly human than he had seemed
+from the moment of his first appearance. "You know," he blurted, "this
+is simply extraordinary. I say, you chaps, Duncan and I haven't met for
+years--not since he graduated. We belonged to the same frat, y'know,
+and had a jolly time of it, if he was an upper-class man. No side about
+him at all, y'know--absolutely none whatever. Whenever I had to go out
+on a spree, I'd always get Nat to show me round."
+
+"I was pretty good at that," Duncan admitted a trifle ruefully.
+
+But Willy rattled on, heedless. "He knew more pretty gels, y'know... I
+say, old chap, d'you know as many now?"
+
+Duncan shook his head. "The list has shrunk. I'm a changed man, Willy."
+
+"Ow, I say, you're chawfin'," Willy argued incredulously. "I don't
+believe that, y'know--hardly. I say, you remember the night you showed
+me how to play faro bank?"
+
+"I'll never forget it," Duncan told him gravely. "And I remember what a
+plug we thought my room-mate was because he wouldn't come with us." He
+nodded significantly toward the amused Kellogg.
+
+"Not him!" cried Willy, expostulant. "Not really? Why it cawn't be!"
+
+"Fact," Duncan assured him. "He was working his way through college,
+you see, whereas I was working my way through my allowance--and then
+some. That's why you never met him, Willy: he worked--and got the
+habit. We loafed--with the same result. That's why he's useful and
+you're ornamental, and I'm--" He broke off in surprise. "Hello!" he
+said as Robbins offered a tray to the three on which were slim-stemmed
+glasses filled with a pale yellow, effervescent liquid. "Why the blond
+waters of excitement, please?" he inquired, accepting a glass.
+
+From across the room Larry Miller's voice sounded. "Are you ready,
+gentlemen? We'll drink to him first and then he can drink to his royal
+little self. To the boy who's getting on in the world! To the junior
+member of L.J. Bartlett and Company!"
+
+Long applauded loudly: "Hear! Hear!" And even Willy Bartlett chimed in
+with an unemotional: "Good work!" Mechanically Duncan downed the toast;
+Kellogg was the only man not drinking it, and from that the meaning was
+easily to be inferred. With a stride Duncan caught his hand and crushed
+it in his own.
+
+"Harry," he said a little huskily, "I can't tell you how glad I am!
+It's the best news I've had in years!"
+
+Kellogg's responsive pressure was answer enough. "It makes it doubly
+worth while, to win out and have you all so glad!" he said.
+
+"So you've taken him into the firm, eh?" Duncan inquired of Bartlett.
+
+The blue eyes widened stonily. "The governor has. I'm not in the
+business, y'know. Never had the slightest turn for it, what?" Willy set
+aside his glass. "I say, I must be moving. No, I cawn't stop, Kellogg,
+really. I was dressin' at the club and Larry told me about it, so I
+just dropped round to tell you how jolly glad I am."
+
+"Your father hadn't told you, then?"
+
+"Who, the governor?" Willy looked unutterably bored. "Why, he gave up
+tryin' to talk business with me long ago. I can't get interested in it,
+'pon my word. Of course I knew he thought the deuce and all of you, but
+I hadn't an idea they were goin' to take you into the firm. What?"
+
+Long and Miller interrupted, proposing adieus which Kellogg vainly
+contended.
+
+"Why, you're only just here--" he expostulated.
+
+
+
+"Cawn't help it, old chap," Willy assured him earnestly. "I must go,
+anyway. I've a dinner engagement."
+
+"You'll be late, won't you?"
+
+"Doesn't matter in the least; I'm always late. 'Night, Kellogg.
+Congratulations again."
+
+"We just dropped round to take off our hats to you," Long continued,
+pumping Kellogg's hand.
+
+"And tell you what a good fellow we think you are," added Miller,
+following suit.
+
+"You don't know how good you make me feel," Kellogg told them.
+
+Under cover of this diversion Duncan was making one last effort to slip
+away; but before he could gather together his impedimenta and get to
+the door Willy Bartlett intercepted him.
+
+"I say, Duncan--"
+
+"Oh, hell!" said Duncan beneath his breath. He paused ungraciously
+enough.
+
+"We've got to see a bit of one another, now we've met again, y'know.
+Wish you'd look me up--Half Moon Club'll get me 'most any time. We'll
+have to arrange to make a regular old-fashioned night of it, just for
+memory's sake."
+
+Duncan nodded, edging past him. "I've memories enough," he said.
+
+"Right-oh! Any reason at all, y'know, just so we have the night."
+
+"Good enough," assented Duncan vaguely. He suffered his hand to be
+wrung with warmth. "I'll not forget--good-night." Then he pulled up and
+groaned, for Willy's insistence had frustrated his design: Kellogg had
+suddenly become alive to his attitude and hailed him over the heads of
+Long and Miller.
+
+"Nat, I say! Where the devil are you going?"
+
+"Over to the hotel," said Duncan.
+
+"The deuce you are! What hotel?"
+
+"The one I'm stopping at."
+
+"Not on your life. You're not going just yet--I haven't had half a
+chance to talk to you. Robbins, take Mr. Duncan's things."
+
+Duncan, set upon by Robbins, who had been hovering round for just that
+purpose, lifted his shoulders in resignation, turning back into the
+room as Miller and Long said good-night to him and left at Bartlett's
+heels, and smiled awry in semi-humorous deprecation of the way in which
+he let Kellogg out-manoeuvre him. When it came to that, it was hard to
+refuse Kellogg anything; he had that way with him. Especially if one
+liked him... And how could anyone help liking him?
+
+Kellogg had him now, holding him fast by either shoulder, at arm's
+length, and shaking a reproving head at his friend. "You big duffer!"
+he said. "Did you think for a minute I'd let you throw me down like
+that?"
+
+Duncan stood passive, faintly amused and touched by the other's show of
+affection. "No," he said, "I didn't really think so. But it was worth
+trying on, of course."
+
+"Look here, have you dined?"
+
+'At this suggestion Duncan stiffened and fell back. "No, but--"
+
+Kellogg swept the ground from under his feet. "Robbins," he told the
+man, "order in dinner for two from the club, and tell 'em to hurry it
+up."
+
+"Yes, sir," said Robbins, and flew to obey before Duncan could get a
+chance to countermand his part in the order.
+
+"And now," continued Kellogg, "we've got the whole evening before us in
+which to chin. Sit down." He led Duncan to an arm-chair and gently but
+firmly plumped him into its capacious depths. "We'll have a snug little
+dinner here and--what do you say to taking in a show afterwards?"
+
+"I say no."
+
+"You dassent, my boy. This is the night we celebrate. I'm feeling
+pretty good to-night."
+
+"You ought to, Harry." Duncan struggled to rouse himself to share in
+the spirit of gratulation with which Kellogg was bubbling. "I'm mighty
+glad, old man. It's a great step up for you."
+
+"It's all of that. You could have knocked me over with a feather when
+Bartlett sprang it on me this morning. Of course, I was expecting
+something--a boost in salary, or something like that. Bartlett knew
+that other houses in the Street had made me offers--I've been pretty
+lucky of late and pulled off one or two rather big deals--but a
+partnership with L.J. Bartlett--! Think of it, Nat!"
+
+"I'm thinking of it--and it's great."
+
+"It'll keep me mighty busy," Kellogg blundered blindly on; "it means a
+lot of extra work--but you know I like to work...."
+
+"That's right, you do," agreed Duncan drearily. "It's queer to me--it
+must be a great thing to like to work."
+
+"You bet it's a great thing; why, I couldn't exist if I couldn't work.
+You remember that time I laid off for a month in the country--for my
+health's sake? I'll never forget it: hanging round all the time with my
+hands empty--everyone else with something to do. I wouldn't go through
+with it again for a fortune. Never felt so useless and in the way--"
+
+"But," interrupted Duncan, knitting his brows as he grappled with this
+problem, "you were independent, weren't you? You had money--could pay
+your board?"
+
+"Of course; nevertheless, I felt in the way."
+
+"That's funny...."
+
+"It's straight."
+
+"I know it is; it wouldn't be you if you didn't love work. It wouldn't
+be me if I did.... Look here, Harry; suppose you didn't have any money
+and couldn't pay your board--and had nothing to do. How'd you feel in
+that case?"
+
+"I don't know. Anyhow, that's rot--"
+
+"No, it isn't rot. I'm trying to make you understand how I feel
+when--when it's that way with me.... As it generally is." He raised one
+hand and let it fall with a gesture of despondency so eloquent that it
+roused Kellogg out of his own preoccupation.
+
+"Why, Nat!" he cried, genuinely sympathetic. "I've been so taken up
+with myself that I forgot.... I hadn't looked for you till to-morrow."
+
+"You knew, then?"
+
+"I met Atwater at lunch to-day. He told me; said he was sorry, but--"
+
+"Yes. Everybody is always sorry, _but_--"
+
+Kellogg let his hand fall on Duncan's shoulder. "I'm sorry, too, old
+man. But don't lose heart. I know it's pretty tough on a fellow--"
+
+"The toughest part of it is that you got the job for me--and I
+_had_ to fall down."
+
+"Don't think of that. It's not your fault--"
+
+"You're the only man who believes that, Harry."
+
+"Buck up. I'll stumble across some better opening for you before long,
+and--"
+
+"Stop right there. I'm through--"
+
+"Don't talk that way, Nat. I'll get you in right somewhere."
+
+"You're the best-hearted man alive, Harry--but I'll see you damned
+first."
+
+"Wait." Kellogg demanded his attention. "Here's this man Burnham--you
+don't know him, but he's as keen as they make 'em. He's on the track of
+some wonderful scheme for making illuminating gas from crude oil; if it
+goes through--if the invention's really practicable--it's bound to work
+a revolution. He's down in Washington now--left this afternoon to look
+up the patents. Now he needs me, to get the ear of the Standard Oil
+people, and I'll get you in there."
+
+"What right've you got to do that?" demanded Duncan. "What the dickens
+do I know about illuminating gas or crude oil? Burnham'd never thank
+you for the likes o' me."
+
+"But--thunder!--you can learn. All you need--."
+
+"Now see here, Harry!" Duncan gave him pause with a manner not to be
+denied. "Once and for all time understand I'm through having you
+recommend an incompetent--just because we're friends."
+
+"But, Harry--"
+
+"And I'm through living on you while I'm out of a job. That's final."
+
+"But, man--listen to me!--when we were at college--"
+
+"That was another matter."
+
+"How many times did you pay the room-rent when I was strapped? How many
+times did your money pull me through when I'd have had to quit and
+forfeit my degree because I couldn't earn enough to keep on?"
+
+"That's different. You earned enough finally to square up. You don't
+owe me anything."
+
+"I owe you the gratitude for the friendly hand that put me in the way
+of earning--that kept me going when the going was rank. Besides, the
+conditions are just reversed now; you'll do just as I did--make good in
+the world and, when it's convenient, to me. As for living here, you're
+perfectly welcome."
+
+"I know it--and more," Duncan assented a little wearily. "Don't think I
+don't appreciate all you've done for me. But I know and you must
+understand that I can't keep on living on you,--and I won't."
+
+For once baffled, Kellogg stared at him in consternation. Duncan met
+his gaze steadily, strong in the sincerity of his attitude. At length
+Kellogg surrendered, accepting defeat. "Well...." He shrugged
+uncomfortably. "If you insist ..."
+
+"I do."
+
+"Then that's settled."
+
+"Yes, that's settled."
+
+"Dinner," said Robbins from the doorway, "is
+served."
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+INSPIRATION
+
+"Look here, Nat," demanded Kellogg, when they were half way through the
+meal, "do you mind telling me what you're going to do?"
+
+Duncan pondered this soberly. "No," he replied in the end.
+
+Kellogg waited a moment, but his guest did not continue. "What does
+that kind of a 'No' mean, Nat?"
+
+"It means I don't mind telling you."
+
+Again an appreciable pause elapsed.
+
+"Well, then, what do you mean to do?"
+
+"I'm sure I don't know."
+
+Kellogg regarded him sombrely for a moment, then in silence returned
+his attention to his plate; and in silence, for the most part, the
+remainder of the dinner was served and eaten. Duncan himself had
+certainly enough to occupy his mind, while Kellogg had altogether
+forgotten his own cause for rejoicing in his concern for the fortunes
+of his friend. He was entirely of the opinion that something would have
+to be done for Nat, with or without his consent; and he sounded the
+profoundest depths of romantic impossibilities in his attempts to
+discover some employment suited to Duncan's interesting but
+impracticable assortment of faculties and qualifications, natural and
+acquired. But nothing presented itself as feasible in view of the fact
+that employment which would prove immediately remunerative was
+required. And by the time that Robbins, clearing the board, left them
+alone with coffee and cigars and cigarettes, Kellogg was fain to
+confess failure--though the confession was a very private one, confined
+to himself only.
+
+"Nat," he said suddenly, rousing that young man out of the dreariest of
+meditations, "what under the sun _can_ you do?"
+
+"Me? I don't know. Why bother your silly old head about that? I'll make
+out somehow."
+
+"But surely there's something you'd rather do than anything else."
+
+"My dear sir," Duncan told him impressively, "the only walk of life in
+which I am fitted to shine is that of the idle son of a rich and
+foolish father. Since I lost that job I've not been worth my salt."
+
+"That's piffle. There isn't a man living who hasn't some talent or
+other, some sort of an ability concealed about his person."
+
+"You can search me," Duncan volunteered gloomily.
+
+His unresponsiveness irritated Kellogg; he thought a while, then
+delivered himself of a didactic conclusion:
+
+"The trouble with you is you were brought up all wrong."
+
+"Well, I've been brought down all right. Besides, that's a platitude in
+my case."
+
+"Let's see: I've know you--er--nine years."
+
+"Is it that long?" Duncan looked up from a gloomy inspection of the
+interior of his demitasse, displaying his first gleam of interest in
+this analysis of his character. "You are a long-suffering old duffer.
+Any man who'd stand for me for nine years--"
+
+"That'll be all of that," Kellogg cut in sharply. "I was going on to
+say that you can't room with a man for four terms at college and then
+know him, off and on, for five years more, pretty intimately, without
+forming a pretty clear estimate of what he's worth in your own mind."
+
+"And I don't mind telling you, Harry, I think you're the best little
+business man as well as the finest sort of an all-round good-fellow on
+this continent."
+
+"Thanks awfully. I presume that's why you're determined to throw me
+down just at the time you need me most.... What I was trying to get at
+is the fact that I've never doubted your ultimate success for an
+instant."
+
+"You'd be a mighty lonesome minority in a congress of my employers,
+Harry."
+
+"Given the proper opportunity--"
+
+"Hold on," Duncan interrupted. "I know just what you're going to say,
+and it's all very fine, and I'm proud that you want to say it of me.
+But you're dead wrong, Harry. The truth is I haven't got it in me--the
+capacity to succeed. Just as much as you love work, I hate it. I ought
+to know, for I've had a good, hard try at it--several tries, in fact.
+And you know what they came to."
+
+"But if you persist in this way, Nat,--don't you know what it means?"
+
+"None better. It means going back to what you helped me out of--the
+life that nearly killed me."
+
+"And you'd rather--"
+
+"I'd rather that a thousand years before I'd sponge on you another
+day.... But, on the level, I'd as lieve try the East River or turn on
+the gas.... What's the use? That's the way I feel."
+
+"That's fool talk. Brace up and be a man. All you need is a way to earn
+money."
+
+"No," Duncan insisted firmly: "get it. I'll never be able to earn
+it--that's a cinch."
+
+Kellogg laughed a little mirthlessly, absorbed in revolving something
+which had popped into his head within the last few moments. "There are
+ways to get it," he admitted abstractedly, "if you're not too
+particular."
+
+"I'm not. I only wish I understood the burglar business."
+
+This time Kellogg laughed outright. He sat up with a new spirit in his
+manner. "You mean you'd steal to get money?"
+
+"Oh, well ..." Duncan smiled a trace sheepishly. "I can't think of
+anything hardly I wouldn't do to get it."
+
+"Very well, my son. Now attend to uncle." Kellogg leaned across the
+table, fixing him with an enthusiastic eye. "Here, have a smoke. I'm
+going to demonstrate high finance to your debased intelligence." He
+thrust the cigarette case over to Duncan, who helped himself
+mechanically, his gaze held in wonder to Kellogg's face.
+
+"Fire when ready," he assented.
+
+"I know a way," said Kellogg slowly, "by which, if you'll discard a
+scruple or two, you can be worth a million dollars--or
+thereabouts--within a year."
+
+Duncan held a lighted match until it singed his fingertips, the while
+he stared agape. "Say that again," he requested mildly.
+
+"You can be worth a million in a year."
+
+"Ah!" Duncan nodded slowly and comprehendingly. He turned aside in his
+chair and raked a second match across the sole of his shoe. "Let him
+rave," he observed enigmatically, and began to smoke.
+ "No, I'm not dippy; and I'm perfectly serious."
+
+"Of course. But what'd they do to me if I were caught?"
+
+"This is not a joke; the proposition's perfectly legal; it's being done
+right along."
+
+"And I could do it, Harry?"
+
+"A man of your calibre couldn't fail."
+
+"Would you mind ringing for Robbins?" Duncan asked abruptly.
+
+"Certainly." Kellogg pressed a button at his elbow. "What d'you want?"
+
+"A straight-jacket and a doctor to tell which one of us needs it."
+
+Kellogg, chagrined as he always was if joked with when expounding one
+of his schemes, broke into a laugh that lasted until Robbins appeared.
+
+"You rang, sir?"
+
+"Yes. Put those decanters over here, and some glasses, please."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+The man obeyed and withdrew. Kellogg filled two glasses, handing one to
+Duncan.
+
+"Now be decent and listen to me, Nat. I've thought this thing over
+for--oh, any amount of time. I'll bet anything it will work. What d'you
+say? Would you like to try it?"
+
+"Would I like to try it?" A conviction of Kellogg's earnestness forced
+itself upon Duncan's understanding. "Would I--!" He lifted his glass
+and drained it at a gulp. "Why, that's the first laugh I've had for a
+month!"
+
+"Then I'll tell you--"
+
+Duncan placed a pleading hand on his forearm. "Don't kid me, Harry," he
+entreated.
+
+"Not a bit of it. This is straight goods. If you want to try it and
+will follow the rules I lay down, I'll guarantee you'll be a rich man
+inside of twelve months."
+
+"Rules! Man, I'll follow all the rules in the world! Come on--I'm
+getting palpitation of the heart, waiting. Tell it to me: what've I got
+to do?"
+
+"Marry," said Kellogg serenely.
+
+"Marry!" Duncan echoed, aghast.
+
+"Marry," reaffirmed the other with unbroken gravity.
+
+"Marry--who?"
+
+"A girl with a fortune.... You see, I can't guarantee the precise size
+of her pile. That all depends on luck and the locality. But it'll run
+anywhere from several hundred thousand up to a million--perhaps more."
+
+Duncan sank back despondently. "You ought to be ashamed of yourself,
+Harry," he said dully; "you had me all excited, for a minute."
+
+"No, but honestly, I mean what I say."
+
+"Now look here: do you really think any girl with a million would take
+a chance on me?"
+
+"She'll jump at it."
+
+Duncan thought this over for a while. Then his lips twitched. "What's
+the matter with her?" he inquired. "I'm willing to play the game as it
+lies, but I bar lunatics and cripples."
+
+"There's no particular her--yet. You can take your pick. I've no more
+idea where she is than you have."
+
+"Now I know you're stark, staring, gibbering----"
+
+"Not a bit of it. I'm inspired--that's all. I've solved your
+problem--you only can't believe it."
+
+"How could I? What the devil are you getting at, anyhow?"
+
+"This pet scheme of mine. Lend me your ears. Have you ever lived in a
+one-horse country town--a place with one unspeakable hotel and about
+twenty stores and five churches?"
+
+"No ..."
+
+"I have; I was born in one of 'em.... Have you any idea what becomes of
+the young people of such towns?"
+
+"Not a glimmering."
+
+"Then I'll enlighten your egregious density. ...The boys--those who've
+got the stuff in them--strike out for the cities to make their
+everlasting fortunes. Generally they do it, too."
+
+"The same as you."
+
+"The same as me," assented Kellogg, unperturbed. "But the yaps, the
+Jaspers, stay there and clerk in father's store. After office-hours
+they put on their very best mail-order clothes and parade up and down
+Main Street, talking loud and flirting obviously with the girls. The
+girls haven't much else to do; they don't find it so easy to get away.
+A few of 'em escape to boarding-schools and colleges, where they meet
+and marry young men from the cities, but the majority of them have to
+stay at home and help mother--that's a tradition. If there are two
+children or more, the boys get the chance every time; the girls stay
+home to comfort the old folks in their old age. Why, by the time
+they're old enough to think of marrying--and they begin young, for
+that's about the only excitement they find available--you won't find a
+small country town between here and the Mississippi where there aren't
+about four girls to every boy."
+
+"It's a horrible thought ..."
+
+"You'd think so if you knew what the boys were like. There isn't one in
+ten that a girl with any sense or self-respect could force herself to
+marry if she ever saw anything better. Do you begin to see my drift?"
+
+"I do not. But go on drifting."
+
+"No? Why, the demand for eligible males is three hundred per cent. in
+excess of the supply. Don't you know--no, you don't: I got to that
+first--that there are twenty times as many old maids in small country
+towns as there are in the cities? It's a fact, and the reason for it is
+because when they were young they couldn't lower themselves to accept
+the pick of the local matrimonial market. Now, do you see--?"
+
+"You're as interesting as a magazine serial. Please continue in your
+next. I pant with anticipation."
+
+"You're an ass.... Now take a young chap from a city, with a good
+appearance, more or less a gentleman, who doesn't talk like a yap or
+walk like a yap or dress like a yap or act like a yap, and throw him
+into such a town long enough for the girls to get acquainted with him.
+He simply can't lose, can't fail to cop out the best-looking girl with
+the biggest bank-roll in town. I tell you, there's nothing to it!"
+
+"It's wonderful to listen to you, Harry."
+
+"I'm talking horse sense, my son. Now consider yourself: down on your
+luck, don't know how to earn a decent living, refusing to accept
+anything from your friends, ready (you say) to do almost anything to
+get some money.... And think of the country heiresses, with plenty of
+money for two, pining away in--in innocuous desuetude--hundreds of
+them, fine, straight, good girls, girls you could easily fall in love
+with, sighing their lives away for the lack of the likes of you....
+Now, why not take one, Nat--when you come to consider it, it's your
+duty--marry her and her bank-roll, make her happy, make yourself happy,
+and live a contented life on the sunny side of Easy Street for the rest
+of your natural born days? Can't you see it now?"
+
+"Yes," Duncan admitted, half-persuaded of the plausibility of the
+scheme. "I see--and I admire immensely the intellect that conceived the
+notion, Harry. But ... I can't help thinking there must be a catch in
+it somewhere."
+
+"Not if you follow my instructions. You see, having come from just such
+a hole-in-the-ground, I know just what I'm talking about. Believe me,
+everything depends on the way you go about it. There are a lot of
+things to contend with at first; you won't enjoy it at all, to begin
+with. But I can demonstrate how it can be managed so that you'll win
+out to a moral certainty."
+
+Duncan drew a deep breath, sat back and looked Kellogg over very
+critically. There was not a suspicion of a gleam of humour in his face;
+to the contrary, it blazed with the ardour of the instinctive schemer,
+the man who, with the ability to originate, throws himself heart and
+soul into the promotion of the product of his imagination. Kellogg was
+not sketching the outlines of a gigantic practical joke; he believed
+implicitly in the feasibility of his project; and so strongly that he
+could infuse even the less susceptible fancy of Duncan with some of his
+faith.
+
+"If I didn't know you so well, Harry," said Duncan slowly, "I'd be
+certain you were mad. I'm not at all sure that I'm sane. It's raving
+idiocy--and it's a pretty damned rank thing to do, to start
+deliberately out to marry a woman for her money. But I've been through
+a little hell of my own in my time, and--it's not alluring to
+contemplate a return to it. There's nothing mad enough nor bad enough
+to stop me. What've I got to do?"
+
+Kellogg beamed his triumph. "You'll try it on, then?"
+
+"I'll try anything on. It's a contemptible, low-lived piece of
+business--but good may come of it; you can't tell. What've I got to
+do?"
+
+Slipping back, Kellogg knitted his fingers and stared at the ceiling,
+smiling faintly to himself as he enumerated the conditions that first
+appealed to his understanding as essentials toward success.
+
+"First, pick out your town: one of two or three thousand
+inhabitants--no larger. I'd suggest, at a hazard guess, some place in
+the interior of Pennsylvania. Most of such towns have at least one rich
+man with a marriageable daughter--but we'll make sure of that before we
+settle on one. Of course any suburban town is barred."
+
+"How so?"
+
+"Oh, they don't count. The girls always know people in the city--can
+get there easily. That spoils the game."
+
+"How about the game laws?"
+
+"I'm coming to them. Of course there isn't an open or close season, and
+the hunting's always good, but there are a few precautionary measures
+to be taken if you want to be sure of bagging an heiress. You won't
+like most of 'em."
+
+"Like 'em! I'll live by them!"
+
+"Well, here come the things you mustn't do. You mustn't swear or use
+slang; you mustn't smoke and you mustn't drink--"
+
+"Heavens! are these people as inhuman as all that?"
+
+"Worse than that. It might be fatal if you were ever seen in the hotel
+bar. And to begin with, you must refuse all invitations, of any sort,
+whether to dances, parties, church sociables, or even Sunday dinners."
+
+"Why _Sunday_ dinners?"
+
+"Because Sunday's the only day you'll be invited. Dinner on week-days
+is from twelve to twelve-thirty, and it's strictly a business
+matter--no time for guests. But you needn't fret; they won't ask you
+till they've sized you up pretty carefully."
+
+"Oh!..."
+
+"Moreover, you must be very particular about your dress; it must be
+absolutely faultless, but very quiet: clothing sober--dark greys and
+blacks--and plain, but the very last word as to cut and fit. And
+everything must be in keeping--the very best of shirts, collars, ties,
+hats, socks, shoes, underwear--." Kellogg caught Duncan's look and
+laughed. "Your laundress will report on everything, you know; so you
+must be impeccable."
+
+"I'll be even that--whatever it is."
+
+"Be very particular about having your shoes polished, shave daily and
+manicure yourself religiously--but don't let 'em catch you at it."
+
+"Would they raid me if they did?"
+
+"And then, my son, you must work."
+
+Kellogg paused to let his lesson sink in. After a time Duncan observed
+plaintively: "I knew there was a catch in it somewhere. What kind of
+work?"
+
+"It doesn't make any difference, so long as you get and hold some job
+in the town."
+
+"Well, that lets me out. You'll have to sic some other poor devil on
+this glittering proposition of yours. I couldn't hold a job in--"
+
+"Wait! I'll tell you how to do it in just a minute."
+
+"I don't mind listening, but--"
+
+"You'll cinch the whole business by going to church without a break.
+Don't ever fail--morning and evening every Sunday. Don't forget that."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"It's the most important thing of all."
+
+"Does going to church make such a hit with the young female
+Jasper--the Jasperette, as it were?"
+
+"It'll make you more solid than anything else with her popper and
+mommer, and that's very necessary when you're a candidate for their
+ducats as well as their daughter. You must work and you must go to
+church."
+
+"That can't be all. Surely you can think of something else?"
+
+"Those are the cardinal rules--church and work until you've landed your
+heiress. After that you can move back to civilisation.... Now as soon
+as you strike your town you want to make arrangements for board and
+lodging in some old woman's house--preferably an old maid. You'll be
+sure to find at least half a dozen of 'em, willing to take boarders,
+but you want to be equally sure to pick out the one that talks the
+most, so that she'll tell the neighbours all about you. Don't worry
+about that, though, they all talk. When you've moved In, stock up your
+room with about twenty of the driest-looking books in the world--law
+books look most imposing; fix up a table with lots of stationery--pens
+and pencils, red and black ink and all that sort of thing; make the
+room look as if you were the most sincere student ever. And by no means
+neglect to have a well-worn Bible prominently in evidence: you can buy
+one second-hand at some book-store before you start out."
+
+"I'd have to, of course. I thank you for the flattery. Proceed with the
+programme of the gay, mad life I must lead. I'm going to have a swell
+time: that's perfectly plain."
+
+"As soon as you're shaken down in your room, make the rounds of the
+stores and ask for work. Try and get into the dry-goods emporium if you
+can: the girls all shop there. But anything will do, except a grocery
+or a hardware store and places like that. You mustn't consider any
+employment that would soil your clothes or roughen your lily-white
+hands."
+
+"You expect me to believe I'd have any chance of winning a
+millionaire's daughter if I were a ribbon-clerk in a dry-goods store?"
+
+"The best in the world. The ribbon-clerk is her social equal; he calls
+her Mary and she calls him Joe."
+
+"Done with you: me for the ribbon counter. Anything else?"
+
+"The storekeepers aren't apt to employ you at first; they'll be
+suspicious of you."
+
+"They will be afterwards, all right. However--?"
+
+"So you must simply call on them--walk in, locate the boss and tell
+him: 'I'm looking for employment.' Don't press it; just say it and get
+out."
+
+"No trouble whatever about that; it's always that way when I ask for
+work."
+
+"They'll send for you before long, when they make up their minds that
+you're a decent, moral young man; for they know you'll draw trade. And
+every Sunday--"
+
+"I know: church!"
+
+"Absolutely.... Pick out the one the rich folks go to. Go in quietly
+and do just as they do: stand up and kneel, look up the hymns and sing,
+just when they do. Be careful not to sing too loud, or anything like
+that: just do it all modestly, as if you were used to it. Better go to
+church here two or three times and get the hang of it...."
+
+"Here, now--"
+
+"Nearly all the wealthy codgers in such towns are deacons, you see, and
+though they may not speak to you for months on the street, it's their
+business to waylay you after the service is over and shake hands with
+you and tell you they hope you enjoyed the sermon and ask you to come
+again. And you can bank on it, they'll all take notice from the first."
+
+"It's no wonder Bartlett made you a partner, Harry."
+
+"Now behave. I want you to get in right. ... If you follow the rules
+I've outlined, not only will all the girls in town be falling over
+themselves to get to you first, but their fond parents will be egging
+them on. Then all you've got to do is to pick out the one with the
+biggest bundle and--"
+
+"Make a play for her?"
+
+"Not on your life. That would be fatal. Your part is to put yourself in
+her way. She'll do all the courting, and when she scents the
+psychological moment she'll do the proposing."
+
+"It doesn't sound natural, but you certainly seem to know what you're
+drooling about."
+
+"You can anchor to that, Nat."
+
+"And are you finished?"
+
+"I am. Of course I'll probably think of more things to wise you to,
+before you go."
+
+Duncan laughed shortly and tilted back in his chair, selecting another
+cigarette. "And you're the chap who wanted me to go to some bromidic
+old show to-night! Harry, you're immense. Why didn't you ever let me
+suspect you had all this romantic imagination in your system?"
+
+"Imagination be blowed, son. This is business." Kellogg removed the
+stopper from the decanter and filled both glasses again. "Well, what do
+you say?"
+
+"I've just said my say, Harry. It's amazing; I'm proud of you."
+
+"But will you do it?"
+
+"Everything else aside, how can I? I've got to live, you know."
+
+"But I propose to stake you."
+
+Duncan came down to earth. "No, you won't; not a cent. I'm in earnest
+about this thing: no more sponging on you, Harry. Besides--"
+
+"No, seriously, Nat: I mean this, every word of it. I want you to do
+it--to please me, if you like; I've a notion something will come of it.
+And I believe from the bottom of my heart there's not the slightest
+risk if you'll play the cards as they fall, according to Hoyle."
+
+"Harry, I believe you do."
+
+"I do, firmly. And I'll put the proposition on a business basis, if you
+like."
+
+"Go on; there's no holding you."
+
+"You start out to-morrow and order your war kit. Get everything you
+need, and plenty of it, and have the bills sent to me. You can be ready
+inside a fortnight. The day you start I'll advance you five hundred
+dollars. When you're married you can repay me the amount of the
+advances with interest at ten per cent, and I'll consider it a mighty
+good deal for myself. Now, will you?"
+
+"You mean it?"
+
+"Every word of it. Well?"
+
+For a moment longer Duncan hesitated; then the vision of what he must
+return to, otherwise, decided him. In desperation he accepted. "It's a
+drowning man's straw," he said, a little breathlessly. "I'm sure I
+shouldn't. But I will."
+
+Kellogg flung a hand across the table, palm uppermost.
+
+"Word of honour, Nat?"
+
+Duncan let his hand fall into it. "Word of honour! I'll see it
+through."
+
+"Good! It's a bargain." Kellogg lifted his glass high in air. "To the
+fortune hunter!" he cried, half laughing.
+
+Duncan nervously fingered the stem of his glass. "God help the future
+Mrs. Duncan!" he said, and drank.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+TRIUMPH OF MR. HOMER LITTLEJOHN
+
+The twenty-first of June was a day of memorable triumph to me, a day of
+memorable events for Radville.
+
+Only the evening previous Will Bigelow and I had indulged in
+acrimonious argument in the office of the Bigelow House, the subject of
+contention being the importance of the work to which I am devoting my
+declining years, to wit, the recording of _The History of Radville
+Township, Westerly County, Pennsylvania_; Will maintaining with that
+obstinacy for which he is famous, that nothing ever had happened, does
+happen, can or will happen in our community, I insisting gently but
+firmly that it knows no day unmarked by important occurrence (for it
+would ill become me, as the only literary man in Radville, to yield a
+point in dispute with the proprietor of the town tavern). Besides, he
+was wrong, even as I was indisputably right--only he had not the grace
+to admit it. We ended vulgarly with a bet, Will wagering me the best
+five-cent Clear Havana in the Bigelow House sample-room that nothing
+worth mentioning would take place in Radville before sundown of the
+following day.
+
+I left him, returning to my room at Miss Carpenter's (Will and I are
+old friends, but I refuse to eat the food he serves his guests), warmed
+by the prospect of certain triumph if a little appalled by the prospect
+of winning the stake; and sympathising a little with Will, who, for all
+his egregious stubborness, has some excuse for upholding his
+unreasonable and ridiculous views. He knows no better, having never had
+the opportunity to find out for himself how utterly absurd are his
+claims for the outside world. Whereas I have.
+
+He's an adventurer at heart, Will Bigelow, a romantic soul crusted
+heavily with character--like a volcano smouldering beneath its lava.
+For many years he has managed the Bigelow House, with his thoughts
+apart from it, his eyes ever seeking the horizon that recedes beyond
+the soaring rim of our encircling cup of hills, his heart forever
+yearning forth to the outer world; which he erroneously conceives to be
+a theatre of events--as if outside of Radville only could there be
+things worth seeing, considering, or doing, or matters of any sort that
+move momentously! As long as I've known the man (and we played truant
+together fifty years ago--hookey, we called it then) he's had his heart
+set on going forth from Radville, "for to admire and for to see, for to
+view this wide world o'er"; always he has presented himself to me as
+one poised on the pinnacle of purpose, ready the next instant to dive
+and strike out into the teeming unknown beyond the barrier hills. But
+this promise he has never fulfilled. He still maintains that he will
+surely go--next week--after the hayin's over--as soon as the ice is
+in--the minute Mary graduates from High School. ... But I know he never
+will.
+
+So to Will Radville is as dull as ditchwater to a teamster; to me it's
+as fascinating as that same ditchwater to a biologist with a
+microscope. I see nothing going on in the world outside of Radville
+more important than our daily life. Too long I have lived away from it,
+a stranger in strange lands, not to appreciate its relative
+significance in the scheme of things. It makes all the difference--the
+view-point: Will sees Radville from its homely heart outwards, I stand
+on its boundaries, a native but yet, somehow in the local esteem (by
+reason of my long residence in the East) an outlander. Thus I get a
+perspective upon the place, to Will and his ilk denied.
+
+It seems curious that things should have fallen out thus for the two of
+us: that Will Bigelow, all afire with the lust for travel, should never
+have mustered up enterprise enough to break his home ties, whilst I
+whose dearest desire had always been to live no day of my alloted span
+away from Radville, should have been, in a manner which I'm bound
+presently to betray, forced out into the world; that he, the rebellious
+stay-at-home, cursing the destiny which chained him, should have
+prospered and become the man of substance he is, while I, mutinously
+venturing, should have returned only to watch my sands run out in
+poverty--what's little better.
+
+Not that I would have you think me whining: I have enough, little but
+ample for my simple needs, if inadequate for my ambitions or my
+neighbours' necessities. My editorial work for the _Radville
+Citizen_ is quite remunerative, while my weekly column of local
+gossip for the _Westerly Gazette_ brings me in a little, and I've
+one or two other modest sources of still more modest income. But
+Radville folks are poor, many of them, many who are very dear to me for
+old sake's sake. There's Sam Graham.... Though I wouldn't have you
+understand that as a community we are not moderately prosperous and
+contented, comfortable if not energetic and advanced. This is not a
+pushing town: it has never known a boom. That I'm sure will some day
+come, but I hope not in my time. I have faith in the mountains that
+fold us roundabout; they are rich with the possibilities of coal and
+iron, and year by year are being more and more widely opened up and
+developed; year by year the ranks of flaming, reeking coke ovens push
+farther on beside the railway that penetrates our valley. But as yet
+their smoke does not foul our skies, nor does their refuse pollute our
+river, nor their soot tarnish our vegetation. And as I say, I hope this
+is not to be while I live, though sometimes I have fears: Blinky
+Lockwood made a fortune selling the coal that was discovered beneath
+his father's old farm over Westerly way, and ever since that there's
+been more or less quiet prospecting going on in our vicinity. I shall
+be sorry to see the day when Radville is other than as it is: the
+quiet, peaceful, sleepy little town, nestling in the bosom of the
+hills, clean, sweet and wholesome....
+
+But this is rambling far from the momentous twenty-first of June, my
+day of triumph.
+
+I shall try to set down connectedly and coherently the events which
+culminated in the humbling of Will Bigelow to the dust.
+
+To begin with, we were early startled by the rumour that Hiram Nutt,
+theretofore deemed unconquerable, had been disastrously defeated at
+checkers in Willoughby's grocery--and that by Watty the tailor, of all
+men in Radville. The rumour was confirmed by eleven in the forenoon,
+and in itself should have provided us with a nine days' wonder.
+
+As it happened, an event happening almost simultaneously confused our
+minds. At eleven-fifteen Miss Carpenter's household was thrown into
+consternation by the scandalous behaviour of her black cat, Caesar, who
+chose suddenly to terminate a long and outwardly respectable career as
+Miss Carpenter's familiar by having kittens under the horse-hair sofa
+in the parlour. Incidentally this indelicate and ungentlemanly
+behaviour temporarily unloosed the hinges of Miss Carpenter's reason,
+so that my supper suffered that evening, and for several days she
+wandered round the house with blank and witless eyes. Perhaps I should
+have warned her, for I had latterly come to suspect Caesar of leading a
+double life; but for reasons which seemed sufficient I had refrained.
+
+By the noon train Roland Barnette received his new summer suit from
+Chicago. I did not see it till evening, but heard of it before one,
+since Roland donned it immediately and wore it to the bank that very
+afternoon. I understand it caused something very near a run on the
+bank; people came in to draw a dollar or so or get change and lingered
+to feast their outraged visions, so that Blinky Lockwood, the
+president, had to send Roland home to change before closing-time. He
+changed back, however, as soon as off duty, and spent the rest of the
+afternoon and evening hours in Sothern and Lee's, at the soda-fountain;
+which Sothern and Lee did not object to, since it drew trade.
+
+Pete Willing established a record by getting drunk at Schwartz's bar by
+three in the afternoon, his best previous time being four-thirty; and
+Mrs. Willing chased him up Centre Street until, at the corner of Main,
+he blundered into the arms of Judge Scott; who ordered him to arrest
+and lock himself up; which Pete, being the sheriff, solemnly did,
+saying that it was preferable to a return to home and wife.
+
+At five o'clock there was a dog-fight in front of Graham's drug-store.
+
+At five-forty-five the evening train lurched in, bearing The Mysterious
+Stranger.
+
+Tracey Tanner saw him first, having driven down to the station with his
+father's surrey on the off-chance of picking up a quarter or so from
+some drummer wishing to be conveyed to the Bigelow House. Only
+outlanders pay money for hacks in Radville; everybody else walks, of
+course. Naturally Tracey took The Mysterious Stranger for a drummer; he
+had three trunks and a heavy packing-box, so Tracey's misapprehension
+was pardonable. Instinctively he drove him to the Bigelow House; Will
+now and again makes Tracey a present of a bottle of sarsaparilla or
+lemon-pop, with the result that Tracey calls Tannehill, who runs the
+opposition hotel, a skinflint and never takes strangers there except on
+their express desire. The Mysterious Stranger merely asked to be driven
+to the best hotel. This is not like most commercial travellers, who as
+a rule know where they want to go, even in a strange town, having made
+inquiry in advance from their brothers of the road. Tracey made a note
+of this, and is further on record as having observed that this stranger
+was rather better dressed than the run of drummers, if not so nobbily.
+Moreover, he was reticent under the cross-fire of Tracey's
+irrepressible conversation, and failed to ask the name of the first
+pretty girl they passed; who happened to be Angle Tuthill. Finally The
+Mysterious Stranger actually tipped Tracey a whole quarter for carrying
+his suit-case into the hotel office.
+
+With these incitements it would have been unreasonable to expect Tracey
+to do otherwise than linger around for the good health of his sense of
+inquisitiveness, which would else have been severely sprained.
+
+Will Bigelow was dozing behind the desk, lulled by the sound of Hi
+Nutt's voice in the barroom, as he explained to all and sundry just how
+he had inadvertently permitted Watty the tailor to best him at checkers
+that morning. Otherwise the office was deserted. Tracey wakened Will by
+stamping heavily across the floor, and Will mechanically pushed down
+his spectacles and dipped a pen in ink, slewing the register round for
+the guest's signature. He says he knew at a glance that The Mysterious
+Stranger was no travelling man, but this is a moot point, Tracey's
+memory being minutely accurate and at variance with Will's assertion.
+
+The Mysterious Stranger was a young man, rather severely clothed in a
+dark suit which excited no interest in Bigelow's understanding,
+although I, when I saw him later, had no difficulty in realising that
+it had never been made by a tailor whose place of business was more
+than five doors removed from Fifth Avenue. He was tallish, but not
+really tall, and carried himself with a slight stoop which took way
+from his real height. Tracey says he had a way of looking at you as if
+he was smiling inside at some joke he'd heard a long time ago; and I
+don't know but that's a fairly apt description of his ordinary
+expression. He had a way, too, of nodding jerkily at you--just once--to
+show he recognised you or understood what you were driving at; at other
+times he carried his head a trifle to one side and slightly forward. He
+was a man you wouldn't forget, somehow, though what there was about him
+that was remarkable nobody seemed to know.
+
+He nodded that jerky way in answer to Will Bigelow's "G'devenin'," and
+without saying anything took the pen and started to register. He had to
+stop, however, for Tracey was pressing him so close upon the right that
+he couldn't get any play for his elbow, and after a minute or two he
+asked Tracey politely would he mind stepping round to the left, where
+he could see just as well. So Tracey did. Then he wrote his name in a
+good round hand: "Nathaniel Duncan, N.Y."
+
+"I'd like a room with a bath," he told Will: "something simple and
+chaste, within the means of a man in moderate circumstances."
+
+Will thought he was joking at first, but he didn't smile, so Will
+explained that there was a bathroom on the third floor at the end of
+the hall, though there wasn't much call for it. "I could give you a
+room next to that," he said, "but you wouldn't want it, I guess."
+
+"Why not?" asked The Mysterious Stranger.
+
+"Because," said Will, "'taint near the sample-room."
+
+"That doesn't make any difference; I'm on the wagon."
+
+The only sense Will could get out of that was that the young man was
+travelling for a buggy house and hadn't brought any samples with him.
+"I thought," he allowed, "as how you'd be wantin' a place to display
+your samples, but of course if you're in the wagon business--"
+
+"Oh," said Mr. Duncan, "I thought you meant the 'sample-room' over
+there." He nodded toward the bar. "That's what you call the
+dispensaries of intoxicating liquors in this part of the country, is it
+not?"
+
+Will made a noise resembling an affirmative, and as soon as he got his
+breath explained that travelling men generally wanted a sort of a
+showroom next to theirs and that that was called a sample-room, too.
+
+"But I'm not a travelling man," said The Mysterious Stranger. "So I
+shall have as little use for the one as the other."
+
+"Then the room on the third floor'll do for you," said Will. "How long
+do you calculate on stayin'?"
+
+"That will depend," said Mr. Duncan: "a day or so--perhaps longer;
+until I can find comfortable and more permanent quarters."
+
+In his amazement Will jabbed the pen so hard into the potato beside the
+ink-well that he never could get the nib out and had to buy a new one.
+"You don't mean to say you're thinkin' of coming here to live?" he
+gasped.
+
+"Yes, I do," said the young man apologetically. "I don't think you'll
+find me in the way. I shall be very quiet and unobtrusive. I'm a
+student, looking for a quiet place in which to pursue my studies."
+
+"Well," said Will, "you've found it all right. There ain't no quieter
+place in Pennsylvany than Radville, Mr. Duncan. I hope you'll like it,"
+he said, sarcastic.
+
+"I shall endeavour to," said the young man.
+
+"And now may I go to my room, please? I should like to renovate my
+travel-stained person to some extent before dinner."
+
+"You'll have time," said Will; "dinner's at noon to-morrow. I guess
+you're thinkin' about supper. That's ready now. Here, Tracey, you carry
+this gentleman's things up to number forty-three."
+
+But Tracey had already gone, and such was his haste to spread the news
+that he forgot to take the horse and surrey back to the stable, but
+left it standing in front of the hotel till eight o'clock; for which
+oversight, I am credibly informed, his father justly dealt with him
+before sending him to bed.
+
+I have never been able to understand how we failed to hear of it at
+Miss Carpenter's before seven o'clock. That was the hour when, having
+finished supper and my first evening pipe, I started down-town to the
+_Citizen_ office, intending to stop in at the Bigelow House on the
+way and confound Will with the list of the day's happenings. Main
+Street was pretty well crowded for that hour, I remember noticing, and
+most of the townsfolk were grouped together on the corners, underneath
+the lamps, discussing something rather excitedly. I paid no particular
+attention, realising that between Caesar, Pete Willing, Roland
+Burnette's suit and the checker game, they had enough to talk about. So
+it wasn't until I walked into the Bigelow House office that I either
+heard or saw anything of The Mysterious Stranger.
+
+Will Bigelow was in his usual place behind the desk, and looked, I
+thought, rather disgruntled. His reply to my "Howdy, Will?" sounded
+somewhat snappish. But he got out of his chair and moved round the end
+of the desk just as the young man came out of the dining-room door.
+Then Will pulled up and I realised that he was calling my attention to
+the stranger.
+
+So far as I could see, he seemed an ordinary, everyday, good-looking,
+good-natured young man, whose naturally sunny disposition had been
+insulted by the food recently set before him. He wandered listlessly
+out upon the porch and stood there, with his hands in his pockets,
+looking up and down Centre Street, just then being shadowed into the
+warm, purple June dusk, beneath its double row of elms. We've always
+thought it a rather attractive street, and that night it seemed
+especially lively with its trickle of girls and boys strolling up and
+down, and the groups of grown folks on the corners, and Roland
+Burnette's summer suit conspicuous through Sothern and Lee's
+plate-glass windows; and I supposed the young man was admiring it all.
+But now I know him better. He felt just the same about Main Street,
+corner of Centre, Radville, as I should have about Broadway and
+Forty-second Street, New York, if you had set me down there and told me
+I'd got to get accustomed to the idea that I must live there. He was
+saying, deep down in his heart: "O _Lord_!"--with the rising
+inflection.
+
+Will grabbed my arm, without saying anything, and pulled me into the
+bar.
+
+"Hello!" I said, as he went round behind and opened the cigar-case,
+"what's up?"
+
+He took out two boxes of the finest five-centers in town and placed
+them before me. "Them's up," he said. "You win. Have one."
+
+It staggered me to have him give in that way; I had been looking
+forward to a long and diverting dispute. "I guess you've heard
+everything worth hearing about to-day's history," I said, disappointed,
+as I selected the least unpleasant looking of the cigars.
+
+"No, I haven't," he said. "I didn't have to hear anything. What earned
+you that smoke took place right here in this office.... Here," he said,
+striking a match for me.
+
+I had been trying to put the cigar away so that I might dispose of it
+without hurting Will's feelings, but he had me, so I recklessly poked
+the thing into the automatic clipper and then into my mouth. "What do
+you mean?" I asked, puffing.
+
+"Come 'long outside," said Will; and we went out on the porch just in
+time to see Mr. Duncan going wearily upstairs to his room. "I mean,"
+said Will, _"him"_. And then he told me all about it.
+
+"But things like that don't happen every day," he wound up defensively.
+"I'll go you another cigar on to-morrow."
+
+"No, you won't," I said indignantly; and furtively dropped the infamous
+thing over the railing.
+
+I am never successful in my little attempts at deception, even in
+self-defence. In all candour I believe my disposition of that cigar
+would have gone undetected but for my notorious bad luck. Of course
+Bigelow's setter, Pompey, had to be asleep right under the spot where I
+dropped the cigar, and equally of course the burning end had to make
+instantaneous connection with his nerve centres, via his hide, with such
+effect that he arose in agony and subsequently used coarse language.
+Investigation naturally discovered my empty-handed perfidy. To no one
+else in Radville would this have happened.
+
+On the other hand, no one else in Radville would have thrown away the
+cigar.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+MARGARET'S DAUGHTER
+
+Discomfort roused Duncan from his rest at an early hour, the morning
+following his arrival in Radville. I must confess that the beds in the
+Bigelow House are no better than they should be; in fact, according to
+Duncan, not so good. Duncan ought to know; he has slept in one of them,
+or tried to; a trial thus far to me denied. From what he has said,
+however, I shudder to think what will become of me should I ever lose
+the shelter of Miss Carpenter's second-story front and be thrown out
+into a heartless world to choose between the Bigelow House and Frank
+Tannehill's Radville Inn....
+
+Duncan arose and consulted the two-dollar watch which he had left on
+the pine washstand by the window. It was half-past seven o'clock, and
+that seemed early to him. He was tired and would willingly have turned
+in again, but a rueful glance at the couch of his night-long vigil
+sufficed him. He lifted a hand to Heaven and vowed solemnly: "Never
+again!"
+
+As he bent over the washstand and poured a cupful of water into the
+china basin, thus emptying the pitcher, he was conscious of a pain in
+his back; but a thought cheered him. "They must have decent stables in
+this town," he considered, brightening. "The haymows for mine, after
+this."
+
+He dressed with scrupulous care, mindful of Kellogg's parting words,
+the sense of which was that first impressions were most important. "All
+the same," Duncan thought, "I don't believe they count in a dead-and-
+alive place like this. There's no one here with sufficient animation to
+realise I'm in town." This shows how little he understood our little
+community. A day of enlightenment was in store for him.
+
+Pansy Murphy was scrubbing out the office when he came down for
+breakfast. She is large, of what is known as a full complexion,
+good-hearted and energetic. His pause at the foot of the stairs, as he
+surveyed in dismay the seven seas of soapy water that occupied the
+floor, aroused her. She sat back suddenly on her heels and looked her
+fill of him, with her blue Irish eyes very wide, and her mouth a trap.
+He bowed politely. Pansy saved herself from falling over backwards by a
+supreme effort, scrubbed her hair out of her eyes with a very wet hand,
+and gave him "Good-marrin', Misther Dooncan," in a brogue as rich as
+you could wish for.
+
+He started violently. "Heavens!" he said. "I am discovered!"
+
+"Make yer moind aisy about thot," Pansy assured him. "'Tis known all
+over town who ye arre, what's yer name, how manny troonks ye've brought
+wid ye, and th' rayson f'r yer comin' here."
+
+"A comforting thought, thank you," he commented: "to awake to find
+one's self grown famous over-night!..."
+
+"Now ye know," she returned, emboldened, "what it is to be a big toad
+in a small puddle."
+
+"I thank you." He nodded again, with a comprehensive survey of the
+reeking floor. "I'm afraid I do." With which he slipped and slid over
+to and through the swinging wicker doors of the dining-room.
+
+It was deserted. From the negligee of the tables, littered with the
+plates and dishes, dreary survivors of a dozen breakfasts, he divined
+that he was the tardiest guest in the household. A slatternly young
+woman in a soiled shirt-waist--the waitress--received him with great
+calm and waved him toward a table by the window, where an unused cover
+was laid. He went meekly, dogged by her formidable presence. She stood
+over him and glared down.
+
+"Haman neggs," she said defiantly, "steakan nomlette."
+
+"I'll be a martyr," he told her civilly. "Me for the steak."
+
+She frowned gloomily and tramped away. He folded his hands and, cheered
+by an appetising aroma of warm water and yellow soap from the office,
+considered the prospect from the window by his side. Three children and
+a yellow dog came along and watched him do it, dispassionately
+reviewing his points in clear young voices. Tracey Tanner ambled into
+view on the other side of the street and beamed at him generously, his
+round red face resembling, Duncan thought, more than anything else a
+summer sun rising through mist. Josie Lockwood (he was to discover her
+name later) passed with her pert little nose ostentatiously pointed
+away from him; none the less he detected a gleam in the corner of her
+eye.... Others went by, singly or in groups, all more or less openly
+interested in him.
+
+He tried to look unconscious, but with ill success. There was nothing
+particularly engaging in the view: the broad, dusty street lined with
+commonplace structures of "frame" and brick, glowing in the morning
+sunshine. There were, to be sure, cool shadows beneath the trees, but
+the suggestion was all of summer heat. There was a watering-trough and
+hitching-rail directly opposite, a little to one side of Hemmenway's
+feed-store, and there a well-fed mare stood, drooping dejectedly
+between the shafts of a dilapidated buggy. On the corner was a
+two-storey brick building with large plate-glass windows on the ground
+floor for the display of intimate articles of feminine apparel. The
+black and gold sign above proclaimed it: "The Fair. Dry Goods &
+Notions. Leonard & Call." Duncan considered it with grave respect. "The
+scene of my future activities," he observed.
+
+By this time his audience had become too large and friendly for his
+endurance. He rose and retired to a less public table.
+
+In her own good time the waitress returned with a plate, and a small
+oval platter in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. She placed
+them before him with a manner that told him plainly he could never make
+himself the master of her affections. The small oval platter was
+discovered to contain a small segment of dark-brown ham and two fried
+eggs swimming in grease.
+
+Duncan questioned the woman with mute, appealing eyes.
+
+"Steak's run out," she told him curtly.
+
+"Leaving no address?" he inquired with forced gaiety.
+
+A suppressed smile softened her austerity, and she turned away to hide
+it. "To think," he wondered, "that a sense of humour should inhabit
+that!" He broke a roll and munched it gloomily, pondering this
+revelation. "And such humour !" he added, with justice.
+
+After an interval the woman returned. He had refrained from the staple
+dish. She indicated it with a grimy forefinger.
+
+"Please!" he begged plaintively. "I'm never very hungry in the
+morning."
+
+"I guess you don't like the table here," she observed icily, clearing
+away.
+
+"Do you?"
+
+"I don't have to; I live home."
+
+He stared. Could it be possible...?
+
+"I know a good old one, too," he ventured hopefully. "Now here." He
+drew his coffee cup toward him and began to stir with energy. "You say:
+'It looks like rain'; and I'll say: 'Yes, but it tastes a little like
+coffee.'"
+
+She clattered away indignantly. He rose, depressed, and sighing sought
+the outer air.
+
+In the course of a forenoon's stroll Radville discovered itself to him
+in all its squalor and its loveliness. It sits in the centre of a broad
+valley of rolling meadow-land, studded with infrequent homesteads,
+broken into rather extensive farms, threaded by a shallow silver stream
+that gives its all in tribute to the Susquehanna far in the south. The
+barrier mountains rise about it like the sides of a bowl, with a great
+V-shaped piece chipped out of the southern wall. This break we call the
+Gap; through it the railroad comes to us, through it the river escapes.
+The hills rear high and steep, their swelling flanks cloaked in sombre
+green and grey, with here and there a bald spot like a splash of ochre
+where there's been a landslide, climbing directly from the plain, with
+no foothills. A recluse, I have thought, must have chosen this spot for
+a town site; sickened of the world, he sought seclusion--and found it
+here to his heart's content. Until the coke-ovens come, following the
+miners, with their attendant hordes of Slovaks, Poles and Hungarians,
+we shall be near to God, for we shall know peace....
+
+The town has been laid out with great rectangularity; the river divides
+it unequally. On the western bank is the larger community--locally, the
+Old Town, retaining its characteristics of sobriety, quiet and comfort;
+here, also, is the business centre--such business as there is. Here
+Duncan found homely residences sitting back from the street in ample
+grounds--grounds, perhaps, not very carefully groomed, but in spite of
+that attractive and pleasant to the eye. With one or two exceptions,
+none were strongly suggestive of wealth. He detected a trace of
+ostentation, and no taste whatever, in Lockwood's new villa (I'm told
+that's the polite designation for the edifice he caused to be erected
+what time the plague of riches smote him and the old home on Cherry
+Street became too small for the collective family chest), and there was
+quiet dignity in the quaintly columned facade of the Bohun mansion, now
+occupied solely by old Colonel Bohun, lonely and testy, reputed the
+richest as well as the most miserable man in the county. But as to his
+wealth, I doubt if rumour runs by more than tradition; Blinky
+Lockwood's new-found hundred-thousands are growing rapidly toward the
+million mark, unless Blinky's a worse business man than the town takes
+him to be.
+
+An old stone arch (whereon lovers linger in the moonlight) spans the
+stream and links the Old Town with the new, which we sometimes term the
+Flats, but more often simply Over There. It is a sordid huddle of dingy
+and down-at-the-heel tenements, housing the poorer working classes and
+the frankly worthless and ruffianly riff-raff of the neighbourhood.
+There are eight gin-mills Over There as against two sample-rooms in the
+Old Town, and of the local constabulary two-thirds lead exciting lives
+patrolling the Flats; the remaining third is ordinarily to be found
+dozing in the backroom of Schwartz's, and if roused will answer to the
+name and title of Pete Willing, Sheriff and Chief of Police.
+
+Duncan reviewed both sides of the municipal face with fine
+impartiality--the Flats last; and turned back to the Old Town. "There's
+one thing," he communed as he reached the bridge: "If these people ever
+find me out they'll run me across the river--sure."
+
+He paused there, looking up and down the valley with contemplative
+gaze; and it was there I found him.
+
+As is my custom, I had devoted the earlier morning hours to the
+compilation of that work which is to gain for the name of Littlejohn a
+trifle more respect than, I fear, it owns in Radville nowadays; and
+afterwards, again in accordance with habit, had started out for my
+morning constitutional. As I was about to leave the house Miss
+Carpenter waylaid me and, in a voice still tremulous from the shock of
+yesterday, asked me to hunt up Jake Sawyer in the Flats and tell him to
+come and cut the grass.
+
+I was not in the least unwilling, for the walk was not long, and the
+morning very pleasant--not too warm, and bright with the smiling spirit
+of June. I don't remember feeling more cheerful and at peace with the
+world than when I marched off on my mission. The cloud I might, of
+course, have anticipated: clouds always come, and a lifetime has taught
+me to be sceptical of that tale about the silver lining. And even when
+it came it seemed no more depressing, of no more significant moment,
+than the cloud shadow that scurries across a wheat-field with no effect
+other than to enhance the beauty of the sunshine that pursues it.
+
+Old Colonel Bohun was the cloud-shadow of that morning. I met him
+turning into Main Street from Mortimer--at the head of which his
+mansion stands. He came down the sidewalk, but with a hint of haste in
+his manner: a tall old man, bending beneath the burden of his years,
+his fierce old face and iron-grey hair shaded as always by the black
+slouch hat with the flapping brim, his rounded shoulders cloaked with
+the black Inverness cape he wore summer and winter. In spite of his age
+and evident decrepitude, he bodied forth the spirit of what he had
+been, and none could pass him without knowledge of his presence; he
+drew eyes as a magnet draws filings, and drawing, held them in respect.
+I doubted if there were a man in Radville who could meet the old
+colonel with anything but a mingling of fear and deference--with one or
+two exceptions. For myself I hated him heartily, and he, looking down
+at me from the peak of pride whereon his iron soul perched, despised me
+with equal intensity. So we got along famously at our infrequent
+encounters.
+
+This morning I caught a flash of fire from his red-rimmed old eyes, and
+told myself I was sorry for whoever crossed his path before he returned
+to his lonely castle. It was his habit at odd intervals to foray down
+the village streets with one grievance or another rankling in his
+bosom, seeking some unlucky one upon whose head to wreak his
+resentment. We had come to recognise the heavy, slow tapping of his
+thick cane as a harbinger of trouble, even as you might prognosticate a
+thunderstorm from the rumbling beneath the horizon.
+
+I saw he recognised me and gave him a civil salute, which he returned
+with a brusque nod and a sharper, "Good-morning, Littlejohn," as he
+passed. Then he swung into Main Street, paralleling my course on the
+opposite sidewalk, and went _thump-thumping_ along, darting quick
+glances hither and yon beneath his heavy brows, like some dark
+incarnation of perverse pride and passion.
+
+Partly because the sight of him sensibly influenced my mood, and partly
+because inevitably he made me think of Sam Graham, I turned off at
+Beech Street, leaving him to pursue his way toward the centre of town.
+Graham's one-horse drug-store stood on Beech, a block south of Main.
+That being the least promising location in town for a business of any
+sort, Sam had naturally selected it when he concluded to set up shop.
+If Sam had ever in his life displayed any symptoms of business
+sagacity, Radville would never have recovered from the shock. I believe
+it was Legrand Gunn, our only really certificated village wit, who
+coined the epigram: "As useless as to take a prescription to Graham's."
+The implication being that Graham didn't carry sufficient stock to
+fill any prescription; which was largely true; he couldn't; he hadn't
+the money to stock up with. What little he took in from time to time
+went in part to the support of Betty and himself, but mainly to pay
+interest on his debts and buy raw materials for models of his
+thousand-and-one inventions. Most Radvillians firmly believed that Sam
+has at some time or other in his busy, worthless career invented
+everything under the sun, practicable or impracticable--the former
+always a few days after somebody else had taken out patents for the
+identical device. But at that time no one believed he would ever make a
+cent out of any one of the children of his ingenious brain; nor was I,
+in this respect, more credulous than any of my fellow-townsmen.
+
+I lingered a moment outside the shop, thinking of the change that had
+come over it since the death of Margaret Graham, Betty's mother. For,
+despite its out-of-the-way location, the shop had not always been
+unprofitable; while Margaret lived (my heart still ached with the
+memory of her name) Sam's business had prospered. She had been one of
+those woman who can rise to any emergency in the interest of her loved
+ones; the first to realise Sam's improvidence and lack of executive
+ability, she had taken hold of the business with a firm hand and made
+it pay--while she lived. It has never ceased to be a source of
+wondering speculation to me, that she, with her gentle training, so
+wholly aloof from every thought of commerce or economy, should have
+proven herself so thorough and level-headed a business woman. There's
+no accounting for it, indeed, save on the theory that she conceived it
+a woman's function to make up for man's deficiencies; Sam needed her,
+so she become his wife; he needed a manager, so she had became that
+also....
+
+During Margaret's regime, as I say, the shop had thrived. Sam had few
+ill-wishers in Radville; the trade came his way. Then Betty was born
+and Margaret died....
+
+Most of this I have on hearsay. I left Radville shortly after their
+marriage and did not return until some months after Margaret's burial.
+By that time the shop had begun to show signs of neglect; its stock was
+decimated, its trade likewise. Sam was struggling with his inventions
+more fiercely than ever--seeking forgetfulness, I always thought. The
+business was allowed to take care of itself. He had always a serene
+faith in his tomorrows.
+
+Now the little shop had been far distanced by the competition of
+Sothern and Lee. It was twenty years behind the times, as the saying
+is. Small, darksome, dreary and dingy, it served chiefly as a
+living-room for Sam, his daughter, and his cronies, as well as for his
+workshop. He had a bench and a ramshackle lathe in one corner, where
+you might be sure to find him futilely pottering at almost any hour. He
+owned the little building--or that portion in it which it were a farce
+to term the equity above the mortgage--and Betty kept house for him in
+three rooms above the store.
+
+I saw nothing of him as I stepped across the street, and was wondering
+if he were at home when, through the small, dark panes of glass in his
+show windows I discerned his white old head bobbing busily over
+something on the rear counter. I pushed the door open and entered. He
+looked up with his never-failing smile of welcome and a wave of his
+hand.
+
+"Howdy, Homer? Come in. Well, well, I'm glad to see you. Sit down--I
+think that chair there by the stove will hold together under you."
+
+"What are you doing, Sam?" I asked.
+
+"Fixin' up the sody fountain. 'Meant to get it working last month,
+Homer, but somehow I kind of forgot."
+
+He rubbed away briskly at the single faucet which protruded above the
+counter, lathering it briskly with a metal polish that smelt to Heaven.
+
+"Do much sody trade, Sam?"
+
+He paused, passing his worn old fingers reflectively across a chin
+snowy with a stubble of neglected beard. "No," he allowed thoughtfully,
+"not so much as we used to, now that Sothern and Lee've got this
+new-fangled notion of puttin' ice cream in a nickel glass of sody. Most
+of the young folks go there, now, but still I get a call flow and
+then--and every little bit helps." He rubbed on ferociously for a
+moment. "'Course, I'd do more, likely, if I carried a bigger line of
+flavours."
+
+"How many do you carry?"
+
+"One," he admitted with a sigh, "vanilly."
+
+While I filled my pipe he continued to rub very industriously.
+
+"Why don't you get more?"
+
+He flashed me one of his pale, genial smiles. "I'm thinkin' of it,
+Homer, soon's I get some money in. Next week, mebbe. There's a man in
+N'York that mebbe can be int'rested in one of my inventions, Roland
+Barnette says. Mebbe he'd be willin' to put a little money in it,
+Roland says, and of course if he does, I'll be able to stock up
+considerable."
+
+I sighed covertly for him. He rubbed, humming a tuneless rhythm to
+himself.
+
+"Roland's goin' to write to him about it."
+
+"What invention?" I asked, incredulous.
+
+Sam put down his bottle of polish and came round the counter, beaming;
+nothing pleases him better than an opportunity to exhibit some one of
+his innumerable models. "I'll show you, Homer," he volunteered
+cheerfully, shuffling over to his work-bench. He rasped a match over
+its surface and applied the flame to a small gas-bracket fixed to the
+wall. A strong rush of gas extinguished the match, and he turned the
+flow half off before trying again. This time the vapour caught and
+settled to a steady, brilliant flame as white as and much softer than
+acetylene.
+
+"There!" he said in triumph. "What d'ye think of that, Homer?"
+
+"Why," I said, "I didn't know you had an acetylene plant."
+
+"No more have I, Homer."
+
+"But what is that, then?" I demanded.
+
+"It's my invention," he returned proudly.
+
+"I've been workin' on it two years, Homer, and only got it goin'
+yestiddy. It's going to be a great thing, I tell you."
+
+"But what _is_ it, Sam?"
+
+"It's gas from crude petroleum, Homer. See ..." he continued,
+indicating a tank beneath the bench which seemed to be connected with
+the bracket by a very simple system of piping, broken by a smaller,
+cylindrical tank. "Ye put the oil in there--just crude, as it comes out
+of the wells, Homer; it don't need refinin'--and it runs through this
+and down here to this, where it's vaporised--much the same's they
+vaporise gasoline for autymobile engines, ye know--and then it just
+naturally flows up to the bracket--and there ye are."
+
+"It's wonderful, Sam," said I, wondering if it really were.
+
+"And the best part of it is the economy, Homer. A gallon will run one
+jet six weeks, day in and out. And simple to install. I tell ye--"
+
+"Have you got it patented yet?"
+
+"Yes, siree! took out patents just as soon as it struck me how simple
+it 'ud be--more than two years ago. Only, of course, it took time to
+work it out just right, 'specially when I had to stop now and then
+'cause I needed money for materials. But it's all right now, Homer,
+it's all right now."
+
+"And you say Roland Barnette's writing to some one in New York about
+it?"
+
+"Yes; he promised he would. I explained it to Roland and he seemed real
+int'rested. He's kind, very kind."
+
+I was inclined to doubt this, and would probably have said something to
+that effect had not a shadow crossing the window brought me to my feet
+in consternation. But before I could do more than rise, Colonel Bohun
+had flung open the door and stamped in. He stopped short at sight of
+me, misguided by his near-sighted eyes, and singled me out with a
+threatening wave of his heavy stick.
+
+"Well, sir!" he snarled. "I've come for my answer. Have you sense
+enough in your addled pate to understand that, man? I've come for my
+answer!"
+
+"And may have it, whatever it may be, for all of me," I told him.
+
+His face flushed a deeper red. "Oh, it's only you, is it, Littlejohn? I
+took you for that fool Graham, in this damned dark hole. Where is he?"
+
+I looked to Graham and he followed the direction of my gaze to the
+work-bench, where Sam stood with his back to it, his worn hands folded
+quietly before him. He seemed a little whiter than usual, I thought;
+and perhaps it was only my fancy that made him appear to tremble ever
+so slightly. For he was quite calm and self-possessed--so much so that
+I realised for the first time there was another man in Radville besides
+myself who did not fear old Colonel Bohun.
+
+"I'm here, colonel," he said quietly. "What is it you wish?"
+
+The colonel swung on him, shaking with passion. But he held his tongue
+until he had mastered himself somewhat: a feat of self-restraint on his
+part over which I marvel to this day.
+
+"You know well, Graham," he said presently. "You got my letter--the
+letter I wrote you a week ago?"
+
+"Yes," said Sam, with a start of comprehension. "Yes, I got it."
+
+"Then why the devil, man, don't you answer it?"
+
+Sam's apologetic smile sweetened his face.
+
+"Why," he said haltingly--"I'm sure I meant no offence, but--you see,
+I'm a very busy man--I forgot it."
+
+"The hell you forgot it. D'ye expect me to believe that, man?"
+
+"I'm afraid you'll have to."
+
+Bohun was speechless for a moment, stricken dumb by a second seizure of
+fury. But again he calmed himself.
+
+"Very well. I'll swallow that insolence for the present--"
+
+"It wasn't meant as such, I assure--"
+
+"Don't interrupt me! D'you hear? ... I've come for my answer. Yes, I've
+come down to that, Graham. If you can't accord me the common courtesy
+of a written reply--I've come to hear it from your mouth."
+
+Sam nodded thoughtfully. "Mebbe," he said, "you forgot you have failed
+to accord me the common courtesy of any sort of a communication
+whatever for twenty years, Colonel Bohun. Even when my wife, your
+daughter, died, you ignored my message asking you to her funeral...."
+
+"Be silent!" screamed the colonel. "Do you think I'm here to bandy
+words with you, fool? I demand my answer."
+
+"And as for that," continued Sam as evenly as if he had not been
+interrupted, "your proposition was so preposterous that it could have
+come only from you, and deserved no answer. But since you want it
+formally, sir, it's no."
+
+For a moment I feared Bohun would have a stroke. The back of the chair
+I had just vacated and his stick alone supported him through that dumb,
+terrible transport. He shook so violently that I looked momentarily to
+see the chair break beneath him. There was insanity in his eyes. When
+finally he was able to articulate it was in broken gasps.
+
+"I don't believe it," he stammered. "It's a lie. I don't believe it.
+It's madness--the girl wouldn't be so mad. ..."
+
+"What is it, father?"
+
+I don't know which of us three was the more startled by that simple
+question in Betty Graham's voice; Sam, at all events, showed the least
+surprise; the old colonel wheeled toward the back of the store, his jaw
+dropping and his eyes protruding as though he were confronted with a
+ghost. As, in a way, he was: even I had been struck by that strange,
+heartrending similarity to her mother's tone; and even I trembled a
+little to hear that voice, as it seemed, from beyond the grave.
+
+Betty stood at the foot of the staircase; alarmed by the noise of the
+colonel's raging, she had stolen down, unheard by any of us. And in
+that moment I realised as never before that the girl had more of her
+mother in her than lay in that marvellous reproduction of Margaret
+Graham's voice. As she waited there one detected in her pose something
+of her mother's quiet dignity, in her eyes more than a little of
+Margaret's tragedy. Of Margaret's beauty I saw scant trace, I own; but
+in those days my eyes were blinded by the signs of overwork and
+insufficient nourishment that marred her young features, by the
+hopeless dowdiness of her garments.
+
+Abruptly she moved swiftly to her father's side and slipped her hand
+into his. "What is it, father?" she repeated, eyeing Colonel Bohun
+coldly.
+
+I thought Sam's eyes filled. His lips trembled and he had to struggle
+to master his voice. He smiled through it all, tenderly at his girl,
+but there was in that smile the weakness of the child grown old, the
+dependence of the man whose womanfolk must ever mother him.
+
+"Why, Betty," he said, tremulous--"why, Betty, your grandfather here
+has been kind enough to offer to take you and educate you and make a
+lady of you, and--and we were just talking it over, dear, just talking
+it over."
+
+"Do you mean that?" she flung at Bohun.
+
+He straightened up and held himself well in hand. "Is it the first you
+have heard of it?"
+
+"Yes." She looked inquiringly at her father.
+
+"Why didn't you tell her?" Bohun persisted harshly. "Were you afraid?"
+
+"No." Sam shook his head slowly. "I wasn't
+afraid. But it was unnecessary.... You see, Betty, Colonel Bohun is
+willing to do all this for you on several conditions. You must leave me
+and never see me again; you mustn't even recognise me should we meet
+upon the street; you must change your name to Bohun and never permit
+yourself to be known as Betty Graham. Then you must--"
+
+"Never mind, daddy dear," said the girl. "That is enough. I know now--I
+understand why you never told me. It's impossible. Colonel Bohun knew
+that when he made the offer, of course; he made it simply to harass
+you, daddy. It's his revenge...."
+
+She looked Bohun up and down with a glance of contempt that would have
+withered another man, poor, wan, haggard little maid of all work that
+she was.
+
+"And that's your answer, miss?" he snapped, livid with wrath.
+
+"I would not," she told him slowly, "accept a favour from you, sir, if
+I were starving...."
+
+Bohun drew himself up. "Then starve," he told her; and walked out of
+the shop.
+
+I gaped after his retreating figure. It seemed impossible, incredible,
+that he should have taken such an answer without yielding to a fit of
+insensate passion. And I was still marvelling when I heard Graham
+saying in a broken voice: "Betty! Betty, my little girl!"
+
+Then I, too, went away, with a mist before my eyes to dim the golden
+grace of June.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+INTRODUCTION TO MISS CARPENTER
+
+On my way back from the Flats I discovered Duncan sitting on the wall
+of the bridge, moodily donating pebbles to the water. His attitude
+suggested preoccupation with unhappy reflections, a humour from which
+the sound of my footsteps roused him. He looked up and caught my eye
+with an uncertain nod, as though he half recognised me--presumably
+having casually noticed me at the Bigelow House the previous evening.
+
+"Good-morning," said I cheerfully, with a slight break in my stride
+intended craftily to convey the impression that I was not altogether
+averse to a pause for gossip.
+
+He said "Good-morning," sombrely.
+
+"A pleasant day," I observed spontaneously, stopping.
+
+"Yes," he agreed. "By the way, have you a match about you?"
+
+I searched my pockets, found a box and handed it over.
+
+"I've been perishing for a ..." He slid his fingers into a waistcoat
+pocket, as one who should seek a cigarette-case; but the hand came
+forth empty. He bit his remark off abruptly, with a blank look in his
+eyes which was promptly succeeded by an expression of deepest chagrin.
+He got up and with a little bow returned the box.
+
+"I forgot," he said, apologetic.
+
+"I'm afraid I can't help you out," said I.
+
+"Oh, that's all right. I'd just forgotten that I don't smoke."
+
+I pretended not to notice his disconcertion.
+
+"You're to be congratulated; it's a shameful waste of time and money."
+
+"A filthy habit," said he warmly.
+
+"Indeed, yes," I chanted, finding my pipe and tobacco pouch.
+
+He caught my twinkle as I filled and lighted, and looked away, the
+shadow of a smile lurking beneath his small, closely clipped moustache.
+
+"I beg your pardon," he said a moment later, regarding me with more
+interest, "but--do you live here?"
+
+"Certainly. Why?"
+
+"I was sure of it," he replied soberly. "But don't you feel a bit
+lonesome, sometimes?"
+
+"Not in the least. Radville's one of the most interesting places on
+this side of the footstool." He sighed. "Indeed," I insisted, "you
+won't feel any more lonely after you've lived here a while, than I do
+now, Mr. Duncan."
+
+He opened his eyes at my acquaintance with his name, but jerked his
+head at me comprehendingly.
+
+"To be sure," he said. "You would know. But I'm only beginning to
+realise what it feels like to be a marked man."
+
+"I hear you intend to make Radville your permanent residence, Mr.
+Duncan?"
+
+"It's part of the system," he said obscurely. "It may prove a life
+sentence."
+
+"Don't you think you'll like it here?"
+
+"Oh, I'm strong for Radville," he declared earnestly. "It's all to the
+merry ... I beg your pardon."
+
+I stared curiously to see him colour like a school-girl. "What for?"
+
+"My mistake, sir; I forgot myself again. I don't use slang."
+
+"Oh!" I commented, wondering. He was beginning to puzzle me.
+
+In the pause the air began to rock with the heavy clanging of the clock
+in the Methodist Church steeple.
+
+"That's noon," I said. "We'll have to cut along: dinner's ready."
+
+Duncan immediately replanted himself firmly upon the parapet. "I know
+it," he said with some indignation.
+
+Again bewildered, I hesitated, but eventually advanced: "Our ways run
+together, Mr. Duncan, as far as the Bigelow House. My name is
+Littlejohn--Homer Littlejohn."
+
+He rose again to take my hand and assured me he was glad to make my
+acquaintance. "But," he added morosely, "I'll be damned if I go back to
+that hotel before dinner's over.... Great Scott! I forgot again. I
+don't swear!"
+
+"Have you any other unnatural accomplishments?" I inquired, chuckling.
+
+"I'm so full of 'em I can hardly stick," he assented gloomily. "I don't
+drink or smoke or swear or play pool or cards, and on Sundays I go to
+church."
+
+I laughed outright. "You've come to the right place for such exemplary
+virtues to be fully appreciated, Mr. Duncan."
+
+"That's all right," he said with a return of his indignation, "but it
+wasn't in the bargain that I should starve to death. Do you realise,
+Mr. Littlejohn," he continued, warming, "that you behold in me a young
+man in the prime of health actually on the point of wasting visibly
+away to a shadow of my former hardy self? It's a fact: I am. For the
+past two days I've had nothing to eat except railway sandwiches and
+coffee and the kind of fodder they pitchfork you at the Bigelow House.
+And I came here with a mind coloured with rosy anticipations of real
+old-fashioned country cooking. It's an outrage!"
+
+"Look here," said I: "why not come home with me for dinner? I'll be
+glad to have you, and Miss Carpenter won't mind your coming, I'm sure."
+
+He got up with alacrity. "Those are the first human words I've heard in
+Radville, sir! I accept with joy and gratitude. Come--lead me to it!"
+
+Now, Miss Carpenter doesn't like her meals delayed; so I would have
+been inclined to hasten this Mr. Duncan; but he saved me the trouble.
+
+"Miss Carpenter?" he asked without warning, as we hurried up Main
+Street.
+
+"My landlady, Mr. Duncan."
+
+"She takes boarders? An old maid?" he persisted eagerly.
+
+"An elderly spinster; boarders are her distraction as well as a source
+of income."
+
+"Do you think she'd take me in, Mr. Littlejohn?"
+
+"I'm sure of it. There's a vacant room ..."
+
+"Does she talk?"
+
+"Moderately."
+
+"Not a regular walking newspaper--no?"
+
+"Not exactly--"
+
+"Then I'm afraid it's no use," he sighed.
+
+I glanced up at his face, but it was inscrutable.
+
+"You--you want a landlady who talks?" I gasped, incredulous.
+
+"It's one of the rules," he said, again obscurely.
+
+I could make nothing of him. And had I any right to introduce to Hetty
+Carpenter a guest who came without credentials and talked more or less
+like a lunatic at large?
+
+"Mr. Duncan--" I began, uncomfortable.
+
+"Don't say it," he anticipated me. "I know you think I'm crazy--but I'm
+not. You would think so, naturally, because you're the only man here
+who's ever lived away from Radville long enough--not counting those who
+went to the World's Fair--."
+
+"How did you know?"
+
+"Bigelow told me last night; said you'd be glad to meet somebody from
+New York. I hope he's right. I'm glad, personally.... You see--May I
+request that you regard this as confidential?"
+
+"Yes--yes!"
+
+"I've come to Radville to make my fortune."
+
+The confession smote me witless: I could only gape. He nodded
+confirmation, with a most serious mien. At length I found strength to
+articulate. "From New York--?"
+
+"Yes. It's a new scheme. You see, Mr. Littlejohn,
+matters have come to such a state that a city-bred boy practically
+doesn't stand any show on earth of making good in the cities; your
+country-bred boys crowd him to the wall, nine times out of ten. They
+invade us in hordes, fresh from the open, strong, vigorous,
+clear-headed, ambitious.... What chance have we got? ... I've been
+figuring it out, you see, and I've come to the conclusion that it's my
+only salvation to get back to the country and improve some of the
+opportunities--the golden opportunities--that your boys have neglected,
+overlooked, in their mad desire to invade the commercial centres of the
+country."
+
+He seemed very much in earnest; I was watching him as closely as I
+might without making my scrutiny offensive; and there seemed to be the
+ring of conviction in his voice, while the expression of his eyes
+indicated concentrated thought. And how was I to know, then, that the
+concentration was due to the necessity of invention?
+
+"You follow me, Mr. Littlejohn?"
+
+"I was here first," I corrected. "Still, there's more in what you say
+than perhaps you realise."
+
+"If I'd made this discovery originally I'd agree with you, sir. But,
+quite to the contrary, it was pointed out to me by one of the shrewdest
+business minds in the United States--a man who'd been a country boy to
+begin with. And I've come to the conclusion that he's right."
+
+"So you're here."
+
+"Here I am."
+
+"And what do you propose doing?"
+
+"I'm reading law, Mr. Littlejohn; that I shall continue. In the
+meantime, I shall keep my eyes open. At any day, at any amount, the
+opportunity may present itself, the opportunity I'm looking for."
+
+"Probably you're right," I assented, impressed, as we turned a corner.
+
+A young woman in a very attractive linen gown was strolling toward us,
+quite prettily engaged with a book which she read as she walked, her
+fair young head bowed beneath a sunshade which tinted her face
+becomingly. She gave me a shy smile and a low-voiced greeting as we
+passed. Only my knowledge of the young woman prevented me from being
+blinded by her engaging appearance.
+
+"That," said I, when we were out of earshot, "shows you what a furore a
+good-looking young man can create in a town like this. Josie Lockwood
+has put on her best bib-and-tucker to go walking in this afternoon, on
+the off-chance of meeting you, Mr. Duncan."
+
+"Flattery note," he commented. "Who's Josie Lockwood?"
+
+"Daughter of Blinky Lockwood, the richest man in Radville."
+
+"Ah!" he said cryptically.
+
+We had come to Miss Carpenter's. I opened the gate for him, but he
+stood aside, refusing to precede me. And courtesy in the young folk of
+to-day warms my old heart.
+
+He had as much for Hetty Carpenter. Within an hour he had insinuated
+himself into her good graces with a deftness, an ease, that astounded.
+Within three hours he was established, bag and baggage, in her very
+best room.
+
+And thirty minutes after she had helped Duncan unpack, Hetty had to run
+downtown to buy a spool of thread.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+A WINDOW IN RADVILLE
+
+A jealous secret, which has never heretofore been divulged, is
+responsible for the prosperity of the Radville _Citizen_--at
+least, in very great measure. As the discoverer of this recipe for
+circulation, I have kept it carefully locked in my guilty bosom for
+many a year, and if I now betray it I do so without scruple, for the
+_Gazette_ is now established firmly in a groove of popularity from
+which you'd find it hard to oust the paper. So here's letting the cat
+out of the bag:
+
+The policy of the _Citizen_ has long been to devote its columns
+mainly to the exploitation of what is known in newspaper terminology as
+"the local story." Of the news of the great outside world we're
+parsimonious, recognising the fact that the coronation of King Edward
+VII. is a matter of much less import to our community than the
+holocaust which was responsible for the destruction of Sir
+Higginbottom's new hen-house. Similarly a West Indian tornado involving
+losses running up into hundreds of thousands of dollars sinks into
+relative insignificance as compared with the local weather forecast and
+its probable effect on crops not worth ten thousand; while the enforced
+abdication of the Sultan of Turkey gets a "stick" (a space in a
+newspaper column about as long as your forefinger, if you have a small
+hand) as contrasted with the column and a half assigned to the death of
+old Colonel Bohun.
+
+Now, naturally, a paper in a small country town can't afford a large
+and hustling staff of enthusiastic reporters; and very probably the
+_Citizen_ would overlook many items and stories of burning local
+interest were it not for the fact that the population has been
+cunningly made to serve in a reportorial capacity without either pay or
+its own knowledge. We literally get our local news by wireless; and
+from dawn to dark there's a constant supply of it on tap.
+
+It's this way: our editorial rooms are in the second storey of a
+building overlooking Court House Square. The lower floor is occupied by
+the Post Office, and in front of the Post Office are a hitching-post
+and two long, weather-scarred benches, while just across the road--I
+mean street--on the boundary of the square proper--is a near-bronze
+drinking-fountain and watering-trough erected from the proceeds of
+several fairs given by the local branch of the W. C. T. U. Naturally,
+indeed inevitably, all Radville gravitates to the Post Office, bringing
+the news with it, and stops to discuss it on the steps or the benches
+or by the fountain; and the acoustics are admirable. With a window open
+and scratch-pad handy, the keen-eared scribe at his desk in our offices
+can hardly fail to pick up every scrap of town information between
+sunrise and dusk.... Of course, in winter the supply's not so good.
+Winter before last we all suffered with colds acquired through keeping
+the windows open; and last winter our circulation fell off surprisingly
+through keeping them closed. This winter we contemplate cutting a
+trap-door through the floor for the ostensible purpose of ventilation.
+
+And thus it was that I managed to hear much of Mr. Duncan while I
+myself was engaged in formulating an estimate of the young man. He
+engaged the popular imagination no less than mine own, although I was
+more intimately associated with him--as a fellow-resident at Hetty
+Carpenter's. My professional duties making their habitual demands upon
+my time, I saw, it may be, less of him than many of our people.
+Certainly I learned less of his ways from first-hand knowledge. But
+from my desk (it's the nearest to the window right above the Post
+Office door) I was enabled to keep a pretty close line upon his habits
+and movements, during the first fortnight of his stay in Radville.
+
+At home I saw him with unvarying regularity at meal-times and less
+frequently after supper. Between whiles he seemed to observe a fairly
+regular routine: in the morning, after breakfast, he walked abroad for
+his health's sake; in the afternoon and evening he sequestered himself
+in his room for the pursuit of his legal studies. About the genuineness
+of these latter I was long without a question: having been privileged
+to inspect his room I found it redolent of an atmosphere of highly
+commendable application. His writing table was a model of neatness, and
+his store of legal treatises impressed one vastly. That no one, not
+even Hetty Carpenter, ever saw the room without remarking the open
+volume of "The Law of Torts," with its numerous pages painstakingly
+spaced by slips of paper by way of bookmarks, is an attested fact. That
+it was always the same volume is less widely known.
+
+Less directly (that is to say, via my window) I learned of him
+compendiously from sources which would have been anonymous but for my
+long acquaintance with the voices of the townspeople.... I write these
+pages at my desk at home and, if truth's to be told, somewhat
+surreptitiously; but with these voices ringing in my memory's ear I
+seem still to be sitting at my erstwhile desk by the window, looking
+out over Court House Square, chewing the rubber heel of my pencil the
+while I listen. It's summer weather and there's a smell in the air of
+dust and heat; the square simmers and shimmers in unclouded sunshine,
+its many green plots of grass a trifle grey and haggard with dust, the
+flagstaff with its two flanking cannon by the bandstand in the middle
+wavering slightly in the haze of heat; there are two rigs, a farm-wagon
+and a buckboard, hitched to the post below, and some boys are squirting
+water on one another by holding their hands over the lips of the
+fountain across the way. Immediately opposite, on the far side of the
+square, the Court House rises proudly in all the majesty of its
+columned front and clapboarded sides; farther along there's the
+Methodist Church, very severe, with its rows of sheds to one side for
+the teams of the more rural members. Behind them all bulk our hills,
+dim and purple against the overwhelming blue of the sky. It's very
+quiet: there are few sounds, and those few most familiar: the raucous
+war-cry of a rooster somewhere on the outskirts of town; an
+intermittent thudding of hoofs in the inch-deep dust of the roadway;
+Miles Stetson wringing faint but genuine shrieks of agony from his
+cornet, in a room behind the Opery House on the next street;
+periodically a shuffle of feet on the sidewalk below; less frequently
+the whine of the swinging doors at Schwartz's place; above it all,
+perhaps, the shrill but not unpleasant accents of Angie Tuthill as she
+pauses on the threshold downstairs and injects surprising information
+into the nothing-reluctant ears of Mame Garrison.
+
+" ... He's got six suits of clothes, three for summer and three for
+winter, and two others to wear to parties--one regular full-dress suit
+and another without any tails on the coat that he told Miss Carpenter
+was a dinner-coat, but Roland Barnette says he must've meant a Tuxedo,
+because nobody wears that kind of clothes except at night; so how could
+it be a dinner-coat?... And Miss Carpenter told Ma he's got twelve
+striped shirts and eight white ones and dozens of silk socks and two
+dozen neckties and handkerchiefs till you can't count and...."
+
+Mame punctuates this monologue with a regular and excusable "My land!"
+and the young voices fade away into the mid-summer afternoon quiet. I
+am free to resume my interrupted flight of fancy, but I refrain. The
+atmosphere is soporiferous, hardly conducive to editorial inspiration,
+and I find the commingled flavours of red-cedar, glue and rubber quite
+nourishing.
+
+Presently Dr. Mortimer, the minister, comes down the street in company
+with his deacon, Blinky Lockwood. They are discussing someone in
+subdued tones, but I catch references to a worthy young man and the
+vacancy in the choir.
+
+Josie Lockwood rustles into hearing with Bessie Gabriel in tow. Josie
+is rattling volubly, but with a hint of the confidential in her tone.
+She insists that: "Of course, I never let on, but every time we meet I
+can just feel him looking and...."
+
+Bessie interposes: "Why, Tracey Tanner's just crazy for fear he'll take
+on with Angie."
+
+I can see Josie's head toss at this. "I bet he don't know what Angie
+Tuthill looks like. That's too absurd..."
+
+"Absurd" is Josie's newest word. It's a very good word, too, but
+sometimes I fear she will wear it threadbare. It closes her remarks as
+the two girls dart into the Post Office, and there is peace for a time;
+then they emerge giggling, and I hear Josie declare: "I'd get Roland
+Barnette to do it, but he's so jealous. He makes me tired."
+
+Bessie's response is inaudible.
+
+"Well," Josie continues, "I'm simply not going to send them out until I
+meet him. Father said I could give it a week from Saturday, but I won't
+unless--"
+
+Bessie interrupts, again inaudibly.
+
+"Of course I could do that, but ... if I just said 'Miss Carpenter and
+guests' that nosey old Homer Littlejohn'd think I meant him too, and if
+I only said 'guest' it'd look too pointed. Don't you think so?"
+
+To my relief they pass from hearing, and I feel for my pipe for
+comfort. Anyway, I never did like Josie Lockwood.... Smoking, I
+meditate on the astonishing power of personality. Here is Mr. Nathaniel
+Duncan no more than a fortnight in our midst (the phrase is used
+callously, as something sacred to country journalism) and, behold! not
+yet has the town ceased to discuss him. The control he has over the
+local mind and imagination is certainly wonderful: the more so since he
+has apparently made no effort to attract attention; rather, I should
+say, to the contrary. Quiet and unassuming he goes his way, minding his
+own business as carefully as we would mind it for him, with all the
+good will in the world, if only we could find out what it is. But we
+can't leave him alone....
+
+Tracey Tanner interrupts my musings.
+
+"Hello!" he twangs, like a tuneless banjo.
+
+"'Lo, Tracey." This lofty and blase greeting can come from none other
+than Roland Barnette.
+
+"Where you goin'?"
+
+"Over to the railway station."
+
+"What for?"
+
+"To give you something to talk about. I'm going to send a telegram to a
+friend of mine in Noo York."
+
+"Aw, you ain't the only one can send telegrams. Sam Graham sent one
+just now."
+
+"_He_ did!"
+
+"Uh-huh. I was sort of hangin' round, when he came in, and I seen him
+send it myself."
+
+"Sam Graham telegraphing! Do you know; who to, Tracey?" Roland's
+superiority is wearing thin under contact with his curiosity. This
+surprising bit of news makes him distinctly more affable and inclined
+to lower himself to the social level of the son of the livery-stable
+keeper.
+
+As for myself, I am inclined to lean out of the window and call Tracey
+up, lest he get out of hearing before I hear the rest of it.
+Fortunately I am not thus obliged to compromise my dignity. The two are
+at pause.
+
+"Gimme a cigarette 'nd I'll tell you," bargains Tracey shrewdly. "Lew
+Parker told me after Sam'd gone."
+
+The deal is put through promptly.
+
+"He was telegraphin' to--Got a match?"
+
+For once I am in sympathy with Roland, whose tone betrays his desire to
+wring Tracey's exasperating neck.
+
+"Aw, he was only telegraphing to Gresham an' Jones for some sody water
+syrups."
+
+"Where'd he get the money?" There's fine scorn in Roland's comment.
+
+"I dunno, but he handed Lew a five-dollar bill to pay for the message."
+
+"Well, if Sam Graham's got any money he'd better hold on to it, instead
+of buying sody-water syrups. I guess Blinky Lockwood'll get after him
+when he finds it out. He owes Blinky a note at the bank and it's coming
+due in a day or two and Blinky ain't going to renew, neither."
+
+"Sam seemed cheerful 'nough. Anyhow, it ain't my funeral."
+
+I have now something to think about, indeed, and am more than half
+inclined to stroll up to Graham's and find out what has happened, on my
+own account, when the voices of Hi Nutt and Watty the tailor drift up
+to me. The cronies are coming down for their regular afternoon session
+on the Post Office benches--a function which takes place daily, just as
+soon as the sun gets round behind the building, so that the seats are
+shaded. And I pause, true to the ethics of journalism; it's my duty not
+to leave just yet.
+
+Surprisingly enough these two likewise are discussing Sam Graham. At
+least I can deduce nothing else from Hiram's first words, though their
+subject is for the moment nameless.
+
+"Yes, sir; he's the poorest man in this town."
+
+"Yes," Watty quavers; "yes, I guess he be."
+
+"An' he's got no more business sense _into_ him than God give a
+goose."
+
+"No, I guess he ain't."
+
+"Why, look at the way things has run down at his store since Margaret
+died. She kept things a-runnin' while she was alive."
+ "Yes, she was a fine woman, Margaret Bohun
+was."
+
+"An' they ain't no doubt about it, Sam had money into the bank when she
+died. But ever sinst then it's been all go out and no come in with him.
+He keeps fussin' and fussin' with them inventions of his, but no one
+ever heard tell of his gettin' anything out of 'em."
+
+"And what'd he do with all the money he had when Margaret died?"
+
+"Spent it, what he didn't lend and give away and lose endorsin' notes
+for his friends and then havin' to pay 'em. An' speakin' of notes, I
+heard Roland Barnette say, t'other day, that old Sam had a note comin'
+due to the bank, an' Blinky wasn't goin' to renew it any more."
+
+"'Course Sam can't pay it."
+
+"Certainly he can't. I was in his store day before yestiddy an' they
+wasn't nobody come in for nothin' while I was there. He don't do no
+business to speak of."
+
+"How long was you there, Hi?"
+
+"From nine o'clock to noon."
+
+"What doin'?"
+
+"Nuthin'; jes' settin' round."
+
+"I seen him to-day goin' into the bank. Guess he must've gone to see
+Lockwood 'bout thet note."
+
+"Well, I don't envy him his call on Blinky Lockwood none."
+
+"Mebbe he went in to deposit his coupons," Watty chuckled.
+
+Hiram snorted and there was silence while he filled and lit his pipe.
+
+"I hearn tell this mornin'," he resumed, "that Josie Lockwood's goin'
+to give a party next week."
+
+"Yes, I hearn it too. Angie Tuthill was talkin' 'bout it to Mame
+Garrison up to Leonard and Call's. She said they was goin' to have the
+biggest time this town ever see. Goin' to decyrate the grounds with
+lanterns an' have ice cream sent from Phillydelphy, and cakes, too.
+Can't make out what's come into Blinky to let that gal of his waste
+money like that."
+
+"I figger," says Hiram after a sapient pause, "she must be gettin' it
+up for thet New York dood."
+
+"Duncan?"
+
+"Uh-huh."
+
+"I didn't know he was 'quainted with the Lockwoods."
+
+"I didn't know he was 'quainted with nobody."
+
+"Nobody 'ceptin' Homer Littlejohn an' Hetty Carpenter, an' they don't
+seem to know much about him. I call him darn cur'us. Hetty says he
+allus a-settin' in his room, a-studyin' an' a-studyin' an' a-studyin'."
+
+"He goes walkin' mornin's, Hetty told me."
+
+"Wal, he don't come downtown much. Nobody hardly ever sees him 'cept to
+church."
+
+Hiram ponders this profoundly, finally delivering himself of an opinion
+which he has never forsaken. "I claim he's a s'picious character."
+
+"Don't look to me as though he knew 'nough to be much of anythin'."
+
+"Wal, now, if he's a real student an' they ain't no outs 'bout him,
+what in tarnation's he doin' here? Thet's jest what I'd like to have
+somebody tell me, Watty."
+
+"Hetty sez he sez he wants a quiet place to study."
+
+Hiram snorts with scorn. "Oh, fid-del! You don't catch no Noo York
+young feller a-settlin' down in Radville unless he's crazy or somethin'
+worse."
+
+"'Tain't no use tellin' Hetty Carpenter thet." "No; if anybody sez a
+word agin him she shets 'em right up."
+
+"'Tain't only Hetty, but all the wimmin's on his side."
+
+"Thet's proof enough to me he ain't right." "Wimmin," says Watty, as
+the result of a period of philosophical consideration, "is all crazy
+about clothes. When a feller's got good clothes you can't make them see
+no harm into him, no matter what he is. I pressed some of Duncan's last
+Satiddy. I never see clothes--such goods and linin's. They was made for
+him, too--made by a tailor on Fifth Avenue, Noo York. I fergit the name
+now."
+
+"Wal, Roland Barnette sez they ain't stylish. He sez they're too much
+like an undertaker's gitup."
+
+"Wal, Roland oughter know. He's the fanciest dressed-up feller in the
+county."
+
+"Yes, I guess he be."
+
+The subject apparently languishes, but I know that it still occupies
+their sage meditations; and presently this is demonstrated by Hiram,
+who expectorates liberally by way of preface.
+
+"When this cuss Duncan fust come here," he says with a self-contained
+chuckle, "ev'rybody but me figgered he had stacks of money. Guess they
+be singin' a different tune, now, sinst he's been goin' round askin'
+for work."
+
+This is news to me, and I sit up, sharing Watty's astonishment.
+
+"Be he a-doin' thet, Hiram?"
+
+"That's what he's been a-doin'."
+
+"Funny I missed hearin' about it."
+
+"He only started this mornin'. He went to Sothern and Lee's and Leonard
+and Call's and Godfrey's--'nd then I guess he must 'ev quit
+discouraged. They wouldn't none of them give him nothin'. Leastways,
+thet's what they said after he'd gone out. He didn't give anybody a
+reel chance to say anythin'. I was in Leonard and Call's and he came in
+an' asked for a job, but the minute Len looked at him he turned right
+round and slunk out without a-waitin' for Len to say a word." Hiram
+smoked in huge enjoyment of the retrospect. "He's the curiousest
+critter we ever had in this town."
+
+"Yes," agrees Watty, "I guess he be."
+
+At this juncture comes an interruption; Tracey Tanner returns,
+hot-foot. Either he has been running, or his breathlessness is due to
+excitement. Before the two upon the bench he pauses in agitated glee, a
+bearer of tremendous tidings.
+
+"Hello," he pants.
+
+"Now, you Tracey Tanner," Hiram cuts in sharply, "you run 'long an'
+don't be a-botherin' round. Seems like a body never can git a chance to
+rest, with you children allus a-buttin' in--"
+
+"Aw, shet up," says Tracey dispassionately. "I only wanted to tell you
+the news."
+
+Watty quavers: "What news, Tracey?"
+
+"Well," says the boy, "I'll tell you, Watty, but I wouldn't 've told
+him after what he said."
+
+"But what's the news, Tracey?" There is suspense in the iteration.
+
+"Well, seein's it's you, Watty--"
+
+"You Tracey Tanner, you run 'long and stop your jokin'!" interrupts
+Hiram with authority.
+
+"'Tain't no joke; it's news, I'm tellin' you. Sa-ay, what d'ye think,
+Watty?"
+
+"Yes, Tracey, yes? What is it, boy?"
+
+"Thet--Noo--York--dood," drawls Tracey, "is a-workin' for Sam Graham!"
+
+A dramatic pause ensues. I rise and find my coat.
+
+"Tracey Tanner," shrills Hiram, "be you a-tellin' the truth?"
+
+"Kiss my hand and cross my heart and vow Honest Injun, I seen him up
+there just now in the store, Watty, tendin' the sody fountain."
+
+"Wal," says Hiram, rising, "I don't believe a word of it, but if it's
+true we better be goin' round to see, Watty, 'cause it ain't a-goin' to
+last long. He won't stay after he finds out Sam ain't got no money to
+pay his wages with."
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+THE MAN OF BUSINESS IN EMBRYO
+
+There's no questioning the fact that two weeks of Radville had driven
+Duncan to desperation; on the morning of the fifteenth day he wakened
+in his room at Miss Carpenter's and lay for a time abed staring
+vacantly at the gaudily papered ceiling, not through laziness remaining
+on his back, but through sheer inertia. The prospect of rising to
+ramble through another purposeless, empty day appalled his imagination;
+it had been all very well when the humour of his project intrigued him,
+when the village was a novelty and its inhabitants "types" to be
+studied, watched, analysed and classified with secret amusement; but
+now he felt that he had already exhausted its possibilities; he was a
+foreigner in thought and instinct, had as little in common with
+Radvillians as any newly imported Englishman would have had. In plain
+language, he was bored to the point of extinction.
+
+"Why," he reflected aloud, "it doesn't seem reasonable, but I'm
+actually looking forward to the delirious dissipation of church next
+Sunday!
+
+"Me?...
+
+"If Kellogg could only see me now!"
+
+He laughed mirthlessly.
+
+"I must have done something to deserve this in my misspent life...
+
+"Wonder if nothing ever happens here?.... I'd give a whole lot, if I
+had it, for a good rousing fire on Main Street--the Bigelow House, for
+choice....
+
+"And it's got me to the point of drooling to myself, like those fellows
+you read about who get lost in the desert....
+
+"Come! Get out of this! And, my boy, remember to 'count that day lost
+whose low descending sun sees nothing accomplished, nothing done.'...
+
+"Probably misquoted, at that."
+
+Sullenly he rose and dressed.
+
+He was late at the breakfast and silent and reserved throughout that
+meal. Poor Miss Carpenter thought him dissatisfied and hung round his
+chair, purring with a solicitude that almost maddened him. As soon as
+possible he made his escape from the house.
+
+The walk he indulged in that morning took him in a wide circle: south
+on the road to the Gap, then eastwards, crossing the railroad and the
+river, north through a smiling agricultural region, east to the Flats,
+and so across the stone bridge to the Old Town once more. He was
+trudging up Street toward Centre shortly after eleven--hot, a little
+tired, and utterly disgusted. The exercise, instead of exhilarating,
+had depressed him; the quickened flow of blood through his veins, the
+vigour of the clean air he inhaled, demanded of him action of some
+sort; and he had nothing whatever to do with himself all afternoon save
+drowse over "The Law of Torts."
+
+Recognition of Leonard and Call's familiar shop-front fired him with a
+spirit of adventure and enterprise. He stopped short, thoughtfully
+rubbing his small moustache the wrong way, his vision glued to the
+embarrassingly candid window displays.
+
+"It'd be an awful thing for me to do....
+
+"Think of yourself, man, jumping counters in and out amongst all
+hose--those _Things!_ like a lunatic monkey performing on a Monday
+morning's clothes line!..."
+
+He thought deeply, and sighed. "It ain't moral....
+
+"But it's one of the rules, it must be did. Henry said a ribbon clerk
+was a social equal....
+
+"Come, now! No more shennanigan! Brace up! Be a man!...
+
+"A man? That's the whole trouble: I am a man; I've got no business in a
+place like that."
+
+He turned and moved away slowly. But the idea had him by the heels. He
+struggled against a growing resolution to return. Then enlightenment
+came to him suddenly. He paused again, grappling with this amazing
+revelation of self.
+
+"Great Scott! Harry was right, damn him! He said this place would
+reconstruct me from the inside out and vice versa, and by jinks! it
+has. I actually _want_ to work!...
+
+"Can you beat that--_me_!"
+
+He swung back to Leonard and Call's, mentally reviewing his
+instructions.
+
+"Let's see. I was to wait at least a month, to let the shopkeepers get
+accustomed to the sight of me.... _Hmm_.... Harry certainly has a
+cute way of expressing his thought.... But it can't be helped; I can't
+wait. If I do, I'll throw up the job....
+
+"I'm to walk in and say, politely: '_I'm looking for employment. If
+at any time you should have an opening here that you can offer me, I
+shall endeavour to give satisfaction. Good-day_.'...
+
+"But be careful not to press it. Just say it and get right out...."
+
+With the air of a man who knows his own mind he pulled open the wire
+screen-door and strode in.
+
+Two minutes later he emerged, breathing hard, but with the glitter of
+determination in his eye.
+
+"I wouldn't 've believed I could get away with it. Here goes for the
+next promising opening."
+
+He headed for Sothern and Lee's drug-store.
+
+"Wonder what that fellow would have said if I'd had the nerve to wait
+and listen...."
+
+In the drug-store he experienced less difficulty in making his speech
+and exit; he flattered himself that he accomplished both gracefully,
+even impressively. And indeed you may believe he left a gaping audience
+behind him. So likewise at Godfrey's notions and stationery shop.
+
+As he emerged from the latter the resonant clamour of the Methodist
+Church clock drove him home for dinner, hungry and glowing with
+self-approbation. At all events, no one had refused him: he had not
+been set upon and incontinently kicked out. He felt that he was getting
+on.
+
+"Now this afternoon," he mused, "I'll wind up the job. By night
+everyone in town will know I want work."
+
+But if he had thought a moment he would have realised that he might
+have spared himself the trouble; the consummation he so earnestly
+desired was already being brought about by resident and recognised, if
+unofficial, agents for the dissemination of news.
+
+It was two o'clock or thereabouts, I gather, when, shaping his course
+toward Radville's commercial centre, Duncan hesitated on the corner of
+Beech Street, cocking an incredulous eye up at the weather-worn sign
+which has for years adorned the side of Tuthill's grocery: a hand
+indicating fixedly:
+
+THIS WAY TO GRAHAM'S DRUG STORE
+
+"Two druggists in Radville!" he mused. "Is it possible?... Then it's
+Harry's mistake if the scheme fails; he said this was a one-horse
+country town, but I'm blest if it isn't a thriving metropolis! Two!...
+Here, I'm going to have a look."
+
+He turned up Beech and presently discovered the object of his quest, a
+two-storey building of "frame," guiltless of the ardent caress of a
+paint-brush since time out of mind. On the ground floor the windows
+were made up of many small square panes, several of which had been
+rudely mended. Through them the interior glimmered darkly. In the
+foreground stood a broken bottle, shaped like a mortuary urn and half
+full of pink liquid. Beside it reposed a broken packing-box in which
+bleary camphor-balls nestled between torn sheets of faded blue paper.
+Of these a silent companion in misery stood on the far side of the
+window: a towering pagoda-like cage of wire in which (trapped,
+doubtless, by means of some mysterious bait known only to alchemists)
+three worn but brutal-looking sponges were apparently slumbering in
+exhaustion. Back of these a dusty plaster cast of a male figure lightly
+draped seemed to represent the survival of the fittest over some
+strange and deadly patent medicine. The recessed door bore an
+inscription in gold letters, tarnished and half obliterated:
+
+AM GRAHAM
+ RUGS & CHEM C LS
+
+ R SCRIPTION CAREF LY C POUNDED
+
+"Looks like the very place for one of my acknowledged abilities," said
+Duncan. He turned the knob and entered, advancing to the middle of the
+dingy room. There, standing beside a cold and rusty stove whose pipe
+wandered giddily to a hole in the farthest wall (reminding him of some
+uncouth cat with its tail over its back), he surveyed with the single
+requisite comprehensive glance the tiers of shelves tenanted by a
+beggarly array of dingy bottles; the soda fountain with its company of
+glasses and syrup jars; the flanking counters with their broken
+show-cases housing a heterogenous conglomeration of unsalable wares;
+the aged and tattered posters heralding the virtues of potent affronts
+to the human interior--to say naught of its intelligence; the drab
+walls and debris-littered flooring.
+
+A slight grating noise behind him brought Duncan round with a start. At
+a work-bench near the window sat a white-haired man garbed baggily in
+an old crash coat and trousers. His head was bowed over something
+clamped in a vise, at which he was tinkering busily with a file. He did
+not look up, but, as his caller moved, inquired amiably: "Well?"
+
+"Good-morning," stammered Duncan; "er--I should say afternoon."
+
+"So you should," Sam admitted, still fussing with his work. "Anything
+you want?"
+
+Duncan swallowed hard and mastered his confusion. "Would it be possible
+for me to speak to the proprietor a moment?"
+
+"I should jedge it would. Go right along." Sam filed vigorously.
+
+"Might I ask--are you Mr. Graham?"
+
+"Yes, sir; that's me."
+
+The filing continued stridently. Duncan moved closer. There was scant
+encouragement to be gathered from Graham's indifferent attitude; yet
+his voice had been pleasant, kindly.
+
+"I--I'm looking for employment," said Duncan hastily. "If--"
+
+"Employment!"
+
+Graham dropped his tools with a clatter and faced round. For a moment
+his eyes twinkled and a wintry smile lightened his fine old features.
+"Well, I declare!" he said, rising. "You must be the stranger the whole
+town's been talkin' about."
+
+"If at any time," Duncan pursued hastily, "you should have an opening
+here that you can offer me, I shall endeavour to give satisfaction.
+Good-day, sir." And he made for the door.
+
+"Eh, just a minute," said Graham. "Are you in a hurry?"
+
+Duncan paused, smiling nervously. "Oh, no--only I mustn't press it, you
+know--just say it and get right--I mean I don't want to take up your
+valuable time, sir."
+
+Graham chuckled. "Guess the folks haven't been talking much to you
+about me," he suggested. "You seem to have a higher opinion of the
+value of my time than anybody else in Radville."
+
+"Yes, but--that is to say--"
+
+"But if you're really looking for a job, I'd like to give you one first
+rate."
+
+Duncan started toward him in breathless haste. "You--you'd like
+to!--You don't mean it!"
+
+"Yes," Graham nodded, smiling with enjoyment of his little joke. It was
+harmless; he didn't for a moment believe that Duncan really needed
+employment; and on the other hand it tickled him immensely to think
+that anyone should apply to him for work.
+
+"Well," said Duncan, staring, "you're the first man I ever met that
+felt that way about it."
+
+Sam's amusement dwindled. "The trouble is," he confessed--"the trouble
+is, my boy, my business is so small I don't need any help. There isn't
+much of anything to do here."
+
+"That's just the sort of a place I'd like," said Duncan impulsively.
+Then he laughed a little, uneasily. "I mean, I'm willing to take any
+position, no matter how insignificant. I mean it, honestly."
+
+"This might suit you, then--"
+
+"I wish you'd let me try it, sir."
+
+"But you don't understand." Graham was serious enough now; there wasn't
+any joke in what he had to say. "To tell you the truth, I can't afford
+it. When your pay was due, I'm afraid I shouldn't have any money to
+give you."
+
+Duncan dismissed this paltry consideration with a princely gesture. "I
+don't mind that part," he insisted. "Mr. Graham, if you'll teach me the
+drug business I'll work for you for nothing."
+
+He said it earnestly, for he meant it just a bit more seriously than he
+himself realised at the moment; and I'm glad to think it was because
+Sam's serene and gentle, guileless nature had appealed to the young
+man. He had that in him, that instinct for decency and the right, that
+made him like this simple, sweet and almost childish old man at
+sight--like him and want to help him, though he was hardly conscious of
+this and believed his motive rather more than less selfish, that he was
+grasping at this opportunity for relief from the deadly ennui that
+oppressed him as madly as a famished man at a crust. Indeed, the boy
+was eager to deceive himself in this respect, with youth's wholesome
+horror of sentiment.
+
+"Between you and me," he hurried on, "it's this way: I've been here for
+two weeks with nothing to do but look at a book, and it's got me crazy
+enough to want to work!"
+
+But still I like to think it was for a better reason, that his conduct
+then bore out my theory that there are streaks of human kindliness and
+right-thinking in all of us--buried deep though they may be by many an
+acquired stratum of callousness and egoism: the sediment of life caking
+upon the soul....
+
+But as for Sam, as soon as he recovered he shook his head in thoughtful
+deprecation. "Well, I swan!" he said. "I guess you must find it pretty
+slow down here. But"--brightening--"if you feel that way about it, I'd
+better take you over to Sothern and Lee's. They'd be glad to get you at
+the price."
+
+"And in a week they'd think they were over-paying me," Duncan argued.
+"No--I've been there. Why not try me on here?"
+
+"Well, I'm just a little bit afraid you wouldn't learn much, my boy. I
+don't do business enough to give you a good idea of it. Sothern and Lee
+get all the trade nowadays."
+
+"But look here, sir: don't you think if I came in here perhaps we could
+build up the business?"
+
+"No, I'm afraid not," Graham deprecated, pursing his lips and rubbing
+the white stubble of his beard with a toil-worn thumb.
+
+Duncan eyed him in bitter humour. "No, of course not. You're right--but
+somebody must have tipped you off."
+
+Graham paid little heed, whose mind was bent upon his own parlous
+circumstances. "I haven't got capital enough to stock up the store," he
+explained; "that's the real trouble. Folks have got into the habit of
+going to the other store because I'm out of so many things."
+
+"Well, to be sure," said Duncan, a little dashed; "you can't expect to
+do business unless you've got things to sell...."
+
+"I don't expect it, my boy," Sam assented dolefully. "'Twouldn't be in
+reason.... You see," he added, hope lightening his gloom, "I'm working
+on an invention of mine, and if that should work out I'd get some money
+and be able to get a fresh stock. Then I'd be glad to have you."
+
+Duncan brushed this impatiently aside. "How much business are you doing
+here now?"
+
+"Some days"--Graham reckoned it on his fingers--"I take in a dollar or
+two, and some days... nothing.... There's my sody fountain," he said
+with a jerk of a thumb toward it: "got that fixed up a little while
+ago, and it's bringing in a little. Not much. You see, I need more
+syrups. I've only got vanilly now."
+
+"Soda water!" Duncan jumped at the idea. "Hold on! All the girls round
+here drink soda, don't they?"
+
+"Oh, yes," said Graham abstractedly.
+
+The thought infused new life into the younger man's waning purpose.
+"Mr. Graham, I wish you'd let me come in here for a while. I don't care
+about wages."
+
+Graham lifted his shoulders resignedly. "Well, my boy, it don't seem
+right, but if you really want to work here for nothing, I'll be glad to
+have you; and if things look up with me, I'll be glad to pay you."
+
+Abruptly he found his hand grasped and pumped gratefully.
+
+"That's mighty good of you, Mr. Graham. When can I start?"
+
+"Why... whenever you like."
+
+In a twinkling Duncan's hat and gloves were off. "I'd like to, now," he
+said. "Where can we get more syrups?"
+
+"Unfortunately... I'll have to buy them."
+
+"How much?" Duncan's hand was in his pocket in an instant.
+
+"Oh, no, you mustn't do that." Sam backed away in alarm. "I couldn't
+allow it, my boy. It's good of you, but..."
+
+"Either," Nat told himself, "I'm asleep or someone's refusing to take
+money from me." He grinned cheerfully. "Oh, that's all right," he
+contended aloud. "I'll draw it down as soon as we begin to sell soda."
+He selected a bill from his slender store. "Will five dollars be
+enough?"
+
+"Oh, yes, but it wouldn't be right for me to--"
+
+But by this time Duncan was pressing the bill into his hand.
+"Nonsense!" he insisted. "How can we build up trade without syrup?"
+
+"But--but--"
+
+"And how can I learn the business without trade?" He closed Graham's
+unwilling fingers over the money and skipped away.
+
+Sighing, Graham gave over the unequal argument. "Well, if you're
+satisfied, my boy.... But I'll have to write to Elmiry for it."
+
+"Telegraph."
+
+"Telegraph!" Graham laughed. "That'd kill Lew Parker, I guess."
+
+"Who's he?"
+
+"Telegraph operator and ticket agent."
+
+"Well, he won't be missed much. Telegraph and tell 'em to send the
+goods C.O.D. Please, Mr. Graham. We want to get things moving here, you
+know; we've got to build up the business. We'll put out some signs and
+... and ... well, we'll get the people in the habit of coming here
+somehow. You'll see!"
+
+He raked the poverty-stricken shelves with a calculating eye, all his
+energy fired by enthusiasm at the prospect of doing something. Graham
+watched him with kindling liking and admiration. His old lips quivered
+a little before he voiced his thought.
+
+"You--you know, my boy, you've got splendid business ability," he
+asserted with whole-souled conviction.
+
+Duncan almost reeled. "What?" he cried.
+
+"I was just saying, you have wonderful business ability."
+
+"You're the first man that ever said that. I wonder if it's so."
+
+"I'm sure of it."
+
+"Well," said Nat, chuckling, "I'll write that to my chum. He'll--"
+
+"Oh, I can tell," Graham interrupted. "Now, I ... Well, you see, I've
+been a failure in business. So far as that goes, I've been a failure in
+everything all my life."
+
+Duncan stared for a moment, then offered his hand. "For luck," he
+explained, meeting Graham's puzzled gaze as his hand was taken.
+
+Wondering, Graham shook his head; and gratitude made his old voice
+tremulous. He put a hand over Duncan's, patting it gently.
+
+"I want you to know, my boy, that I appreciate..." His voice broke.
+"It's mighty kind of you to buy the syrup--very kind--"
+
+"Nothing of the sort; it's just because I've got great business
+ability." Duncan laughed quietly and moved away. "We'll want to clean
+up a bit," said he; "got a broom? I'll raise the dust a bit while
+you're out sending that wire."
+
+"You'll find one in the cellar, I guess, but--your clothes--"
+
+"Oh, that's all right. Where's the cellar?"
+
+"Underneath," Graham told him simply, taking down a battered hat from a
+hook behind the counter.
+
+"I know; but how do I get there?"
+
+"By the steps; you go through that door there into the hall. The steps
+are under the stairs to our rooms. I live above the store, you see."
+
+"Yes.... Good-bye, Mr. Graham."
+
+"Good-bye, my boy."
+
+Duncan watched the old man move slowly out of sight, then with a groan
+sat down on the counter to think it over. "It wouldn't be me if I
+didn't make a mess of things somehow," he told himself bitterly. "Now
+you have gone and went and done it, Mr. Fortune Hunter. You stand a
+swell chance of getting away with the goods when you take a wageless
+job in a spavined country drug-store with no trade worth mentioning and
+nothing to draw it with... just because that old duffer's the only
+human being you've spotted in this burg!...
+
+"Wonder what Harry would say if he heard about that wonderful business
+ability thing...
+
+"But what in thunder can we do to bring business to this bum joint?"
+
+He raked his surroundings with a discouraged glance.
+
+"Oh," he said thoughtfully, "hell!"
+
+Five minutes later Ben Sperry found him in the same position, his head
+bent in perplexed reverie. Sperry had been travelling for Gresham and
+Jones, a wholesale drug-house in Elmira, more years than I can
+remember. His friendship for Sam Graham, contracted during the days
+when Graham's was the drug-store of Radville, has survived the decay of
+the business. He's a square, decent man, Sperry, and has wasted many an
+hour trying to persuade Sam to pay a little more attention to the
+business. I suspect he suffered the shock of his placid life when he
+found Sam absent and the shop in the care of this spruce, well set-up
+young man.
+
+"Anything I can do for you?" chirped Duncan cheerfully, dropping off
+the counter as Sperry entered.
+
+"No-o; I just wanted to see old Sam. Is he upstairs?"
+
+"No, Mr. Graham's not in at present," Duncan told him civilly.
+
+Sperry wrinkled his brows over this problem. "You working here?" he
+asked.
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Well, I'll be hanged!"
+
+"Let us hope not," said Duncan pleasantly. He waited a moment, a little
+irritated. "Sure there's nothing _I_ can do for you?"
+
+"No-o," said Sperry slowly, struggling to comprehend. "Thank you just
+the same."
+
+"Not at all." Duncan turned away.
+
+"You see," Sperry pursued, "I don't buy from drug-stores: I sell to
+'em."
+
+Duncan faced about with new interest in the man. "Yes?" he said
+encouragingly.
+
+"My card," volunteered Sperry, fishing the slip of pasteboard from his
+waistcoat pocket. He dropped his sample case beside the stove and
+plumped down in the chair, to the peril of its existence. "I don't make
+this town very often," he pursued, while Duncan studied his card.
+"Sothern and Lee are the only people I sell to here, but I never miss a
+chance to chin a while with old Sam. So, having half an hour before
+train time, I thought I'd drop in."
+
+"Mr. Graham doesn't order from your house, then?"
+
+"Doesn't order from anybody, does he?"
+
+"I don't know; I've just come here. He'll be sorry to have missed you,
+though. He's just stepped out to wire your house--I gather from the
+fact that it's in Elmira; he mentioned that town, not the firm
+name--for some syrups."
+
+"You don't mean it!" Sperry gasped. "What's struck him all of a sudden?
+He ain't put in any new stock for ten years, I reckon."
+
+"Well, you see," Duncan explained artfully, "I've persuaded him, in a
+way, to try to make something out of the business here. We're going to
+do what we can, of course, in a small way at first."
+
+Sperry wagged a dubious head. "I dunno," he considered. "Sam's a nice
+old duffer, but he ain't got no business sense and never had; you can
+see for yourself how he's let everything run to seed here. Sothern and
+Lee took all his trade years ago."
+
+"Yes, I know; that's why he needs me," said Duncan brazenly. In his
+soul he remarked "O Lord!" in a tone of awe; his colossal impudence
+dazed even himself. "But don't you think he could get back some of the
+trade if the store was stocked up?"
+
+"No doubt about that at all," Sperry averred; "he'd get the biggest
+part of it."
+
+"You think so?"
+
+"Sure of it. You see, everybody round here likes Sam, and Sothern and
+Lee have always been outsiders. They'd swing to this shop in a minute,
+just on account of that. Fact is, I wasted a lot of talk on our firm a
+couple of years ago, trying to make our people give him some credit,
+but they couldn't see it. He owed them a bill then that was so old it
+had grown whiskers."
+
+"And still owes it, I presume?"
+
+"You bet he still owes it. Always will. It's so small that it ain't
+worth while suing for----"
+
+"Look here, Mr. Sperry, how much is this bill with the whiskers?"
+
+"About fifty dollars, I think," said the travelling man, fumbling for
+his wallet. "I'm supposed to ask for payment every time I strike town,
+you know, so I always have it with me; but I haven't had the heart to
+say a word to Sam for a good long time.... Here it is."
+
+Duncan studied carefully the memorandum: "To Mdse, as per bill
+rendered, $47.85." "I wonder..." he murmured.
+
+"Eh?" said Sperry.
+
+"I was wondering:... Suppose you were to tell your people that there's
+a young fellow here who'd like to give this store a boom.... Say he
+wants a little credit because--because Mr. Graham won't let him put in
+any cash----"
+
+"Not a bit of use," Sperry negatived. "I would, myself, but the
+house--no."
+
+"But suppose I pay this bill----"
+
+"Pay it? You really mean that?"
+
+"Certainly I mean it." Duncan produced the wad of bills which Kellogg
+had furnished him the night before his departure from New York. Thus
+far he had broken only one of the five-hundred-dollar gold
+certificates, and of that one he had the greater part left; living is
+anything but expensive in Radville.
+
+"I'm beginning to understand that I was cut out for an actor," he told
+himself as he thumbed the roll with a serious air and an assumed
+indifference which permitted Sperry to estimate its size pretty
+accurately.
+
+"That's quite a stack of chips you're carrying," Sperry observed.
+
+Duncan's hand airily wafted the remark into the limbo of the
+negligible. "A trifle, a mere trifle," he said casually. "I don't
+generally carry much cash about me. Haven't for five years," he added
+irrepressibly. He extracted a fifty-dollar certificate from the sheaf,
+and handed it over.
+
+"I'll take a receipt, but you needn't mention this to Mr. Graham just
+now."
+
+"No, certainly not." Sperry scrawled his signature to the bill.
+
+"And about that line of credit?----"
+
+"Well, with this paid, I guess you could have what you needed, in
+moderation. Of course----"
+
+"My name is Duncan--Nathaniel Duncan." Sperry made a memorandum of it
+on the back of an envelope. "Any former business connections?"
+
+"None that I care to speak about," Duncan confessed glumly.
+
+Sperry's face lengthened. "No references?"
+
+It took thought, and after thought courage; but Duncan hit upon the
+solution at length. "Do you know L. J. Bartlett & Company, the
+brokers?"
+
+"Do I know J. Pierpont Morgan?"
+
+"Then that's all right. Tell your people to inquire of Harry Kellogg,
+the junior partner. He knows all about me."
+
+Noting the name, Sperry put away the envelope. "That's enough. If he
+says you're all right, you can have anything you want." He consulted
+his watch. "Hmm. Train to catch.... But let's see: what do you need
+here?"
+
+Duncan reviewed the empty shelves, his face glowing. "Pills," he said
+with a laugh: "all kinds of pills and... everything for a regular,
+sure-enough drug-store, Mr. Sperry: everything Sothern and Lee carries
+and a lot of attractive things they don't.... Small lots, you know,
+until I see what we can sell."
+
+"I see. You leave it to me; I probably know what you need better than
+you do. I'll make out a list this afternoon and mail it to-night with
+instructions to ship it at the earliest possible moment."
+
+"Splendid!" Duncan told him. "You do that, and don't worry about our
+making good. I'm going to put all my time and energy into this
+proposition and----"
+
+"Then you'll make good all right," Sperry assured him. "All anybody's
+got to do is look at you to see you're a good business man." He
+returned Duncan's pressure and picked up his sample-case. "S'long,"
+said he, and left briskly, leaving Duncan speechless.
+
+As if to assure himself of his sanity he put a hand to his brow and
+stroked it cautiously. "Heavens!" he said, and sought the support of
+the counter. "That's twice to-day I've been told that in the same
+place!"...
+
+"It's funny," he said, half dazed, "I never could have pulled that off
+for myself!"
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+
+SMALL BEGINNINGS
+
+Presently Duncan moved and came out of his abstraction. "I'd better get
+that broom," he said slowly. "The place certainly needs some expert
+manicuring before we get that new stock in.... By George, I really
+begin to believe we've got a chance to do something, after all!...
+
+"Or else I'm dreaming...."
+
+He opened the back door and entered a narrow and dark hallway, almost
+stumbling over the lowest step of a flight of stairs communicating with
+the upper storey. From above he could hear a clatter of crockery,
+sounds of footsteps, a woman singing softly.
+
+"Graham's wife, I presume. Never struck me he might be married....
+Well, I'll be quiet. If she catches me now, before we're introduced,
+she'll take me for a burglar."
+
+On tiptoes he found the descent to the cellar, where by the aid of a
+match he discovered a floorbrush whose reasons for retirement from
+active employment were most evident even to his inexpert eye. None the
+less nothing better offered, and he took it back with him to the shop.
+
+Graham's tinkering was never of a cleanly sort; the floor was thick
+with a litter of rubbish--shavings, old nuts and bolts, bits of scrap
+tin and metal, torn paper, charred ends of matches: an indescribable
+mess. Duncan surveyed it ruefully, but with the will to do strong in
+him, took off his coat, turned up his trousers, and fell to. The
+disposition of the sweepings troubled him far less than the dust he
+raised; obviously the only place to put it was behind the counters.
+
+"Nobody'll see it there," he said in a glow of satisfaction, pausing
+with the room half cleared. "I always wondered what they did with that
+sort of truck--under the beds, I suppose. Funny Graham never thought of
+this, himself--it's so blame' easy."
+
+He resumed his labours, thrilled with the sensation of accomplishment.
+"One thing at least that I can do," he mused; "never again shall I fear
+starvation... so long as there's a broom handy." Absorbed he brushed
+away, raising a prodigious amount of dust and utterly oblivious to the
+fact that he was observed.
+
+Two shadows moved slowly athwart the windows, to which his back was
+turned, paused, moved on out of sight, returned. It was only during a
+pause for breath that he became aware of the surveillance.
+
+Straightening up, he looked, gasped and fled for the back of the store.
+"Heavens!" he whispered, aghast to recognise Josie Lockwood and Angie
+Tuthill, of whose ubiquitous shadows in his way he had been conscious
+so frequently within the past several days. "I _thought_ I must
+have made an impression.... Don't tell me they're coming in!"
+
+Behind the counter he struggled furiously into his coat. "They are," he
+said with a sinking heart; "and I'll bet a dollar my face is dirty!"
+
+Notwithstanding these misgivings, it was a very self-possessed young
+man, to all appearances, who moved sedately round the end of the
+counter to greet these possible customers. His bow was a very passable
+imitation of the real thing, he flattered himself; and there's no
+manner of doubt but that it flattered the two prettiest and most
+forward young women in Radville of that day.
+
+"May I have the honour of waiting on you, ladies?" he inquired with all
+the suavity of an accomplished salesman.
+
+Josie and Angie sidled together, giggling and simpering, quite overcome
+by his manner. A muffled "How de do?" from Angie and a half-strangled
+echo of the salutation from the other were barely articulate. But
+hearing them he bowed again, separately to each.
+
+"Good-afternoon," said he, and waited in an inquiring pose.
+
+"This--'this is Mr. Duncan, isn't it?" inquired Josie, controlling
+herself.
+
+"Yes, and you are Miss Lockwood, if I'm not mistaken?"
+
+Renewed giggles prefaced her: "Oh, how _did_ you know?"
+
+"Could anyone remain two weeks in Radville and not hear of Miss
+Lockwood?"
+
+The shot told famously. "How nice of you! Mr. Duncan, I want you to
+meet my friend, Miss Tuthill."
+
+"I've had the honour of admiring Miss Tuthill from a distance," Duncan
+assured the younger woman. And, "She'll burn up!" he feared secretly,
+watching the conflagration of blushes that she displayed. "Just think
+of getting away with a line of mush like that! Harry was right after
+all: this is a country town, all right."
+
+"And--and are you working here, Mr. Duncan?" Josie pursued.
+
+"I'm supposed to be; I'm afraid I don't know the business very well, as
+yet."
+
+"Oh, that's awf'ly nice," Angle thought.
+
+He thanked her humbly.
+
+"We didn't expect to see you here," Josie assured him. "We just thought
+we'd like some soda."
+
+"Soda!" he parroted, horrified. He cast a glance askance at the tawdry
+fountain. "Let's see: how d'you work the infernal thing?" he asked
+himself, utterly bewildered.
+
+"Yes," Angie chimed in; "it's so warm this afternoon, we----"
+
+"I've got to put it through somehow," he thought savagely. And aloud,
+"Yes, certainly," he said, and smiled winningly. "Will you be pleased
+to step this way?"
+
+Out of the corners of his eyes he detected the amused look that passed
+between the girls. "Oh, very well!" he said beneath his breath. "You
+may laugh, but you asked for soda, and soda you shall have, my dears,
+if you die of it." He put himself behind the counter with an air of
+great determination, and leaned upon it with both hands outspread until
+he realised that this was the pose of a groceryman. "What'll you have?"
+he demanded genially. "Er--that is--I mean, would you prefer vanilla
+or--ah--soda?"
+
+A chant antiphonal answered him:
+
+"I hate vanilla."
+
+"And so do I."
+
+"Oh, don't say that!" he pleaded. "Of course you know there's--ah--
+vanilla and vanilla..., Ah... some vanilla I know is detestable, but
+when you get a really fine vintage--ah--imported vanilla, it's quite
+another matter--ah--particularly at his season of the year----"
+
+His confusion was becoming painful.
+
+"Oh, is it?" asked Josie helpfully. Her eyes dwelt upon his with a
+confiding expression which he later characterised as a baby stare; and
+he was promptly reduced to babbling idiocy.
+
+"Indeed it is; no doubt whatever, Miss Lockwood. Especially just now,
+you know--ah--after the bock season--ah--I mean, when the weather is--
+is--in a way--you might put it--vanilla weather."
+
+"But I like chocolate best," Angle pouted. And he hated her consumedly
+for the moment.
+
+"Very well," Josie told him sweetly, "I'll have the vanilla."
+
+He thanked her with unnecessary effusion and turned to inspect the
+glassware. There could be no mistake about the right jar, however;
+there was nothing but vanilla, and seizing it he removed the metal cap
+and placed it before the girls. With less ease he discovered a whiskey
+glass and put it beside the bottle, with a cordial wave of the hand.
+ A pause ensued. Duncan was smiling fatuously, serene in the belief that
+he had solved the problem: the way to serve soda was to make them help
+themselves. It was very simple. Only they didn't... With a start he
+became sensible that they were eyeing him strangely.
+
+"You--ah--wanted vanilla, did you not?"
+
+"Yes, thanks, vanilla," Josie agreed.
+
+"Well, that's it," he said firmly, indicating the jar and the glass.
+
+Josie giggled. "But I don't want to drink it clear. You put the syrup
+in the glass, you know, and then the soda."
+
+"Oh, I see! You want to make a high-ba--ah--a long drink of it. Ah,
+yes!" He procured a glass of the regulation size. "Now I understand." A
+pause. "If you'll be good enough to help yourself to the syrup."
+
+"No; you do it," Josie pleaded.
+
+"Certainly." He lifted the whiskey-glass and the jar and began to pour.
+"If you'll just say when."
+
+"What? Oh, that's enough, thank you."
+
+"If I ever get out of this fix, I'll blow the whole shooting match," he
+promised himself, holding the glass beneath the faucet and fiddling
+nervously with the valves. For a moment he fancied the tank must be
+empty, for nothing came of his efforts. Then abruptly the fixture
+seemed to explode. "A geyser!" he cried, blinded with the dash of
+carbonated water and syrup in his face, while he fumbled furiously with
+the valves.
+
+As unexpectedly as it had begun the flow ceased. He put down the glass,
+found his handkerchief and mopped his dripping face. When able to see
+again he discovered the young women leaning against one of the
+show-cases, weak with laughter but at a safe remove.
+
+"Our soda's so strong, you know," he apologised. "But if you'll stay
+where you are, I'll try again."
+
+Warned by experience, he worked at the machine gingerly, finally
+producing a thin, spluttering trickle. Beaming with triumph, he looked
+up. "I think it's safe now," he suggested; "I seem to have it under
+control."
+
+Angie and Josie returned, torn by distrust but unable to resist the
+fascination of the stranger in our village. And there's no denying the
+boy was good-looking and a gentleman by birth: a being alien to their
+experience of men.
+
+He had filled one glass and was tincturing it with syrup when he caught
+again that confiding smile of Josie's, full upon him as the beams of a
+noon-day sun.
+
+"Haven't we seen you at church, Mr. Duncan?" she said prettily.
+
+"I think, perhaps, you may have," he conceded. "I have seen you, both."
+The second glass (for he was determined that Angie should not escape)
+took up all his attention for an instant. "Do you have to go, too?" he
+inquired out of this deep preoccupation.
+
+"What?"
+
+"I mean, do you attend regularly?" he amended hastily.
+
+"Oh, yes, of course," Josie simpered, accepting the glass he offered
+her. "You make it a rule to go every Sunday, don't you, Mr. Duncan?"
+
+He permitted himself an indiscretion, secure in the belief it would
+pass unchallenged: "It's one of the rules, but I didn't make it."
+
+"Did you know there was a vacancy in the choir?" Angle asked, taking up
+her glass.
+
+"Choir?"
+
+"Yes," Josie chimed in; "we were hoping you'd join. I want you to,
+awfully."
+
+"We're both in the choir," Angie explained.
+
+"And all the girls want you to join. Don't they, Angie?"
+
+"Oh, yes, indeed; they're all just dying to meet you."
+
+"I'll have to write and ask," he said abstractedly.
+
+"Why, what do you mean by that?"
+
+Josie's question struck him dumb with consternation. He made curious
+noises in his throat, and fancied (as was quite possible) that they
+eyed him in a peculiar fashion. "It's--I mean--a little trouble with my
+throat," he managed to lie, at length. "I must ask my physician if I
+may, first."
+
+"Oh, I see," said Josie.
+
+"But," he hastened to change the subject, "you're not drinking, either
+of you. I sincerely hope it's not so very bad."
+
+Angie replaced her glass, barely tasted. "Do you like it, Josie?"
+
+To Josie's credit it must be admitted that she made a brave attempt to
+drink. But the mixture was undoubtedly flat, stale and unprofitable.
+She sighed, put it back on the counter, and rose to the emergency.
+
+"Mine's perfectly lovely"--with a ravishing smile--"but it's not very
+sweet."
+
+"I made them dry for you--thought you'd like 'em that way," he
+stammered. "Perhaps you'd like 'em better if I put a collar on 'em?"
+
+The chorus negatived this suggestion very promptly.
+
+"Why don't you try a glass, Mr. Duncan?" Angie added with malice.
+
+"I'm on the wagon--I mean, I don't drink at all," he said wretchedly;
+and was deeply grateful for the diversion afforded by the entrance of a
+third customer.
+
+It was Tracey Tanner, as usual swollen with important tidings, as usual
+propelling himself through the world at a heavy trot. It has always
+been a source of wonderment to me how Tracey manages to keep so stout
+with all the violent exercise he takes.
+
+"Say, Angle," he twanged at sight of her, "I've been lookin' for you
+everywhere. Did you hear that----"
+
+He stopped instantaneously with open mouth as he saw Duncan behind the
+counter; and openmouthed he remained while the young man came round and
+advanced toward him, with a bland smirk accompanied by a professional
+bow and rubbing of hands.
+
+"May I have the pleasure of serving you, Mr. Tanner?"
+
+"Huh?" bleated Tracey, dumbfounded.
+
+"Is there anything you wish to purchase?"
+
+A violent emotion stirred in Tracey. Sounds began to emanate from his
+heaving chest. "N-n-no, ma'am!" he breathed explosively.
+
+Duncan bowed again, his face expressionless. "Then will you be good
+enough to excuse me?" He turned precisely and made his way back to the
+counter.
+
+As if released from some spell of strong enchantment by the movement,
+Tracey swung on his heel and lunged for the door.
+
+"What was it you wanted to ask me, Tracey?" Angie called after him.
+
+As the boy disappeared at a hand-gallop his response floated back: "I
+fergit."
+
+"I'm afraid I must have frightened him?" Duncan said inquiringly.
+
+"Oh, no, not at all," Josie reassured him; "he's just gone to tell
+everybody you're here."
+
+"Come, Josie, we've been here ever so long." Angie moved slowly toward
+the door, but Josie inclined to linger.
+
+"Don't hurry, I beg of you," Duncan interposed.
+
+"Oh, we haven't hurried," she said with a gush of gratification that
+startled the man. "You'll remember what I said about the choir, won't
+you?"
+
+He braced himself to take advantage of the opening. "I shall never
+forget it," he said impressively.
+
+She gave him her hand. "Then good-bye."
+
+"Not good-bye, I trust?" He retained the hand, despising himself
+inexpressibly.
+
+"Oh, we'll be in again, won't we Angie?"
+
+"Oh, yes, indeed."
+
+"My land, Angie! What do you think? I'd almost forgotten to pay for the
+soda?"
+
+"Please don't speak of it, Miss Lockwood--the pleasure--."
+
+"But I must, Mr. Duncan. How much is it?"
+
+Josie fingered the contents of her purse expectantly, but Duncan hung
+in the wind. He had no least notion what might be the price of soda
+water. "Two for a quarter?" he hazarded with his disarming grin.
+
+Angle choked with appreciation of this exquisite sally. "Ain't you
+funny!"
+
+"I'm afraid you're right," he conceded; "still I'd rather you didn't
+think so."
+
+"It's ten cents, isn't it, Mr. Duncan?"
+
+Josie was offering him a dime; he accepted it without question.
+
+"Thank you, very much," said he. "Good afternoon, ladies."
+
+He was aware of Angle's fluttering farewells on the sidewalk. Josie was
+lingering on the doorstep in an agony of untrained coquetry. He lowered
+his tone for her benefit, thereby adding new weight to his bombardment
+of her amateur defences.
+
+"Remember you promised to call again."
+
+Her giggles tore his ear-drums. "Th-thank you, I'm sure," she
+stammered, and fled.
+
+They disappeared. He wandered to the chair and threw himself limply
+into it. "That voice!" he said stupidly. "That giggle! I've got to woo
+and win... _that!_...
+
+"It serves me right," he concluded.
+
+The most hopeless of humours assailed him, and he yielded to it without
+a struggle. His attitude expressed his mood with relentless verity.
+Chin sunken upon his breast, eyes fairly distilling gloom, legs
+stretched out carelessly before him, he sat motionless, suffocating at
+the bottom of a gulf of discontent. His lips moved, sometimes
+noiselessly, again in whispers barely audible.
+
+"Years of this!... A matter of human endurance--no, superhuman!... If
+it wasn't for the bargain, I'd chuck it all and...
+
+"Well, the only way to forget your misery is to work, I suppose."
+
+He pulled himself together and stood up, wondering where he had left
+his broom, and simultaneously stiffened with surprise, aware that he
+was not alone. A glance, however, established the connection between
+the rear door, which stood ajar, and the young woman who stood staring
+at him in utterest stupefaction. This, he thought, must be the woman of
+the voice, upstairs.
+
+But she couldn't be Graham's wife. She was too young. Even beneath the
+mask of care and weariness, the all too plain evidences of privation,
+spiritual and mental as well as physical, that Betty wore unceasingly
+in those days, he could discern youth and grace and gentleness, and the
+nascent promise of prettiness that longed to be, to have the chance to
+show itself and claim its meed of deference and love. He was quick to
+see the intelligence in her mutinous eyes, and the sweet lines of her
+mouth, too often shaped in sullen mould, and no less quick to recognise
+that she would carry herself well, with spirit and dignity, once she
+were relieved of household toil and moil, once given the chance to
+discard her shapeless, bedraggled and threadbare garments for those
+dainty and beautiful things for which her starved heart must be sick
+with longing....
+
+"Good Lord!" he thought, pitiful, "it's worse here than I dreamed. Old
+Graham must need a keeper--and this child has been trying to be that,
+with nothing to keep him on."
+
+"Who are you?" the girl demanded sullenly, in a voice a little harsh
+and toneless. "What are you doing here? Where's my father?"
+
+"Mr. Graham has stepped out on business," Duncan replied. "You are his
+daughter, I believe?"
+
+"Yes, I'm his daughter, but----"
+
+"My name is Nathaniel Duncan. Mr. Graham has been kind enough to take
+me on as apprentice, so to speak."
+
+Her stare continued, intense, resentful, undeviating.
+
+"You mean you're going to work here?"
+
+"That my intention, Miss Graham." He nodded gravely.
+
+"What for?"
+
+"To learn the drug business."
+
+"Oh-h!" She flung herself a pace away, impatiently. "I'm not a child,
+and I don't want to be talked to like one."
+
+"I didn't mean to annoy you----"
+
+[Illustration: "You mean you're going to work here?"]
+
+"Well, you do. You've got no business in a run-down place like this--
+you with your fine clothes and your fine airs. You didn't come here to
+learn the drug business; you know as well as I do you've got some other
+motive."
+
+There was a truth in that to sting him. He smarted under its lash, but
+held his temper in check because he was sorry for the girl. "Perhaps
+you're right," he conceded; "perhaps I have some other motive. But
+that's neither here nor there. I'm here, and it is my present intention
+to learn the drug business in your father's store."
+
+"I don't believe you, Mister Duncan--or whatever your name is."
+
+"I'm sorry," he said patiently.
+
+Betty's lips twitched, contemptuous. "Well, saying you do mean to work
+here----"
+
+"I do."
+
+"Where do you think your pay's going to come from?"
+
+"Heaven, perhaps."
+
+"I guess you think that's funny, don't you?"
+
+"I confess, at the moment I did. But now I realise it's probably a
+bitter truth."
+
+He was too much for her, she saw, and the knowledge only served to fan
+her indignation and suspicions.
+
+"You're making a mistake," she snapped. "Father can't pay you nothing."
+
+"He'll pay me all I'm worth," said Duncan meekly.
+
+She glared at him an instant longer, then mute for lack of a
+sufficiently scornful retort, turned and ran back up the steps,
+slamming the door behind her.
+
+Duncan drew a rueful face, contemplating the place where she had been.
+
+"I didn't think this was going to be a bed of roses--and it isn't," he
+concluded.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+
+ROLAND BARNETTE'S FRIEND
+
+Nat had a busy day or two after that, trying to set things to rights in
+the store for the better reception and display of the new stock. Sperry
+dropped him a line saying that the goods would arrive on the third day,
+and there was much to do to make way for it. He managed to get the shop
+cleaned up thoroughly with Betty's not unwilling but distinctly
+suspicious aid; the girl was apparently convinced that Duncan meant
+business, and that this would ostensibly work for her father's benefit,
+but she was distinctly dubious as to the _deus ex machina_. Duncan
+now and again would catch her watching him, her eyes dark with
+speculation; but when she detected his gaze her look would change
+instantly to one of hostility and defiance. He suspected that only her
+father's wishes prevented an open break with her; as it was he was
+conscious that there was no more than an armed truce between them. And
+he did not like it; it made him uncomfortable. He wasn't hardened
+enough to have an easy conscience, and Betty's open doubts as to the
+reason for his coming to Radville disturbed Duncan more than he would
+have cared to own.
+
+For all that, they worked together steadily, and accomplished a rather
+sensational transformation in the appearance of the place. The floor,
+counter and shelves were swept, washed, dusted and garnished with
+paint; that is, all but the floor received the attention of the
+paint-brush; Duncan managed to smuggle a quantity of oil-cloth into the
+shop and get it down before Graham could enter any protest: the effect
+approximated tiling nearly enough to brighten the room up wonderfully.
+Aside from this the old stock was routed out and, for the greater part,
+donated to the rubbish-heap. Teddy Smart, the glazier, was commissioned
+to repair the broken window-panes and show-cases. A can of metal polish
+freshened up the nickel and brass trimmings and rendered the single
+upright of the soda fountain almost attractive. The stove was uprooted
+and stored away, and its aspiring pipes dispensed with. Finally, after
+considerable argument, Graham consented to the removal of his
+work-bench to a shed in the back-yard. The model was suffered to
+remain, the tanks and burner being stored out of sight beneath one of
+the window-seats, more because Duncan considered it would be a good
+thing to have the light than because he understood or attached much
+importance to the contrivance. For that matter, he hadn't the time to
+listen to an exposition of its advantages, and Graham, recognising
+this, was content to abide his time, serene in the conviction that he
+would presently find in his assistant a willing and sympathetic
+listener.
+
+Between spasms of work Duncan had his hands full attending to the soda
+fountain. Soda water being practically the only salable thing in the
+store, it had to serve as an excuse for the inquisitiveness of many of
+my fellow-citizens, to say nothing of--I should put it, but
+especially--their wives and daughters. The consumption of vanilly sody
+in those two days broke all known Radville records, and stands a
+singular tribute to the Spartan fortitude of Radville womanhood,
+particularly the young strata thereof. Duncan, after he had succeeded
+in taming the fountain, seemed rather to enjoy than object to
+dispensing sody, standing inspection and receiving adulation and
+nickels in unequal proportions. By the end of the second day he could
+not truthfully have told his friend Willy Bartlett: "The list has
+shrunk." It had swollen enormously. There isn't any doubt but that he
+had a nodding acquaintance with every pretty girl in town, as well as
+with most not considered pretty.
+
+From my window in the _Citizen_ office I was able to keep a
+tolerably close account of events and obtain a consensus of public
+opinion. So far as the latter bore upon Duncan, it was divided into two
+rather distinct parties, one of course favouring him; and this was
+feminine almost exclusively. Tracey Tanner, to be sure, confessed
+within my hearing to a predilection for the Noo York dood, but was
+inclined to hedge and climb the fence when assailed by Roland's
+strictures. Roland, I suspect, was a wee mite jealous; he had been
+paying attention to--I mean, going with--Josie Lockwood for several
+months. Instinctively he must have divined his danger; and it's not in
+reason to exact admiration of the usurper from the usurped, even when
+the act of usurpation has not yet been definitely consummated. Roland
+went to the length of labelling Duncan "sissy," and professed to
+believe that Hiram Nutt was justified in calling him a "s'picious
+character"; Roland hinted darkly that Duncan knew New York no better
+than Will Bigelow.
+
+"And if he did come from there," he asseverated, "I betcher he didn't
+leave for no good purpose."
+
+His temper inspired me with the sapient reflection that it's a terrible
+thing to be in love, even if only with an old man's millions.
+
+"There's goin' to be a real Noo Yorker here before long," Roland
+boasted; "he's comin' to see me on some 'special private bus'ness of
+ourn."
+
+"Huh," commented Tracey, the sceptical. "What kind of a Noo Yorker'd
+come all the way here to see you?"
+
+"That's all right. You'll see when he gets here. He's a pro-motor."
+
+"A what?"
+
+"A pro-motor, a financier." Roland pronounced it "finnan seer," thus
+betraying symptoms of culture and bewildering Tracey beyond expression.
+
+"What's that?" he demanded aggressively.
+
+"That's a feller 't can take nothing at all and incorporate it and make
+money out of it," Roland defined with some hesitancy.
+
+"And that's why he's coming down here to take a look at you?" inquired
+Tracey, skipping nimbly round the corner.
+
+Curiously enough in my understanding (for I own to no great faith in
+Roland's statements, taking them by and large) his friend from New York
+put in an unheralded appearance in Radville that same night, on the
+evening train. The Bigelow House received him to its figurative bosom
+under the name of W.H. Burnham. He sent for Roland promptly and treated
+him to a dinner at the hotel; something which I have always regarded as
+a punishment several sizes too large for the crime. Later, having
+displayed him on the streets in witness to his good faith, Roland spent
+the evening with Mr. Burnham mysteriously confabulating behind closed
+doors in the hotel. Speculation ran rife through the town until nine
+o'clock, and land for several days basked in the heat of public
+interest.
+
+I happened accidentally to get a glimpse of Mr. Burnham after supper,
+although I had to miss my baked apple in order to get down town in
+time. He was a disappointment to some extent, although his mode of
+dress attracted much comment as being far more sprightly than Duncan's
+and less startling than Roland's. He had a self-confident air and a bit
+of swagger that filled the eye, but a face and a voice that detracted,
+the one too boldly good-looking, with eyes roving and predaceous, the
+other a suggestion too loud and domineering. ... I fear association
+with Duncan had vitiated my taste.
+
+However that may be, Roland got an hour off at the bank the following
+morning, and the pair of them, after wandering with evident aimlessness
+round the town, drifted as it were on the tide of hap-chance into
+Graham's drug-store.
+
+Duncan was at the station, superintending the transportation of the new
+stock, which had come by the early local; Betty was busy with her
+housework upstairs; and only old Sam kept the shop.
+
+Sam wasn't in the best of spirits. His evergreen optimism seldom
+withered, but in spite of all that had already been accomplished in
+behalf of the store, in spite of the rosier aspect of his declining
+fortunes and his confidence in and affection for Duncan, Sam was
+worried. He had been over to the bank once, even at that early hour,
+but Blinky Lockwood had driven out of town to see about foreclosing one
+of his numerous mortgages in the neighbourhood, and his note, which
+fell due at the bank that day, was still a weight upon Sam's mind.
+
+Roland and Burnham found him wandering nervously round the store,
+alternately taking his hat down from the peg, as if minded to make a
+second trip to the bank, and replacing it as he realised that patience
+was his part. He looked older and more worn than ordinarily, and seemed
+distinctly pleased to be distracted by his callers.
+
+"Why, hello, Roland!" he cried cheerfully, hanging up his hat for
+perhaps the twentieth time. And, "How de doo, sir?" he greeted the
+stranger.
+
+"Good-morning, sir," said Burnham pleasantly.
+
+"Say, Sam," Roland blundered with his usual adroitness, "this
+gentleman------"
+
+Burnham's hand fell heavily on his forearm and he checked as if
+throttled.
+
+"What's that, Roland?" Sam turned curiously to them.
+
+"Oh, nothin'; I was--er--just going to say that this gentleman's my
+friend from Noo York, Mr. Burnham. I was showin' him round the town and
+we just happened to look in."
+
+"The friend you were going to write to about my burner?" inquired Sam.
+"Well, I'm right glad to meet you, sir."
+
+It was here that Roland got a look from Mr. Burnham that withered him
+completely. His further contributions to the conversation were somewhat
+spasmodic and ineffectual.
+
+"Why, no, Mr. Graham," Burnham interposed deftly. "Mr. Barnette must've
+been talking of someone else he knew in New York. I----"
+
+"Didn't know he knew more'n one there," Sam observed mildly.
+
+Burnham's glance jumped warily to Sam's face, but withdrew reassured,
+having detected therein nothing but the old man's kindly and simple
+nature. "At all events," he continued, "I don't remember hearing
+anything about the matter (what did you call it? A burner, eh?) from
+Mr. Barnette."
+
+"I s'pose Roland forgot," Sam allowed. "He's so busy courtin' our
+pretty girls, Mr. Burnham----"
+
+"Yes, that was it," Roland put in hastily, seeing his chance to mend
+matters. "I did intend to write you about it, Mr. Burnham, but it kind
+of slipped my mind. We've had a lot of important business over to the
+bank recently."
+
+"By the way, Roland, did you just come from the bank? Is Mr. Lockwood
+back yet?"
+
+"No; I got off this morning. I don't think he is, Sam. Did you want to
+see him?"
+
+"Well, yes," Sam admitted. "I guess you know about that, Roland."
+
+"Mean business, sometimes, asking favours of these bankers, eh, Mr.
+Graham?" Burnham remarked, much too casually to have deceived anybody
+but old Sam.
+
+Graham nodded, dolefully. "Yes, it is unpleasant," he admitted
+confidingly. "You see, there's a note of mine come due to-day, and I'm
+not able to take care of it or pay the interest just now...." He
+thought it over gravely for a moment, then brightened. "But I guess
+it'll be all right. Mr. Lockwood's kind, very kind."
+
+"I'm afraid you're a little too sure, Sam," Roland contributed
+tactfully. "When there's money due Lockwood, he wants it, and most
+times he gets it or its equivalent."
+
+"Yes," Sam assented sadly, "I guess he does, mostly."
+
+"But," Burnham changed the subject adroitly, "what was this--burner,
+did you say?--that Mr. Barnette forgot to tell me about?"
+
+"Oh, just one of my inventions, sir."
+
+"I understand you're quite an inventor?"
+
+Sam's smile lightened his face like sunlight striking a snow-bound
+field. He nodded slowly, thinking of his past enthusiasms, his hopes
+and discouragements. "I've spent most of my life at it, sir, but
+somehow nothing has ever turned out well... not so far, I mean. But I
+mean to hit it yet."
+
+"That's the way to talk," Burnham cried heartily; "never give up, I
+say!... But tell me about some of these inventions, won't you?"
+
+"Wel-l"--Sam knitted his fingers and pursed his lips reflectively--"I
+patented a new type threshing machine, once, but I couldn't get anybody
+to take hold of it. You see, I haven't any money, Mr. Burnham."
+
+"How would you like to talk it over with me, some time? I'm interested
+in such things--as a sort of side issue."
+
+"Will you?" Sam's eagerness was not to be disguised.
+
+"Be glad to. Tell me, how did you get your power?"
+
+"From gas, sir--though coal will do 'most as well. You see, I've got
+this burner patented, that makes gas from crude oil--no waste, no odour
+nor trouble, and little expense. It'd be cheaper than coal, I thought;
+that's why I invented it. I could get steam up mighty quick with that
+gas arrangement. I use it for lighting here in the store, now."
+
+"Do you, indeed?" Burnham's tone indicated failing interest, but such
+diplomacy was lost on Sam.
+
+"If you've got time, I could show you; it's right over here."
+
+A glance at his watch accompanied Burnham's consent to spare a few
+minutes. "There's a telegram I must send presently," he said. "But I'd
+like to see this burner, if it won't take long."
+
+"No, not long; just a minute or two." Sam was already dragging the
+affair out from under the window box. "You see..."
+
+He went on to expound its virtues with all the fond enthusiasm of a
+father showing off his firstborn, and wound up with a demonstration of
+the illuminating appliance. I'm afraid, though, he got little
+encouragement from Mr. Burnham. He considered the machine with a
+dispassionate air, it's true, and admitted its practical advantages,
+but wasn't at all disposed to take a roseate view of its future.
+
+"Yes," he grudged, when Sam put a match to the jet, "that's certainly a
+very good light."
+
+"All right, ain't it?" chimed Roland, enthusiastic.
+
+"Oh, it may amount to something. It's hard to tell. Of course you know,
+sir," he continued, addressing Graham directly, "you've got competition
+to overcome."
+
+Sam's old fingers trembled to his chin. "No-o," he said, "I didn't know
+that. I've got the patent----"
+
+"Of course that's something. But the Consolidated Petroleum crowd has
+another machine, slightly different, which does the same work, and, I
+should say, does it better."
+
+"Is--is that so?" quavered Sam. "My patent----."
+
+"Now see here, Mr. Graham," Burnham argued, "we're practical men, both
+of us----"
+
+"No; I shouldn't say that about myself," Sam interrupted. "Now you,
+sir----I can see you're a man who understands such things. But I----"
+
+"Nevertheless, you must know that a patent isn't everything. You said a
+moment ago a man had to have money to make anything out of his
+inventions."
+
+"Did I?" Sam interjected, surprised.
+
+"Certainly you did; and dead right you are. A patent's all very well,
+but supposing you're up against a powerful competitor like the
+Consolidated Petroleum Company. They've got a patent, too. Granted it
+may be an infringement of yours even--what can you do against them."
+
+"Why, if it's an infringement----"
+
+"Sue, of course. But do you suppose they're going to lie down just
+because an unknown and penniless inventor sues them? Bless you, no!
+They'll fight to the last ditch, they'll engage the best legal talent
+in the country. You'll have to carry the case to the Supreme Court of
+the United States if you want a winning decision. And that's going to
+cost you thousands--hundreds of thou-sands--a million----"
+
+"Never mind; a thousand's enough," said Sam gently. "I see what you
+mean, sir. It's just another case where I've got no chance."
+
+"Oh, I wouldn't put it as strong as that------"
+
+"But I have no money."
+
+"Still, you never can tell. I'll think it over, if I get time."
+
+"Why, that's kind of you, sir, very kind."
+
+It was at this point that Roland rose to the occasion like the noble
+ass he is. Roland never could see more than an inch beyond the end of
+his nose.
+
+"Say, Mr. Burnham," he floundered, "don't you think you could help Sam
+to----"
+
+"I think," said Mr. Burnham, with additional business of looking at his
+watch, "I'd like to send that wire I spoke of."
+
+"Yes, Roland," Sam agreed meekly; "you mustn't keep your friend from
+his business. I'm glad you looked in, sir. You'll call again, I hope."
+
+"Thank you," said Burnham, moving toward the door.
+
+It was too much for Roland's sense of opportunity. He rolled in
+Burnham's wake, sullenly reluctant. "Say, Mr. Burnham," he exploded as
+they got to the door, "if you'll just offer Sam five----"
+
+_"That will do!"_ Roland collapsed as if punctured. Burnham turned
+to Graham with a wave of his hand. "I'm leaving on the afternoon train,
+but if I get time I may drop in again and talk things over with you.
+There might be something in that threshing machine you mentioned."
+
+"I'll be glad to show you anything I've got here..."
+
+"All right. Good-day. I'll see you again, perhaps."
+
+This cavalier snub was lost on Sam, an essential of whose serene soul
+is the quality of humility. He followed them to the door, as grateful
+as a lost dog for a stray pat instead of a kick. "Good-day, sir.
+Good-day, Roland," he sped their parting cheerfully.
+
+But it was a broken man who shut the door behind them and turned back,
+fingering his grey chin. There must have been a dimness in his eyes and
+a quiver to his wide-lipped, generous mouth.
+
+"Perhaps Mr. Burnham was right. Only I was kind of hopin'... Now Mr.
+Lockwood over there..."
+
+He shook himself to throw off the spell of depression and somehow
+managed to quicken again his abiding faith in the essential goodness of
+the world.
+
+"Well, well! He's kind, very kind."
+
+He began to restore his model to its hiding place, musing upon the
+ebb-tide in his affairs in his muddle-headed way, and in the process
+managed to convince himself that "it 'ud all come right."
+
+"With this young man in here, and everythin' gettin' fixed up, and new
+stock comin' in ... I'm sure Mr. Lockwood'll see it the right way ...
+for us.... He's kind, very kind."
+
+Thus it was that he presently called up the stairs in a very cheerful
+voice: "Betty, are you pretty near through up there?"
+
+The girl's weary voice came down to him without accent: "Yes, father,
+almost."
+
+"Well, then, you keep an eye on the store, please. I'm goin' to step
+out for a minute."
+
+"Yes, father."
+
+"And if--if anybody asks for me, I'll most likely be down to the depot,
+with Mr. Duncan."
+
+He didn't mention that he contemplated calling on Lockwood, because he
+feared it might worry Betty. ... As if a woman doesn't always
+understand when things are going wrong!
+
+Betty knew, or rather divined. And she had no hope, no faith such as
+made Sam what he was. She came down the steps listlessly, overborne by
+her knowledge of the world's wrongness. The glance with which she
+comprehended the renovated shop was bitter with contempt. What was the
+worth of all this? Nothing good would come of it; nothing good came of
+anything. Life was drab and dreary, made up of weary, profitless years
+and months and weeks and days, to each its appointed disappointment.
+
+Only her sense of duty sustained her. She owed something to old Sam for
+the gift of life, dismal though she found it. He needed her; what she
+could do for him she would. I have always thought that her affection
+for her father was less filial than maternal. He seemed such a child,
+she--so very old! She mothered him; it was her only joy to care for
+him. Her care was constant, unfailing, omniscient. In return she got
+only his love. But it was almost enough--almost, not quite, dearly as
+she prized it. There were other things a girl should have--indeed, must
+have, if her life were to be rounded out in fulness. And these, she
+understood, were forever denied her: apples of Paradise growing in her
+sight, heartrending in their loveliness so far beyond her reach....
+
+Sighing, she went to work. In work only could she forget.... The soda
+glasses needed cleaning, and the syrup jars replenishing (for the new
+order of syrups had come in the previous evening).
+
+After a time, to a tune of pounding feet, Tracey Tanner pranced into
+the shop with all the graceful abandon of a young elephant feeling its
+oats. His face was fairly scarlet from exertion and his eyes bulging
+with a sense of importance. The girl looked up without interest,
+nodding slightly in response to his breathless: "'Lo, Betty."
+
+"Father's gone out," she said, holding a glass to the light, suspicious
+of the lint from her dish towel.
+
+"I know--seen him down the street." The boy halted at the counter,
+producing a handful of square envelopes. "Note for you from the
+Lockwoods, Betty," he panted. "Josie ast me to bring it round."
+
+Betty put down her glass in consternation. From the Lockwoods?"
+
+"Uh-huh." Tracey offered it, but she withheld her hand, dubious.
+
+"For me, Tracey?"
+
+"Uh-huh. It's a ninvitation. I got four more to take." He thrust it
+into her reluctant fingers. "Got five, really, but one of 'em's for
+me."
+
+"An invitation, Tracey!"
+
+"Yeh. Hope you have a good time when it comes off." Already he was
+bouncing toward the door. "Goo'-bye."
+
+"But what is it, Tracey?"
+
+"Aw, it tells in the ninvitation. S'long."
+
+"From the Lockwoods!" she whispered.
+
+Suddenly she tore it open, her hands unsteady with nervousness.
+
+The envelope contained a square of heavy cardboard of a creamy tint
+with scalloped edges touched with gold. On the face of the card a round
+and formless hand had traced with evident pains the information:
+
+Miss Josephine Mae Lockwood
+
+Requests the Pleasure of your Company at a Lawn Fete and Dance to be
+held at the residence of her Parents, Mr. & Mrs. Geo. Lockwood,
+Saturday July 15, at 8 p. m. R.S.V.P.
+
+The envelope fluttered to the floor while the card was crushed between
+the girl's hands. For a moment her face was transfigured with delight,
+her eyes blank with rapturous visions of the joys of that promised
+night.
+
+"Oh!... it 'ud be grand!..."
+
+Then suddenly the light faded. Her eyes clouded, her face settled into
+its discontented lines. She stuffed the card heedlessly into the pocket
+of her dingy apron, and took up another glass.
+
+"But I can't go; I've got nothin' to wear...."
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+
+BLINKY LOCKWOOD
+
+She was scrubbing blindly at the same glass when, a quarter of an hour
+later, Blinky Lockwood strode into the store, his right eye twitching
+more violently than usual, as it always does in his phases of mental
+disturbance--as when, for instance, he fears he's going to lose a
+dollar.
+
+Lockwood is that type of man who was born to grow rich. He inherited a
+farm or two in the vicinity of Radville and the one over Westerly way,
+to which I have referred, and ... well, we've a homely paraphrase of a
+noted aphorism in Radville: "Them as has, gits." Lockwood had, to begin
+with, and he made it his business to get; and, as is generally the case
+in this unbalanced world of ours, things came to him to which he had
+never aspired. Fortune favoured him because he had no need of her
+favours; the discovery of coal under his Westerly acres was wholly
+adventitious, but it made him far and away the richest man in
+Radville--with the possible exception of old Colonel Bohun's
+traditional millions.
+
+In person he is as beautiful as a snake-fence, as alluring as a stone
+wall. Something over six feet in height, he walks with a stoop (one
+hand always in a trouser-pocket jingling silver) that materially
+detracts from his stature. His face, like his figure, is gaunt and
+lanky, his nose an emaciated beak; his mouth illustrates his attitude
+toward property--is a trap from which nothing of value ever escapes;
+his eyes are small and hard and set close together under lowering
+brows. He's grizzled, with hair not actually white, but grey as the iron
+from which his heart was fashioned. Aside from these characteristics his
+principal peculiarity is a nervous twitching of the right eye which has
+earned him his sobriquet of Blinky. Legrand Gunn said he contracted the
+affliction through squinting at the silver dollar to make sure none of
+its milling had been worn off. ... I have never known the man to wear
+anything but a rusty old frock coat, black, of course, and black and
+shiny broadcloth trousers, with a hat that has always a coating of dust
+so thick that it seems a mottled grey.
+
+He grunts his words, a grunt to each. He grunted at Betty when he saw
+her.
+
+"Where's your father?"
+
+She put down her glass and dish-rag. "I don't know, sir."
+
+"Don't know, eh?" he asked in an indescribably offensive tone.
+
+"I think he went to the bank to see you."
+
+"Oh, he did, eh? Did he have anything for me."
+
+The girl took up another glass. "I don't know, sir," she said wearily.
+"I'm afraid not."
+
+"Well, if he didn't there's no use see in' me. It won't do him any
+good."
+
+"I guess he knows that," she returned with a little flash of spirit.
+
+Lockwood looked her up and down as if he had never seen her before,
+then summarised his resentful impression of her attitude in an open
+sneer. "Does, eh? Well, that's a good thing; saves talk."
+
+She contained herself, saying nothing. He glared round the place,
+remarking the improvements.
+
+"You don't do no business here, not to speak of, do ye?"
+
+"No," she admitted without interest, "not to speak of."
+
+"Then what's the good of all this foolishness, fixing up?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"Costs money, don't it?"
+
+"I guess so."
+
+"And that money belongs to me."
+
+"It's Mr. Duncan's doing. Father ain't paying for it. He can't."
+
+"What's he doin', then? Sittin' round foolin' with his inventions,
+ain't he?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What's he inventin' now?"
+"I don't know much about it." She pointed to the model beneath the
+window. "That's the last thing, I guess."
+
+Blinky snorted and stamped over to the window, stooping to peer at the
+machine. "What's the good of that?" he demanded, disdainful; and
+without waiting for her response went on nagging. "Foolishness! That's
+what it is. Why don't you tell him not to waste his time this way?"
+
+"Because he likes it," said Betty hopelessly. "It's the only thing that
+makes life worth while to him. So I let him alone."
+
+"What difference does that make? It don't bring him in nothin', does
+it?"
+
+"No ..."
+
+"Nor do any good?"
+
+"No."
+
+"No, siree, it don't. He'd oughter stop it. What does he do with them
+things when he gets 'em finished?"
+
+"Patents them."
+
+"And then what?"
+
+"Nothin' that I know of."
+
+"That's it; nothing--nor ever will. Well, he's been getting money from
+me for those patents--I thought at fust there might be somethin' in
+'em--but he won't any more. I'd oughter had more sense."
+
+A little colour spotted the girl's sallow cheeks. "He'd never ha' got
+money from you if he hadn't thought he could pay it back," she told
+Blinky hotly.
+
+"No, nor if I hadn't thought he could----"
+
+She interjected a significant "Huh!" He broke off abruptly, pale with
+anger.
+
+"Well, I want to see him, and I want to see him before noon," he
+snapped. "I'm goin' over to the bank, an' if he knows what's good for
+him he'll come there pretty darn quick."
+
+"I'll try to find him for you; he must be somewhere round," she
+offered.
+
+"Well, you better. I ain't got much patience to-day."
+
+He swung on one heel and slouched out, as Betty turned to go upstairs.
+Presently she reappeared pinning on her sad little hat, and left the
+store.
+
+It was upwards of an hour before she returned, walking quickly and very
+erect, with her head up and shoulders back, her eyes suspiciously
+bright, the spots of colour in her cheeks blazing scarlet, her mouth
+set and hard, the little work-worn hands at her sides clenched tightly
+as if for self-control. Even old Sam, who had returned from the depot
+after missing Blinky at the bank--even he, blind as he ordinarily was,
+saw instantly that something was wrong with the child.
+
+"Why, Betty!" he cried in solicitude as she flung into the
+store--"Betty, dear, what's the matter?"
+
+For an instant she seemed speechless. Then she tore the hat from her
+head and cast it regardlessly upon the counter. "Father!" she cried.
+"Father!"--and gulped to down her emotion. "Can you get me some money?"
+
+"Money? Why, Betty, what--?"
+
+Her foot came down on the floor impatiently. "Can you get me some
+money?" she repeated in a breath.
+
+"Well--er--how much, Betty?" He tried to touch her, to take her to his
+arms, but she moved away, her sorry little figure quivering from head
+to feet.
+
+"Enough," she said, half sobbing--"enough to buy a dress--a nice
+dress--a dress that will surprise folks--"
+
+"But tell me what the matter is, Betty. Wanting a dress would never
+upset you like this."
+
+She whipped the cracked and crumpled card from her pocket and pushed it
+into his hand. "Look at that!" she bade him, and turned away,
+struggling with all her might to keep back the tears.
+
+He read, his old face softening. "Josie Lockwood's party, eh? And she's
+sent you an invitation. Well, that was kind of her, very kind."
+
+She swung upon him in a fury. "No, it was not kind. It was mean... It
+was mean!"
+
+"Oh, Betty," he begged in consternation, "don't say that. I'm sure--"
+
+"Oh, you don't know... I heard the girls talking in the post-office--
+Angle Tuthill and Mame Garrison and Bessie Gabriel... I was round by
+the boxes where they couldn't see me, but I could hear them, and they
+were laughing because I was invited. They said the reason Josie did it
+was because she knew I didn't have anything to wear, and she wanted to
+hear what excuse I'd make for not going. Ah, I heard them!"
+
+"Oh, but Betty, Betty," he pleaded; "don't you mind what they say.
+Don't--"
+
+"But I do mind; I can't help mindin'. They're mean." She paused, her
+features hardening. "I'm going to that party," she declared tensely:
+"I'm goin' to that party and--and I'm goin' to have a dress to go in,
+too! I don't care what I do--I'm goin' to have that dress!"
+
+Sam would have soothed her as best he might, but she would neither look
+at nor come near him.
+
+"We'll see," he said gently. "We'll see. I'll try--"
+
+She turned on him, exasperated beyond thought. "That only means you
+can't help me!"
+
+"Oh, no, it doesn't. I'll do what I can--"
+
+"Have you got any money now?"
+
+He hung his head to avoid her blazing eyes. "Well, no--not at present,
+but here's this new stock and--."
+
+"That doesn't mean anything, and you know it. You owe that note to Mr.
+Lockwood, don't you? And you can't pay it?"
+
+"Not to-day, Betty, but he'll give me a little more time, I'm sure.
+He's kind, very kind."
+
+"You don't know him. He's as mean--as mean as dirt--as mean as Josie."
+
+"Betty!"
+
+"Then if you did get any money you'd have to give it to him, wouldn't
+you?"
+
+"Yes, but--I'm sure--I think it'll come all right."
+
+"Ah, what's the use of talkin' that way? What's the use of talkin' at
+all? I know you can't do anything for me, and so do you!"
+
+Sam had dropped into his chair, unable to stand before this storm; he
+stared now, mute with amazement, at this child who had so long, so
+uncomplainingly, shared his poverty and privations, grown suddenly to
+the stature of a woman--and a tormented, passionate woman, stung to the
+quick by the injustice of her lot. He put out a hand in a feeble
+gesture of placation, but she brushed it away as she bent toward him,
+speaking so quickly that her words stumbled and ran into one another.
+
+"I can't understand it!" she raged. "Why is it that I have to be more
+shabby than any other girl in town? Why is it that the others have all
+the fun and I all the drudgery? Why is it that I can't ever go anywhere
+with the boys and girls and laugh and--and have a good time like the
+rest do?..."
+
+Sam bent his head to the blast. In his lap his hands worked nervously.
+But he could not answer her.
+
+"It ain't that I mind the cookin' and doin' the housework and--all the
+rest--but--why is it you can never give me anything at all? Why must it
+be that everyone looks down on us and sneers and laughs at us? Why is
+it that half the time we haven't got enough to eat?... Other men manage
+to take care of their families and give their children things to wear.
+You've got only us two to look after, and you can't even do that. It
+isn't right, it isn't decent, and if I were you I'd be ashamed of
+myself--!"
+
+Her temper had spent itself, and with this final cry she checked
+abruptly, with a catch at her breath for shame of what she had let
+herself say. But, childlike, she was not ready to own her sorrow; and
+she turned her back, trembling.
+
+Sam, too, was shaken. In his heart he knew there was justification for
+her indictment, truth in what she had said. And he was heartbroken for
+her. He got up unsteadily and put a gentle hand upon her shoulder.
+
+"Why, Betty--I--I--"
+
+A dry sob interrupted him. He pulled himself together and forced his
+voice to a tone of confidence. "Just be a little patient, dear. I'm
+sure things will be better with us, soon. Just a little more patience--
+that's all... Why, there was a gentleman here this morning, from Noo
+York City, talkin' about an invention of mine."
+
+The girl moved restlessly, shaking off his hand. "Invention!" she
+echoed bitterly. "Oh, father! Everybody knows they're no good. You've
+been wastin' time on 'em ever since I can remember, and you've never
+made a dollar out of one yet."
+
+He bowed to the truth of this, then again braced up bravely. "But this
+gentleman seemed quite interested. He's over to the Bigelow House now.
+I think I'll step over and have a talk with him--"
+
+"You'd much better go and have a talk with Blinky Lockwood," she told
+him brutally. "He's waitin' for you at the bank, and said he wasn't
+goin' to wait after twelve o'clock, neither!"
+
+"Wel-l, perhaps you're right. I'll go there. It's after twelve, but..."
+He started to get his hat and stopped with an exclamation: "Why, Nat!
+I didn't know you'd got back!"
+
+Duncan was at the back of the store, clearing the last remnants of the
+old stock from the shelves. "Yes," he said pleasantly, without turning,
+"I've been here some time, cleaning up the cellar, to make room for the
+stuff that's coming in. I came upstairs just a moment ago, but you were
+so busy talking you didn't notice me."
+
+He paused, swept the empty shelves with a calculating glance, and came
+out around the end of the counter. "Everything's in tip-top shape," he
+said. "I checked up the bill of lading myself, and there's not a thing
+missing, not a bit of breakage. Mr. Graham," he continued, dropping a
+gentle hand on the old man's shoulder, "you're going to have the finest
+drug-store in the State within six months. With the stuff that Sperry
+has sent us we can make Sothern and Lee look like sixty-five cents on
+the dollar.... We're going to make things hum in this old shop, and
+don't you forget it." He laughed lightly, with a note of encouragement.
+But he avoided Graham's eyes even as he did Betty's. He could not meet
+the pitiful look of the former, any more than that stare of hostility
+and defiance in the latter.
+
+"It's good of you, my boy," Graham quavered. "I--but I'm afraid it
+won't----"
+
+"Now don't say that!" Duncan interposed firmly. "And don't let me
+keep you. I think you said you were going out on business? And I'll be
+busy enough right here."
+
+And without exactly knowing how it had come about, Graham found himself
+in the street, stumbling downtown, toward the bank.
+
+When he had gone, Duncan would have returned to the shelves for a final
+redding-up. He desired least of all things an encounter with Betty in
+her present frame of mind, and he tried his level best to seem as one
+who had heard nothing, who was only concerned with his occupation of
+the moment. But from the instant that she had been made aware of his
+presence Betty had been watching him with smouldering eyes, wondering
+how much he had heard and what he was thinking of her. The keen
+repentance that gnawed at her heart, allied with shame that an alien
+should have been private to her exhibition, half maddened the child.
+With a sudden movement she threw herself in front of Duncan, thrusting
+her white, drawn face before his, her gaze searching his half in anger,
+half in morose distrust.
+
+"So you were listening!"
+
+"I'm sorry," he said uncomfortably.
+
+She drew a pace away, holding herself very straight while she threw him
+a level glance of unqualified contempt.
+
+"I didn't mean to hear anything," he argued plaintively. "I was in
+the room before I understood, and by the time I did, it was too late--
+you had finished."
+
+"Oh, don't try to explain. I--I hate you!"
+
+He held her eyes inquiringly. "Yes," he said in the tone of one who
+solves a puzzling problem, "I believe you do."
+
+She looked away, shaking with passion. "You just better believe it."
+
+"But," he went on quietly, "you don't hate your father, too, do you,
+Miss Graham?"
+
+She swung back to meet his stare with one that flamed with indignation.
+
+"What do you mean by that, Mr. Duncan?"
+
+"I mean," he said, faltering in where one wiser would have feared to
+venture--"I'm going to give you a bit of advice. Don't you talk to your
+father again the way you did just now."
+
+"What business is that of yours?"
+
+"None," he admitted fairly. "But just the same I wouldn't, if I were
+you."
+
+"Well, you ain't me!" she cried savagely. "You ain't me! Understand
+that? When I want advice from you, I'll ask for it. Until I do, you
+let me alone."
+
+"Very well," he replied, so calmly that she lost her bearings for a
+moment. And inevitably this, emphasising as it did all that she
+resented most in him--his education, wit, address, his advantages of
+every sort--only served further to infuriate the child.
+
+"Oh, I know why you talk that way," she said, rubbing her poor little
+hands together.
+
+"Do you?" he asked in wonder.
+
+"Yes, I do--you!..."
+
+Suddenly she found words--poverty-stricken words, it's true, but the
+best she had wherewith to express herself. And for a little they flowed
+from her lips, a scalding, scathing torrent. "It's because you go to
+church all the time and try to look like a saint and--and try to make
+out you're too religious for anything, and like to hear yourself givin'
+Christian advice to poor miserable sinners--like me. You think that's
+just too lovely of you. That's why you said it, if you want to know.
+... Folks wonder what you're doing here, don't they? Guess you know
+that--and like it, too. It makes 'em look at you and talk about you,
+and that's what you like. _I_ could tell 'em. You're only here to
+show off your good clothes and your finger-nails and the way you part
+your hair and--and all the other things you do that nobody in Noo York
+would pay any attention to!"
+
+He faced her soberly, attentively. She was a little fool, he knew, and
+making a ridiculous figure of herself. But--his innate honesty told him
+--she was right, in a way; she had hit upon his weakest point. He was
+in Radville to "show off," as she would have said, to make an
+impression and ... to reap the reward thereof. The way she spoke was
+ludicrous, but what she said was mostly plain truth. He nodded
+submissively.
+
+"A pretty good guess at that," he acknowledged candidly.
+
+"Yes, it is, and I know it, and you know it. ... Oh, it's easy enough
+to give advice when you've got plenty of money and fine clothes and ...
+but..."
+
+"I understand," he said when she paused to get a grip upon herself and
+find again the words she needed. "You needn't say any more. The only
+reason I said what I did was because I'm strong for your father and ...
+well, I wanted to do you a good turn, too."
+
+"I don't want any of your good turns!"
+
+"Then I apologise."
+
+"And I don't want your apologies, neither!"
+
+"All right, only ... think over what I said, some time."
+
+"I had a good reason for saying what I did."
+
+"I know you had."
+
+"You know I had!" She looked at him askance. She had been on the point
+of relenting a little, of calming, of being a bit ashamed of herself.
+But his quiet acquiescence rekindled her resentment. "How do you know?
+You!" she said bitterly.
+
+
+"Because I'm not what you think I am, altogether."
+
+"I guess you're not," she observed acidly.
+
+"But I don't mean what you mean. I mean you think I'm conceited and
+rich and don't know what trouble is. Well, you're mistaken. I've been
+up against it the worst way for five years, and I know just how it
+feels to see other people getting up in the world when you're at the
+bottom of the heap with no chance of squirming out--to know that they
+have things you haven't got any chance of getting. I've been through
+the mill myself. Why, I've kept out of the way for days and days rather
+than let my prosperous friends see how shabby I was. Many's the time
+I've dodged round corners to avoid meeting men I knew would invite me
+to have dinner or luncheon or a drink--of soda--or something, for fear
+they'd find out that I couldn't treat in return. Many a time I've gone
+hungry for days and weeks and slept on park benches ... until an old
+friend found me and took me home with him."
+
+The ring of sincerity in his manner and tone silenced the girl,
+impressed her with the conviction of his absolute sincerity. The tumult
+in her mind quieted. She eyed him with attention, even with interest
+temporarily untinged with resentment. And seeing that he had succeeded
+in gaining this much ground in her regard, Duncan dared further,
+pushing his advantage to its limits.
+
+"But it's your father I wanted to talk about," he hurried on. "I'd bet
+a lot he knows more than any other man in this town; and besides, he's
+a fine, square, good-hearted old gentleman. Anybody can see that.
+Only, he's got one terrible fault: he doesn't know how to make money.
+And that's mighty tough on you--though it's just as tough on him. But
+when you roast him for it, like you did just now ... you only make him
+feel as miserable as a yellow dog ... and that doesn't help matters a
+little bit. He can't change into a sharp business crook now; ... he's
+too old a man. ... Before long he ... he won't be with you at all and
+... when he's gone you'll be sore on yourself ... sure! ... if you keep
+on throwing it into him the way I heard you. ... And that's on the
+level."
+
+He paused in confusion; the role of preacher sat upon him awkwardly, a
+sadly misfit garment. He felt self-conscious and ill at ease, yet with
+a trace of gratulation through it all. For he felt he'd carried his
+point. He could see no longer any animus in the pale, wistful little
+face that looked up into his--only sympathy, understanding, repentance
+and (this troubled him a bit) a faint flush of dawning admiration.
+Presently she grew conscious of herself again, and looked aside, humbled
+and distressed.
+
+"I--I won't do it again," she faltered, twisting her hands together.
+
+"Bully for you!" he cried, and with an abrupt if artificial resumption
+of his business-like air turned away to a show-case--to spare her the
+embarrassment of his regard.
+
+"I didn't think," said the voice behind him; "I didn't mean to--
+something happened that almost drove me wild and..."
+
+"I know," he said gently.
+
+After a bit she spoke again: "I'll go up and get dinner ready now."
+
+"That's all right," he returned absently. "I'll tend the store."
+
+He heard her footsteps as she crossed to the door and opened it. There
+followed a pause. Then she came hurriedly back. He faced about to meet
+her eyes shining with wonder.
+
+"I wanted to ask you," she said hastily, "if--was it this friend you
+spoke about--that found you in the park--who set you on the road to
+fortune?"
+
+"That's what he said," Duncan answered, twisting his brows whimsically.
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+
+DUNCAN'S GRUBSTAKE
+
+Like almost all business Radville, Duncan went home for his midday
+meal. It wasn't much of a walk from Sam Graham's store to Miss
+Carpenter's, and he didn't mind in the least.
+
+On this particular day he was sincerely hungry, but he had much to
+think about besides, and between the two he just bolted his food and
+made off, hot-foot for the store, greatly to the distress of his
+landlady.
+
+Naturally, knowing nothing about Sam's note, although he knew Pete
+Willing by sight as the sheriff and town drunkard in one, it didn't
+worry him at all to discover that gentleman tacking toward the store as
+he hurried up Beech Street, eager to get back to his job. The first
+intimation that he had of anything seriously amiss was when he entered,
+practically on Pete's heels.
+
+Pete Willing is the best-natured man in the world, as a general rule;
+drunk or sober, Radville tolerates him for just that quality. On only
+two occasions is he irritable and unmanageable: when his wife gets
+after him about the drink (Mrs. Willing is an able-bodied lady of Irish
+descent, with a will and a tongue of her own, to say nothing of
+an arm a blacksmith might envy) and when he has a duty to perform in
+his official capacity. It is in the latter instance that he rises
+magnificently to the dignity of his position. The majesty of the law in
+his hands becomes at once a bludgeon and a pandemonium. No one has ever
+been arrested in Radville, since Pete became sheriff, without the
+entire community becoming aware of it simultaneously. Pete's voice in
+moments of excitement carries like a cannonade. Legrand Gunn said that
+Pete had only to get into an argument in front of the Bigelow House to
+make the entire disorderly population of the Flats, across the river,
+break for the hills. (This is probably an exaggeration.)
+
+Tall, gaunt, gangling and loose-jointed, Duncan found Pete standing in
+the middle of the floor, hands in pockets and a noisome stogie thrust
+into a corner of his mouth, swaying a little (he was almost sober at
+the moment) and explaining his mission to old Sam in a voice of
+thunder.
+
+"I'm sorry about this, Sam," he bellowed, "but there ain't no use
+wastin' words 'bout it. I'm here on business."
+
+"But what's the matter, Sheriff?" Graham asked, his voice breaking.
+
+"Ah, you know you got a note due at the bank, don't you?"
+
+"Yes, but----"
+
+"Well, it's protested. Y'un'erstand that, don't you?"
+
+"Why, Pete!" Graham swayed, half-dazed.
+
+"An' I'm here to serve the papers onto you."
+
+"But--but there must be some mistake." Sam clutched blindly for his
+hat. "I'll step over and see Mr. Lockwood. He'll arrange to give me a
+little more time, I'm sure. He's always been kind, very kind."
+
+"Naw!" Pete bawled, "Mr. Lockwood don't want to see you unless you can
+settle. Y'can save yourself the trouble. Y'gottuh put up or git out!"
+
+"But, Pete--Mr. Lockwood said he didn't want to see me?"
+
+"Yah, that's what he said, and I got orders from him, soon's I got
+judgment to close y'up. And that goes, see!"
+
+"To--to turn me out of the store, Pete?" Graham's world had slipped
+from beneath his feet. He was overwhelmed, witless, as helpless as a
+child. And it was with a child's look of pitiful dismay and perplexity
+that he faced the sheriff.
+
+The father who has fallen short of his child's trust and confidence
+knows that look. To Duncan its appeal was irresistible. He had his
+hand in his pocket, clutching the still considerable remains of what
+Kellogg had termed his grubstake, before he knew it.
+
+"But--there must be some mistake," Graham repeated pleadingly. "It
+can't be--Mr. Lockwood surely wouldn't----"
+
+"Now there ain't no use whinin' about it!" Willing roared him into
+silence. "Law is Law, and----" He ceased quickly, surprised to find
+Duncan standing between him and his prey. "What----!" he began.
+
+"Wait!" Duncan touched him gently on the chest with a forefinger, at
+the same time catching and holding the sheriff's eye. "Are you," he
+inquired quietly, "labouring under the impression that Mr. Graham is
+deaf?"
+
+"What----!"
+
+Duncan turned to Sam, apologetically. "He said 'what.' Did you hear it,
+sir?"
+
+But by this time Pete was recovering to some degree. "What've you got
+to say about this?" he demanded, crescendo.
+
+"I'll show you," Duncan told him in the same quiet voice, "what I've
+got to say if you'll just put the soft pedal on and tell me the amount
+of that note."
+
+Pete struggled mightily to regain his vanished advantage, but try as he
+would he could not escape Duncan's cool, inquisitive eye. Visibly he
+lost importance as he yielded and dived into his pocket. "With interest
+and costs," he said less stridently, "it figgers up three hundred 'n'
+eighty dollars 'n' eighty-two cents."
+
+There's no use denying that Duncan was staggered. For the moment his
+poise deserted him utterly. He could only repeat, as one who dreams:
+_"Three hundred and eighty dollars!..."_
+
+His momentary consternation afforded Pete the opening he needed. The
+room shook with his regained sense of prestige.
+
+"Yes, three hundred 'n' eighty dollars 'n'--say, you look a-here!----"
+
+Again the calm forefinger touched him, and like a hypnotist's pass
+checked the rolling volume of noise. "Listen," begged Duncan: "if
+you've got anything else to tell me, please retire to the opposite side
+of the street and whisper it. Meanwhile, _be quiet!"_
+
+Pete's jaw dropped. In all his experience no one had ever succeeded in
+taming him so completely--and in so brief a time. He experienced a
+sensation of having been robbed of his spinal column, and before he
+could pull himself together was staring in awe, while with one final
+admonitory poke of his finger Duncan turned and made for the soda
+counter, beneath which was the till. His scanty roll of bills was in
+his right hand, and there concealed. He stepped behind the counter (old
+Sam watching him with an amazement no less absolute than Pete's),
+pulled out the till, bent over it with an assured air, and pushed back
+the coin slide. Then quite naturally, he produced--with his right
+hand--his four-hundred-and-odd dollars from the bill drawer, stood up
+and counted them with great deliberation.
+
+"One ... two ... three ... four."
+He smiled winningly at Pete. "Four hundred dollars, Mr. Sheriff. Now
+will you be good enough to hand over that note and the change and then
+put yourself, and that pickle you're wearing in your face, on the other
+side of the door?"
+
+Pete struggled tremendously and finally succeeded in producing from
+his system a still, small voice:
+
+"I ain't got the note with me, Mr. Duncan."
+
+"Then perhaps you won't mind going to the bank for it?"
+
+Half suffocated, Pete assented. "Aw'right, I'll go and git it. Kin I
+have the money?"
+
+"Certainly." Duncan extended the bills, then on second thought withheld
+them. "I presume you're a regular sheriff?" he inquired.
+
+Very proudly Pete turned back the lapel of his coat and distended the
+chest on which shone his nickel-plated badge of office. Duncan examined
+it with grave admiration.
+
+"It's beautiful," he said with a sigh. "Here."
+
+Gingerly, Pete grasped the bills, thumbed them over to make sure they
+were real, and bolted as for his life, his coat-tails level on the
+breeze.
+
+[Illustration: "Four hundred dollars, Mr. Sheriff"]
+
+There floated back to Duncan and old Sam his valedictory: "Wal, I'll be
+damned!"
+
+With a short, quiet laugh Duncan made as though to go out to the
+back-yard, where the new stock was being delivered, having been carted
+up from the station through the alley--thereby doing away with the
+necessity of cluttering up the store with a debris of packing. His
+primal instinct of the moment was to get right out of that with all the
+expedition practicable. He didn't want to be alone with old Sam another
+second. The essential insanity of which he had just done was patent;
+there was no excuse for it, and he was like to suffer severely as a
+consequence. But he wasn't sorry, and he did not want to be thanked.
+
+"I'm going," he said hurriedly, "to find me a hatchet and knock the
+stuffing out of some of those packing-cases. Want to get all that truck
+indoors before nightfall, you know----"
+
+But old Sam wasn't to be put off by any such obvious subterfuge as
+that. He put himself in front of Duncan.
+
+"Nat, my boy," he said, tremulous, "I can't let this go through--I
+can't allow you----"
+
+"There, now!" Duncan told him, unconcernedly yet kindly, "don't say
+anything more. It's over and done with."
+
+"But you mustn't--I'll turn over the store to you, if----"
+
+"O Lord!" Duncan's dismay was as genuine as his desire to escape
+Graham's gratitude. "No--don't! Please don't do that!"
+
+"But I must do something, my boy. I can't accept so great a kindness--
+unless," said Graham with a timid flash of hope--"you'll consider a
+partnership----"
+
+"That's it!" cried Duncan, glad of any way out of the situation.
+"That's the way to do it--a partnership. No, please don't say any more
+about it, just now. We can settle details later. ... We've got to get
+busy. Tell you what I wish you'd do while I'm busting open those boxes:
+if you don't mind going down to the station to make sure that
+everything's----"
+
+"Yes, I'll go; I'll go at once." Sam groped for Duncan's hand, caught
+and held it between both his own. "If--if fate--or something hadn't
+brought you here to-day--I don't know what would've happened to Betty
+and me. ..."
+
+"Never mind," Duncan tried to soothe him. "Just don't you think about
+it."
+
+Graham shook his head, still bewildered. "Perhaps," he stumbled on, "to
+a gentleman of your wealth four hundred dollars isn't much----"
+
+"No," said Duncan gravely, without the flicker of an eyelash:
+"nothing." Then he smiled cheerfully. "There, that's all right."
+
+"To me it's meant everything. I--I only hope I'll be able to repay
+you some day. God bless you, my boy, God bless you!"
+
+He managed to jam his hat awry on his white old head and found his way
+out, his hands fumbling with one another, his lips moving inaudibly--
+perhaps in a prayer of thanksgiving.
+
+Motionless, Duncan watched him go, and for several minutes thereafter
+stood without stirring, lost in thought. Then his quaint, deprecatory
+grin dawned. He found a handkerchief and mopped his forehead.
+
+"Whew!" he whistled. "I wouldn't go through that again for a million
+dollars."
+
+Gradually the smile faded. He puckered his brows and drew down the
+corners of his mouth. Thoughtfully he ran a hand into his pocket and
+produced the little crumpled wad of bills of small denominations,
+representing all he had left in the world. Smoothing them out on the
+counter, he arranged them carefully, summing up; then returned them to
+his pocket.
+
+"Harry," he observed--"Harry said I couldn't get rid of that stake in a
+year!...
+
+"He doesn't know what a fast town this is!"
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+
+THE BUSINESS MAN AND MR. BURNHAM
+
+It was, perhaps, within the next thirty minutes that Betty (who had
+been left in charge of the store while Duncan, with coat and collar off
+and sleeves rolled above his elbows, hacked and pounded and pried and
+banged at the packing-cases in the backyard) sought him on the scene of
+his labours.
+
+She waited quietly, a little to one side, watching him, until he should
+become aware of her presence. What she was thinking would have been
+hard to define, from the inscrutable eyes in her set, tired face of a
+child. There was no longer any trace of envy, suspicion or resentment
+in her attitude toward the young man. You might have guessed that she
+was trying to analyse him, weighing him in the scales of her
+impoverished and lopsided knowledge of human nature, and wondering if
+such conclusions as she was able to arrive at were dependable.
+
+In the course of time he caught sight of that patient, sad little
+figure, and, pausing, panting and perspiring under the July sun,
+cheerfully brandished his weapon from the centre of a widespread
+area of wreckage and destruction.
+
+"Pretty good work for a York dude--not?" he laughed.
+
+There was a shadowy smile in her grave eyes. "It's an improvement," she
+said evenly.
+
+He shot her a curious glance. "_Ouch!_" he said thoughtfully.
+
+"I just came to tell you," she went on, again immobile, "you're wanted
+inside."
+
+"Somebody wants to see _me?_" he demanded of her retreating back.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"But who--?"
+
+"Blinky Lockwood," she replied over her shoulder, as she went into the
+house.
+
+"Lockwood?" He speculated, for an instant puzzled. Then suddenly:
+"Father-in-law!" he cried. "Shivering snakes! he mustn't catch me like
+this! I, a business man!"
+
+Hastily rolling down his shirt-sleeves and shrugging himself into his
+coat, he made for the store, buttoning his collar and knotting his tie
+on the way.
+
+He found Blinky nosing round the room, quite alone. Betty had
+disappeared, and the old scoundrel was having quite an enjoyable time
+poking into matters that did not concern him and disapproving of them
+on general principles. So far as the improvements concerned old Sam
+Graham's fortunes, Blinky would concede no health in them. But with
+regard to Duncan there was another story to tell: Duncan apparently
+controlled money, to some vague extent.
+
+"You're Mr. Duncan, ain't you?" he asked with his leer, moving down to
+meet Nat.
+
+"Yes, sir. Mr. Lockwood, I believe?"
+
+"That's me." Blinky clutched his hand in a genial claw. "I'm glad to
+meet you."
+
+"Thank you," said Duncan. "Something I can do for you, sir?"
+
+"Wal, Pete Willin' was tellin' me you'd just took up this note of
+Graham's?"
+
+"Not exactly; the firm took it up."
+
+Blinky winked savagely at this. "The firm? What firm?"
+
+"Graham and Duncan, sir. I've been taken into partnership."
+
+"Have, eh?" Blinky grunted mysteriously and fished in his pocket for
+some bills and silver. "Wal, here's some change comin' to the firm,
+then; and here," he added, producing the document in question, "is
+Sam's note."
+
+"Thank you." Duncan ceremoniously deposited both in the till, going
+behind the soda fountain to do so, and then waited, expectant. Blinky
+was grunting busily in the key of one about to make an important
+communication.
+
+"I'm glad you're a-comin' in here with Sam," he said at length, with an
+acid grimace that was meant to be a smile.
+
+"Oh, it may be only temporary." Nat endeavoured to assume a seraphic
+expression, and partially succeeded. "I'm devoting much of my time to
+my studies," he pursued primly; "but nevertheless feel I should be
+earning something, too."
+
+"That's right; that's the kind of spirit I like to see in a young
+man.... You always go to church, don't you?"
+
+"No, sir--Sundays only."
+
+"That's what I mean. D'you drink?"
+
+"Oh, no, sir," Duncan parroted glibly: "don't smoke, drink, swear, and
+on Sundays I go to church."
+
+The bland smile with which he faced Lockwood's keen scrutiny disarmed
+suspicion.
+
+"I'm glad to hear that," Blinky told him. "I'm at the head of the
+temp'rance movement here, and I hope you'll join us, and set an example
+to our fast young men."
+
+"I feel sure I could do that," said Duncan meekly.
+
+Lockwood removed his hat, exposing the cranium of a bald-headed eagle,
+and fanned himself. "Warm to-day," he observed in an endeavour to be
+genial that all but sprained his temperament.
+
+Indeed, so great was the strain that he winked violently.
+
+Duncan observed this phenomenon with natural astonishment not unmixed
+with awe. "Yes, sir, very," he agreed, wondering what it might portend.
+
+"I believe I'll have a glass of sody."
+
+"Certainly." Duncan, by now habituated to the formulae of soda
+dispensing, promptly produced a bright and shining glass.
+
+"I see you've been fixin' this place up some."
+
+"Oh, yes," said Nat loftily. "We expect to have the best drugstore in
+the State. We're getting in new stock to-day, and naturally things are
+a little out of order, but we'll straighten up without delay. We'll try
+to deserve your esteemed patronage," he concluded doubtfully, with a
+hazy impression that such a speech would be considered appropriate
+under the circumstances.
+
+"You shall have it, Mr. Duncan, you shall have it!"
+
+"Thank you, I'm sure.... What syrup would you prefer?"
+
+"Just sody," stipulated Lockwood.
+
+His spasmodic wink again smote Duncan's understanding a mighty blow.
+Unable to believe his eyes, he hedged and stammered. Could it be--?
+This from the leader of the temperance movement in Radville?
+
+
+"I beg pardon----?"
+
+His denseness irritated Blinky slightly, with the result that the right
+side of his face again underwent an alarming convulsion. "I say," he
+explained carefully, "just--_plain_--sody."
+
+"On the level?"
+
+"What?" grunted Blinky; and blinked again.
+
+A smile of comprehension irradiated Nat's features. "Pardon," he said,
+"I'm a little new to the business."
+
+Blinky, fanning himself industriously, glared round the store while
+Duncan, turning his back, discreetly found and uncorked the whiskey
+bottle. He was still a trifle dubious about the transaction, but on the
+sound principles of doing all things thoroughly, poured out a liberal
+dose of raw, red liquor. Then, with his fingers clamped tightly about
+the bottom of the glass, the better to conceal its contents from any
+casual but inquisitive passer-by, he quickly filled it with soda and
+placed it before Blinky, accompanying the action with the sweetest of
+childlike smiles.
+
+Lockwood, nodding his acknowledgments, lifted the glass to his lips.
+Duncan awaited developments with some apprehension. To his relief,
+however, Blinky, after an experimental swallow, emptied the mixture
+expeditiously into his system; and smacked his thin lips resoundingly.
+
+"How," he demanded, "can anyone want intoxicatin' likers when
+they can get such a bracin' drink as that?"
+
+"I pass," Nat breathed, limp with admiration of such astounding
+hypocrisy.
+
+Blinky reluctantly pried a nickel loose from his finances and placed it
+on the counter. Duncan regarded it with disdain.
+
+"Ten cents more, please," he suggested tactfully.
+
+"What for?"
+
+"Plain sody." The explanation was accompanied by a very passable
+imitation of Blinky's blink.
+
+Happily for Duncan, Blinky has no sense of humour: if he had he would
+explode the very first time he indulged in introspection.
+
+"Not much," said he with his sour smile. "I guess you're jokin'....
+Well, good luck to you, Mr. Duncan. I'd like to have you come round and
+see us some evenin'."
+
+"Thank you very much, sir." Duncan accompanied Blinky to the door.
+"I've already had the pleasure of meeting your daughter, sir. She's a
+charming girl."
+
+"I'm real glad you think so," said Blinky, intensely gratified. "She
+seems to've taken a great shine to you, too. Come round and get
+'quainted with the hull family. You're the sort of young feller I'd
+like her to know." He paused and looked Nat up and down captiously,
+as one might appraise the points of a horse of quality put up for sale.
+"Good-day," said he, with the most significant of winks.
+
+"Oh, that's all right," Nat hastened to reassure him. "I won't say a
+word about it."
+
+Blinky, on the point of leaving, started to question this (to him)
+cryptic utterance, but luckily had the current of his thoughts diverted
+by the entrance of Roland Barnette, in company with his friend Mr.
+Burnham.
+
+Roland's consternation at this unexpected encounter was, in the mildest
+term, extreme. At sight of his employer he pulled up as if slapped.
+"Oh!" he faltered, "I didn't know you was here, sir."
+
+"No," said Blinky with keen relish, "I guess you didn't."
+
+"I--ah--come over to see Sam about that note," stammered Roland.
+
+"Wal, don't you bother your head 'bout what ain't your business, Roly.
+Come on back to the bank."
+
+"All right, sir." Roland grasped frantically at the opportunity to
+emphasise his importance. "Excuse me, Mr. Lockwood, but I'd like to
+interdoos you to a friend of mine, Mr. Burnham from Noo York."
+
+Amused, Burnham stepped into the breach. "How are you?" he said with
+the proper nuance of cordiality, offering his hand.
+
+Lockwood shook it unemotionally. "How de do?" he said, perfunctory.
+
+"I brought Mr. Burnham in to see Sam----"
+
+"Yes," Burnham interrupted Roland quickly; "Barnette's been kind enough
+to show me round town a bit."
+
+"Here on business?" inquired Lockwood pointedly.
+
+"No, not exactly," returned Burnham with practised ease, "just looking
+round."
+
+"Only lookin', eh?" Blinky's countenance underwent one of its erratic
+quakes as he examined Burnham with his habitual intentness.
+
+The New Yorker caught the wink and lost breath. "Ah--yes--that's all,"
+he assented uneasily. And as he spoke another wink dumbfounded him.
+"Why?" he asked, with a distinct loss of assurance. "Don't you believe
+it."
+
+"Don't see no reason why I shouldn't," grunted Blinky. "Hope you'll
+like what you see. Good day."
+
+"So long ... Mr. Lockwood," returned Burnham uncertainly.
+
+Lockwood paused outside the door. "Come 'long, Roland."
+
+"Yes, sir; right away; just a minute." Roland was lingering
+unwillingly, detained by Burnham's imperative hand. "What d'you want? I
+got to hurry."
+
+"What was he winking at me for?" demanded Burnham heatedly. "Have
+you----?"
+
+"Oh!" Roland laughed. "He wasn't winking. He can't help doing that.
+It's a twitchin' he's got in his eye. That's why they call him Blinky."
+
+"Oh, that was it!" Burnham accepted the explanation with distinct
+relief, while Duncan, who had been an unregarded spectator, suddenly
+found cause to retire behind one of the show-cases on important
+business.
+
+So that was the explanation!...
+
+After his paroxysm had subsided and he felt able to control his facial
+muscles, Duncan emerged, suave and solemn. Roland had disappeared with
+Blinky, and Burnham was alone.
+
+"Anything you wish, sir?" asked Nat.
+
+"Only to see Mr. Graham."
+
+"He's out just at present, but I think he'll be back in a moment or so.
+Will you wait? You'll find that chair comfortable, I think."
+
+"Believe I will," said Burnham with an air. He seated himself. "I can't
+wait long, though," he amended.
+
+"Yes, sir. And if you'll excuse me----?"
+
+Burnham's hand dismissed him with a tolerant wave. "Go right on about
+your business," he said with supreme condescension.
+
+And Duncan returned to his work in the backyard. It wasn't long before
+he found occasion to go back to the store, and by that time old Sam was
+there in conversation with Burnham. Neither noticed Nat as he entered,
+and to begin with he paid them little heed, being occupied with his
+task of depositing an armful of bottles without mishap and then placing
+them on the shelves. The hum of their voices from the other side of the
+counter struck an indifferent ear while he busied himself, but
+presently a word or phrase caught his interest, and he found himself
+listening, at first casually, then with waxing attention.
+
+"That's part of my business," he heard Burnham say in his sleek,
+oleaginous accents. "Sometimes I pick up an odd no-'count contraption
+that makes me a bit of money, and more times I'm stung and lose on it.
+It's all a gamble, of course, and I'm that way--like to take a gambling
+chance on anything that strikes my fancy--like that burner of yours."
+
+"Yes," Graham returned: "the gas arrangement."
+
+"It's a curious idea--quite different from the one I told you about;
+but I kinda took to it. There might be something to it, and again there
+mightn't. I've been thinking I might be willing to risk a few dollars
+on it, if we could come to terms."
+
+"Do you mean it, really?" said old Sam eagerly.
+
+"Not to invest in it, so to speak; I don't think it's chances are
+strong enough for that. But if you'd care to sell the patent outright
+and aren't too ambitious, we might make a dicker. What d'you say?"
+
+"Why, yes," said Graham, quivering with anticipation. "Yes, indeed,
+if--"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"If you really think it's worth anything, sir."
+
+"Well, as I say, there's no telling; but I was thinking about it at
+dinner, and I sort of concluded I'd like to own that burner, so I made
+out a little bill of sale, and I says to myself, says I: 'If Graham
+will take five hundred dollars for that patent, I'll give him spot
+cash, right in his hand,' says I."
+
+With this Burnham tipped back in his chair, and brought forth a wallet
+from which he drew a sheet of paper and several bills.
+
+"Five hundred dollars!" repeated Graham, thunderstruck by this
+munificence.
+
+"Yes, sir: five hundred, cash! To tell you the truth--guess you don't
+know it--I heard at the bank that they didn't intend to extend the time
+on that note of yours, and I thought this five hundred would come in
+handy, and kind of wanted to help you out. Now what do you say?"
+
+He flourished the bills under Graham's nose and waited, entirely at
+ease as to his answer.
+
+"Well," said the old man, "it is kind of you, sir--very kind. Everybody's
+been good to me recently--or else I'm dreamin'."
+
+"Then it's a bargain?"
+
+"Why, I hope it won't lose any money for you, Mr. Burnham," Sam
+hesitated, with his ineradicable sense of fairness and square-dealing.
+"Making gas from crude oil ought to--"
+
+Duncan never heard the end of that speech. For some moments he had been
+listening intently, trying to recollect something. The name of Burnham
+plucked a string on the instrument of his memory; he knew he had heard
+it, some place, some time in the past; but how, or when, or in respect
+to what he could not make up his mind. It had required Sam's reference
+to gas and crude oil to close the circuit. Then he remembered: Kellogg
+had mentioned a man by the name of Burnham who was "on the track of" an
+important invention for making gas from crude oil. This must be the
+man, Burnham, the tracker; and poor old Graham must be the tracked....
+
+Without warning Duncan ran round and made himself an uninvited third to
+the conference.
+
+"Mr. Graham, one moment!" he begged, excited. "Is this patent of yours
+on a process of making gas from crude oil?"
+
+Burnham looked up impatiently, frowning at the interruption, but Graham
+was all good humour.
+
+"Why, yes," he started to explain; "it's that burner over there that--"
+
+"But I wouldn't sell it just yet if I were you," said Nat. "It may be
+worth a good deal--"
+
+"Now look here!" Burnham got to his feet in anger. "What business 've
+you got butting into this?" he demanded, putting himself between Duncan
+and the inventor.
+
+"Me?" Duncan queried simply. "Only just because I'm a business man. If
+you don't believe it, ask Mr. Graham."
+
+"He's got a perfect right to advise me, Mr. Burnham," interposed
+Graham, rising.
+
+"Well, but--but what objection 've you got to his making a little money
+out of this patent?" Burnham blustered.
+
+"None; only I want to look into the matter first. I think it might be--
+ah--advisable."
+
+"What makes you think so?" demanded Burnham, his tone withering.
+
+"Well," said Nat, with an effort summoning his faculties to cope with a
+matter of strict business, "it's this way: I've got an _idea_," he
+said, poking at Burnham with the forefinger which had proven so
+effective with Pete Willing, "that you wouldn't offer five hundred iron
+men for this burner unless you expected to make something big out of
+it, and... it ought to be worth just as much to Mr. Graham as to you."
+
+"Ah, you don't know what you're talking about."
+
+"I know that," Nat admitted simply, "but I do happen to know you're
+promoting a scheme for making gas from crude oil, and if Mr. Graham
+will listen to me you won't get his patent until I've consulted my
+friend, Henry Kellogg."
+
+"_Kellogg!_"
+
+"Yes. You know--of L.J. Bartlett & Company." Nat's forefinger continued
+to do deadly work. Burnham backed away from it as from a fiery brand.
+
+"Oh, well!" he said, dashed, "if you're representing Kellogg"--and Nat
+took care not to refute the implication--"I--I don't want to interfere.
+Only," he pursued at random, in his discomfiture, "I can't see why he
+sent you here."
+
+"I'd be ashamed to tell you," Nat returned with an open smile. "Better
+ask him."
+
+Burnham gathered his wits together for a final threat. "That's what I
+will do!" he threatened. "And I'll do it the minute I can see him. You
+can bet on that, Mister What's-Your-Name!"
+
+"No, I can't," said Nat naively. "I'm not allowed to gamble."
+
+His ingenuous expression exasperated Burnham. The man lost control of
+his temper at the same moment that he acknowledged to himself his
+defeat. In disgust he turned away.
+
+"Oh, there's no use talking to you--"
+
+"That's right," Nat agreed fairly.
+
+"But I'll see you again, Mr. Graham--"
+
+"Not alone, if I can help it, Mr. Burnham," Duncan amended sweetly.
+
+"But," Burnham continued, severely ignoring Nat and addressing himself
+squarely to Graham, "you take my tip and don't do any business with
+this fellow until you find out who he is." He flung himself out of the
+shop with a barked: "Good-day!"
+
+"Well, Mr. Graham?" Duncan turned a little apprehensively to the
+inventor. But Sam's expression was almost one of beatific content. His
+weak old lips were pursed, his eyes half-closed, his finger tips
+joined, and he was rocking back and forth on his heels.
+
+"Margaret used to talk that way, sometimes," he remarked. "She was the
+best woman in the world--and the wisest. She used to take care of me
+and protect me from my foolish impulses, just as you do, my boy...."
+
+For a space Duncan kept silent, respecting the old man's memories, and
+a great deal humbled in spirit by the parallel Sam had drawn. Then: "I
+was afraid what I said would sound queer to you, sir," he ventured--
+"that you mightn't understand that I'm not here to do you out of your
+invention..."
+
+"There's nothing on earth, my boy,"--Graham's hand fell on Nat's arm--
+"could make me think that. But five hundred dollars, you see, would
+have repaid you for taking up that note, and--and I could have bought
+Betty a new dress for the party. But I'm sure you've done what's best.
+You're a business man--"
+
+"Don't!" Nat pleaded wildly. "I've been called that so much of late
+that it's beginning to hurt!"
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+
+MOSTLY ABOUT BETTY
+
+Sam Graham said to me, that night: "I don't know when so many things
+have happened to me in so short a time. It don't seem hardly possible
+it's only four days since that boy came in here asking for a job. It's
+wonderful, simply wonderful, the change he's made."
+
+He waved a comprehensive hand, and I, glancing round the transformed
+store, agreed with him. Everything was spick and span and mighty
+attractive--clean and neat-looking--with the new stock in the shining
+cases and arranged on the glistening white shelves: not all of it set
+out by any means, of course, but no unplaced goods in sight, cluttering
+up the counters or kicking round the floor.
+
+"The way he's worked----! You'd hardly believe it, Homer. He said he
+wanted to get home early so's to write a letter to a friend of his in
+New York, a Mr. Kellogg, junior member of L. J. Bartlett & Company,
+about my invention. But he insisted on leaving everything to rights for
+business to-morrow. And just look!"
+
+"But I thought Roland Barnette----?" I suggested with guile. Of
+course I'd heard a rumour of what had happened--'most everyone in town
+had--and how Roland and his friend, Mr. Burnham, had sort of fallen out
+on the way from the Bigelow House to the train; but no one knew
+anything definite, and I wanted to get "the rights of it," as Radville
+says.
+
+So I had dropped in at Graham's, on my way home from the office, as I
+often do, for an evening smoke and a bit of gossip: something I rarely
+indulge in, but which I've found has a curious psychological effect on
+the circulation of the _Citizen_--like a tonic. Sam was just at
+the point of closing up. He was alone, Duncan having gone home about an
+hour earlier, and Betty being upstairs, while (since it was quite
+half-past nine) all the rest of Radville, with few exceptions (chiefly
+to be noted at Schwartz's and round the Bigelow House bar) was making
+its final rounds of the day: locking the front door, putting out the
+lamp in its living-room, banking the fire in the range, ejecting the
+cat from the kitchen and wiping out the sink, and finally, odoriferous
+kerosene lamp in hand, climbing slowly to the stuffy upstairs
+bed-chamber. Indeed, the lights of Radville begin to go out about
+half-past eight; by ten, as a rule, the town is as lively as a
+cemetery.
+
+But I am by nature inexorable and merciless, a masterful man with such
+as old Sam; and it was an hour later before I left him, drained of
+the last detail of the day. He was a weary man, but a happy one, when
+he bade me good-night, and I myself felt a little warmed by his
+cheerfulness as I plodded up Main Street through the thick oppression
+of darkness beneath the elms.
+
+After a time I became aware that someone was overtaking me, and waited,
+thinking at first it would be one of my people. But it wasn't long
+before I recognised from the quick tempo of the approaching footfalls
+that this was no Radvillian. There was just light enough--starlight
+striking down through the thinner spaces in the interlacing foliage--to
+make visible a moving shadow, and when it drew nearer I saluted it with
+confidence.
+
+"Good-evening, Mr. Duncan."
+
+He stopped short, peering through the gloom. "Good-evening, but--Mr.
+Littlejohn? Glad to see you." He joined me and we proceeded homeward,
+he moderating his stride a trifle in deference to my age. "Aren't you
+late?"
+
+"A bit," I admitted. "I've been gossiping with Sam Graham."
+
+"Oh...?"
+
+"You're out late yourself, Mr. Duncan, for one of such regular, not to
+say abnormal, habits."
+
+He laughed lightly. "Had a letter I wanted to catch the first morning
+train."
+
+"Then you're interested in Sam's burner?"
+
+"No, I'm not, but I hope to interest others....Oh, yes: Mr. Graham
+told you about it, of course.... It just struck me that if a man of
+Burnham's stamp was willing to risk five hundred dollars on the
+proposition, he very likely foresaw a profit in it that might as well
+be Mr. Graham's. So I've sent a detailed description of the thing to a
+friend in New York, who'll look into it for me."
+
+He was silent for a little.
+
+"Who's Colonel Bohun?" he asked suddenly.
+
+"Why do you ask?"
+
+"I saw him this evening. He was passing the store and stopped to glare
+in as if he hated it--stopped so long that I got nervous and asked Miss
+Lockwood (she'd just happened in for a parting glass--of soda) whether
+he was an anarchist or a retired burglar. She told me his name, but was
+otherwise inhumanly reticent."
+
+"For Josie?" I chuckled; but he didn't respond. So I took up the tale
+of the first family of Radville.
+
+"The story runs," said I, "that the Bohuns were one of the F.F.V.'s;
+that they sickened of slavery, freed their slaves and moved North, to
+settle in Radville. I _believe_ they came from somewhere round
+Lynchburg; but that was a couple of generations ago. When the Civil War
+broke out the old Colonel up there"--I gestured vaguely in the general
+direction of the Bohun mansion--"couldn't keep out of it, and
+naturally he couldn't fight with the North. He won his spurs under
+Lee.... After the war had blown over he came home, to find that his
+only son had enlisted with the Radville company and disappeared at
+Gettysburg. It pretty nearly killed the old man--though he wasn't so
+old then; but there's fire in the Bohun blood, and his boy's action
+seemed to him nothing less than treason."
+
+"And that's what soured him on the world?"
+
+"Not altogether. He had a daughter--Margaret. She was the most
+beautiful woman in the world...." I suspect my voice broke a little
+just there, for there was a shade of respectful sympathy in the
+monosyllable with which he filled the pause. "He swore she should never
+marry a Northerner, but she did; I guess, being a Bohun, she had to,
+after hearing she must not. There were two of us that loved her, but
+she chose Sam Graham...."
+
+"Why," he said awkwardly--"I'm sorry."
+
+"I'm not: she was right, if I couldn't see it that way. They ran away--
+and so did I. I went East, but they came back to Radville. Colonel
+Bohun never forgave them, but they were very happy till she died.
+Betty's their daughter, of course: Sam's not the kind that marries more
+than once."
+
+Duncan thought this over without comment until we reached our gate.
+There he paused for a moment.
+
+"He's got plenty of money, I presume--old Bohun?"
+
+"So they say. Probably not much now, but a great deal more than he
+needs."
+
+"Then why doesn't somebody get after the old scoundrel and make him do
+something for that poor--for Miss Graham?" he asked indignantly.
+
+"He tried it once, but they wouldn't listen. His conditions were
+impossible," I explained. "She was to renounce her father and take the
+name of Bohun------."
+
+"What rot!" Duncan growled. "What an old fiend he must be! Of course he
+knew she'd refuse."
+
+"I suspect he did."
+
+Duncan hesitated a bit longer. "Anyhow," he said suddenly, "somebody
+ought to get after him and make him see the thing the right way."
+
+"S'pose you try it, Mr. Duncan?" I suggested maliciously, as we went up
+the walk.
+
+He stopped at the door. "Perhaps I shall," he said slowly.
+
+"I'd advise you not to. The last man that tried it has no desire to
+repeat the experiment."
+
+"Who was he?"
+
+"An old fool named Homer Littlejohn."
+
+Duncan put out his hand. "Shake!" he insisted. "We'll talk this over
+another time."
+
+We went in very quietly, lit our candles, and with elaborate care
+avoided the home-made burglar-alarm (a complicated arrangement of
+strings and tinpans on the staircase, which Miss Carpenter insists on
+maintaining ever since Roland Barnette missed a dollar bill and
+insisted his pocket had been picked on Main Street) and so mounted to
+our rooms. As we were entering (our doors adjoin) a thought delayed my
+good-night.
+
+"By the way, did you get your invitation to Josie Lockwood's party, Mr.
+Duncan? I happened to see it on the hall table this evening."
+
+"Yes," he assented quietly.
+
+"It's to be the social event of the year. I hope you'll enjoy it."
+
+"I'm not going."
+
+"Not going!... Why not?"
+
+"It's against the rules at first--I mean, business rules. I'll be so
+busy at the store, you know."
+
+"Josie'll be disappointed."
+
+"Thank you," said he gratefully. "Good-night."
+
+Alone, I was fain to confess he baffled my understanding.
+
+The rush of business to Graham's began the following morning: Duncan's
+hands were full almost from the first, and he had to relegate such
+matters as making final disposition of his stock and getting acquainted
+with it to the intervals between waiting upon customers. Old Sam must
+have put up more prescriptions in the next few days than he had within
+the last five years. Everybody wanted to take a look at the renovated
+store, shake Sam's hand, and see what the new partner was really like.
+Sothern and Lee's was for some days quite deserted, especially after
+Duncan took a leaf out of their book, bought an ice-cream freezer and
+began to serve dabs of cream in the sody. I've always maintained that
+our Radville folks are pretty thoroughly sot in their ways (the phrase
+is local), but the way they flocked to Graham's forced me to amend the
+aphorism with the clause: "except when their curiosity is aroused."
+Every woman in town wanted to know what Graham and Duncan carried that
+Sothern and Lee didn't, and how much cheaper they were than the more
+established concern; also they wanted to know Mr. Duncan. I suspect no
+drug-store ever had so many inquiries for articles that it didn't
+carry, but might possibly, or ought to, in the estimation of the
+prospective purchasers, as well as that at no time had Radvillians
+happened to think of so many things that they could get at a
+druggist's. People drove in from as far as twenty miles away, as soon
+as the news reached them, to buy notepaper and stamps--people who
+didn't write or receive a letter a month. Will Bigelow, even, dropped
+round and bought samples of the tobacco stock, from two-fors up to
+ten-centers--and smoked them with expressive snorts. Tracey Tanner's
+soda and cigarette trade was transferred bodily to Graham's from the
+first, and Roland Barnette gave it his patronage, albeit grudgingly, as
+soon as he found it impossible to shake Josie Lockwood's allegiance. I
+say grudgingly, because Roland didn't like the new partner, and had
+said so from the first. But everyone else did like him, almost without
+exception. His attentiveness and courtesy were not ungrateful after the
+way things were thrown at you at Sothern and Lee's, we declared.
+
+Duncan certainly did strive to please. No man ever worked harder in a
+Radville store than he did. And from the time that he began to believe
+there would be some reward for his exertions, that the business was
+susceptible to being built up by the employment of progressive methods,
+he grew astonishingly prolific of ideas, from our sleepy point of view.
+The window displays were changed almost daily, to begin with, and were
+made as interesting as possible; we learned to go blocks out of our way
+to find out what Graham and Duncan were exploiting to-day. And daily
+bargain sales were instituted--low-priced articles of everyday use,
+such as shaving soap, tooth brushes, and the like, being sold at a
+few cents above cost on certain days which were announced in advance by
+means of hand-lettered cards in the show-windows; whereas formerly we
+had always been obliged to pay full list-prices. An axiom of his creed
+as it developed was to the effect that stock must not be allowed to
+stand idle upon the shelves; if there were no call for a certain line
+of articles, it must be stimulated. I remember that, some time along in
+August, he began to worry about the inactivity in cough-syrups.
+
+"No one wants cough-syrups in summer," he told Graham; "that stuff's
+been here six weeks and more. It's getting out of training. Needs
+exercise. Look at this bottle: it says: 'Shake well.' Now it hasn't
+been shaken at all since it was put on the shelves, and I haven't got
+time to shake it every morning. We must either hire a boy to give it
+regular exercise, or sell it off and get in a fresh supply for the
+winter. I'll have to think up some scheme to make 'em take it off our
+hands."
+
+He did. Somehow or other he managed to convince us that forewarned was
+forearmed, that it was better to have a bottle or two of cough-syrup in
+our medicine chests at home than on the shelves of the drug-store, when
+the chill autumnal winds began to blow, especially when you could buy
+it now for thirty-nine cents, whereas it would be fifty-four in
+October.
+
+Still earlier in his career as a business man he noticed that the local
+practitioners wrote their prescriptions on odd scraps of paper.
+
+"That's all wrong," he declared. "We'll have to fix it." And by next
+morning the job-printing press back of the Court House was groaning
+under an order from Graham and Duncan's, and a few days later every
+physician within several miles of Radville received half a dozen neat
+pads of blanks with his name and address printed at the top and the
+advice across the bottom: "Go to Graham's for the best and purest drugs
+and chemicals." The backs of the blanks were utilised to request people
+living out of reach, but on rural free delivery routes, either to mail
+their prescriptions and other orders in, or have the physicians
+telephone them, promising to fill and despatch them by the first post.
+
+For he had a telephone installed within the first fortnight, and the
+next day advertised in the _Gazette_ that orders by telephone
+would receive prompt attention and be delivered without delay. Tracey
+Tanner became his delivery-boy, deserting his father's stables for the
+obvious advantages of three dollars a week with a chance to learn the
+business.... Sothern and Lee were quick to recognise the advantage the
+telephone gave Graham and Duncan, and promptly had one put in their
+store; but the delay had proven almost fatal: Radville had already
+got into the habit of telephoning to Graham's for a cake of soap, or
+whatnot, and it's hard to break a Radville habit.
+
+As business increased and the stock turned itself over at a profit,
+Duncan began to branch out, to make improvements and introduce new
+lines of goods. He it was who inoculated Radville with the habit of
+buying manufactured candies. Up to the time of his advent, we had been
+accustomed to and content with home-made taffies and fudges--and were,
+I've no doubt, vastly better off on that account. But Duncan, starting
+with a line of five- and ten-cent packages of indigestible sweets, in
+time made arrangements with a big Pittsburgh confectionery concern to
+ship him a small consignment of pound and half-pound "fancy" boxes of
+chocolates and bonbons twice a week. And taffy-pulls and fudge parties
+lapsed into desuetude.
+
+Later, Sperry introduced him to an association of druggists, of which
+he became a member, for the maintenance and exploitation of the cigar
+and tobacco trade in connection with the drug business. They installed
+at Graham's a handsome show-case and fixtures especially for the sale
+and display of cigars, and thereafter it was possible to purchase
+smokable tobacco in our town.
+
+Again, he treated Radville to its first circulating library,
+establishing a branch in the store. One could buy a book at a moderate
+price, and either keep it or exchange it for a fee of a few cents. I
+disputed the wisdom of this move, alleging, and with reason, that
+Radville didn't read modern fiction to any extent. But Duncan argued
+that it didn't matter. "They're going to try it on as a novelty, to
+begin with," he said, "and it'll bring 'em into the store for a few
+exchanges, at least. That's all I want. Once we get 'em in here, it'll
+be hard if we can't sell them something else. You'll see."
+
+He was right.
+
+Undoubtedly he made the business hum during those first few months; and
+after that it settled down to a steady forward movement. The store
+became a social centre, a place for people to meet. In time Tracey was
+promoted to be assistant and another boy engaged to make deliveries.
+... And Duncan had never been happier; he had found something he could
+understand and, understanding, accomplish; there was work for his hands
+to do, and they had discovered they could do it successfully. I don't
+believe he stopped to think about it very much, but he was conscious of
+that glow of achievement, that heightening of the spirits, that comes
+with the knowledge of success, be that success however insignificant,
+and it benefited him enormously....
+
+But this chronicle of progress has run away altogether with a desultory
+pen, which started to tell why Duncan didn't want to go to Josie
+Lockwood's party. I was long in finding out, but not so long as Duncan
+himself, perhaps; by which I mean to say that he was conscious of the
+desire not to go, and determined not to, without stopping to analyse
+the cause of that desire more than very superficially.
+
+It happened, toward the close of the eventful day already detailed at
+such length, that as Duncan was entering the house with a load of boxed
+goods, he heard voices in the store--young voices, of which one was
+already too familiar to his ears. He paused, waiting for them to get
+through with their business and go; for he had no time to waste just
+then, even upon the heiress of his manufactured destiny. Betty was
+keeping shop at the time (old Sam having gone upstairs for a little
+rest, who was overwrought and weary with the excitement of that day)
+and it was Duncan's hope that she would be able to serve the customers
+without his assistance.
+
+There were two of them, you see--Josie and Angle Tuthill--hunting as
+usual in couples; and while he waited, not meaning to eavesdrop but
+unwilling to betray his whereabouts by moving, he heard very clearly
+their passage with Betty.
+
+He overheard first, distinctly, Betty responding in expressionless
+voice: "Hello, Angie.... Hello, Josie."
+
+There ensued what seemed a slightly awkward pause. Then Josie,
+painfully sweet: "Did you get the invitation, Betty?"
+
+Betty moved into Duncan's range of vision, apparently intending to come
+and call him. She turned at the question, and he saw her small, thin
+little body and pinched face _en silhouette_ against the fading
+light beyond. He saw, too, that she was stiffening herself as if for
+some unequal contest.
+
+"The invitation?" she questioned dully, but with her head up and
+steady.
+
+"Why," said Josie, "I sent you one. To the party, you know--my lawn
+feet next week."
+
+I give the local pronunciation as it is.
+
+"Did you?"
+
+"I gave it to Tracey for you," persisted the tormentor. "Didn't you get
+it?"
+
+Betty caught at her breath, inaudibly; only Duncan could see the little
+spasm of mortification and anger that shook her.
+
+"Oh, perhaps I did," she said shortly. "I--I'll ask Mr. Duncan to wait
+on you."
+
+She swung quickly out into the hallway, slamming the door behind her
+and so darkening it that she didn't detect Duncan's shadowed figure.
+And if she had meant to call him, she must have forgotten it; for an
+instant later he heard her stumbling up the stairs, and as she
+disappeared he caught the echo of a smothered sob.
+
+He waited, motionless, too disturbed at the time to care to enter the
+store and endure Josie's vapid advances; and through the thin partition
+there came to him their comments on Betty's ungracious behaviour.
+
+"Well!... _did_ you ever!"
+
+That was Angle; Josie chimed in the same key: "Oh, what did you expect
+from that kind of a girl?"
+
+"_Ssh!_ maybe he's coming!"
+
+After a moment's silence, Josie: "Oh, come on. Don't let's wait any
+longer. I don't think it's healthy to drink sody so soon before dinner,
+anyway."
+
+"And, besides, we only wanted to hear--"
+
+Their voices with their footsteps diminished. Duncan allowed a prudent
+interval to elapse, entered the store and began to bestow the goods he
+had brought in.
+
+While he was at work the light failed. He stopped for lack of it just
+as Betty came downstairs.
+
+"Hello!" he said cheerfully. "Know where the matches are?"
+
+"Yes." She moved behind a counter and fetched him a few. "Are you 'most
+done?" she inquired, not unfriendly, as he took down from its bracket
+one of the oil lamps.
+
+"Hardly," he responded, touching a light to the wick and replacing the
+chimney. "It's a good deal of a job."
+
+"Yes..."
+
+He replaced the lamp, and in the act of turning toward another caught a
+glimpse of the girl's face, pale and drawn, her eyes a trifle reddened.
+And with that commonsense departed from him, leaving him wholly a prey
+to his impulse of pity. "Oh, thunder!" he told himself, thrusting a
+hand into his pocket. "I might as well be broke as the way I am now."
+He produced the scanty remains of his "grubstake."
+
+"Miss Graham..."
+
+"Yes?" she asked, wondering.
+
+"Could you get a party dress for thirty-four dollars?"
+
+"Thirty-four dollars!" she faltered.
+
+He discovered what small change he had in his pocket: it was like him
+to be extravagant, even extreme. "And fifty-three cents?" he pursued,
+with a nervous laugh.
+
+"Heavens!" the girl gasped. "I should think so!"
+
+"Then go ahead!" He offered her the money, but she could only stare,
+incredulous. "I'll stake you."
+
+"Oh..._no_, Mr. Duncan," she managed to say.
+
+"Oh, yes!" He tried to catch one of the hands that involuntarily had
+risen toward her face in a gesture of wonder. "Please do," he begged,
+his tone persuasive, "as a favour to me."
+
+But she evaded him, stepping back. "I couldn't take it; I couldn't
+really."
+
+"Yes, you can. Just try it once, and see how easy it is," he persisted,
+pursuing.
+
+"No, I can't." She looked up shyly and shook her head, that smile of
+her mother's for the moment illuminating her face almost with the
+radiance of beauty. "But I--I thank you very much--just the same."
+
+"But I want you to go to that party..."
+
+"You're awful' kind," she said softly, still smiling, "but I don't care
+to go, now. I--"
+
+"Don't care to! Why, you were insisting on going, a little while ago."
+
+"Yes," she admitted simply, "I know I was. But ... I've been thinking
+over what you said, since then, and I ... I've made up my mind I'd be
+out of place there."
+
+"Out of place!" he echoed, thunderstruck.
+
+"Yes. I've concluded I belong here in the store with father." She half
+turned away. "And I guess folks is better off if they stay where they
+belong...."
+
+
+She went slowly from the room, and he remained staring, stupefied.
+
+"You never can tell about a woman," he concluded with all the gravity
+of an original philosopher.
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+
+MANOEUVRES OF JOSIE
+
+Nat didn't go to the Lockwood lawn fete, and did excuse himself on the
+plea of being unable to leave the store. I'm afraid the young man had a
+faint, fond hope that Josie would be offended; but his excuse was
+accepted without remonstrance. And, indeed, it was at that time quite a
+reasonable one. Tracey had not been added to the staff, although
+business was booming, and Saturday night is, as everyone who has lived
+in a Radville knows, the busiest of the week; all the stores keep open
+late on Saturday--some as late as eleven--and frequently take in half
+the week's income between noon and the closing hour. Duncan really
+couldn't be spared; so it's probable that Josie cloaked her
+disappointment and comforted herself with the assurance that her
+selection of the day had been an error in judgment, of which she would
+not again be guilty.
+
+But the party came off, without fail, and that on a wonderful, still,
+moonlit night; and everybody voted it a splendid success. The
+_Citizen_ in its next issue recorded the event to the extent of a
+column and a half of reading matter, called it a social function, and
+described the gowns of the leading ladies of society present in
+bewildering phrases. I was not invited, but the owner of the paper was,
+and his wife wrote the description with the assistance of the entire
+editorial and reportorial force, a dictionary and some evil if
+suppressed language from the foreman of the composing-room. I read
+the proofs with an admiration strongly tinctured with awe, and found
+it lacking in one particular only: no mention was made of Roland
+Barnette's first open-faced suit.
+
+Roland had ordered it from a clothing-house in Chicago, and it arrived
+just in time. Having heard all about it from Roland's own lips (they
+dilated upon the matter to Watty the tailor, just beneath my window), I
+sort of hung round downtown Saturday evening in the hope of catching
+a glimpse of it, and was not disappointed. I was loitering in Graham's
+when Roland sauntered nonchalantly in at about a quarter to eight and
+called for a pack of "Sweets." Sam served him, and Duncan, happily for
+him disengaged at the moment, after one look at Roland retired
+precipitately behind the prescription counter--overcome, I judged from
+Roland's triumphant smirk, by deepest chagrin. Well, thought I, might
+he have been: he could never, by whatever wildest endeavour, have
+approximated Roland's splendour.
+
+The coat was bob-tailed (at least, so Watty described it within my
+hearing) and curiously double-breasted, caught together at the waist
+with a single button, thus revealing a shining expanse of very stiff
+shirt-bosom; which creaked, for some reason. With this Roland wore a
+ribbed white-silk waistcoat, very brilliant low-cut patent leather
+shoes, and white-silk socks. The trousers were strikingly cut, as to
+each leg, after the physical configuration of the domestic pear, and
+the effect of the whole was measurably enhanced by an opera-hat--one
+of those tall and striking contraptions that you can shut up by
+pressing gently but firmly upon the human midriff and looking
+unconscious, but which is apt to open with a resounding report if
+you're not careful... I am glad to be able to report that Roland failed
+to commit the solecism of wearing a red string tie; his tie was a
+sober black, firmly knotted at the factory. I'm glad too, for the
+sartorial honour of Radville, that Roland knew how to wear such
+fixin's: that is to say, with an expression of proud defiance.
+
+After he had departed, stepping high, Sam called me behind the counter
+to assist in reviving Duncan. We found him leaning upon the counter,
+his forehead resting upon a mortar, very red in the face and breathing
+stertorously; and when Sam addressed him, to learn what was the matter,
+he seemed unable to speak, but choked and beat the air feebly with his
+hands. Sam concluded he had swallowed something, and was, I think,
+right; he was plainly half strangled, and only recovered after we had
+beaten his back severely. Then he refused any explanation, beyond
+saying that he was subject to such seizures.
+
+After the party the town's excitement simmered down and subsided; we
+had become moderately accustomed to the presence of Duncan in our midst
+(strange as this may sound), and for some time nothing happened germane
+to the fate of the Fortune Hunter.
+
+On his part, he fell into a routine without the least evidence of
+discontent. He was early to rise and early to work, and rarely left the
+store save at meal hours and closing-up time. And in the course of our
+serene days, I began to notice in him an increasing interest in the
+affairs of the church; he seemed to look forward with a not uneager
+anticipation to the fixtures of its calendar. He attended with
+admirable regularity both morning and evening services, on Sunday, the
+mid-weekly prayer-meeting, and Friday evening choir practice. For in
+the course of time he had been won over to join the choir, and modestly
+discovered to our edification a barytone voice, wholly untrained but
+not unpleasing. Mrs. Rogers, our organist, averred his superiority to
+Packy Soule, whom he superseded, and was supported in this estimate by
+the remainder of the choir, with the exception of Roland Barnette,
+who helped with his reedy tenor. Josie Lockwood sang contralto and Bess
+Gabriel what we were informed was soprano--only Radville called it a
+treble. Tracey Tanner pumped the organ and puffed audibly in the
+pauses--a singular testimony to his devotion to Angie Tuthill, who
+"just sang" with the others, chiefly because she was Josie's nearest
+friend.
+
+I remember that, one Sunday night after evening service, Duncan
+confided to me, quite seriously, "that the church thing was getting to
+him." He seemed somewhat surprised, to a degree indignant, as if he
+suspected religion of having taken an advantage of him in some
+roundabout, underhand way.... He wondered audibly what Harry would
+think if he could see him now.
+
+He had settled down to a pretty steady correspondence with Kellogg,
+chiefly on business matters. Kellogg was investigating old Sam's
+burner, and seemed quite impressed with its possibilities. He had
+quarrelled with Roland's friend, Burnham, on Duncan's representations,
+and ordered him out of the offices of L. J. Bartlett & Company, it
+seemed. Later he opened up negotiations with a corporation known as the
+Modern Gas Company, I believe, a competitor of Consolidated Petroleum,
+and in due course representatives of both concerns came to Radville,
+examined the burner, and retired, non-committal. Then Bartlett sent
+a requisition for a model, and supplied the funds for making it--thus
+demonstrating his confidence. Sam never had such a good time in his
+life as when occupied with that model, and in his elation was inspired
+to invent two notable improvements on the machine--which were promptly
+patented. Then the model was despatched, receipt acknowledged, and
+nothing ensued for three or four months. Radville, which had been
+watching and wondering with open incredulity and dissatisfaction (this
+latter because neither Graham nor Duncan would talk about the matter),
+concluded that the whole business had gone up in smoke, said "I told ye
+so," and forgot it completely. Roland Barnette, I believe, drove the
+last nail in the coffin of our expectations that anything would ever
+come of it, by writing to Burnham that Duncan's negotiations had
+failed, and inviting him to renew his offer if he thought it worth
+while. Presumably he didn't, for Roland received no reply, and told the
+town so....
+
+I don't remember just how soon it was, but it was shortly after the
+formation of the firm of Graham and Duncan that the young man received
+his first invitation to dinner at the Lockwoods'. He accepted, of
+course, whether he wanted to or not, for there could be no excuse for
+his refusing a Sunday bid, and the Lockwoods made quite an event of
+it. The Soules were invited, because they were Araminta Lockwood's
+brother and sister-in-law, and the Godfreys came over from Westerly to
+grace the board as representatives of the Lockwood strain. Also Ben
+Lockwood attended--Blinky's first cousin and senior.
+
+Duncan described the function in a letter to Kellogg as the time of his
+young life. Undoubtedly it was in certain respects singular in his
+experience. The entire party walked home from church through a hot
+August noon, with that air of chastened joy common to a gathering of
+relations--an atmosphere of festive gloom and funeral baked meats
+painfully enlivened by exhilarating jests from old Ben, who was a
+connoisseur of vintages when it came to jokes. Duncan wished
+fervently, first that he might expire; secondly, and with greater
+intensity of feeling, that they all might die. Minta Lockwood, he felt,
+was slowly but expertly greasing him with adulation--as a python
+prepares its prey before dining (or is it a python?)--and he knew he
+was presently to be swallowed alive.
+
+They dined protractedly. The meal, consisting of baked chicken, mashed
+potatoes, boiled onions with cream sauce, boiled beets and green corn,
+followed by rhubarb pie and ice cream, was served by an independent,
+bony and red-faced specimen of the "help" genus. The atmosphere was
+stifling, with the heat of the day thickened by the steam and odour of
+cooked food. Duncan was seated consciously beside Josie--a circumstance
+of which, in fact, everyone else seemed tolerantly aware. He writhed in
+impotent agony, confronted alone by the consciousness he had brought
+this thing upon himself: it was a part of his punishment.
+
+At the conclusion of the meal, which endured throughout two
+interminable hours, the elder menfolk withdrew to the garden and the
+lawn, where they strolled about, sleepy eyes glistening with repletion,
+until finally they disappeared, to each his doze. The ladies
+foregathered in the parlour, conversing in undertones, with significant
+glances and liftings of their eyebrows. Nat was left to Josie, who
+conducted him to the side porch, out of sight of everybody, and planted
+herself in the baggy hammock there. She was gay, even brilliant within
+her limitations, arch, naive, coquettish, shy, petulant, by turns:
+animated by a sense of conquest. She supplied the major part of the
+conversation, chatting volubly on the thousand subjects she didn't
+understand, the dozen she did. In the most ingenuous manner imaginable
+she laid herself open to advances, not once, but a score of times; and
+when he failed to respond according to the code of Radville, had the
+wit to mask her chagrin, did she feel any: very probably she laid his
+lack of responsiveness at the door of his shyness (a quality he was
+wholly without) and liked him the better for it.
+
+It was on this day that she extracted from him his promise to join the
+choir; he acceded through apathy alone.
+
+"I don't care whether you can sing or not," she confessed, with a look.
+"But I do want somebody to walk home with me that ... I like."
+
+"That's a nice way of putting it," Duncan considered without emphasis.
+
+"Roland Barnette's always walked home with me, but I think he's just
+tiresome."
+
+"Why?" inquired the young man, with some interest.
+
+She averted her head, plucking at the strands of the hammock. "Oh,
+_you_ know," she said diffidently.
+
+"Oh?" Nat was enlightened. "Then I'm sorry for Roland."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"I can't blame him, you know." He couldn't help this: the time, the
+place, the girl inspired, indeed incited, one to banality.
+
+"Why?" she persisted.
+
+"Oh, _you_ know." He caught the intonation of her previous words
+precisely.
+
+She had the grace to blush and hang her head; but he received a
+thrilling sidelong glance.
+
+"Ah... aren't you awful to talk that way, Mr. Duncan?"
+
+"Yes," he admitted meekly.
+
+"Then you will join the choir?" she pursued, failing to fathom the
+meaning of that humble acquiescence. Any other boy or man of her
+acquaintance would have taken her remark as openly provocative.
+
+"Oh, yes," he agreed listlessly.
+
+"I'm so glad..."
+
+He thanked her, but avoided her eye.
+
+"We might's well begin to-night," she suggested presently, with
+diffident, downcast eyes.
+
+"What--the choir?" He was startled. "Oh, I couldn't without a
+rehearsal--"
+
+"No, I didn't mean that..."
+
+"No?"
+
+"I mean about Roland." She was paying minute attention to the lace
+insertion of her skirt. From this circumstance he divined that he was
+on dangerous ground, but could not, in his stupidity, understand just
+what made it dangerous.
+
+"About Roland--?"
+
+"Yes; I mean... You know what I mean, Mr. Duncan?"
+
+"I assure you I do not, Miss Lockwood."
+
+"About not walking home with him any more. I don't want to. I wish
+you'd commence to-night, instead of choir practice night. I'd much
+rather walk home with you."
+
+"After evening service, you mean?" She nodded. "It'll be a great
+pleasure."
+
+"Really?" She gave him her eyes now.
+
+"Really," he assured her.
+
+"Ah, I don't believe you mean that!"
+
+"But indeed I do...."
+
+It was not until nearly five o'clock that he was given a chance to
+escape. He had, even then, to refuse inflexibly an invitation to stay
+to supper.
+
+Minta Lockwood--an expansive woman, generously convex--almost
+smothered him with appreciation of his thanks. She held his hand in a
+large, moist palm and beamed upon him, saying: "Now't you know the way,
+Mr. Duncan...."
+
+"Yes," Blinky insisted, blinking roguishly, "drop in any time. Take pot
+luck. We're plain people, Mr. Duncan, but allus glad to see our
+friends. Drop in any time."
+
+Josie accompanied him to the front gate, where etiquette required him
+to linger for a parting chat....
+
+"Good-bye." The girl gave him her hand. "I'm real glad you came--at
+last."
+
+"The pleasure has been all mine," insisted the gallant bromide, fishing
+the trite phrase desperately from the grey vacuity of his thoughts.
+"You won't forget?"
+
+"Forget what?"
+
+"About to-night?"
+
+"Do you imagine I could?..."
+
+Josie returned to the family conclave, to interrupt a symposium on
+Duncan's qualities. He was unanimously approved, on every point. She
+took no part in the conversation, but listened, aglow with the pride of
+triumph, until old Ben chose to observe:
+
+"He seems to've taken a right smart set for Josie."
+
+Then she rose, blushing, and tossed her pretty, pert head. "How you all
+do talk!" she cried. "I'm not thinking about Mr. Duncan that way." And
+she left the gathering.
+
+"You might's well begin now as later," pursued her, accompanied by
+chucklings; and she tossed her head, but wasn't at all displeased, be
+sure.
+
+Duncan wrote to Kellogg in his room that night after church: "I don't
+want to sound immodest, but it looks as if you were right, old man:
+apparently there's nothing to it...
+
+"Probably I should have stayed on for supper, but I couldn't; I should
+have choked. As it was, my soul was curdling. Another ten minutes and I
+should have jumped down on the lawn and run round the house on all
+fours, yapping and foaming at the mouth, and have wound up by
+biting old Blinky..
+
+"The worst of it all is, I know I'm ungrateful: I know they mean well.
+But why is it that people who mean well almost invariably grate upon
+your sensibilities like the screeching of a slate-pencil?
+
+"In this case, I suspect it's a case of when Snob meets Snob. A snob, I
+take it, is a fellow who holds himself your superior because he looks
+at things in a different way. That counts me a snob in my mental
+attitude toward the Lockwoods. I don't understand their conception of
+life--wasn't brought up to understand it. And yet I know they're not a
+bad sort, though they bore me to death what time I'm not laughing in my
+sleeve at them. Blinky, for instance, is an old screw, but he can't
+help that; he was born that way; and aside from the fact that money has
+made him snobbish toward his neighbours, he's a simple, honest,
+square-dealing (according to his lights) old Jasper. He's not snobbish
+toward me, because I've got something he admires but can't understand
+and never can acquire; but he's a snob of the first water when it comes
+to somebody like this old prince I'm working for--Graham--and his
+daughter. And so is Josie....
+
+"But I mustn't say mean things about my future spouse, I presume....
+That is the great trouble with your infernal scheme, Harry: it seems
+to be working like a charm, and now that I've got something to do I'm
+not so strong for it as I was. But I gave you my word. ... Only, mind
+this: if the rules prescribe a perpetual course of Sunday dinners,
+_en famille_, it's going to break down and turn out a natural-born
+flivver. There are limits to human endurance, and I'm human, whatever
+else I am not...."
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+
+WHERE RADVILLE FEARED TO TREAD
+
+Summer slumbered to its close, a drowsy autumn settled upon our valley,
+in which its traditional peace seemed but the more profound. The skies
+darkened to an ineffable intensity of blue; the livery of the fields
+was changed, green giving place to gold; the woodlands and lower slopes
+of our hills flamed with the scarlet of dying sumach, with the russet
+and orange and crimson of a foliage making merry against its moribund
+to-morrows; a drought parched the land, and our little river lessened
+to a mere trickle of water. The daylight hours became sensibly
+abbreviated; while they endured they were golden and warm and hazy:
+faint veils of purple shrouded the distances. Twilight fell early, its
+air sweet with the tang of dead leaves raked into heaping bonfires by
+the children of the town. The nights were long and cool, with a hint of
+frosts to come. Day dissolved into day almost imperceptibly. ...
+
+Josie Lockwood announced that she was going away to school in New York
+for the winter. Pete Willing took the pledge and kept it almost a
+month. Will Bigelow secured time-tables and laboriously mapped out his
+semi-annually contemplated trip to the East: like the others
+destined never to come off. Tracey Tanner went to work for Graham and
+Duncan. The _Citizen_ gained eighteen subscribers; four old ones
+paid up their accounts. Babies were born, people married and died,
+loved and hated, lived in striving or sloth, accomplished or failed.
+Roland Barnette paid ostentatious attentions to Bess Gabriel, who
+tolerated him simply because she didn't much like Josie; but, blighted
+by Josie's supreme indifference, this budding passion drooped and
+failed by mutual consent of both parties concerned. Angie Tuthill
+became more conspicuously than ever the orb of Tracey's universe.
+Duncan walked home with Josie on two weekday evenings and twice on
+Sundays, and learned how to play Halma and Parcheesi, as well as how
+long to linger at the front gate in the gloaming, saying good-night.
+Eight young women of the town set their caps for him, at one time or
+another and... set them back again, because he was too blind to see. As
+a body they united with the female element in Radville in condemning
+Josie for a heartless flirt, and sympathising with Nat, behind his
+back, for being so nice and at the same time so easily taken in. Mrs.
+Lockwood gave a Bridge party which failed as such because Radville knew
+not Bridge; but everybody went and played progressive euchre, instead.
+The drug-store prospered in moderation, Sothern and Lee vainly
+contesting its conquering campaign. And Duncan grew thoughtful.
+
+One has more time to think unselfishly in Radville than in a great
+city, where there's rarely more time than enough to think of one's own
+concerns. And Duncan was making time to think about others--notably,
+Betty Graham. The girl was, as usual, shy, reticent, reserved; she kept
+her thoughts to herself, sharing the most intimate not even with old
+Sam, who _would_ talk; but Duncan divined that she was unhappy.
+The easier circumstances of the family had provided her with a few
+simple frocks, adequate clothing which she had gone without for years,
+and with a sufficiency of wholesome and appetising food: with these,
+peace of mind should likewise have come to her, and content. But Duncan
+thought they hadn't. Relieved, on Tracey's engagement, of any share in
+the store service, she had only the housework for herself and father to
+occupy her; her associations with the girls of her age were distant and
+constrained. Usage wears into tradition in the Radvilles of our land;
+even with the young folks this is so; and in Betty's case, the girl had
+for so long been "out of it," debarred by her unfortunate circumstances
+from participation in the pastimes, pleasures and duties of her
+generation, that by common consent, unspoken but none the less
+absolute, she remained an outsider. You might say that she relied on
+her father alone for companionship. Duncan she avoided, unobtrusively
+but with pains; he consorted with those with whom she had nothing in
+common, and she would not thrust herself upon him or seem to seek his
+notice. Her early suspicion and sullen resentment of his intrusion into
+their affairs had vanished; there remained only a gnawing consciousness
+that to him she was little or nothing, that his vision ranged above her
+humble head. She was not the sort to take this ill; she was reasonable
+enough to believe it natural. But she would not willingly intrude upon
+his thoughts--who little knew how much she did occupy his leisure
+moments.
+
+He saw her go and come, a wistful shadow on the borders of his
+occupations, self-contained, a little timid, but at the same time brave
+in her own quiet, uncomplaining fashion. And the distant look in those
+soft eyes he divined to be one of longing for that which she might not
+possess--the advantages that other girls had, socially and
+educationally, the pleasures they contrived, the attentions they
+received, the thousand and one slight things that make existence life
+for a woman. He saw her drooping insensibly day by day, growing a
+little paler, a shade more aloof and listless. And he became infinitely
+concerned for her.
+
+He told himself he had solved the problem of her disease, but its
+remedy remained beyond his reach. The business was doing very well
+indeed, but it was still young and must be subjected to as few
+financial drains as possible; as it ran, there was an income sufficient
+to board, lodge and clothe the three of them, maintain the credit of
+the partnership, and now and again admit of a slight but advantageous
+addition to the stock or fixtures. Things would certainly be better in
+the course of time, but... Kellogg he would not beg another dollar of,
+the bank was an equally impossible resource; there wasn't a chance in a
+hundred that Lockwood would refuse to accommodate the growing concern
+with money in reason, but the concern, individually and collectively,
+would never ask it of him. There remained--?
+
+It came to pass that he left the store early one evening, excusing
+himself on the plea of some slight indisposition, and lost himself for
+the space of two hours. I mean to say, that no one knew where he went
+until long after. When he came home some time after ten he told me he
+had been for a walk....
+
+He found himself shortly after eight at pause by the gate to the Bohun
+place. The night was dark and murmurous with a sibilant wind that sent
+the leaves drifting, softly clashing one with another. At the far end
+of the straight brick walk, up through the formal grounds, he could
+just see the glimmer of the stately columns, and, between them, to one
+side, a little twinkling light. The gate was closed, but he tried it
+and found it on the latch. He entered and scuffled up the walk, ankle
+deep in fallen leaves. His footfalls as he crossed the porch sounded
+startlingly loud by contrast; he even fancied a note of indignation in
+the cavernous echoes of the knocker on the front door. He waited with a
+thumping heart, aware that he was venturing where even fools would fear
+to tread.
+
+An aged negro butler, one of the freed slaves brought from Virginia by
+the Bohuns, admitted him to the hall and took his card, smothering his
+own wonderment. For in those days nobody disturbed the silence and the
+peace of decay of the Bohun mansion save its master. And Duncan had
+long to wait in the wide, gloomy, musty hall before the servant
+returned.
+
+"Cunnul Bohun will see yo', suh," he said, and ushered him into the
+library--a great, high-ceiled, shadowy room illuminated by a single
+lamp, tenanted by the old colonel alone.
+
+Bohun received the young man standing: he was as courteous beneath his
+own roof as he was impossible away from it. A quaint old figure, with
+his grey hair tousled and his dressing-gown draped grotesquely from his
+shoulders, he stood by the fireplace, Duncan's card between his
+fingers, and bowed ceremoniously.
+
+"Mr. Duncan, I believe?"
+
+Nat returned the bow. "Yes, sir," he said. "Will you be good enough to
+pardon this intrusion, Colonel Bohun, and spare me five minutes of your
+time?"
+
+The colonel nodded. "At your service, sir," he replied, and waited
+grimly--perhaps not unsuspicious of the nature of his visitor's errand,
+since he could not have been ignorant of his place in Radville.
+
+Duncan had his own way of getting at things--generally more circuitous
+than now, though he struck on a tangent sufficiently acute momentarily
+to puzzle Bohun.
+
+"May I inquire, sir, if you are acquainted with the firm of L.J.
+Bartlett & Company of New York?"
+
+"I have heard of it, Mr. Duncan, through the newspapers."
+
+"You know that it ranks pretty high, then, I presume?"
+
+"I understand that such is the case."
+
+"Then would you mind doing me the favour of writing to Mr. Henry
+Kellogg, the junior partner, and asking him about me?"
+
+The colonel stiffened. "May I ask why I should do anything so
+uncalled-for?"
+
+"Because it isn't uncalled-for, sir. I mean, you won't think so after
+I've explained."
+
+Bohun inclined his head, searching Nat's face with his keen, bright
+eyes.
+
+"You see, sir, it's this way: I want you to entrust me with a
+considerable sum of money, and naturally you wouldn't do that without
+knowing something about me."
+
+"I incline very much to doubt that I should do it in any event, Mr.
+Duncan."
+
+"Oh, don't say that. You don't know the circumstances, as yet." Nat
+jerked his head earnestly at the colonel. "You see, you're said to be
+one of the richest men in town, and I'm certainly one of the poorest,
+so of course I turn to you in a case like this."
+
+"In a case like what, Mr. Duncan?" Something in the young man's manner
+seemed to tickle the colonel; Duncan could have sworn that the eyes
+were twinkling beneath the savagely knitted brows.
+
+"Well, you must understand I'm in business here in Radville--a partner
+in a growing and prospering concern--ah--doing--very well, in point of
+fact."
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"But we haven't any spare capital; in fact, we haven't got any capital
+worth mentioning. But the business is entirely sound and solvent."
+
+"I congratulate you, sir."
+
+"Thank you very much.... Now I'm interested in a rather singular
+case: that of a young woman--a girl, I should say--daughter of my
+partner. She's a good girl and wonderfully sweet and fine, sir. She
+comes of one of the best families in these parts--"
+
+"On her mother's side," suggested the colonel drily.
+
+"So I'm told, sir. But she's been neglected. Circumstances have been
+against her. She hasn't had a real chance in life, but she ought to
+have it, and I'm going to see that she gets it, one way or another."
+
+"You haven't finished?" said the colonel coldly, as he paused for
+breath and thought.
+
+"Not quite, sir," said Duncan. "Good sign!" he told himself: "he hasn't
+ordered me thrown out yet." And he hurried on, speaking quickly in the
+semi-humorous style he had, more arresting to the attention than
+absolute gravity would have been.
+
+"To come down to cases, sir, she ought to be sent to a good
+boarding-school for a few years. It'll make a new woman of her--a woman
+to be proud of. She's got that in her--it only needs to be brought
+out."
+
+"And before you leave, sir," said the colonel with significant
+precision, "will you be so kind as to inform me why you think this
+should interest me?"
+
+"No," said Duncan candidly; "I haven't got the nerve to. But what I
+wanted to propose was this: that you lend me five hundred dollars to
+cover the expense of the first year, on condition that I represent the
+money as coming from the profits of the business and, in short, keep
+the transaction between ourselves absolutely quiet. If you'll inquire
+of Mr. Kellogg he'll tell you I can be trusted to keep my word.
+Furthermore"--he galloped, suspecting that his time was perilously
+short and desiring to get it all out of his system--"I'll guarantee you
+repayment within a year, and that you shan't be annoyed this way a
+second time."
+
+Bohun looked him over from head to foot, bowed in silence, and
+turning--both had stood throughout this passage--grasped a bell-rope by
+the chimney, and pulled it violently.
+
+Duncan turned to the door, hat in hand, realising that he had his
+answer and was lucky to get away with one so mild. Only the emergency
+could have spurred him to the point of so outrageous an impertinence.
+
+In the desolate fastnesses of that dreary house somewhere a bell
+tinkled discordantly. A moment later the white-headed darky butler
+opened the door.
+
+"Suh?" he said.
+
+Colonel Bohun essayed to speak, cleared his throat angrily, and
+indicated Duncan with a courteous gesture.
+
+"Scipio," said he, "this gentleman will have a glass of wine with me."
+
+"Yassuh!" stammered the negro, overcome with astonishment.
+
+Bohun turned to his guest. "Won't you be seated, Mr. Duncan?" he said.
+"You have interested me considerably, sir, and I should be glad to
+discuss the matter with you."
+
+Speechless, Duncan gasped incoherently and moved toward a chair as the
+servant reappeared with a tray on which was a decanter of sherry and
+two old-fashioned, thin-stemmed crystal glasses. He placed this on the
+library table, filled the glasses, and at a sign from Bohun retired.
+
+"Sir," said the colonel, indicating the tray, "to you."
+
+"I--I thank you, sir." Duncan lifted one of the glasses. Bohun took up
+the one remaining, and held it toward his guest with the gracious
+gesture of a bygone day.
+
+"I hold it a privilege, sir," he said, "to drink to the only gentleman
+of spirit it's been my good fortune to meet this many a year."
+
+By way of an aside, it should be mentioned that this was the first and
+only drink Duncan took while he lived in Radville.
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+
+TRACEY'S TROUBLES
+
+Probably nothing ever gave rise to more comment in Radville than Betty
+Graham's departure to spend the winter at a boarding-school near
+Philadelphia. Hardly anyone knew anything about it--in fact, the rumour
+of it was just being noised about and contemptuously discredited on all
+hands--when Tracey galloped down Main Street Monday morning with the
+news that she had left on the early train. He himself had remained in
+ignorance of the impending event until requested to carry Betty's bag
+down to the station....
+
+She left under convoy of a certain Mrs. Hamilton, who lived in
+Philadelphia and had been visiting her cousin, Mrs. Will Bigelow.
+Duncan had met this lady at a church sociable and, apparently, taken a
+liking to her; for he prevailed upon her, via Sam Graham and Will
+Bigelow, to see the girl safely to her school, after superintending the
+purchase of a suitable wardrobe in Philadelphia.
+
+So Betty was gone--herself, I believe, no less surprised and
+incredulous than the rest of us.
+
+Radville was at first stupefied, then clamorous; but there was little
+information to be got out of old Sam. I found him busy working on his
+new model and much preoccupied with that. When interrogated and given
+to understand that I would not be put off, he roused a bit, but beyond
+being unquestionably a very happy man, seemed himself slightly dazed by
+the amazing circumstances. I learned from him that Nat had evidently
+made all his plans in advance, but had withheld his announcement of
+them until the Saturday prior to that Monday; and then he had fairly
+whirled Betty and her father off their feet and left them no time to
+think or to raise objections.
+
+"There's no use at all arguing with that boy," Sam told me, with the
+fond smile that I was beginning to recognise as the invariable
+accompaniment of his thoughts about Nat; "when he says a thing must
+be, it must. When he first came here I told him he was a wonderful
+business man, and he laughed at me, but now I know he is. Why, he gave
+Betty a hundred dollars to buy clothes with in Philadelphia, and said
+he'd have more for her by Christmas, besides paying all the expenses of
+that school--which must be considerable. I don't see how the store's
+going to stand the strain--though it's doing splendidly since he came
+in, splendidly!--but he says it's all right, and so it must be...."
+
+Duncan himself refused to be interviewed. He told everybody who had
+the impudence to mention the matter to him, that it was Mr. Graham's
+affair: Mr. Graham was a substantial business man, he said, and if he
+chose to send his daughter away to school he had a perfect right to do
+so. I don't believe even Josie Lockwood got more than that out of him,
+for if she had we would have heard of it; and Josie was unmistakably a
+little jealous, and undoubtedly questioned Nat.
+
+One direct result of it all was to hasten Josie's own leave-taking. It
+would never do to let the Grahams eclipse the Lockwoods, you see. Josie
+had been talking of going to a school in Maryland, but Betty's move to
+a fashionable centre like Philadelphia made her change her mind; and
+arrangements were made by which Josie was able to go Betty one better:
+a young ladies' seminary in New York City itself received Josie. She
+left us bereaved about a week after Betty vanished from our ken, but
+promised to be back for the Christmas holidays--an announcement which
+Duncan received with expressions of chastened joy, as he did her
+promise to write to him regularly, in return for his covenant to
+respond promptly.... Betty, by the way, had made no such arrangement;
+but she wrote twice a week to old Sam, and I understand she never
+failed to include a message to Nat.
+
+Betty was happy, she protested in every communication, and wholly
+content. She was getting along. The other girls liked her and she liked
+them (these statements being made in the order of their relative
+importance). Lots of them, of course, were frightfully swell (Betty
+annexed "frightfully" at school, by the by) and had all sorts of
+clothes; but Betty was perfectly content with her modest outfit, and
+none of the other girls seemed to mind how she dressed. They were all
+kind and nice, and she'd never had such a good time.... I quote these
+expressions from memory of Sam's digest of her letters.
+
+Of Josie I heard less; I know that Graham and Duncan's mail seldom
+lacked a personal communication to Duncan, postmarked at New York; our
+postmaster told me so. But Duncan was reticent, and the Lockwoods said
+little. I gathered an impression that Josie was not altogether happy
+in her new surroundings.... One inferred there was a difference between
+New York and Philadelphia, that one was less friendly and sociable
+than the other.
+
+Josie kept her promise and came home for Christmas. She was reticent as
+to her impressions of the New York seminary, but seemed extremely glad
+to be home, notwithstanding the fact that Nat had apparently contracted
+no disturbing alliances with the other belles of our village. And
+Roland remained true--a reliable second string to Josie's bow. Roland
+was working hard at the bank, with an application that earned Blinky
+Lockwood's regard and outspoken approbation; and his Christmas raiment
+proved the sensation of the season. But none of us believed he had any
+chance against Duncan: Josie's attitude toward the latter was such
+that we confidently anticipated the announcement of their engagement
+before she went away again. But it didn't come, for some reason. We
+bore up under the disappointment bravely, all things considered,
+sustained by a very secure feeling that the proclamation couldn't be
+long deferred.
+
+In passing, I should mention that Betty didn't come home once
+throughout the entire school term. The Christmas and Easter holidays
+she spent with a girl friend at her Philadelphia home.
+
+Meanwhile, life in our town simmered gently. Things went on much as
+they might have been expected to. I don't recall much essential to this
+narrative, in the way of events; and part of the ground I've covered on
+earlier pages. Duncan continued to make progress: for one thing, I
+recall that he put in hot soda with whipped cream, which helped a lot
+to hold the trade regained in the summer from Sothern and Lee. And he
+bought a new soda fountain, a very magnificent affair, installing it in
+the early spring. Graham and Duncan's, in short, became a town
+institution: to it Radville pointed with pride....
+
+He remained reserved, retiring, inconspicuous, and puzzling to our
+understanding. In his effort (never very successful) to strike off the
+shackles of modern slang, he fell into a way of speech that bewildered
+those unable to realise what an abiding sense of humour underlay it--as
+water runs beneath ice--more, I think, a matter of intonation and
+significant silences, than a mere play upon words and phrases; which,
+coupled with an unshakable sobriety of demeanour, furnished us with
+wonder and some admiration, but no resentment. We liked him pretty
+well and mostly unanimously: he was a good fellow, if queer; entitled
+to his idiosyncrasy, if he chose to keep one....
+
+There was a certain night, by way of illustration--a bitter night,
+along toward the first of January--when trade was dull, as it always is
+after Christmas, and there was nobody in the store save Nat and Tracey.
+Each had their task, whatever it may have been, and each was busied
+with it, but of the two Tracey seemed the more restless. His ample, if
+low, forehead was decidedly corrugated; his always rosy face owned an
+added trace of scarlet--a flush of perturbation; his chubby hands were
+inexpert, clumsy. He stumbled, fumbled, forgot and (in our homely
+phrase) flummoxed generally; his mind was elsewhere, and his hands and
+feet went anywhere but where they should have gone: a condition which
+eventually excited Duncan's attention.
+
+He broke a long silence in the store. "What's the trouble, Tracey?"
+
+Tracey pulled up with a stare of confusion. "I--I dunno, Mr. Duncan; I
+was thinkin', I guess."
+
+"Anything gone wrong?"
+
+"Not yet." Niobe would have made the response with a greater show of
+cheer.
+
+Duncan looked up curiously, struck by the boy's tone. "Somebody been
+demonstrating that your doll's stuffed with sawdust, Tracey?"
+
+"No-o, but..."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Say, Mr. Duncan--" Tracey's confusion became terrific.
+
+"Say on, Mr. Tanner."
+
+The interjection diverted Tracey's train of thought to an
+inconsiderable siding. "I only called you Mr. Duncan," he said,
+aggrieved, "'cause you're my boss."
+
+"That's a poor excuse, Tracey. You call Mr. Graham 'Sam,' and he's
+likewise your boss."
+
+"I know. But it's diff'runt."
+
+"I don't see it. Even Nats have their place in the cosmic system,
+Tracey."
+
+"I dunno what that is, but you ain't like Sam."
+
+"The loss is mine, Tracey. Proceed."
+
+"But, Mr. Duncan..."
+
+"I beg of you, speak to me as to a friend."
+
+Tracey struggled perceptibly. The words, when they came, were blurted.
+"Ah... I was only thinkin' 'bout Angie."
+
+"Do you ever think about anything else?"
+
+"No," Tracey admitted honestly, "not much. But I was wonderin'--"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Are you stuck on Angie, Mr. Duncan?" demanded Tracey desperately.
+
+"Great snakes! I hope not!" Duncan cast an anxious glance about him,
+and discovered the poster depicting the gentleman in strange attire
+vainly endeavouring to free his overcoat (I believe it's his overcoat)
+from the bench upon which a pot of glue has been spilled. He lifted a
+reverent hand to the card. "Tracey," he said solemnly, "I swear to you
+that not even that indispensable article of commerce could stick me on
+Angie."
+
+The boy sighed. "Thank you, Mr. Duncan. I was only worryin' because you
+and Angie is singin' together in the choir, now Josie Lockwood's gone
+to school, an'--an' Angie's the purtiest girl in town--and I was 'fraid
+'t you might like her best, when Josie's away. An' I wanted to ask you
+to pick out s'mother girl."
+
+Duncan chuckled silently. "Tracey," he said presently, "it strikes me
+you must be in love with Angie."
+
+The boy gulped. "I--I am."
+
+"And I think she's rather partial to you."
+
+"Do you, really, Mr. Duncan?"
+
+"I do. Do you want to marry her?"
+
+"Gee! I can't hardly wait!... Only," Tracey continued, disconsolate,
+"it ain't no use, really. She's so purty and swell and old man
+Tuthill's so rich--not like the Lockwoods, but rich, all the same--an'
+I'm only the son of the livery-stable man, an' fat an'--all that--an'--"
+
+"Nonsense, Tracey!" Nat interrupted firmly. "If you really want her and
+will follow the rules I give you, it's a cinch."
+
+"Honest, Mr. Duncan?"
+
+"I guarantee it, Tracey. Listen to me...." And Duncan expounded
+Kellogg's rules at length, adapting them to Tracey's circumstances, of
+course; and throughout maintained the gravity of a graven image. "You
+try, and you'll see if I'm not right," he concluded.
+
+"Gosh! I b'lieve you are!" Tracey cried admiringly. "I'm just going to
+see how it works."
+
+"Do, if you'd favour me, Tracey."
+
+Tracey was quiet for a time, working with the regularity of a mind
+relieved. But presently he felt unable to contain himself. Gratitude
+surged in his bosom, and he had to speak.
+
+"Sa-y, lis'en...."
+
+"Proceed, Tracey."
+
+"Say, Mist--Nat, you've treated me somethin' immense."
+
+"Your mistake, Tracey. I haven't treated anybody since I've been here:
+I'm on the wagon."
+
+"I mean just now, when we was talkin' 'bout me an' Angie. I'd--I'd like
+to help you the same way, if I could."
+
+"You would?" Duncan eyed the boy apprehensively, wondering what was
+coming.
+
+"Yes, indeedy, I would. An' p'rhaps I kin tell you somethin' that
+will."
+ "Speak, I beg."
+
+"You--er--you're tryin' to court Josie Lockwood, ain't you?"
+
+"Oh!" said Nat. "So that was it! That's a secret, Tracey," he averred.
+
+"All right. Only, if you are, she's your'n."
+
+"Just how do you figure that out?"
+
+"Oh, I kin tell. She was in here to-night with Roland."
+
+"To-night?"
+
+"Yes, just afore you come home from prayer-meetin'. She was lookin'
+for you, and when she seen you wasn't here, she wouldn't wait for no
+soda nor nothin'. Said she had a headache an' was goin' home. Roland
+went with her, but she didn't want him to. You just missed seein'
+her."
+
+"Heavens, what a blow!"
+
+"But Roland's takin' her home needn't upset you none."
+
+"Thank you for those kind words, Tracey." Nat sighed and passed a
+troubled hand across his brow. "You're a true friend."
+
+"I'm tryin' to be, Nat, same's you are to me." Tracey thought this
+over. "But you ain't foolin' me, are you?" he asked presently. "I mean
+'bout bein' a true friend?"
+
+"Why should I?"
+
+"Ah, I dunno. You're so cur'us, sometimes. I ain't never sure whether
+you mean what you're sayin' or not."
+
+"Oh, don't say that."
+
+"Well, I ain't the only one. Everybody in town says they don't
+understand you, half the time."
+
+Duncan left his counter and moved over to that at which Tracey was
+occupied. His face was entirely serious, his manner deeply
+sympathetic. "Tracey," he said, dropping a hand on the boy's shoulder,
+"do you know, nothing in life is harder to bear than not to be
+understood?"
+
+Tracey wrestled with this for a moment, but it was beyond him.
+
+"Then why the hell don't you talk so's folks'll know what it's about?"
+he demanded heatedly.
+
+"Because... _Hm_." Duncan hesitated, with his enigmatic smile.
+"Well, because the rules don't require it."
+
+"What d'you mean by _that_?" Tracey exploded.
+
+Nat couldn't explain, so he countered neatly. "This is one of your
+Angie... evenings, isn't it, Tracey?"
+
+"Yep, but--"
+
+"Well, you hurry along. I'll close up the shop."
+
+Tracey had slammed on his hat and was struggling into his overcoat
+almost as soon as the words were out of Nat's mouth.
+
+"Kin I?" he cried excitedly.
+
+"Yes," said Nat, watching the boy turn up his collar and button his
+overcoat to the throat, "I haven't got the heart to keep you."
+
+"Ah, thanks, Mr. Duncan."
+
+"But, Tracey..."
+
+The boy paused at the door. "What?"
+
+"Remember what I told you. Don't you make too much love. Let Angie do
+that."
+
+"Gosh, that'll be the hardest rule of all for me!" A shadow clouded
+Tracey's honest eyes. "But I got to do it that way, anyway. I can't
+ask her to marry me yit. I can't afford to get married."
+
+"It's a contrary world, Tracey, a contrary world!" sighed Nat in a tone
+of deepest melancholy.
+
+"What makes you say that? You kin git married's soon's you want to."
+
+"You think so, Tracey?"
+
+"All you got to do's ask Josie--"
+
+"I'm almost afraid you're right."
+
+"Why? Don't you want to git married?"
+
+"Well"--Nat smiled--"no. Don't believe I do. Not just now, at any
+rate."
+
+"Well, you don't have to if you don't want to.... G'd-night."
+
+"Yes, I do," Nat told Tracey's back. "The rules say so. If the girl
+asks me, I must."
+
+He grimaced ruefully beneath his wisp of a moustache. "Anyhow, I've got
+a few months left...."
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+
+A BARGAIN IS A BARGAIN
+
+So the winter wore away.... And as spring drew nigh upon our valley,
+Duncan seemed to grow perturbed, even as he had been in the autumn
+before Betty went away. He was pondering another scheme for the
+betterment of the condition of those he cared for, and gave it ample
+consideration before he broached it to old Sam, after swearing him to
+secrecy.
+
+He had to propose nothing more or less than an abandonment of the old
+Graham housekeeping quarters above the store and a removal of the
+_menage_ bodily to a vacant house on Beech Street, near the store,
+which could be rented, partly furnished, at a moderate rate.
+
+To begin with (thus ran his argument) the store itself was growing too
+small for the volume of business it commanded. More room was needed,
+both for storage and laboratory purposes, to say nothing of
+accommodation for Sam's models and work-bench. The latter had already
+been moved upstairs for the winter, the shed in the backyard being too
+cold to work in; and the laboratory end of the business was growing at
+such a rate that it was crowding the prescription counter to the
+wall--so to speak. You see, there really wasn't a more clever
+analytical chemist in the northern part of the State than Sam Graham,
+and now that the drug-store was becoming an influence in the
+neighbourhood he was receiving commissions from physicians operating in
+districts as far as fifty miles away. So a room was needed for that
+branch of the business alone.
+
+Moreover, a separate residence distinctly befitted the dignity of a
+man who was at once a prominent inventor and one of Radville's leading
+merchants (vide a "Personal" in the late issue of the Radville
+_Citizen_), to say nothing of the social position of his
+daughter--meaning Betty. And the house Duncan had his metaphorical eye
+upon was large enough to shelter Nat himself in addition to the Graham
+family. Thus they might pool their living expenses to the economical
+advantage of each.
+
+Finally, it would be a great and glad surprise for Betty on her
+homecoming.
+
+Graham fell in with the scheme without a murmur of dubiety or dissent.
+Whatever Nat proposed in Sam's understanding was right and feasible;
+and even if it wasn't really so, Nat would make it so.... They engaged
+the house and moved. Miss Ann Sophronsiba Whitmarsh, a maiden lady of
+forty-five or thereabouts, popularly known as "Phrony," had been coming
+in by the day to "do for" old Sam in the rooms above the shop. She was
+engaged as resident housekeeper for the new establishment, and entered
+upon her duties with all the discreet joy of one whose maternal
+instincts have been suppressed throughout her life. She mothered Sam
+and she mothered Nat and she panted in expectation of the day when she
+would have Betty to mother. Incidentally, she was one of the best
+housekeepers in Radville, and cooperated with all her heart with Nat
+in the task of making a home out of the new house. They arranged and
+disarranged and rearranged and discarded old furniture and bought new
+with almost the abandon of a newly married couple fitting out their
+first home.... It was surprising what they managed to accomplish with
+it; when they were finished, there wasn't a prettier nor a more
+home-like residence in all Radville--and Phrony Whitmarsh was Nat's
+slave, even as Miss Carpenter had been. She gave him all the credit for
+everything praiseworthy about the place: and with some reason; for, as
+a matter of fact, he had spared himself not at all in the business of
+scheming and contriving to make the new home suitable for the
+reception of Betty Graham....
+
+It's interesting when one has come to my time of life, to sit and
+speculate on the singular mental blindness of mortal man, such as that
+which kept Nat unaware of the real, rock-bottom reason why he was
+working so hard on the Beech Street house. I daresay the young idiot
+thought his motives as much selfish as anything else--told himself that
+he wanted a comfortable home--and this was his way of securing one--and
+all that rot. At all events, he told me as much, quite seriously--
+seemed to believe it himself; and this, in spite of the fact that Miss
+Carpenter had done everything imaginable to make him comfortable....
+
+Josie Lockwood came home again for the Easter holidays, but didn't
+return to finish her term in the New York school. Just why, we never
+discovered: the Lockwoods furnished us with no really satisfying
+explanation; they said that Josie didn't like New York, but I've always
+doubted that, especially since Josie married and insisted on moving
+straightway to that metropolis. I suspect she didn't get along with
+the class of young women with whom she was thrown at school, and I'm
+pretty certain she was uneasy about Nat all the time she was so far
+away from him. Anyway, she elected to remain in Radville and keep the
+young man dancing attendance on her day in and out. Which he did, as in
+duty bound; he liked the game less and less all the time, but Kellogg
+held his promise....
+
+It was during this period, between the Easter vacation and the end of
+the spring school term, that Roland Barnette's animosity toward Duncan
+became virulent. Looking back, I can recall the symptoms of his waxing
+hostility--as, for instance, the evening he spent in the
+_Citizen_ office, poring over back files of our exchanges. That
+seemed innocent enough at the time, a harmless freak on the part of the
+young man, and no one paid much attention to it; but it led to great
+things, in the end, and incidentally did Duncan a service which
+probably could have been accomplished through no other agency. This,
+however, is something that Roland doesn't realise to this day; and I'm
+inclined to doubt if you could ever make him understand it.
+
+Josie, of course, was prompt to oust Angie Tuthill from her place in
+the choir. After that she sang with Nat on Friday nights as well as
+Wednesdays and twice per Sunday. Between whiles she was a pretty
+constant patron of the store. There was no longer the least doubt in
+the collective mind of the town as to the inclination of Josie's
+affections. Nat himself gave evidence of his appreciation of the
+gravity of the situation, managing by some admirable diplomacy to evade
+the issue until the very last moment. But with the three--Roland, Nat,
+and Josie--so involved, we sensed a storm below the horizon, and
+awaited its breaking, if not with avidity, at least with quickened
+apprehension.
+
+The culmination came the day before Betty was to return--a day late in
+May, I remember, and a Friday at that.
+
+It began along toward evening. Duncan, alone in the store, was busy
+behind the prescription counter. The day had been humid, warm and
+sultry, and the doors and windows were open. The air was bland and
+still, and sound travelled easily. He could hear the musical clanking
+of hammers in Badger's smithy, on the next block, the deep-throated
+_hoot-toot_ of the late afternoon train as it rushed down the
+valley, sounds of fierce altercation from the home of Pete Willing near
+by, a boy rattling a stick along palings down on Main Street.... But he
+did not hear anybody enter the store: absorbed with his task, he
+thought himself quite alone until a well-kenned voice reached his ear.
+
+"Well!" it said, unctuous with appreciation of the sight of him.
+"_Old_ Doctor Duncan!"
+
+He let the pestle fall from his hand and jumped as if he had been stuck
+with a pin. His jaw dropped and his eyes bulged. "Great Scott!" he
+cried; and in a twinkling was round the counter, throwing himself into
+the arms of a man whom he hailed ecstatically: "Harry, by all that's
+wonderful!" He fairly danced with delight. "Henry Kellogg, Esquire!"
+he cried, holding him at arms' length and looking him over. "What in
+thunderation are you doing here?"
+
+Kellogg freed himself, only to seize both Nat's hands and squeeze them
+violently. "Wanted to see you," he replied, beaming. "On my way to
+Cincinnati on business--thought I'd drop off for a night and size you
+up. My, but it's good to get a look at you! How are you?"
+
+"Me? Look at me--picture of health. Harry, you've made a new man of
+me." Duncan pranced round his friend in a mild frenzy. "No booze--no
+smokes--no swears--work! I feel like a two-year-old: I could do a
+Marathon without turning a hair. Watch me kick up my heels and neigh!"
+He paused for breath. "And you?"
+
+"Fine as silk--but you've got it on me, Nat, physically. You're a sight
+to heal the blind."
+
+"And listen!" Nat crowed: "I'm a business man. Didn't you believe it?
+Pipe my shop!"
+
+Kellogg checked to obey the admonition of Duncan's gesticulations, and
+took a long look round the store. "Gad!" said he. "I'm blowed if it
+isn't true! It _was_ hard to credit your letters. But it's great,
+old man. I congratulate you, with all my heart."
+
+"Just wait and I'll tell you all about it. But first tell me how long
+you're going to be here."
+
+"Well, I plan to hang around with you a couple of days. My business in
+the West isn't pressing."
+
+"Good!"
+
+"Which is the least worst hotel?"
+
+"There ain't no such thing in the whole giddy town.... No, none of that
+hotel stuff, now I I'm going to put you up--and I'll do it in style,
+too. I wrote you about taking a new place for the Grahams?"
+
+"Yes, and I'm mighty keen to meet 'em. The girl here?"
+
+"Betty? No; she's coming home to-morrow. But Graham himself is upstairs
+in the laboratory. Take you up in a minute, but not before I've had a
+good look at you."
+
+Kellogg found himself a chair. "Well," he inquired, twinkling, "how's
+the scheme working out? Are you really living up to all the rules?"
+
+"Every singletary one."
+
+"You have got a strong constitution.... Even prayer-meetings?"
+
+"The church thing? Honest, Harry, I _own_
+it."
+
+"Bully for you, Nat. But how does it work? Was I right?"
+
+"I should say you were. It's so easy it's a shame to do it. If this
+thing ever should get into the papers there'd be a swarm of city men
+lighting out for the Rube centres so thick you wouldn't be able to see
+the sky."
+
+"I knew it! Trust your Uncle Harry." Kellogg waited a time for further
+particulars, but Duncan seemed stuck; his transports of the few
+minutes just gone were sensibly abated; and the sidelong look he gave
+Kellogg was both uneasy and rueful--apprehensive, indeed. So Kellogg
+had to pump for news. "And you've made a strong play for the fond
+affections of Lockwood's daughter?"
+
+"Certainly not!"
+
+"Not--?"
+
+"You forget your rules." Nat grinned, whimsical. "I let her to make a
+play for me."
+
+"Of course. My mistake.... But how has it worked?"
+
+"Oh! immense." Duncan's tone, however, was wholly destitute of
+enthusiasm. He stuck his hands in his trousers' pockets and half turned
+away from his friend, looking out of the window.
+
+Kellogg smiled secretly. "You mean you've won her already?"
+
+"Oh, there's nothing to it," said Duncan, shaking his head and meaning
+just the exact opposite of what his words conveyed, for of such is our
+modern slang.
+
+"Then you're engaged?" Kellogg had understood perfectly, you see.
+
+"No, not _yet_. I've got two months left--almost."
+
+"So you have. And since she's so strong for you, there's no hurry: let
+her take her time."
+
+"I only wish she would." Duncan removed one hand from the pocket the
+better to tug at his moustache. "It's got beyond that--to the point
+where I have to keep dodging her."
+
+"You don't mean it! That's splendid." Kellogg got up and slapped Nat's
+shoulder heartily. "But don't overdo the dodging. She might get her
+back up."
+
+"Not she. She'd eat out of my hand, if I'd let her. You don't
+understand."
+
+"What's the matter, then? Aren't you strong for her?"
+
+"I wish I were."
+
+"But why? Is there another----?"
+
+"No." Nat shook his head, honestly believing he was telling the truth.
+"Only ... I don't look at things the way I did once."
+
+"Just what do you mean by that?"
+
+Nat, squaring himself to face Kellogg, was very serious, now, and
+troubled. "See here, Harry," he said: "do you really want me to carry
+out the rest of the agreement?"
+
+"Most certainly I do. Why not?"
+
+"Because I'm pretty well fixed here. The business is making good--and
+so am I. It won't be long before I can pay you back, with interest, as
+we agreed, without having to marry that poor girl and ... and draw on
+her money to make good to you."
+
+"You want to go back on our agreement?" demanded Kellogg, with a show
+of disappointment and disgust.
+
+"Yes and no. I won't break faith with you, if you insist, but I'd give
+a lot if you'd let me off--let me pay back what you advanced and cry
+quits.... When you outlined this scheme I was down and three times
+out--willing to take a chance at anything, no matter how contemptible.
+Now... well, it's different."
+
+"Good heavens! You don't mean you'd be willing to _live_ here?"
+
+Nat smiled, but not mirthfully. "I don't know," he hesitated; "I'm
+afraid I'm beginning to like it."
+
+"You, Nat?" Kellogg's amazement was unfeigned. "You, ready to spend
+your life here slaving away in this measly store?"
+
+Duncan grunted indignantly. "Hold on, now. Don't you call this a measly
+store. There isn't a more complete drug-store in the State!"
+
+"Do you hear that?" Kellogg appealed vehemently to the universe at
+large. "Is it possible that this is Nat Duncan, the fellow who hated
+work so hard he couldn't earn a living?... Gad, I believe I've arrived
+just in time!"
+
+"In time for what?"
+
+"To save you from yourself, old man. Here's the heiress you came here
+to cop out, ready and anxious, everything else coming your way and ...
+and you're more than half inclined to back out.... You make me tired."
+
+"I suppose I must. But I can't help it. I can't make you see how the
+thing looks to me. You know--I've written you all about everything--
+what this place has meant to me. Until I came here I never realised it
+was in me to make good at anything. But here I have; I'm doing so well
+that I'd actually have some self-respect if I wasn't bound to play this
+low-down trick on Josie Lockwood. I've worked and succeeded and been
+of some service to people who were worth it----"
+
+"Who? Sam Graham?"
+
+"He and his daughter----"
+
+"Oh, his daughter!"
+
+"Now get that foolish idea out of your head; there's nothing in it.
+Betty's just a simple, sweet little girl, who's had a pretty hard time
+and never a real chance in life--until I managed to give it to her. And
+I'd feel pretty good about that if ... Oh, there's no use talking to
+you!"
+
+"No; go on; you're very entertaining." Kellogg laughed mockingly.
+
+"Well, I have tried to keep to the terms of our understanding; I
+singled out this Lockwood girl and worked all the degrees--didn't say
+much, you know--no love-making--just let her catch me looking sadly
+at her once in a while..."
+
+"That's the way to work it."
+
+"Yes, that's the way," Nat assented gloomily. "But the longer I keep it
+up the meaner I feel and... I wish you'd agree to call it off. ...
+These Rubes at first struck me as being nothing but a lot of jay
+freaks, but when I got to know them I realised they were just as human
+as we are. I like them now and... on the level, I'm getting kind of
+stuck on church.... As for work, why, I eat it up!"
+
+Kellogg laughed with delight "Nat," he cried, "my poor crazy friend,
+listen to me: This working and church-going and helping old Graham is
+all very noble and fine, and I'm glad you've done it. This drug-store
+is a monument to the business ability that I always knew was latent in
+you. And clean living hasn't done you any harm.... But now you're due
+to come down to earth. This place pays you a neat profit. Well and
+good! That's all it'll ever do. It's new to you now and you like the
+novelty and you're having the time of your life finding out you're good
+for something. But pretty soon it'll begin to stale on you, and before
+long you'll find yourself hating it and the town--and then you'll be
+back where you started. Now, I'm going to hold you to our bargain for
+your own sake. If you're stuck on the town and the work you can keep
+right on just as well after you're married; but when you do begin to
+tire of it, you'll want that fortune to fall back on and do what you
+like with. Don't let this chance slip--not on your life!"
+
+"But," Nat argued feebly, "think of the injustice to the girl. From
+the way I've behaved since I struck this burg she thinks I'm closely
+related to the saints."
+
+"Very well, then; I'll concede a point. If you really think you're
+taking a mean advantage of her, when she proposes to you tell her all
+about yourself--just the sort of a chap you've been. You needn't
+mention our agreement, however. Then if she wants to drop you, I'll
+have nothing to say."
+
+"Thank you for nothing," said Duncan bitterly. "A bargain's a bargain.
+I gave you my word of honour I'd go through with this thing, and I'll
+stick to it. But I tell you now, I don't like it."
+
+"Oh, I know how you feel, Nat. But I _know_ that some day you'll
+come to me and say: 'Harry, if you had let me back out, I'd never have
+forgiven you.'"
+
+"All right," said Nat impatiently. "I presume you know best."
+
+"You can bet I do. And now I'd like to meet old Graham."
+
+"I'll take you right up--no, I can't. Here comes a customer. But you
+just go through that door and upstairs; he'll be in the laboratory--the
+front room--and he knows all about you. I'll join you just as soon as
+Tracey gets back."
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+
+PROVING THE PERSPICUITY OF MR. KELLOGG
+
+A customer came and went, and then Nat noticed that twilight was
+beginning to darken the store. Though the hour wasn't late and the
+evenings were long at that season, the windows faced the east, and
+there were huge, overshadowing elms outside--just then heavy with
+luxuriant foliage; so dusk was always early in the room.
+
+It was one of Nat's axioms that a store, to be successful, should be
+always brilliantly lighted. It was a bit expensive, perhaps, but in the
+long run it paid. For that reason he installed electric light as soon
+as he felt the business could afford it.
+
+Now he moved to the windows and switched on the bulbs behind the huge
+glass jars filled with tinted water. Returning, he was about to connect
+up the remainder of the illuminating system, when Josie, entering,
+stayed him. Later he was glad of this.
+
+"Nat..."
+
+He knew that voice. "Why, Josie!" he exclaimed in surprise, swinging
+about to discover her standing on the threshold--very dainty and
+fetching, indeed, in one of the summery frocks she had brought back
+from New York.
+
+She moved over to him, holding out her hand. He took it with disguised
+reluctance. "Where's Tracey?" she asked with a look that first held his
+eyes, then reviewed the store.
+
+"This is his afternoon off," Nat reminded her.
+
+"Then you're all alone?" she deduced archly.
+
+"Oh, quite...."
+
+"I'm so glad." She sighed and dropped into a chair by the soda-water
+counter. "I wanted to see you--to talk to you alone."
+
+He bit his lip in his annoyance, shivering with a presentiment. "What
+about, Josie?"
+
+"About Wednesday night--after prayer meeting. Why didn't you wait for
+me?"
+
+"Why--ah--I had to get back to the store, you know--there were some
+cheques to be made out and sent off, and I'd forgotten them. Besides,"
+he added on inspiration, "you were talking with Roland and I didn't
+want to interrupt you."
+
+"So you left me to go home with him?"
+
+"Why, what else--"
+
+"You're making me awful' unhappy." Her voice trembled.
+
+"_I_, Josie?"
+
+"Yes. You knew I didn't want to walk home with Roland."
+
+"How could I know that?"
+
+"I should think you ought to know it, Nat, unless you're blind.
+Besides, I told you once."
+
+"True," he fenced desperately, "but that was a long time ago; and how
+could I be sure you hadn't changed your mind? Besides, you know, I
+mustn't monopolise you. If I do...."
+
+"Well?" she inquired sweetly as he paused on the lip of a break.
+
+"Why, if I do--ah--"
+
+"If you're afraid people will talk about us, seeing us so much
+together, you needn't worry. They're doing that now."
+
+"Why, Josie!"
+
+"Yes, they are. We've been going together so long, and then suddenly
+you don't seem to care about--care to be alone with me at all. This
+is the first chance I've had to talk to you, when there wasn't somebody
+else round, for I don't know how long. And even now you don't seem glad
+to see me."
+
+"You should _know_ I am...."
+
+"You don't act like it."
+
+"It's so unexpected," he muttered wretchedly.
+
+"You didn't really think I wanted Roland Barnette to go home with me
+Wednesday night, did you, Nat?"
+
+"It seemed so, but ... that's all right. Why shouldn't you?"
+
+She turned to him, trembling a little. "Must I tell you, Nat?"
+
+"O, no!" he cried in dismay. "Please don't----!"
+
+"I see I must," she persisted. "You're so blind. It----"
+
+"Josie, don't say anything you'll be sorry for," he entreated wildly.
+
+"I can't help it: I've got to. It was--it was because I wanted to be
+with you.... There!" she gasped, frightened by her own forwardness.
+
+"Now I've said it!"
+
+Duncan grasped frantically at straws. "But you don't really mean it,
+Josie: you know you don't," he floundered. "You're just saying that
+because you--you have such a kind heart and--ah--don't want to hurt
+me--ah--because----"
+
+She stemmed the flood of his protestations with a hand on his arm.
+"Nat," she said gently, looking up into his face, "would it make you
+happy to know I really meant it?"
+
+"Why--ah--why shouldn't it, Josie?"
+
+"Then please believe me, when I say it."
+
+"But I do believe it. I..." He stammered and fell still.
+
+"Because I do like you, Nat, very much, and--and it's very hard for me
+to know that folks think I'm pursuing you and that you're trying to
+avoid me."
+
+"Josie!" he exclaimed reproachfully.
+
+"Well, that's the way it looks," she affirmed plaintively. "You don't
+want it to, do you?"
+
+"Why, no; of course I don't."
+
+"Then why don't you stop it?" She watched his face, her manner coy and
+yielding. "Nat," she said in a softer voice, "if you like me as well as
+I like you----"
+
+He moved away a pace or two. "Ah, child!" he said, with a feeling that
+the term was not misapplied, somehow, "you don't know what you're
+saying."
+
+"Yes, I do." She pouted. "I don't believe you... care anything about
+me."
+
+"Oh, Josie, please----"
+
+"Well, anyway, you've never told me so." She turned an indignant
+shoulder to him.
+
+"How could I?"
+
+"Why couldn't you?"
+
+"But don't you see that I shouldn't, Josie?" He turned back to her
+side, looked down at her, pleaded his defence with the fire of
+desperation.
+
+"Just think: you are an only daughter." Just what this had to do with
+the case was not plain even to him. "An only daughter," he repeated--
+"ah--not only your father's only daughter, but your mother's only
+daughter. Your father--ah--is my friend. How unfair it would be to him."
+
+But the girl interrupted with decision. "But papa wants you to... He
+told me so."
+
+He could only pretend not to understand. "But consider, Josie: you are
+rich, an heiress: I'm a poor man. Would you like it to be said I was
+after your money?"
+
+"No one would dare say such a thing," she asserted with profound
+conviction.
+
+"Oh, yes, they would. You don't know the world as I do. And for all you
+know, they might be right. How do you know that------"
+
+"Nat!" A catch in her voice stopped him. "Don't say such horrid things!
+I could tell: a woman always can. I know you would be incapable of such
+a thing. Papa knows it, too. No one has ever got ahead of papa, and
+_he_ says you are a fine, steady, Christian man, and he would
+rather see me your wife than any------"'
+
+"Josie!"
+
+The interjection was so imperative that she was silenced. "Why, what,
+Nat?" she asked, rising.
+
+"The time has come," he declared; "you must know the truth."
+
+"Oh, Nat!"
+
+"I'm _not_ what you think me," he continued, dramatic.
+
+_"Oh, Nat!"_
+
+"Nor what your father thinks me, nor what anybody else in this town
+thinks me. I'm not a regular Christian--it's all a bluff: I didn't
+know anything about a church till I came here. I smoke and I drink and
+I swear and I gamble, and I only cut them all out in order to trick you
+into caring for me!"
+
+"Oh, Nat, I don't believe it."
+
+"Alas, Josie!" he protested violently, "it's true, only too true!"
+
+"But you did it to win my love, Nat?"
+
+"Ye-es." He saw suddenly that he had made a fatal mistake.
+
+"Then, Nat, I will be your wife in spite of all!"
+
+He found himself suddenly caught about the neck by the girl's arms. His
+head was drawn down until her cheek caressed his and he felt her lips
+warm upon his own.
+
+"Josie!" he gasped.
+
+"Nat, my darling!"
+
+With a supreme effort he pulled himself together and embraced the girl.
+"Josie," he said earnestly, "I--I'm going to try to be a good husband
+to you.... And that," he concluded, _sotto voce_, "wasn't in the
+agreement!"
+
+She held him to her passionately. "Dearest, I'm so glad!"
+
+"It makes me very happy to know you are, Josie," he murmured miserably.
+And to himself, while still she trembled in his embrace: "What a cur
+you are!... But I won't renege now; I'll play my hand out on the
+square, with her...."
+
+Upon this tableau there came a sudden intrusion. The back door opened
+and Graham came in, Kellogg at his heels. It was the voice of the
+latter that told the two they were discovered: a hearty "Hello! What's
+this?" that rang in Nat's ears like the trump of doom.
+
+In a flash the girl disengaged herself, and they were a yard apart by
+the time that Graham, blundering in his surprise, managed to turn on
+the lights at the switchboard. But even in the full glare of them he
+seemed unable to credit his sight.
+
+"Why, Nat!" he quavered, coming out toward the guilty pair. "Why,
+Nat...!"
+
+Duncan took a long breath and Josie's hand at one and the same time.
+"Mr. Graham," he said coolly, "I'm glad you're the first to know it.
+Josie has just ask--agreed to be my wife."
+
+Old Sam recovered sufficiently to take the girl's hand and pat it. "I'm
+mighty glad, my dear," he told her. "I congratulate you both with all
+my heart."
+
+"And so will I, when I have the right," Kellogg added, smiling.
+
+"Oh, I forgot." Nat hastened to remedy his oversight. "Josie, this is
+my dearest friend, Mr. Kellogg; Harry, this is Miss Lockwood."
+
+
+Josie gave Kellogg her hand. "I--I," she giggled--"I'm pleased to meet
+you, I'm sure."
+
+"I'm charmed. I've heard a great deal of you, Miss Lockwood, from Nat's
+letters, and I shall hope to know you much better before
+long."
+
+"It's awful' nice of you to say so, Mr. Kellogg."
+
+"And, Nat, old man!" Kellogg threw an arm round Duncan's shoulder. "I
+congratulate you! You're a lucky dog!"
+
+"I'm a dog, all right," said Nat glumly.
+
+"But we mustn't disturb these young people, Mr. Kellogg," Graham broke
+in nervously.
+
+"They'll--they'll have a lot to say to one another, I'm sure; so we'll
+just run along. I'm taking Mr. Kellogg up to the house, Nat. You'll
+follow us as soon as you can, won't you?"
+
+"Yes--sure."
+
+"I've got some news for you, too, that'll make you happy."
+
+"Never mind about that; it'll keep till supper, Mr. Graham." Kellogg
+laughed, taking the old man's arm. "Good-bye, both of you--good-bye for
+a little while."
+
+"Good-bye..."
+
+"Wasn't that terrible!" Josie turned back to Nat when they were alone.
+"I think it was real mean of Mr. Graham to turn on all the lights
+that way," she simpered. "Somebody else might've seen."
+
+"Yes," agreed the young man, half distracted; "but of course I daren't
+turn them off again."
+
+"Never mind. We can wait." Josie blushed.
+
+"I'll just sit here and wait--we can talk till Tracey comes, and then
+you can walk home with me."
+
+"Yes, that'll be nice," he agreed, but without absolute ecstasy.
+
+Fortunately for him, in his temper of that moment, Pete Willing reeled
+into the shop, two-thirds drunk, with his face smeared with blood from
+a cut on his forehead.
+
+"'Scuse me," he muttered huskily. "Kin I see you a minute, Doc?"
+
+He reeled and almost fell--would have fallen had not Duncan caught his
+arm and guided him to a chair. "Great Scott, Pete!" he cried. "What's
+happened to you?"
+
+"M' wife..." Pete explained thickly.
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+
+ROLAND SHOWS HIS HAND
+
+"Perhaps I'd better go." Josie, fluttering with alarm and a little
+pale, went quickly to the door.
+
+Duncan followed her a pace or two. "I can't leave just now," he
+stammered.
+
+"I don't mind one bit. I don't want to be in the way. I'll telephone
+from home.... Good-night, dearest!" On tiptoes she drew his face down
+to hers and kissed him. "I'm so happy..."
+
+Half dazed, Nat stared after her until her lightly moving figure merged
+with the shadows beneath the trees and was lost. Then, with a sigh, he
+turned back to Pete.
+
+The sheriff had undoubtedly suffered at the hands of that militant
+person, Mrs. Willing. "Great Scott!" Duncan exclaimed as he examined
+the two-inch gash in his head. "That's a bird, Pete."
+
+"M' wife done it," Willing muttered huskily. "Sh' threw side 'r th'
+house at me, I think."
+
+"Wife, eh?" The coincidence smote Duncan with redoubled force. He
+shivered "Well, she certainly gave it to you good." He went behind the
+counter to prepare a dressing for the wound, which, if wide, was
+neither deep nor serious and gave him little concern for Pete.
+
+The latter ruminated on the event, breathing stertorously, while Duncan
+was fixing up a wash of peroxide. "She'll kill me some day," he
+announced suddenly, with intense conviction in his tone.
+
+"Oh, don't say that...."
+
+Opposition roused Pete to a fury of assertion. "Yes, she will, sure!"
+he bawled. Then his emotion quieted. "But I'd 'bout as soon be dead's
+live with her, anyway."
+
+"_Um_." Nat got some absorbent cotton and adhesive plaster. "Been
+drinking again, hadn't you?"
+
+"Yesh," Pete admitted with a leer of drunken cunning. "But she druv me
+to it." He was quiet for a moment. "Mish'r Duncan," he volunteered
+cheerfully, "you ain't got _no_ idee how lucky y'are y'aint married."
+
+"Is that so?" Nat returned with the dressings.
+
+"No idee'tall." Pete surrendered his head to Nat's ministrations. "'Nd
+I hope y' won't never have."
+
+"But I'm going to be married, Pete."
+
+The sheriff assimilated this information and became abruptly
+intractable. He jerked his head away and swung round in his chair to
+argue the matter.
+
+"Oh, no!" he expostulated. "Don't, Mish'r Duncan. Don't never do it.
+Take warnin' from me."
+
+"But I'm engaged, Pete."
+
+"Maksh no diff'runsh--break it off." His voice rose to a howl of alarm.
+"F'r Gaw's sake, break it off!--now, before it's too late! Do anythin'
+rather'n that: drink--lie--steal--murder--c'mit suicide--don't care
+what--only _keep single!_" "Here," said Duncan, laughing, "sit back
+there and let me'tend to your head." He began to wash the wound with
+the peroxide. "There: that'll sting a bit, but not long.... But
+suppose, Pete, I'd get a lot of money by marrying?"
+
+"No matter how mush y'get, 'tain't enough!"
+
+"I'm inclined to think you're about right, Pete."
+
+"You bet I'm right. I'm married 'nd _I know_."
+
+Nat finished dressing the cut, smoothed down the ends of the adhesive
+tape, and stood back. "That's all right, now. Go home, wash your face,
+and sleep it off. Let me see you sober in the morning."
+
+"Huh!" Pete chuckled derisively. "Ain't goin' home t'night."
+
+"You've got to get some sleep: that's the only way for you to
+straighten up."
+
+"Well," agreed Pete, rising, "then I'll go over to the barn 'nd sleep
+with the horse."
+
+"Aren't you afraid he'll step on you?" asked Nat, amused.
+
+"Maybe he will," Pete replied fairly, "but I'd ruther risk that 'n m'
+wife."
+
+He swerved and lurched toward the door. "Thanks, doc, 'nd g'night," he
+mumbled, and incontinently collided with Roland Barnette.
+
+Roland was working under a full head of steam, apparently; his
+naturally sanguine complexion was several shades darker than the
+normal, and he was seething with repressed emotion--excitement,
+anticipated triumph, jealousy, envy and hatred: all centring upon the
+hapless head of Nat Duncan. Plunging along with his head down, his
+thoughts wholly preoccupied with his grievance and its remedy, he
+bumped into Willing and cannoned off, recognising him with an angry
+growl. The result of this was to stay Pete's departure; he grasped
+the frame of the door and steadied himself, glaring round at the
+aggressor.
+
+"'Lo, Roland," he said, focussing his vision. "Whash masser?"
+
+Roland disregarded him entirely. "Say, you!" he snorted, catching sight
+of Nat. "I want to see you."
+
+"Oh?" Nat drawled exasperatingly. He had never had much use for Roland,
+and now with hidden joy he read the signs of passion on the boy's
+inflamed countenance. Happy he would be, thought Nat, if Roland were to
+be delivered into his hands that night. He owed the world a grudge,
+just then, and needed nothing more than an object to wreak his
+vengeance upon. "Well, I'll stake you to a good long look," he added
+sweetly.
+
+"Ah-h! don't you try to be so funny; you might get hurt."
+
+Pete seemed to be suddenly electrified by Ro-land's matter. "Here!" he
+interposed. "Whajuh mean by that?" And relinquishing his grasp on the
+door, he reeled between the two and thrust his face close to Roland's.
+"Who're you talkin' to, an'way?" he demanded, truculent.
+
+Nat stepped forward quickly and grabbed Pete's arm. "That's all right,
+Pete," he soothed him. "Don't get nervous. Roly won't hurt anybody."
+
+The diminutive stung Roland to exasperation. "Why, damn you----!" he
+screamed, and promptly became inarticulate with rage.
+
+"Ah! ah! ah!" Nat wagged a reproving forefinger. "Naughty word, Roly!
+Careful, or you'll sour your chewing gum."
+
+"Now, say! Do you think----"
+
+At this juncture Pete drowned his words with an incoherent roar, having
+apparently reached the conclusion that the time had now arrived when it
+would be his duty and pleasure to eat Roland alive. Nat saved the young
+man by the barest inch; he grappled with Pete and drew himself aside
+just in time.
+
+"Steady, Pete!" he said quietly. "Steady, old man. Let Roland alone."
+
+"Awrh, I ain't 'fraid of him!" spluttered Pete.
+
+"Neither am I. Get out, won't you, and leave him to me."
+
+"Aw'right." Pete became more calm. "I'll leave him 'lone, but all the
+same I wan' it 'stinctly un'erstood I kin lick any man in town 'ceptin'
+m' wife. G'night, everybody."
+
+He gathered himself together and by a supreme effort lunged through the
+door and into the deepening dusk.
+
+"Well, Roly?" Nat asked, turning back.
+
+His ironic calm gave Roland pause. For a moment he lost his bearings
+and stammered in confusion. "I come in to tell you that me and you's
+apt to have trouble," he concluded.
+
+"Oh? And are you thinking of starting it?"
+
+"You bet I'll start it, and I'll start it damn' quick if you don't
+leave Josie Lockwood alone."
+
+"So that's the trouble, is it?" commented Nat thoughtfully.
+
+"Yes, that's the trouble. From now on I want you to let her alone, and
+you'll do it, too, if you know what's best for you."
+
+A suggestion of menace in his manner, unconnected with any hint of
+physical correction, caught Nat's attention. He frowned over it.
+
+"Just what do you mean by this line of talk?" he inquired blandly,
+stepping nearer.
+
+"I'll tell you what I mean." Roland clenched both fists and thrust his
+chin out pugnaciously. "I'd been a-goin' steady with Josie Lockwood for
+more'n a year before you come here and thought that, on account of her
+money, you could sneak in and cut me out...."
+
+"Was her money the reason you were after her, Roly?"
+
+"What----?" The question brought Roland momentarily up in the wind.
+"'Tain't none of your business if it was!" he snapped, recovering. "But
+here's what I'm gettin' at." He tapped his breast-pocket with a sneer
+of bucolic triumph. "Just about ten months ago," he continued
+meaningly, "they was a cashier skipped out of the Longacre National
+Bank in Noo Yawk, and they ain't got no track of him yet."
+
+So this was why Roland had been so assiduous a student of the back
+files in the Citizen office!
+
+"Indeed?"
+
+"Yes, indeed. I had my suspicions all along, but didn't say nothin',
+but just to-day I got a description of him, and the description just
+fits, Mr. Mortimer Henry."
+
+"Just fits Mr. Mortimer Henry? But what has that----?"
+
+"Ah, don't you try to seem too darn' innocent," Roland snarled. "You
+can't fool me!"
+
+A light dawned upon Nat, and laughter flooded his being, although
+outwardly he remained imperturbable--merely mildly curious. But his
+fingers were itching.
+
+"So you think I'm the absconding cashier, eh, Roly?"
+
+"You keep away from Josie 'r you'll find out what I think." Nat's
+placidity deceived Roland, who drew the wholly erroneous conclusion
+that he had succeeded in frightening his rival, and consequently dared
+a few lengths further in his tirade. "Why, if I was to go to Mr.
+Lockwood and tell him you're Mortimer Henry, alias Nat Duncan----"
+
+Duncan's temper suddenly snapped like a taut violin string.
+
+"That will do," he said icily. "That will be all for this evening,
+thanks."
+
+"Ah... Are you going to quit chasin' after Josie?"
+
+"I'll begin chasing after you if you don't clear out of here."
+
+"You better agree----"
+
+[Illustration: "Betty!"]
+
+Just there the storm burst. Ten seconds later Roland, with a confused
+impression of having been kicked by a mule, picked himself up out of
+the dust in the middle of the street and stared stupidly back at the
+store. Nat was waiting in the doorway for a renewal of hostilities, if
+any such there were to be. Seeing, however, that Roland had apparently
+sated his appetite for personal conflict, he picked up a dark object at
+his feet and held it out.
+
+"Here's your hat, Roly," he called.
+
+Roland spat out a mouthful of dust and swore beneath his breath. "Throw
+it out here," he replied prudently.
+
+Tossing him the hat, Nat turned contemptuously. "Come in again, any
+time you want to apologise," he shouted over his shoulder, as an
+afterthought.
+
+He paused in the middle of the store and felt of his necktie. It proved
+to be a little out of place, but otherwise he was as immaculate as was
+his wont. He reviewed the encounter and laughed quietly.
+
+"There's no cure for a fool," he mused....
+
+The telephone bell roused him from his reverie. He went over to the
+instrument, sat down, and put the receiver to his ear.
+
+"Hello?" he said.... "Oh, hello, Josie! ... What's that?... That's
+right, but I'm not used to it yet, you know.... Well, I'll try again.
+Now--ready?"
+
+He schooled his voice to a key of heartrending sentiment: "Hello,
+darling.... How's that? ... Told your father? Told him what?... Oh,
+about the engagement! Was he angry? ... Oh, he wasn't, eh? What did he
+say? ... Wasn't that nice of him!..."
+
+Conscious of a slight noise in the store he looked up. A young woman
+had just entered. She paused just inside the door, smiling at him a
+little timidly.
+
+Without another word to his fiancee Nat put down the telephone and
+hooked up the receiver.
+
+"Betty!" he cried wonderingly.
+
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+
+AS OTHERS SAW HIM
+
+If Nat's cry of recognition had been wondering, it was no less one of
+delight. The surprise he felt was perfectly natural; Betty wasn't to
+have returned until the morrow, and was therefore the last person he
+had expected to see when he looked up from the telephone desk. But it
+was the change in the girl that most stirred him: the change he had
+prophesied, planned for, anticipated eagerly throughout the long seven
+months of her absence; to have his expectations so wonderfully
+fulfilled, and more than fulfilled, pleased him beyond expression. And
+it's curious to speculate upon the fact that he fancied his greatest
+pleasure came from the knowledge that old Sam would be so overjoyed....
+
+It was really only a paraphrase of the old story of the grub and the
+butterfly. The little, starveling drudge who had found him in the
+store, that first day, had completely vanished; it was as if she had
+never been. In her place he discovered a girl all grace and loveliness,
+her slender figure ripening into gracious womanhood; a girl of mind and
+heart and understanding, all fire and tenderness; demure, intelligent,
+with a pretty pose of independence and sureness of herself moderated by
+modesty and reserve. Her travelling dress of sober colouring and severe
+lines became her bewitchingly. Beneath the brim of her dainty hat, with
+veil thrown back, her dark hair waved back, glossy with the sheen of
+perfect well-being, from a face serenely charming--the more so for her
+slightly deepened flush; and the eyes that shone into Nat's danced with
+the light of enjoyment, bred of his supreme astonishment....
+
+"Nat, I'm so glad to see you again!"
+
+He was speechless.
+
+She laughed, put down her suit-case, and moved toward him, offering him
+both her hands. He took them, stammering.
+
+"It's such a surprise, Betty----!"
+
+"I knew it would be. I just couldn't wait, Nat, when I found I could
+get here by the night train instead of tomorrow morning. I haven't been
+home, you know, but I couldn't resist the temptation to stop in here
+and see--what the store looked like after all these months. Besides, I
+thought that you or father----" Her eyes fell and she faltered,
+withdrawing her hands.
+
+By now he had himself in hand. "Why," he laughed, "you nearly took my
+breath away. Even now I can hardly believe it..."
+
+"Believe what, Nat?" she asked quickly.
+
+"That you're the same little Betty Graham. I never saw such a change."
+
+"It's a change for the better, isn't it, Nat?" she asked with a smile
+half wistful.
+
+"I should think it was. It's just marvellous!"
+
+"Did I seem so very awful, then?"
+
+"Nonsense. You know you didn't, only, now..."
+
+"Then you think father will be pleased?"
+
+"If he isn't, I'm blind!"
+
+She looked away, embarrassed, and touched by his interest and his
+feeling. "And does it make you a little proud, Nat?"
+
+"Proud!" he exclaimed blankly.
+
+"Because you know you've done it all. If there's any improvement in
+Betty Graham to-day, it's because of you. If it hadn't been for
+you----"
+
+"Never in the world; you don't know what you're talking about, Betty.
+Nobody but yourself could have brought about this change. It had to be
+in you before it could come out. You know that."
+
+She shook her head very decidedly, seating herself on one of the chairs
+by the soda-fountain. "Oh, no," she contradicted calmly and sincerely.
+"Why, Nat, don't you suppose I have any memory? You began making me a
+better girl the very first day we met here in the store, by the things
+you said to me. And ever since I've been watching you, while you were
+making life a Heaven for father and me, and thinking that if I were a
+man I'd try to be as near like you as I could."
+
+"Oh, don't say that," he pleaded wretchedly.
+
+"It's true.... And when you sent me away to school I promised myself
+I'd try to repay you for the sacrifice you must be making for me; that
+I'd follow your example as nearly as ever I could; that I'd work hard
+and try to treat people the way you do--kindly, Nat, and considerately,
+and bravely and tenderly and honestly----"
+
+He dropped into a chair near her and buried his head in his hands.
+"Don't!" he begged huskily. "Please, Betty, don't!"
+
+But she wouldn't stop, little guessing how she was racking his heart in
+her innocent desire to make him understand how deeply she appreciated
+all he had done for her. "And, O Nat, it's worked so wonderfully! It's
+made all the girls at school like me, and it's made me understand and
+like everybody else better; and now, what's ten thousand times the best
+of all, you notice an improvement the minute you see me! And I--I never
+was so happy in all my life." She bent forward and took one of his
+hands, patting it softly. "Nat, I think you're the very best man in the
+whole world!"
+
+"Don't!" he groaned. "Don't, for Heaven's sake!"
+
+"Oh, I know, Nat--I know you don't like me to say this, but I must,
+just the same, tell you the truth about yourself. It's so splendid to
+live the life you do. You're all unconscious of it, but I want you to
+realise it and know that I do, too. You've made everybody love you
+and..."
+
+But confusion silenced her, and she gently replaced his hand. For
+several moments neither spoke. Then Nat broke the tension with a short,
+hard laugh.
+
+"That's right," he said inscrutably; "that was the idea...."
+
+"Nat, what do you mean?"
+
+He turned to her. "Betty, does it make you--feel that way toward me?"
+
+She coloured divinely. "Why, Nat, of course ... Why, everyone..."
+
+"That's why I came here, Betty," he pursued, blind to her
+embarrassment. "I came here with the idea... of getting married...."
+
+He was staring gloomily at the floor and could not see the light that
+dawned upon the girl's face. Absorbed in the struggle with his
+conscience he had no least suspicion of how his words were affecting
+her. He knew only that he must somehow make a confession to her, that
+to own her regard and gratitude on the terms that then existed between
+them was utterly intolerable.
+
+"You never guessed that, did you?"
+
+"No," she breathed brokenly. "No, Nat, I--"
+
+"Well, it's the truth and...." He rose and moved away. "But I can't
+tell you just now--not now...."
+
+"No, not now, Nat." Betty, too, got up. "I think I'd better go home and
+see father--I mustn't forget--" she faltered, half blinded by the mist
+of the happiness before her eyes.
+
+"No--wait." She stopped to find his gaze full upon her; for the first
+time he comprehended that she had not understood, that, worst of all,
+she had misunderstood. "I must tell you," he blurted desperately, "I
+must."
+
+Instinctively she moved a step toward him. He hung his head.
+
+"To-night, Betty--this evening, just a little while ago, I became
+engaged to Josie Lockwood."
+
+She stood as if petrified throughout a wait that seemed to both
+interminable. Then he heard her catch her breath sharply. He looked up,
+frightened, but she was smiling steadily into his face. Somehow he
+found her hand in his.
+
+"Oh, Nat dear," she said, "I'm so glad for you.... I wish you all the
+happiness in the world. I ... Good-night."
+
+
+The hand slipped out of Nat's. He did not move, but waited there with
+his empty palm outstretched, despair in his eyes and hell in his heart,
+while she walked quietly from the store.
+
+After some time he awoke to the knowledge that she was gone.
+
+"Blithering fool!" he growled. "Why didn't I know I loved her like
+this?" He took a turn to and fro, distracted. "And now I've made a mess
+of everything! Good Lord! what can I do? I must do something or go
+mad!" He swung round behind the soda-fountain counter and seized a
+bottle. "I know what! The rules are off! I can have a drink! I can have
+two drinks! I can have a million drinks if I want 'em!"
+
+Pouring a generous dose of raw whiskey into the glass he lifted it to
+his lips and threw back his head. But the heavy bouquet of the liquor
+was stifling in his nostrils, and the first mouthful of it almost
+choked him. In a fury he flung the glass from him, so that it crashed
+and splintered upon the floor. "Great Heavens!" he cried. "I don't like
+the stuff any more.... But"--his gaze fell upon the cigar case--"I can
+have a smoke. That'll help some!"
+
+With feverish haste he snatched a cigar from the nearest box, gnawed
+off one end, and thrusting the other into the alcohol lighter, puffed
+vigorously. But to his renovated palate the potent fumes of the tobacco
+were no less repugnant than the whiskey had been. Half strangled, he
+plucked the cigar from his mouth and stamped on it.
+
+"Oh," he cried wildly, "I'll be--I'll be damned!"
+
+He paused, staring vacantly at nothing. "And even that doesn't do any
+good! God help me, I've forgotten how to swear!"
+
+To him, in this overwrought state, came Tracey, lumbering cheerfully
+in, his mouth shaped for a whistle. At sight of Nat he pulled up as if
+hit by a club.
+
+"'Evenin', Mister Duncan. What's the matter?"
+
+By an effort Nat brought his gaze to bear upon the boy and comprehended
+his existence.
+
+"Ain't you feeling well, Mr. Duncan?"
+
+"No--rotten!"
+
+"What's the matter?"
+
+"_Nothing_!" Nat shouted ferociously.
+
+"Anything I kin----"
+
+"_No_!"
+
+At that instant Kellogg appeared. "Hello, Nat! What's been keeping you?
+I came down to bring you home to supper."
+
+"Go to blazes with your supper! Keep away from me! Don't talk to me! I
+don't want anything to do with you, d'you understand? You and your
+confounded systems have got me into all this----"
+
+He caught sight of his hat abruptly, ceased talking, grabbed the hat
+and jammed it on his head, muttering; then started on a run for the
+door.
+
+"But what's the matter?" demanded Kellogg, thunderstruck. "Here! Hold
+on! Where are you going?"
+
+"To the only place I can get any consolation--church!"
+
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+
+ROLAND'S TRIUMPH
+
+But at the doorstep of the Methodist Church Nat hesitated. The building
+was dimly lighted, for it was choir practise night, and the door was
+ajar; but he couldn't bring himself to enter. He would not long have
+peace and quiet in which to think, there; presently would come Angle
+and Josie and Roland and...
+
+"I couldn't stand it; I'd probably murder Roland....
+
+"Besides, I've no right there--an impostor--a contemptible low-lived
+pup like me!...
+
+"Why the thunderation did I ever allow myself to be persuaded to come
+here? Why was I ever such a fool?...
+
+"How _could_ I be such a fool?..."
+
+He was walking, now, striding swiftly through the silent village
+streets, meeting few wayfarers and paying them no heed, whether they
+knew and greeted him or not. His entire consciousness was obsessed by
+regret, repentance and remorse. He had ruined everything, deceived
+everybody--even himself for a time--played the cad and the bounder with
+consummate address. There were no bounds to the contempt he felt for
+the man who had tricked these simple, kindly folk into believing him
+immaculate, impeccable; who had hoodwinked "that old prince, Graham,"
+and under false pretences gained his confidence and affection; who had
+deliberately set out to snare an innocent and trusting girl for the
+sake of the filthy money her father owned; who had made another and a
+better girl love him, though that he had done so unconsciously, only to
+break her heart; who had sacrificed everything, honour and decency and
+self-respect, to his greed for money.
+
+But it should go no further. He'd given what he called his word of
+honour to a despicable compact; there could be no dishonour so great as
+holding by that word, sticking to his bargain, maintaining the
+deception and--ruining the life of one woman--perhaps two: Josie
+Lockwood's, for he could never love her; and possibly Betty Graham's,
+for she was of that sort that loves once and once only. If she truly
+loved him...
+
+But by his own act he had placed himself forever beyond the joy of her
+love. He could never accept it, desire it as passionately as he
+might--and did. He could never consent to drag her down to his base
+level...
+
+To-morrow--no, to-night, that very night, he would unmask himself,
+declare his character to them all, pillory himself that all might see
+how low a man could fall. And to-morrow he would go, leave Radville,
+lose himself to all that had come to be so dear to him, forever....
+
+So, raving and ranting with the extravagance of youth, he passed
+through the village, out into the open country, and in the course of an
+hour and a half, back--all blindly: circling back to the store, in the
+course of his wanderings, as instinctly as a carrier pigeon shapes its
+course for home.
+
+It was with incredulity that he found himself again in that cheerful,
+cherished, homely place. But there he was when he came out of his
+abstraction: there in those familiar surroundings, with Tracey's round
+red face beaming at him over the cigar-stand like a lively counterfeit
+of the round red moon he had watched lift up into the skies, back there
+in the still countryside, just as he paused to turn back to town.
+
+He recollected his faculties and resumed command of himself
+sufficiently to acknowledge Tracey's greeting with a moody word.
+
+"All right, Tracey," he said abruptly. "You may go, now. I'll shut up
+the store."
+
+He looked at his watch, and was surprised to discover that it was no
+later than half-past eight. He seemed to have lived a lifetime in the
+last few hours.
+
+
+"Thank you, sir," said Tracey with a gush of gratitude. "I'll be glad
+to get off. Angle's waiting."
+
+"Angle----?"
+
+"Good-evening, Mr. Duncan."
+
+"Oh, Miss Tuthill!" Nat discovered that little rogue, all smiles and
+dimples and blushes, not distant from his elbow. "I didn't see you--I
+was thinking."
+
+"Guess we know what you was thinkin' about," observed Tracey, bringing
+his hat round the counter. "Everybody in town's talkin' about it."
+
+"About what?"
+
+"Ah, you know about what, and we're mighty glad of it, and we want to
+congratulate you, don't we, Angie."
+
+"Oh, yes, indeed, Mr. Duncan. It's just too sweet for anything."
+
+"O Lord!" groaned Nat.
+
+"I'm awful glad you done it when you did," pursued Tracey, oblivious to
+Nat in his own ecstatic temper. "I guess I wouldn't never 've got up
+the spunk to--to tell Angie what I did to-night, 'f it hadn't been we
+was talkin' 'bout your engagement to Josie. Then, somehow, it just
+seemed to bust right out of me, like I couldn't hold it no longer.
+Didn't it, Angie?"
+
+"Oh, Tracey, how can you talk so!"
+
+"Then you're engaged, too?" Nat inquired, rousing himself a little and
+smiling feebly upon them.
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"I'm glad to hear it. It's great news. Now run along, both of you, and
+don't forget you'll never be so happy again." With what he thought an
+expiring flash of humour he raised his hands above their heads. "Bless
+you, my children!" he said solemnly. "Now, for Heaven's sake, beat it!"
+
+Alone he went to the prescription desk and opening one of the drawers
+took out the firm's books. After that for some fifteen minutes there
+was nothing to be heard in the store save Nat's breathing and the
+scratching of his pen as he figured out a trial balance....
+
+Brisk footfalls disturbed him. He sighed and moved out into the store
+to find Kellogg there, suave and easy as always, yet with that in his
+manner, perceptible perhaps only to a friend of long-standing like Nat,
+to betray a mind far from complacent.
+
+"Oh, you're here!" he cried, with a distinct start of relief. "I've
+been looking all over for you."
+
+"I just got in." Nat brushed aside explanations curtly, intent upon his
+purpose. "Harry, I've got something to say to you: I'm not going
+through with this thing."
+
+"You're not?"
+
+"No; and that's final. I was just on the point of drawing you a cheque
+for three-hundred; that's all my share of the profits of this concern,
+so far; and my note for the balance. I'll pay that up as soon as I'm
+able--and I'll work like a terrier until I do. But as for the rest of
+it, I'm through."
+
+"Oh, you are?" Kellogg took a chair and tipped back, frowning gravely.
+"But what about your word to me?"
+
+"Damn that," said Duncan without heat. "The word of honour of a man
+who'd stoop to a trick as vile as I have doesn't amount to a
+continental shinplaster. I'll rather be dishonoured by breaking it than
+by ruining a woman's life."
+
+"Very well, if you feel that way about it," said Kellogg as coolly.
+"And you may keep your cheque and note: I wouldn't take them. You can
+pay me back when it's convenient--I don't care when. But what I want to
+know is what you mean to do?"
+
+"I mean to do the only thing left to do. I'm going to shut up here and
+then see Lockwood and Josie and tell them the whole story."
+
+"Hm," Kellogg reflected, quizzical. "You've got a pleasant little job
+ahead of you."
+
+"I don't care about that: I deserve all that's coming to me. I owe
+Josie a duty. Why, it's awful, Harry, to trick a girl into caring for
+you and then to--to----"
+
+"Break her heart?" Kellogg's tone was sardonic.
+
+"That's what I meant."
+
+"Don't flatter yourself, my boy. Josie Lockwood doesn't love you; she
+just set herself to win you because you're the best chance she's seen."
+Kellogg laughed quietly. "The system would have worked just as well if
+anyone else had tried it."
+
+"Do you think so--honest?" Nat's eagerness to believe him was
+undisguised.
+
+"I'm sure of it. The trouble is that people will say you've thrown her
+over--there isn't anyone in Radville who hasn't heard the news by this
+time; and that's going to make the girl feel pretty cheap. But only for
+a while: she'll get over it and solace herself with the next best
+thing.... And don't forget; you lose a fortune."
+
+"No, I don't," Duncan disclaimed. "I never had it and now I don't want
+it."
+
+"That's true enough," Kellogg admitted evenly. "And I hope you'll
+always feel that way about it; but, believe me, you'll find plenty of
+money a great help if you want to live a happy life."
+
+"There are better things than money to make a man happy; I'll pass up
+the money and try for the others."
+
+"That's true, too; but when did you find it out?"
+
+"Here--this last year.... You know I had everything my heart desired
+until the governor cashed in; and I used to think I was a pretty happy
+kid in those days. But now I've learned that you can beat that kind of
+happiness to death. Harry"--Duncan was growing almost sententious--"the
+real way to be happy is to work and have your work amount to something
+and--and to have someone who believes in you to work for."
+
+"Is this a sermon, Nat?"
+
+"Call it what you like: it goes, just the same. ... That's what I've
+found out this year."
+
+Kellogg let his chair fall forward and rose, imprisoning Nat's
+shoulders with two heavy but kindly hands. "And you're right!" he cried
+heartily. "I'm glad you had the backbone to back out, Nat. It was a
+low-down trick and I'm ashamed of myself for proposing it. I did it, I
+presume, simply because I'm a schemer at heart, and I knew it would
+work. It did work, but it's worked a finer way than I dreamed of: it's
+made a man of you, Nat, and I'm mightly glad and proud of you!"
+
+Nat swayed with amazement. "What's changed you all of a sudden?" he
+demanded blankly.
+
+Releasing him, Kellogg resumed his seat, laughing. "Well, a number of
+things. Among others, I've talked with Graham and I've met his
+daughter."
+
+"Oh-h!"
+
+"And that reminds me," Kellogg changed the subject briskly; "I
+understood from you that Graham was sole owner of that patent burner."
+
+"So he is."
+
+"He says not. I had a proposition to make him from the Mutual people,
+and he referred me to you, saying that you controlled the matter."
+
+"I've not the slightest interest in it!" Nat protested.
+
+"I know you haven't, but Graham insisted you owned the whole thing. I
+pressed him for an explanation, and he finally furnished one in his
+rambling, inconsequent, fine old way. He admitted that there wasn't any
+sort of an existing contract or agreement of any sort, even oral,
+between you, but just the same you'd been so good to him and his girl
+that he'd made up his mind--some time ago, I gather--to make you a
+present of the burner; but naturally he forgot to tell you about an
+insignificant detail like that."
+
+"Of course that's nonsense; I wouldn't and shant accept."
+
+"Of course you won't. I did you the honour to discount that. But he
+wouldn't say a word about the offer--yes or no--just left it all up to
+you. He says you're a business man, and that he's often thought what a
+help you must have been to me before you left New York."
+
+Nat laughed outright. "Can you beat that? ... But what is the offer?"
+
+"Fifty thousand cash and ten thousand shares of preferred
+stock--hundred dollars par."
+
+"What's that worth?"
+
+"At the market rate when I left town, seventy-eight." Kellogg waited a
+moment. "Well, what do you say?"
+
+"Say? Great Caesar's Ghost! What is there to say? Wire 'em an
+acceptance before they get their second wind.... You don't know how
+good this makes me feel, Harry; I can't thank you enough for what
+you've done. This'll square me with Graham to some extent, and I can
+clear out----"
+
+"No, you can't, Mr. Smarty! You ain't been 'cute enough."
+
+Both men, startled by the interruption, wheeled round to discover
+Roland Barnette dancing with excitement in the doorway, the while he
+beckoned frantically to an invisible party without. "Come on!" he
+shouted. "Here he is!"
+
+"What's eating you, Roly-Poly?" inquired
+
+Nat, too happy for the money to cherish animosity even toward his
+one-time rival.
+
+"You'll find out soon enough," snarled Roland. "Mr. Lockwood's got
+something to say to you, I guess."
+
+And on the heels of this announcement Lockwood strode into the store,
+Josie clinging to his arm, Pete Willing--a trifle more sanely drunk
+than he had been some hours previous--bringing up the rear.
+
+"So!" snarled Blinky, halting and transfixing Nat with the stare of his
+cold blue eyes. "So we've found you, eh?"
+
+"Oh? I didn't know I was lost."
+
+"No nonsense, young man. I ain't in the humour for foolin'." Blinky was
+unquestionably in no sort of a humour at all beyond an evil one. "I
+come here to have a word with you."
+
+"Well, sir?" Nat's tone and attitude were perfectly pacific.
+
+"Ah, there ain't no use beatin' 'round the bush. You've behaved
+yourself ever since you come to Radville, and insinooated yourself into
+our confidence, 'spite of the fact that nobody in town knows who you
+were before you came. But now Roland's laid a charge again' you, and I
+want to know the rights to it."
+
+"Well," Roland interposed cockily, "I accused him of it to-night and he
+didn't deny it."
+
+[Illustration: "You're a thief with a reward out for you!"]
+
+"What's more," Lockwood continued with rising colour, "Roland says he
+can prove it?"
+
+"Prove what?" Nat insisted. "Get down to facts, can't you?"
+
+"That you're a thief with a reward out for you," said Roland. "You're
+that Mortimer Henry what absconded from the Longacre National Bank in
+Noo York."
+
+There fell a brief pause. Nat bowed his head and tugged at his
+moustache, his shoulders shaking with emotion variously construed by
+those who watched him. Presently he looked up again, his features
+gravely composed.
+
+"Roly," said he, "Balaam must miss you terribly."
+
+"That ain't no answer." Lockwood put himself solidly between Nat and
+the object of his obscure remark--who was painfully digesting it. "I
+want to know about this. You got my daughter to say she'd marry you
+this evenin', and you've got to explain to me about this bank business
+before it goes any further."
+
+"Yes?" commented Nat civilly.
+
+"Yes!" thundered Blinky. "Do you deny it? ... Answer me."
+
+To Kellogg's huge diversion, Nat struck an attitude, "I refuse to
+answer," said he.
+
+"Aha! What'd I tell you?" This was Roland's triumphant crow.
+
+"Nat!" Josie advanced, trembling with excitement. "Tell me, what does
+this mean?"
+
+Duncan perforce avoided her gaze. "Don't ask," he said sadly.
+
+"Is it true?" she insisted.
+
+"You heard what Roly said," he replied, with a chastened expression.
+
+"Then you admit it?"
+
+"I admit nothing."
+
+"Oh-h!" The girl drew away from him as from defilement. "I--I hate
+you!" she cried in a voice of loathing
+
+"That's all right," he told her serenely; "I've despised myself all
+evening."
+
+The girl showed him a scornful back. "Papa----" she began.
+
+"Don't thank me, Josie. Roland done it all: he got onto him." Lockwood
+continued to watch Duncan with the air of a cat eyeing a mouse.
+
+Impulsively Josie moved to Roland's side and caught his arm. He drew
+himself up proudly.
+
+"I do thank you, Roland; I can never be grateful enough. I've been so
+foolish.
+
+"That's all right." Roland tucked the girl's hand beneath his arm and
+patted it down. "You wasn't to blame. I never seen anyone from Noo York
+yet that wasn't a crook."
+
+"Won't you please take me away from this--place, Roland?" she appealed.
+
+"I'll be mighty glad to see you home, Josie," he assured her
+generously, turning.
+
+In the act of leaving, Josie caught Nat's eye. She hung back for an
+instant, withering him with a glare. "Oh-h!" she cried. "How did you
+dare pretend to care for me?"
+
+He bowed politely. "It was one of the rules, Josie."
+
+"There's no need to tell you, I guess, that the engagement is broken."
+
+"None whatever, Miss Lockwood. Good-evening."
+
+"Come, Roland!"
+
+Arm in arm they left, with the haughty tread of the elect, while Pete
+Willing lurched to Duncan's side and caught his arm.
+
+"Come 'long to jail, Mish'r Duncan," he said with sympathy. "Mush
+bessher."
+
+"You look after him, Pete." Lockwood turned to leave with a final shot
+for Duncan. "I'll 'tend to your case in the mornin', young man, and
+I'll make you wish you never came to this town."
+
+"You needn't trouble. I feel that way about it already. _Good_-night."
+
+Lockwood left them, snarling. Nat caught Kellogg's eye and began to
+giggle. But Pete was still holding him fast, partially, beyond doubt,
+for support.
+
+"You've been saved just in time, Mish'r Duncan," he commented; "y'are
+mighty lucky man. Now lissen: you better make tracks. I ain't got no
+warrant to hold you, 'nd I wouldn't if I had."
+
+"You're a good fellow, Pete; but you needn't worry. I'm not the man
+they think me, and it'll be easy to prove."
+
+"Wal," said Pete, "jus' the same, you better git out, 'r you may have
+to marry her aft'all."
+
+"No, I won't."
+
+"Thank Gawd f'r that!" Pete exclaimed in maudlin gratitude. He swung
+widely toward the door, and by a miracle found it. "G'night, Mish'r
+Duncan. I feel s' good 'bout thish I'm goin' try goin' home 'nd face m'
+wife. G'night."
+
+"Good-night, Pete."
+
+"Well!" said Kellogg after a pause, "that was a bit of luck!"
+
+"Luck!" Nat seized his hat and began to turn off the lights. "It's more
+luck than I thought there was in the whole world. Come along."
+
+"Where are you going?"
+
+"First, to see Lockwood and have it out with him."
+
+"No, you aren't," Kellogg laughed as Nat locked the door. "You're going
+to leave Lockwood to me; I'll manage to ease his mind. You've got
+infinitely more important matters to attend to--and the sooner you find
+her, the better, Nat!"
+
+
+
+
+XXIII
+
+
+THE RAINBOW'S END
+
+The air was heavy with moisture and very still and warm; a heady
+fragrance of precocious blooms flavoured the air, vying with the scent
+of rain. The silence was profound, but shaken now and then by a grumble
+of distant thunder. The world hung breathless on the issue of the night.
+
+Since evenfall a wall of cloud, massive and portentous, had been
+climbing up over the western hills, slowly but with ominous steadiness
+obscuring the moon-swept sky with its far, pale wreaths of stars,
+blotting it out with monstrous folds and convolutions of impenetrable
+purple-black. Along its crest fire played like swords in the sunlight,
+and now and again sheeted flame lightened the monstrous expanse so that
+it glowed with the pale phosphorescence of a summer sea.
+
+As Duncan hurried homeward over sidewalks chequered in silver and ink,
+the advance of the cloud army seemed to become accelerated. With
+increasing frequency gusts of air set the trees a-shiver until their
+sibilant whispers of warning filled the valley. The rolling of the
+thunder grew more sharp, more instant upon the flashes.... When there
+was no wind the air seemed to quiver with terror--as a dog cringes to
+the whip....
+
+But of this Duncan was barely conscious.
+
+He gained the gate in the fence of wood paling, opened it, and entered.
+The lawn and house were lit with the unearthly radiance of moonlight
+threatened by eclipse. He could see the light in Graham's study and,
+through the open doors, the faint glow of the hall-lamp. But there was
+no one visible.
+
+He hurried up the path, tortured by impatience, fear, longing,
+despair....
+
+Then he saw what seemed at first a pale shadow detach itself from
+darker shades in the shrubbery and move toward him.
+
+"Nat, is it you?"
+
+"Betty!"
+
+His whole heart was in that cry; the girl thrilled to its timbre as
+though a master hand had struck a chord upon her heart-strings.
+
+"Nat, what--what is it?"
+
+"Betty, I want to tell you something."
+
+She came very slowly toward him, torn alternately by fear and hope.
+What did he mean?
+
+"Do you happen to remember that I told you a while ago I was engaged to
+Josie Lockwood?"
+
+[Illustration: "Forever and ever and a day"]
+
+"Nat! Could I forget? ... Why?"
+
+"Because ... it's broken off, Betty."
+
+"Broken off! ... How? Why?"
+
+"Because it had to be, sweetheart: because I love you."
+
+She was very close to him then. Her uplifted face shone like marble in
+the fading light. "Nat, I ... I don't understand."
+
+"Then, listen--I must tell you. It was all a plan, a scheme, my coming
+here, Betty. Everything I did, said, thought, was part of a
+contemptible trick.... I meant to marry Josie Lockwood, whom I'd never
+seen, for her money. ... Now you know what I was, dear.... But it's
+different, now. I'm not the same man who came to Radville ten months
+ago. I've learned a little to understand the right, I hope: I've
+learned to love and reverence goodness and purity and unselfishness and
+... And I want to be a man, the kind of a man you thought me: a man
+worthy of you and your love, Betty.... Because I love you. I want you
+to be my wife. ... And, O Betty, Betty, I need you to help me!"
+
+His voice broke. He waited, every nerve and fibre of him tense for her
+answer. While he had been speaking, the onrush of the storm had blotted
+out the moon. There was only darkness there in the garden--deep, dense
+darkness, so thick he could not even see the shimmer of her dress....
+
+Then suddenly she was in his arms, shaking and sobbing, straining him
+to her.
+
+"Oh, Nat, my Nat! I've loved you from the first day I ever saw you! You
+know I have."
+ "Betty! ... sweetheart..."
+
+There came an abrupt, furious patter of heavy drops of water, beating
+upon the foliage, splashing and rebounding from the house.
+
+"Forever and ever, Nat?"
+
+"Forever and ever and a day, my dear ... my dear!"
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Fortune Hunter, by Louis Joseph Vance
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FORTUNE HUNTER ***
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Fortune Hunter, by Louis Joseph Vance
+#3 in our series by Louis Joseph Vance
+
+Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
+copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing
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+*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****
+
+
+Title: The Fortune Hunter
+
+Author: Louis Joseph Vance
+
+Release Date: January, 2006 [EBook #9747]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on October 15, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FORTUNE HUNTER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Suzanne Shell, Anuradha Valsa Raj, Tonya Allen
+and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: "You can be worth a million ... within a year"]
+
+
+THE FORTUNE HUNTER
+
+By
+
+Louis Joseph Vance
+
+Author Of "The Brass Bowl,"
+"The Bronze Bell," Etc.
+
+_With illustrations by_
+Arthur William Brown
+
+1910
+
+
+To
+George Spellvin, Esq.,
+
+_This book is cheerfully dedicated_
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+CHAPTER
+
+
+I.       FROM HIM THAT HATH NOT
+
+II.      TO HIM THAT HATH
+
+III.     INSPIRATION
+
+IV.      TRIUMPH OF MR. HOMER LITTLE JOHN
+
+V.       MARGARET'S DAUGHTER
+
+VI.      INTRODUCTION TO MISS CARPENTER
+
+VII.     A WINDOW IN RADVILLE
+
+VIII.    THE MAN OF BUSINESS IN EMBRYO
+
+IX.      SMALL BEGINNINGS
+
+X.       ROLAND BARNETTE'S FRIEND
+
+XI.      BLINKY LOCKWOOD
+
+XII.     DUNCAN'S GRUBSTAKE
+
+XIII.    THE BUSINESS MAN AND MR. BURNHAM
+ XIV.     MOSTLY ABOUT BETTY
+
+XV.      MANOEUVRES OF JOSIE
+
+XVI.     WHERE RADVILLE FEARED TO TREAD
+
+XVII.    TRACEY'S TROUBLES
+
+XVIII.   A BARGAIN IS A BARGAIN
+
+XIX.     PROVING THE PERSIPICUITY OF MR. KELLOGG
+
+XX.      ROLAND SHOWS HIS HAND
+
+XXI.     AS OTHERS SAW HIM
+
+XXII.    ROLAND'S TRIUMPH
+
+XXIII.   THE RAINBOW'S END
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+"You can be worth a million ... within a year"
+
+"You mean you're going to work here?"
+
+"Four hundred dollars, Mr. Sheriff"
+
+"Betty!"
+
+"You're a thief with a reward out for you"
+
+"Forever and ever and a day"
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+
+FROM HIM THAT HATH NOT
+
+Receiver at ear, Spaulding, of Messrs. Atwater & Spaulding, importers
+of motoring garments and accessories, listened to the switchboard
+operator's announcement with grave attention, acknowledging it with a
+toneless: "All right. Send him in." Then hooking up the desk telephone
+he swung round in his chair to face the door of his private office, and
+in a brief ensuing interval painstakingly ironed out of his face and
+attitude every indication of the frame of mind in which he awaited his
+caller. It was, as a matter of fact, anything but a pleasant one: he
+had a distasteful duty to perform; but that was the last thing he
+designed to become evident. Like most good business men he nursed a pet
+superstition or two, and of the number of these the first was that he
+must in all his dealings present an inscrutable front, like a
+poker-player's: captains of industry were uniformly like that,
+Spaulding understood; if they entertained emotions it was strictly in
+private. Accordingly he armoured himself with a magnificent
+imperturbability which at times almost deceived its wearer.
+
+Occasionally it deceived others: notably now it bewildered Duncan as he
+entered on the echo of Spaulding's "Come!" He had apprehended the
+visage of a thunderstorm, with a rattle of brusque complaints: he
+encountered Spaulding as he had always seemed: a little, urbane figure
+with a blank face, the blanker for glasses whose lenses seemed always
+to catch the light and, glaring, mask the eyes behind them; a
+prosperous man of affairs, well groomed both as to body and as to mind;
+a machine for the transaction of business, with all a machine's
+vivacity and temperamental responsiveness. It was just that quality in
+him that Duncan envied, who was vaguely impressed that, if he himself
+could only imitate, however minutely, the phlegm of a machine, he might
+learn to ape something of its efficiency and so, ultimately, prove
+himself of some worth to the world--and, incidentally, to Nathaniel
+Duncan. Thus far his spasmodic attempts to adapt to the requirements
+and limitations of the world of business his own equipment of misfit
+inclinations and ill-assorted abilities, had unanimously turned out
+signal failures. So he envied Spaulding without particularly admiring
+him.
+
+Now the sight of his employer, professionally bland and capable, and
+with no animus to be discerned in his attitude, provided Duncan with
+one brief, evanescent flash of hope, one last expiring instant of
+dignity (tempered by his unquenchable humour) in which to face his
+fate. Something of the hang-dog vanished from his habit and for a
+little time he carried himself again with all his one-time grace and
+confidence.
+
+"Good-afternoon, Mr. Spaulding," he said, replying to a nod as he
+dropped into the chair that nod had indicated. A faint smile lightened
+his expression and made it quite engaging.
+
+"G'dafternoon." Spaulding surveyed him swiftly, then laced his fat
+little fingers and contemplated them with detached intentness. "Just
+get in, Duncan?"
+
+"On the three-thirty from Chicago...."
+
+There was a pause, during which Spaulding reviewed his fingernails with
+impartial interest; in that pause Duncan's poor little hope died a
+natural death. "I got your wire," he resumed; "I mean, it got
+me--overtook me at Minneapolis.... So here I am."
+
+"You haven't wasted time."
+
+"I fancied the matter might be urgent, sir."
+
+Spaulding lifted his brows ever so slightly. "Why?"
+
+"Well, I gathered from the fact that you wired
+me to come home that you wanted my advice."
+
+A second time Spaulding gestured with his eyebrows, for once fairly
+surprised out of his pose. "_Your_ advice!..."
+
+"Yes," said Duncan evenly: "as to whether you ought to give up your
+customers on my route or send them a man who could sell goods."
+
+"Well...." Spaulding admitted.
+
+"Oh, don't think I'm boasting of my acuteness: anybody could have
+guessed as much from the great number of heavy orders I have not been
+sending you."
+
+"You've had bad luck...."
+
+"You mean you have, Mr. Spaulding. It was good luck for me to be
+drawing down my weekly cheques, bad luck to you not to have a man who
+could earn them."
+
+His desperate honesty touched Spaulding a trifle; at the risk of not
+seeming a business man to himself he inclined dubiously to relent, to
+give Duncan another chance. The fellow was likeable enough, his
+employer considered; he had good humour and even in dejection,
+distinction; whatever he was not, he was a man of birth and breeding.
+His face might be rusty with a day-old stubble, as it was; his
+shirt-cuffs frayed, his shoes down at the heel, his baggy clothing
+weirdly ready-made, as they were: there remained his air. You'd think
+he might amount to something, to somewhat more than a mere something,
+given half a chance in the right direction. Then what?... Spaulding
+sought from Duncan elucidation of this riddle.
+
+"Duncan," he said, "what's the trouble?"
+
+"I thought you knew that; I thought that was
+why you called me in with my route half-covered."
+
+"You mean--?"
+
+"I mean I can't sell your line."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"God only knows. I want to, badly enough. It's just general
+incompetence, I presume."
+
+"What makes you think that?"
+
+Duncan smiled bitterly. "Experience," he said.
+
+"You've tried--what else?"
+
+"A little of everything--all the jobs open to a man with a knowledge of
+Latin and Greek and the higher mathematics: shipping clerk,
+time-keeper, cashier--all of 'em."
+
+"And yet Kellogg believes in you."
+
+Duncan nodded dolefully. "Harry's a good friend. We roomed together at
+college. That's why he stands for me."
+
+"He says you only need the right opening--."
+
+"And nobody knows where that is, except my unfortunate employers: it's
+the back door going out, for mine every time.... Oh, Harry's been a
+prince to me. He's found me four or five jobs with friends of his--like
+yourself. But I don't seem to last. You see I was brought up to be
+ornamental and irregular rather than useful; to blow about in motor
+cars and keep a valet busy sixteen hours a day--and all that sort of
+thing. My father's failure--you know about that?"
+
+Spaulding nodded. Duncan went on gloomily, talking a great deal more
+freely than he would at any other time--suffering, in fact, from that
+species of auto hypnosis induced by the sound of his own voice
+recounting his misfortunes, which seems especially to affect a man down
+on his luck.
+
+"That smash came when I was five years out of college--I'd never
+thought of turning my hand to anything in all that time. I'd always had
+more coin than I could spend--never had to consider the worth of money
+or how hard it is to earn: my father saw to all that. He seemed not to
+want me to work: not that I hold that against him; he'd an idea I'd
+turn out a genius of some sort or other, I believe.... Well, he failed
+and died all in a week, and I found myself left with an extensive
+wardrobe, expensive tastes, an impractical education--and not so much
+of that that you'd notice it--and not a cent.... I was too proud to
+look to my friends for help in those days--and perhaps that was as
+well; I sought jobs on my own.... Did you ever keep books in a
+fish-market?"
+
+"No." Spaulding's eyes twinkled behind his large, shiny glasses.
+
+"But what's the use of my boring you?" Duncan made as if to rise,
+suddenly remembering himself.
+
+"You're not. Go on."
+
+"I didn't mean to; mostly, I presume, I've been blundering round an
+explanation of Kellogg's kindness to me, in my usual ineffectual
+way--felt somehow an explanation was due you, as the latest to suffer
+through his misplaced interest in me."
+
+"Perhaps," said Spaulding, "I am beginning to understand. Go on: I'm
+interested. About the fish-market?"
+
+"Oh, I just happened to think of it as a sample experience--and the
+last of that particular brand. I got nine dollars a week and earned
+every cent of it inhaling the atmosphere. My board cost me six and the
+other three afforded me a chance to demonstrate myself a captain of
+finance--paying laundry bills and clothing myself, besides buying
+lunches and such-like small matters. I did the whole thing, you
+know--one schooner of beer a day and made my own cigarettes: never
+could make up my mind which was the worst. The hours were easy, too:
+didn't have to get to work until five in the morning.... I lasted five
+weeks at that job, before I was taken sick: shows what a great
+constitution I've got."
+
+He laughed uncertainly and paused, thoughtful, his eyes vacant, fixed
+upon the retrospect that was a grim prospect of the imminent future.
+
+"And then--?"
+
+"Oh--?" Duncan roused. "Why, then I fell in with Kellogg again; he
+found me trying the open-air cure on a bench in Washington Square.
+Since then he's been finding me one berth after another. He's a
+sure-enough optimist."
+
+Spaulding shifted uneasily in his chair, stirred by an impulse whose
+unwisdom he could not doubt. Duncan had assuredly done his case no good
+by painting his shortcomings in colours so vivid; yet, somehow
+strangely, Spaulding liked him the better for his open-hearted
+confession.
+
+"Well...." Spaulding stumbled awkwardly.
+
+"Yes; of course," said Duncan promptly, rising. "Sorry if I tired you."
+
+"What do you mean by: 'Yes, of course'?"
+
+"That you called me in to fire me--and so that's over with. Only I'd be
+sorry to have you sore on Kellogg for saddling me on you. You see, he
+believed I'd make good, and so did I in a way: at least, I hoped to."
+
+"Oh, that's all right," said Spaulding uncomfortably. "The trouble is,
+you see, we've nothing else open just now. But if you'd really like
+another chance on the road, I--I'll be glad to speak to Mr. Atwater
+about it."
+
+"Don't you do it!" Duncan counselled him sharply, aghast. "He might say
+yes. And I simply couldn't accept; it wouldn't be fair to you, Kellogg,
+or myself. It'd be charity--for I've proved I can't earn my wages; and
+I haven't come to that yet. No!" he concluded with determination, and
+picked up his hat.
+
+"Just a minute." Spaulding held him with a gesture. "You're forgetting
+something: at least I am. There's a month's pay coming to you; the
+cashier will hand you the cheque as you go out."
+
+"A month's pay?" Duncan said blankly. "How's that? I've drawn up to the
+end of this week already, if you didn't know it."
+
+"Of course I knew it. But we never let our men go without a month's
+notice or its equivalent, and--"
+
+"No," Duncan interrupted firmly. "No; but thank you just the same. I
+couldn't. I really couldn't. It's good of you, but ... Now," he broke
+off abruptly, "I've left my accounts--what there is of them--with the
+book-keeping department, and the checks for my sample trunks. There'll
+be a few dollars coming to me on my expense account, and I'll send you
+my address as soon as I get one."
+
+"But look here--" Spaulding got to his feet, frowning.
+
+"No," reiterated Duncan positively. "There's no use. I'm grateful to
+you for your toleration of me--and all that. But we can't do anything
+better now than call it all off. Good-bye, Mr. Spaulding."
+
+Spaulding nodded, accepting defeat with the better grace because of an
+innate conviction that it was just as well, after all. And,
+furthermore, he admired Duncan's stand. So he offered his hand: an
+unusual condescension. "You'll make good somewhere yet," he asserted.
+
+"I wish I could believe it." Duncan's grasp was firm since he felt more
+assured of some humanity latent in his late employer. "However ...
+Good-bye."
+
+"Good luck to you," rang in his ears as the door put a period to the
+interview. He stopped and took up the battered suitcase and rusty
+overcoat which he had left outside the junior partner's office, then
+went on, shaking his head. "Much obliged," he said huskily to himself.
+"But what's the good of that. There's no room anywhere for a
+professional failure. And that's what I am; just a ne'er-do-well. I
+never realised what that meant, really, before, and it's certainly
+taken me a damn' long time to find out. But I know now, all right...."
+
+Outside, on the steps of the building, he paused a moment, fascinated
+by the brisk spectacle afforded by lower Broadway at the hour when the
+cave-like offices in its cliff-like walls begin to empty themselves,
+when the overlords and their lieutenants close their desks and turn
+their faces homewards, leaving the details of the day's routine to be
+wound up by underlings. In the clear light of the late spring afternoon
+a stream of humanity was high and fluent upon the sidewalks. Duncan had
+glimpses of keen-faced men, bright-faced women, eager boys, quickened
+all by that manner of efficiency and intelligence which seems so
+integrally American. A well-dressed throng, well-fed, amiable and
+animated, looking ever forward, the resistless tide of affairs that
+gave it being bore it onward; it passed the onlooker as a strong
+current passes flotsam in a back-eddy, with no pause, no turning aside.
+Acutely he felt his aloofness from it, who had no part in its interests
+and scarcely any comprehension of them. The sunken look, the leanness
+of his young face, seemed suddenly accentuated; the gloom in his
+discontented eyes deepened; his slight habitual stoop became more
+noticeable. And a second time he nodded acquiescence to his unspoken
+thought.
+
+"There," said he, singling out a passer-by upon whose complacent
+features prosperity had set its smug hall-mark--"there, but for the
+grace of God, goes Nat Duncan!" He rolled the paraphrase upon his
+tongue and found it bitter--not, however, with a tonic bitterness.
+"Lord, what a worthless critter I am! No good to myself--nor to anybody
+else. Even on Harry I'm a drag--a regular old man of the mountains!"
+
+Despondently he went down to the sidewalk and merged himself with the
+crowd, moving with it though a thousand miles apart from it, and
+presently diverging, struck across-town toward the Worth Street subway
+station.
+
+"And the worst of it is, he's too sharp not to find it out--if he
+hasn't by this time--and too damn' decent by far to let me know if he
+has! ... It can't go on this way with us: I can't let him ... Got to
+break with him somehow--now--to-day. I won't let him think me ... what
+I've been all along to him.... Bless his foolish heart!..."
+
+This resolution coloured his reverie throughout the uptown journey. And
+he strengthened himself with it, deriving a sort of acrid comfort from
+the knowledge that henceforth none should know the burden of his
+misfortunes save himself. There was no deprecation of Kellogg's
+goodness in his mood, simply determination no longer to be a charge
+upon it. To contemplate the sum total of the benefits he had received
+at Kellogg's hands, since the day when the latter had found him ill and
+half-starved, friendless as a stray pup, on the bench in Washington
+Square, staggered his imagination. He could never repay it, he told
+himself, save inadequately, little by little--mostly by gratitude and
+such consideration as he purposed now to exhibit by removing himself
+and his distresses from the other's ken. Here was an end to comfort for
+him, an end to living in Kellogg's rooms, eating his food, busying his
+servants, spending his money--not so much borrowed as pressed upon him.
+He stood at the cross-roads, but in no doubt as to which way he should
+most honourably take, though it took him straight back to that from
+which Kellogg had rescued him.
+
+There crawled in his mind a clammy memory of the sort of housing he had
+known in those evil days, and he shuddered inwardly, smelling again the
+effluvia of dank oilcloth and musty carpets, of fish-balls and fried
+ham, of old-style plumbing and of nine-dollar-a-week humanity in the
+unwashen raw--the odour of misery that permeated the lodgings to which
+his lack of means had introduced him. He could see again, and with a
+painful vividness of mental vision, the degenerate "brownstone fronts"
+that mask those haunts of wretchedness, with their flights of crumbling
+brownstone steps leading up to oaken portals haggard with flaking
+paint, flanked by squares of soiled note-paper upon which inexpert
+hands had traced the warning, not: "Abandon hope all ye who enter
+here," but: "Furnished rooms to let with board." And pursuing this grim
+trail of memory, whether he would or no--again he climbed, wearily at
+the end of a wearing day, a darksome well of a staircase up and up to
+an eyrie under the eaves, denominated in the terminology of landladies
+a "top hall back"--a cramped refuge haunted by pitiful ghosts of the
+hopes and despairs of its former tenants. And he remembered with
+reminiscently aching muscles the comfort of such a "single bed" as is
+peculiar (one hopes) to top hall backs, and with a qualm what it was to
+cook a surreptitious meal on a metal heater clamped to the gas-bracket
+(with ears keen to catch the scuffle of the landlady's feet as she
+skulked in the hall, jealous of her gas bill).
+
+And to this he must return, to that treadmill round of blighted days
+and joyless nights must set his face....
+
+Alighting at the Grand Central Station he packed the double weight of
+his luggage and his cares a few blocks northward on Madison Avenue ere
+turning west toward the bachelor rooms which Kellogg had established in
+the roaring Forties, just the other side of _the_ Avenue--Fifth
+Avenue, on a corner of which Duncan presently was held up for a time by
+a press of traffic. He lingered indifferently, waiting for the mounted
+policeman to clear a way across, watching the while with lack-lustre
+eyes the interminable procession of cabs and landaus, taxis and
+town-cars that romped by hazardously, crowding the street from curb to
+curb.
+
+The day was of young June, though grey and a little chill with the
+discouraged spirit of a retarded season. Though the hegira of the
+well-to-do to their summer homes had long since set in, still there
+remained in the city sufficient of their class to keep the Avenue
+populous from Twenty-third Street north to the Plaza in the evening
+hours. The suggestion of wealth, or luxury, of money's illimitable
+power, pervaded the atmosphere intensely, an ineluctable influence, to
+an independent man heady, to Duncan maddening. He surveyed the parade
+with mutiny in his heart. All this he had known, a part of it had
+been--upon a time. Now ... the shafts of his roving eyes here and there
+detected faces recognisable, of men and women whose acquaintance he had
+once owned. None recognised him who stood there worn, shabby and tired.
+He even caught the direct glance of a girl who once had thought him
+worth winning, who had set herself to stir his heart and--had been
+successful. To-day she looked him straight in the eyes, apparently,
+with undisturbed serenity, then as calmly looked over and through and
+beyond him. Her limousine hurried her on, enthroned impregnably above
+the envious herd.
+
+He sped her transit with a mirthless chuckle. "You're right," he said,
+"dead right. You simply don't know me any more, my dear--you musn't;
+you can't afford to any more than I could afford to know you."
+
+None the less the fugitive incident seemed to brim his disconsolate
+cup. In complete dejection of mind and spirit he pushed on to Kellogg's
+quarters, buoyed by a single hope--that Kellogg might be out of town or
+delayed at his office.
+
+In that event Duncan might have a chance to gather up his belongings
+and escape unhandicapped by the immediate necessity of justifying his
+course. At another time, surely, the explanation was inevitable; say
+to-morrow; he was not cur enough to leave his friend without a word.
+But to-night he would willingly be spared. He apprehended unhappily the
+interview with Kellogg; he was in no temper for argumentation, felt
+scarcely strong enough to hold his own against the fire of objections
+with which Kellogg would undoubtedly seek to shake his stand. Kellogg
+could talk, Heaven alone knew how winningly he could talk! with all the
+sound logic of a close reasoner, all the enthusiasm of youth and
+self-confidence, all the persuasiveness of profound conviction singular
+to successful men. Duncan had been wont to say of him that Kellogg
+could talk the hind-leg off of a mule. He recalled this now with a sour
+grin: "That means me..."
+
+The elevator boy, knowing him of old, neglected to announce his
+arrival, and Duncan had his own key to the door of Kellogg's apartment.
+He let himself in with futile stealth: as was quite right and proper,
+Kellogg's man Robbins was in attendance--a stupefied Robbins,
+thunderstruck by the unexpected return of his master's friend and
+guest. "Good Lord!" he cried at sight of Duncan. "Beg your pardon, sir,
+but--but it can't be you!"
+
+"Your mistake, Robbins. Unfortunately it is." Duncan surrendered his
+luggage. "Mr. Kellogg in?"
+
+"No, sir. But I'm expecting him any minute. He'll be surprised to see
+you back."
+
+"Think so?" said Duncan dully. "He doesn't know me, if he is."
+
+"You see, sir, we thought you was out West."
+
+"So you did." Duncan moved toward the door of his own bedroom, Robbins
+following.
+
+"It was only yesterday I posted a letter to you for Mr. Kellogg, sir,
+and the address was Omaha."
+
+"I didn't get that far. Fetch along that suitcase, will you please? I
+want to put some clean things in it."
+
+"Then you're not staying in town over night, Mr. Duncan?"
+
+"I don't know. I'm not staying here, anyway." Duncan switched on the
+lights in his room. "Put it on the bed, Robbins. I'll pack as quickly
+as I can. I'm in a hurry."
+
+"Yes, sir, but--I hope there's nothing wrong?"
+
+"Then you lose," returned Duncan grimly: "everything's wrong." He
+jerked viciously at an obstinate bureau drawer, and when it yielded
+unexpectedly with the well-known impishness of the inanimate, dumped
+upon the floor a tangled miscellany of shirts, socks, gloves, collars
+and ties.
+
+"Didn't you like the business, sir?"
+
+"No, I didn't like the business--and it didn't like me. It's the same
+old story, Robbins. I've lost my job again--that's all."
+
+"I'm very sorry, sir."
+
+"Thank you--but that's all right. I'm used to it."
+
+"And you're going to leave, sir?"
+
+"I am, Robbins."
+
+"I--may I take the liberty of hoping it's to take another position?"
+
+"You may, but you lose a second time. I've just made up my mind I'm not
+going to hang round here any longer. That's all."
+
+"But," Robbins ventured, hovering about with exasperating
+solicitude--"but Mr. Kellogg'd never permit you to leave in this way,
+sir."
+
+"Wrong again, Robbins," said Duncan curtly, annoyed.
+
+"Yes, sir. Very good, sir." With the instinct of the well-trained
+servant, Robbins started to leave, but hesitated. He was really very
+much disturbed by Duncan's manner, which showed a phase of his
+character new in Robbins' experience of him. Ordinarily reverses such
+as this had seemed merely to serve to put Duncan on his mettle, to
+infuse him with a determination to try again and win out, whatever the
+odds; and at such times he was accustomed to exhibit a mad
+irresponsibility of wit and a gaiety of spirit (whether it were a mask
+or no) that only outrivalled his high good humour when things
+ostensibly were going well with him.
+
+Intermittently, between his spasms of employment, he had been Kellogg's
+guest for several years, not infrequently for months at a time; and so
+Robbins had come to feel a sort of proprietary interest in the young
+man, second only to the regard which he had for his employer. Like most
+people with whom Duncan came in contact, Robbins admired him from a
+respectful distance, and liked him very well withal. He would have been
+much distressed to have harm happen to him, and he was very much
+concerned and alarmed to see him so candidly discouraged and sick at
+heart. Perhaps too quick to draw an inference, Robbins mistrusted his
+intentions; his dour habit boded ill in the servant's understanding:
+men in such moods were apt to act unwisely. But if only he might
+contrive to delay Duncan until Kellogg's return, he thought the former
+might yet be saved from the consequences of folly of some insensate
+sort. And casting about for an excuse, he grasped at the most sovereign
+solace he knew of.
+
+"Beg pardon, sir," he advanced, hesitant, "but perhaps you're just
+feeling a bit blue. Won't you let me bring you a drop of something?"
+
+"Of course I will," said Duncan emphatically over his shoulder. "And
+get it now, will you, while I'm packing.... And, Robbins!"
+
+"Sir?"
+
+"Only put a little in it."
+
+"A little what, sir?"
+
+"Seltzer, of course."
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+TO HIM THAT HATH
+
+It had been a forlorn hope at best, this attempt of his to escape
+Kellogg: Duncan acknowledged it when, his packing rudely finished, he
+started for the door, Robbins reluctantly surrendering the suit-case
+after exhausting his repertoire of devices to delay the young man. But
+at that instant the elevator gate clashed in the outer corridor and
+Kellogg's key rattled in the lock, to an accompanying confusion of
+voices, all masculine and all very cheerful.
+
+Duncan sighed and motioned Robbins away with his luggage. "No hope
+now," he told himself. "But--O Lord!"
+
+Incontinently there burst into the room four men: Jim Long, Larry
+Miller, another whom Duncan did not immediately recognise, and Kellogg
+himself, bringing with them an atmosphere breezy with jubilation.
+Before he knew it Duncan was boisterously overwhelmed. He got his
+breath to find Kellogg pumping his hand.
+
+"Nat," he was saying, "you're the only other man on earth I was wishing
+could be with me tonight! Now my happiness is complete. Gad, this is
+lucky!"
+
+"You think so?" countered Duncan, forcing a smile. "Hello, you boys!"
+He gave a hand to Long and Miller. "How're you all?" He warmed to their
+friendly faces and unfeigned welcome. "My, but it's good to see you!"
+There was relief in the fact that Kellogg, after a single glance,
+forbore to question his return; he was to be counted upon for tact, was
+Kellogg. Now he strangled surprise by turning to the fourth member of
+the party.
+
+"Nat," he said, "I want you to meet Mr. Bartlett. Mr. Bartlett, Mr.
+Duncan."
+
+A wholesome smile dawned on Duncan's face as he encountered the blank
+blue stare of a young man whose very smooth and very bright red face
+was admirably set off by semi-evening dress. "Great Scott!" he cried,
+warmly pressing the lackadaisical hand that drifted into his. "Willy
+Bartlett--after all these years!"
+
+A sudden animation replaced the vacuous stare of the blue eyes.
+"Duncan!" he stammered. "I say, this is rippin'!"
+
+"As bad as that?" Duncan essayed an accent almost English and nodded
+his appreciation of it: something which Bartlett missed completely.
+
+He was very young--a very great deal younger, Duncan thought, than when
+they had been classmates, what time Duncan shared his rooms with
+Kellogg: very much younger and suffering exquisitely from
+over-sophistication. His drawl barely escaped being inimitable; his air
+did not escape it. "Smitten with my old trouble," Duncan appraised him:
+"too much money... Heaven knows I hope he never recovers!"
+
+As for Willy, he was momentarily more nearly human than he had seemed
+from the moment of his first appearance. "You know," he blurted, "this
+is simply extraordinary. I say, you chaps, Duncan and I haven't met for
+years--not since he graduated. We belonged to the same frat, y'know,
+and had a jolly time of it, if he was an upper-class man. No side about
+him at all, y'know--absolutely none whatever. Whenever I had to go out
+on a spree, I'd always get Nat to show me round."
+
+"I was pretty good at that," Duncan admitted a trifle ruefully.
+
+But Willy rattled on, heedless. "He knew more pretty gels, y'know... I
+say, old chap, d'you know as many now?"
+
+Duncan shook his head. "The list has shrunk. I'm a changed man, Willy."
+
+"Ow, I say, you're chawfin'," Willy argued incredulously. "I don't
+believe that, y'know--hardly. I say, you remember the night you showed
+me how to play faro bank?"
+
+"I'll never forget it," Duncan told him gravely. "And I remember what a
+plug we thought my room-mate was because he wouldn't come with us." He
+nodded significantly toward the amused Kellogg.
+
+"Not him!" cried Willy, expostulant. "Not really? Why it cawn't be!"
+
+"Fact," Duncan assured him. "He was working his way through college,
+you see, whereas I was working my way through my allowance--and then
+some. That's why you never met him, Willy: he worked--and got the
+habit. We loafed--with the same result. That's why he's useful and
+you're ornamental, and I'm--" He broke off in surprise. "Hello!" he
+said as Robbins offered a tray to the three on which were slim-stemmed
+glasses filled with a pale yellow, effervescent liquid. "Why the blond
+waters of excitement, please?" he inquired, accepting a glass.
+
+From across the room Larry Miller's voice sounded. "Are you ready,
+gentlemen? We'll drink to him first and then he can drink to his royal
+little self. To the boy who's getting on in the world! To the junior
+member of L.J. Bartlett and Company!"
+
+Long applauded loudly: "Hear! Hear!" And even Willy Bartlett chimed in
+with an unemotional: "Good work!" Mechanically Duncan downed the toast;
+Kellogg was the only man not drinking it, and from that the meaning was
+easily to be inferred. With a stride Duncan caught his hand and crushed
+it in his own.
+
+"Harry," he said a little huskily, "I can't tell you how glad I am!
+It's the best news I've had in years!"
+
+Kellogg's responsive pressure was answer enough. "It makes it doubly
+worth while, to win out and have you all so glad!" he said.
+
+"So you've taken him into the firm, eh?" Duncan inquired of Bartlett.
+
+The blue eyes widened stonily. "The governor has. I'm not in the
+business, y'know. Never had the slightest turn for it, what?" Willy set
+aside his glass. "I say, I must be moving. No, I cawn't stop, Kellogg,
+really. I was dressin' at the club and Larry told me about it, so I
+just dropped round to tell you how jolly glad I am."
+
+"Your father hadn't told you, then?"
+
+"Who, the governor?" Willy looked unutterably bored. "Why, he gave up
+tryin' to talk business with me long ago. I can't get interested in it,
+'pon my word. Of course I knew he thought the deuce and all of you, but
+I hadn't an idea they were goin' to take you into the firm. What?"
+
+Long and Miller interrupted, proposing adieus which Kellogg vainly
+contended.
+
+"Why, you're only just here--" he expostulated.
+
+
+
+"Cawn't help it, old chap," Willy assured him earnestly. "I must go,
+anyway. I've a dinner engagement."
+
+"You'll be late, won't you?"
+
+"Doesn't matter in the least; I'm always late. 'Night, Kellogg.
+Congratulations again."
+
+"We just dropped round to take off our hats to you," Long continued,
+pumping Kellogg's hand.
+
+"And tell you what a good fellow we think you are," added Miller,
+following suit.
+
+"You don't know how good you make me feel," Kellogg told them.
+
+Under cover of this diversion Duncan was making one last effort to slip
+away; but before he could gather together his impedimenta and get to
+the door Willy Bartlett intercepted him.
+
+"I say, Duncan--"
+
+"Oh, hell!" said Duncan beneath his breath. He paused ungraciously
+enough.
+
+"We've got to see a bit of one another, now we've met again, y'know.
+Wish you'd look me up--Half Moon Club'll get me 'most any time. We'll
+have to arrange to make a regular old-fashioned night of it, just for
+memory's sake."
+
+Duncan nodded, edging past him. "I've memories enough," he said.
+
+"Right-oh! Any reason at all, y'know, just so we have the night."
+
+"Good enough," assented Duncan vaguely. He suffered his hand to be
+wrung with warmth. "I'll not forget--good-night." Then he pulled up and
+groaned, for Willy's insistence had frustrated his design: Kellogg had
+suddenly become alive to his attitude and hailed him over the heads of
+Long and Miller.
+
+"Nat, I say! Where the devil are you going?"
+
+"Over to the hotel," said Duncan.
+
+"The deuce you are! What hotel?"
+
+"The one I'm stopping at."
+
+"Not on your life. You're not going just yet--I haven't had half a
+chance to talk to you. Robbins, take Mr. Duncan's things."
+
+Duncan, set upon by Robbins, who had been hovering round for just that
+purpose, lifted his shoulders in resignation, turning back into the
+room as Miller and Long said good-night to him and left at Bartlett's
+heels, and smiled awry in semi-humorous deprecation of the way in which
+he let Kellogg out-manoeuvre him. When it came to that, it was hard to
+refuse Kellogg anything; he had that way with him. Especially if one
+liked him... And how could anyone help liking him?
+
+Kellogg had him now, holding him fast by either shoulder, at arm's
+length, and shaking a reproving head at his friend. "You big duffer!"
+he said. "Did you think for a minute I'd let you throw me down like
+that?"
+
+Duncan stood passive, faintly amused and touched by the other's show of
+affection. "No," he said, "I didn't really think so. But it was worth
+trying on, of course."
+
+"Look here, have you dined?"
+
+'At this suggestion Duncan stiffened and fell back. "No, but--"
+
+Kellogg swept the ground from under his feet. "Robbins," he told the
+man, "order in dinner for two from the club, and tell 'em to hurry it
+up."
+
+"Yes, sir," said Robbins, and flew to obey before Duncan could get a
+chance to countermand his part in the order.
+
+"And now," continued Kellogg, "we've got the whole evening before us in
+which to chin. Sit down." He led Duncan to an arm-chair and gently but
+firmly plumped him into its capacious depths. "We'll have a snug little
+dinner here and--what do you say to taking in a show afterwards?"
+
+"I say no."
+
+"You dassent, my boy. This is the night we celebrate. I'm feeling
+pretty good to-night."
+
+"You ought to, Harry." Duncan struggled to rouse himself to share in
+the spirit of gratulation with which Kellogg was bubbling. "I'm mighty
+glad, old man. It's a great step up for you."
+
+"It's all of that. You could have knocked me over with a feather when
+Bartlett sprang it on me this morning. Of course, I was expecting
+something--a boost in salary, or something like that. Bartlett knew
+that other houses in the Street had made me offers--I've been pretty
+lucky of late and pulled off one or two rather big deals--but a
+partnership with L.J. Bartlett--! Think of it, Nat!"
+
+"I'm thinking of it--and it's great."
+
+"It'll keep me mighty busy," Kellogg blundered blindly on; "it means a
+lot of extra work--but you know I like to work...."
+
+"That's right, you do," agreed Duncan drearily. "It's queer to me--it
+must be a great thing to like to work."
+
+"You bet it's a great thing; why, I couldn't exist if I couldn't work.
+You remember that time I laid off for a month in the country--for my
+health's sake? I'll never forget it: hanging round all the time with my
+hands empty--everyone else with something to do. I wouldn't go through
+with it again for a fortune. Never felt so useless and in the way--"
+
+"But," interrupted Duncan, knitting his brows as he grappled with this
+problem, "you were independent, weren't you? You had money--could pay
+your board?"
+
+"Of course; nevertheless, I felt in the way."
+
+"That's funny...."
+
+"It's straight."
+
+"I know it is; it wouldn't be you if you didn't love work. It wouldn't
+be me if I did.... Look here, Harry; suppose you didn't have any money
+and couldn't pay your board--and had nothing to do. How'd you feel in
+that case?"
+
+"I don't know. Anyhow, that's rot--"
+
+"No, it isn't rot. I'm trying to make you understand how I feel
+when--when it's that way with me.... As it generally is." He raised one
+hand and let it fall with a gesture of despondency so eloquent that it
+roused Kellogg out of his own preoccupation.
+
+"Why, Nat!" he cried, genuinely sympathetic. "I've been so taken up
+with myself that I forgot.... I hadn't looked for you till to-morrow."
+
+"You knew, then?"
+
+"I met Atwater at lunch to-day. He told me; said he was sorry, but--"
+
+"Yes. Everybody is always sorry, _but_--"
+
+Kellogg let his hand fall on Duncan's shoulder. "I'm sorry, too, old
+man. But don't lose heart. I know it's pretty tough on a fellow--"
+
+"The toughest part of it is that you got the job for me--and I
+_had_ to fall down."
+
+"Don't think of that. It's not your fault--"
+
+"You're the only man who believes that, Harry."
+
+"Buck up. I'll stumble across some better opening for you before long,
+and--"
+
+"Stop right there. I'm through--"
+
+"Don't talk that way, Nat. I'll get you in right somewhere."
+
+"You're the best-hearted man alive, Harry--but I'll see you damned
+first."
+
+"Wait." Kellogg demanded his attention. "Here's this man Burnham--you
+don't know him, but he's as keen as they make 'em. He's on the track of
+some wonderful scheme for making illuminating gas from crude oil; if it
+goes through--if the invention's really practicable--it's bound to work
+a revolution. He's down in Washington now--left this afternoon to look
+up the patents. Now he needs me, to get the ear of the Standard Oil
+people, and I'll get you in there."
+
+"What right've you got to do that?" demanded Duncan. "What the dickens
+do I know about illuminating gas or crude oil? Burnham'd never thank
+you for the likes o' me."
+
+"But--thunder!--you can learn. All you need--."
+
+"Now see here, Harry!" Duncan gave him pause with a manner not to be
+denied. "Once and for all time understand I'm through having you
+recommend an incompetent--just because we're friends."
+
+"But, Harry--"
+
+"And I'm through living on you while I'm out of a job. That's final."
+
+"But, man--listen to me!--when we were at college--"
+
+"That was another matter."
+
+"How many times did you pay the room-rent when I was strapped? How many
+times did your money pull me through when I'd have had to quit and
+forfeit my degree because I couldn't earn enough to keep on?"
+
+"That's different. You earned enough finally to square up. You don't
+owe me anything."
+
+"I owe you the gratitude for the friendly hand that put me in the way
+of earning--that kept me going when the going was rank. Besides, the
+conditions are just reversed now; you'll do just as I did--make good in
+the world and, when it's convenient, to me. As for living here, you're
+perfectly welcome."
+
+"I know it--and more," Duncan assented a little wearily. "Don't think I
+don't appreciate all you've done for me. But I know and you must
+understand that I can't keep on living on you,--and I won't."
+
+For once baffled, Kellogg stared at him in consternation. Duncan met
+his gaze steadily, strong in the sincerity of his attitude. At length
+Kellogg surrendered, accepting defeat. "Well...." He shrugged
+uncomfortably. "If you insist ..."
+
+"I do."
+
+"Then that's settled."
+
+"Yes, that's settled."
+
+"Dinner," said Robbins from the doorway, "is
+served."
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+INSPIRATION
+
+"Look here, Nat," demanded Kellogg, when they were half way through the
+meal, "do you mind telling me what you're going to do?"
+
+Duncan pondered this soberly. "No," he replied in the end.
+
+Kellogg waited a moment, but his guest did not continue. "What does
+that kind of a 'No' mean, Nat?"
+
+"It means I don't mind telling you."
+
+Again an appreciable pause elapsed.
+
+"Well, then, what do you mean to do?"
+
+"I'm sure I don't know."
+
+Kellogg regarded him sombrely for a moment, then in silence returned
+his attention to his plate; and in silence, for the most part, the
+remainder of the dinner was served and eaten. Duncan himself had
+certainly enough to occupy his mind, while Kellogg had altogether
+forgotten his own cause for rejoicing in his concern for the fortunes
+of his friend. He was entirely of the opinion that something would have
+to be done for Nat, with or without his consent; and he sounded the
+profoundest depths of romantic impossibilities in his attempts to
+discover some employment suited to Duncan's interesting but
+impracticable assortment of faculties and qualifications, natural and
+acquired. But nothing presented itself as feasible in view of the fact
+that employment which would prove immediately remunerative was
+required. And by the time that Robbins, clearing the board, left them
+alone with coffee and cigars and cigarettes, Kellogg was fain to
+confess failure--though the confession was a very private one, confined
+to himself only.
+
+"Nat," he said suddenly, rousing that young man out of the dreariest of
+meditations, "what under the sun _can_ you do?"
+
+"Me? I don't know. Why bother your silly old head about that? I'll make
+out somehow."
+
+"But surely there's something you'd rather do than anything else."
+
+"My dear sir," Duncan told him impressively, "the only walk of life in
+which I am fitted to shine is that of the idle son of a rich and
+foolish father. Since I lost that job I've not been worth my salt."
+
+"That's piffle. There isn't a man living who hasn't some talent or
+other, some sort of an ability concealed about his person."
+
+"You can search me," Duncan volunteered gloomily.
+
+His unresponsiveness irritated Kellogg; he thought a while, then
+delivered himself of a didactic conclusion:
+
+"The trouble with you is you were brought up all wrong."
+
+"Well, I've been brought down all right. Besides, that's a platitude in
+my case."
+
+"Let's see: I've know you--er--nine years."
+
+"Is it that long?" Duncan looked up from a gloomy inspection of the
+interior of his demitasse, displaying his first gleam of interest in
+this analysis of his character. "You are a long-suffering old duffer.
+Any man who'd stand for me for nine years--"
+
+"That'll be all of that," Kellogg cut in sharply. "I was going on to
+say that you can't room with a man for four terms at college and then
+know him, off and on, for five years more, pretty intimately, without
+forming a pretty clear estimate of what he's worth in your own mind."
+
+"And I don't mind telling you, Harry, I think you're the best little
+business man as well as the finest sort of an all-round good-fellow on
+this continent."
+
+"Thanks awfully. I presume that's why you're determined to throw me
+down just at the time you need me most.... What I was trying to get at
+is the fact that I've never doubted your ultimate success for an
+instant."
+
+"You'd be a mighty lonesome minority in a congress of my employers,
+Harry."
+
+"Given the proper opportunity--"
+
+"Hold on," Duncan interrupted. "I know just what you're going to say,
+and it's all very fine, and I'm proud that you want to say it of me.
+But you're dead wrong, Harry. The truth is I haven't got it in me--the
+capacity to succeed. Just as much as you love work, I hate it. I ought
+to know, for I've had a good, hard try at it--several tries, in fact.
+And you know what they came to."
+
+"But if you persist in this way, Nat,--don't you know what it means?"
+
+"None better. It means going back to what you helped me out of--the
+life that nearly killed me."
+
+"And you'd rather--"
+
+"I'd rather that a thousand years before I'd sponge on you another
+day.... But, on the level, I'd as lieve try the East River or turn on
+the gas.... What's the use? That's the way I feel."
+
+"That's fool talk. Brace up and be a man. All you need is a way to earn
+money."
+
+"No," Duncan insisted firmly: "get it. I'll never be able to earn
+it--that's a cinch."
+
+Kellogg laughed a little mirthlessly, absorbed in revolving something
+which had popped into his head within the last few moments. "There are
+ways to get it," he admitted abstractedly, "if you're not too
+particular."
+
+"I'm not. I only wish I understood the burglar business."
+
+This time Kellogg laughed outright. He sat up with a new spirit in his
+manner. "You mean you'd steal to get money?"
+
+"Oh, well ..." Duncan smiled a trace sheepishly. "I can't think of
+anything hardly I wouldn't do to get it."
+
+"Very well, my son. Now attend to uncle." Kellogg leaned across the
+table, fixing him with an enthusiastic eye. "Here, have a smoke. I'm
+going to demonstrate high finance to your debased intelligence." He
+thrust the cigarette case over to Duncan, who helped himself
+mechanically, his gaze held in wonder to Kellogg's face.
+
+"Fire when ready," he assented.
+
+"I know a way," said Kellogg slowly, "by which, if you'll discard a
+scruple or two, you can be worth a million dollars--or
+thereabouts--within a year."
+
+Duncan held a lighted match until it singed his fingertips, the while
+he stared agape. "Say that again," he requested mildly.
+
+"You can be worth a million in a year."
+
+"Ah!" Duncan nodded slowly and comprehendingly. He turned aside in his
+chair and raked a second match across the sole of his shoe. "Let him
+rave," he observed enigmatically, and began to smoke.
+ "No, I'm not dippy; and I'm perfectly serious."
+
+"Of course. But what'd they do to me if I were caught?"
+
+"This is not a joke; the proposition's perfectly legal; it's being done
+right along."
+
+"And I could do it, Harry?"
+
+"A man of your calibre couldn't fail."
+
+"Would you mind ringing for Robbins?" Duncan asked abruptly.
+
+"Certainly." Kellogg pressed a button at his elbow. "What d'you want?"
+
+"A straight-jacket and a doctor to tell which one of us needs it."
+
+Kellogg, chagrined as he always was if joked with when expounding one
+of his schemes, broke into a laugh that lasted until Robbins appeared.
+
+"You rang, sir?"
+
+"Yes. Put those decanters over here, and some glasses, please."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+The man obeyed and withdrew. Kellogg filled two glasses, handing one to
+Duncan.
+
+"Now be decent and listen to me, Nat. I've thought this thing over
+for--oh, any amount of time. I'll bet anything it will work. What d'you
+say? Would you like to try it?"
+
+"Would I like to try it?" A conviction of Kellogg's earnestness forced
+itself upon Duncan's understanding. "Would I--!" He lifted his glass
+and drained it at a gulp. "Why, that's the first laugh I've had for a
+month!"
+
+"Then I'll tell you--"
+
+Duncan placed a pleading hand on his forearm. "Don't kid me, Harry," he
+entreated.
+
+"Not a bit of it. This is straight goods. If you want to try it and
+will follow the rules I lay down, I'll guarantee you'll be a rich man
+inside of twelve months."
+
+"Rules! Man, I'll follow all the rules in the world! Come on--I'm
+getting palpitation of the heart, waiting. Tell it to me: what've I got
+to do?"
+
+"Marry," said Kellogg serenely.
+
+"Marry!" Duncan echoed, aghast.
+
+"Marry," reaffirmed the other with unbroken gravity.
+
+"Marry--who?"
+
+"A girl with a fortune.... You see, I can't guarantee the precise size
+of her pile. That all depends on luck and the locality. But it'll run
+anywhere from several hundred thousand up to a million--perhaps more."
+
+Duncan sank back despondently. "You ought to be ashamed of yourself,
+Harry," he said dully; "you had me all excited, for a minute."
+
+"No, but honestly, I mean what I say."
+
+"Now look here: do you really think any girl with a million would take
+a chance on me?"
+
+"She'll jump at it."
+
+Duncan thought this over for a while. Then his lips twitched. "What's
+the matter with her?" he inquired. "I'm willing to play the game as it
+lies, but I bar lunatics and cripples."
+
+"There's no particular her--yet. You can take your pick. I've no more
+idea where she is than you have."
+
+"Now I know you're stark, staring, gibbering----"
+
+"Not a bit of it. I'm inspired--that's all. I've solved your
+problem--you only can't believe it."
+
+"How could I? What the devil are you getting at, anyhow?"
+
+"This pet scheme of mine. Lend me your ears. Have you ever lived in a
+one-horse country town--a place with one unspeakable hotel and about
+twenty stores and five churches?"
+
+"No ..."
+
+"I have; I was born in one of 'em.... Have you any idea what becomes of
+the young people of such towns?"
+
+"Not a glimmering."
+
+"Then I'll enlighten your egregious density. ...The boys--those who've
+got the stuff in them--strike out for the cities to make their
+everlasting fortunes. Generally they do it, too."
+
+"The same as you."
+
+"The same as me," assented Kellogg, unperturbed. "But the yaps, the
+Jaspers, stay there and clerk in father's store. After office-hours
+they put on their very best mail-order clothes and parade up and down
+Main Street, talking loud and flirting obviously with the girls. The
+girls haven't much else to do; they don't find it so easy to get away.
+A few of 'em escape to boarding-schools and colleges, where they meet
+and marry young men from the cities, but the majority of them have to
+stay at home and help mother--that's a tradition. If there are two
+children or more, the boys get the chance every time; the girls stay
+home to comfort the old folks in their old age. Why, by the time
+they're old enough to think of marrying--and they begin young, for
+that's about the only excitement they find available--you won't find a
+small country town between here and the Mississippi where there aren't
+about four girls to every boy."
+
+"It's a horrible thought ..."
+
+"You'd think so if you knew what the boys were like. There isn't one in
+ten that a girl with any sense or self-respect could force herself to
+marry if she ever saw anything better. Do you begin to see my drift?"
+
+"I do not. But go on drifting."
+
+"No? Why, the demand for eligible males is three hundred per cent. in
+excess of the supply. Don't you know--no, you don't: I got to that
+first--that there are twenty times as many old maids in small country
+towns as there are in the cities? It's a fact, and the reason for it is
+because when they were young they couldn't lower themselves to accept
+the pick of the local matrimonial market. Now, do you see--?"
+
+"You're as interesting as a magazine serial. Please continue in your
+next. I pant with anticipation."
+
+"You're an ass.... Now take a young chap from a city, with a good
+appearance, more or less a gentleman, who doesn't talk like a yap or
+walk like a yap or dress like a yap or act like a yap, and throw him
+into such a town long enough for the girls to get acquainted with him.
+He simply can't lose, can't fail to cop out the best-looking girl with
+the biggest bank-roll in town. I tell you, there's nothing to it!"
+
+"It's wonderful to listen to you, Harry."
+
+"I'm talking horse sense, my son. Now consider yourself: down on your
+luck, don't know how to earn a decent living, refusing to accept
+anything from your friends, ready (you say) to do almost anything to
+get some money.... And think of the country heiresses, with plenty of
+money for two, pining away in--in innocuous desuetude--hundreds of
+them, fine, straight, good girls, girls you could easily fall in love
+with, sighing their lives away for the lack of the likes of you....
+Now, why not take one, Nat--when you come to consider it, it's your
+duty--marry her and her bank-roll, make her happy, make yourself happy,
+and live a contented life on the sunny side of Easy Street for the rest
+of your natural born days? Can't you see it now?"
+
+"Yes," Duncan admitted, half-persuaded of the plausibility of the
+scheme. "I see--and I admire immensely the intellect that conceived the
+notion, Harry. But ... I can't help thinking there must be a catch in
+it somewhere."
+
+"Not if you follow my instructions. You see, having come from just such
+a hole-in-the-ground, I know just what I'm talking about. Believe me,
+everything depends on the way you go about it. There are a lot of
+things to contend with at first; you won't enjoy it at all, to begin
+with. But I can demonstrate how it can be managed so that you'll win
+out to a moral certainty."
+
+Duncan drew a deep breath, sat back and looked Kellogg over very
+critically. There was not a suspicion of a gleam of humour in his face;
+to the contrary, it blazed with the ardour of the instinctive schemer,
+the man who, with the ability to originate, throws himself heart and
+soul into the promotion of the product of his imagination. Kellogg was
+not sketching the outlines of a gigantic practical joke; he believed
+implicitly in the feasibility of his project; and so strongly that he
+could infuse even the less susceptible fancy of Duncan with some of his
+faith.
+
+"If I didn't know you so well, Harry," said Duncan slowly, "I'd be
+certain you were mad. I'm not at all sure that I'm sane. It's raving
+idiocy--and it's a pretty damned rank thing to do, to start
+deliberately out to marry a woman for her money. But I've been through
+a little hell of my own in my time, and--it's not alluring to
+contemplate a return to it. There's nothing mad enough nor bad enough
+to stop me. What've I got to do?"
+
+Kellogg beamed his triumph. "You'll try it on, then?"
+
+"I'll try anything on. It's a contemptible, low-lived piece of
+business--but good may come of it; you can't tell. What've I got to
+do?"
+
+Slipping back, Kellogg knitted his fingers and stared at the ceiling,
+smiling faintly to himself as he enumerated the conditions that first
+appealed to his understanding as essentials toward success.
+
+"First, pick out your town: one of two or three thousand
+inhabitants--no larger. I'd suggest, at a hazard guess, some place in
+the interior of Pennsylvania. Most of such towns have at least one rich
+man with a marriageable daughter--but we'll make sure of that before we
+settle on one. Of course any suburban town is barred."
+
+"How so?"
+
+"Oh, they don't count. The girls always know people in the city--can
+get there easily. That spoils the game."
+
+"How about the game laws?"
+
+"I'm coming to them. Of course there isn't an open or close season, and
+the hunting's always good, but there are a few precautionary measures
+to be taken if you want to be sure of bagging an heiress. You won't
+like most of 'em."
+
+"Like 'em! I'll live by them!"
+
+"Well, here come the things you mustn't do. You mustn't swear or use
+slang; you mustn't smoke and you mustn't drink--"
+
+"Heavens! are these people as inhuman as all that?"
+
+"Worse than that. It might be fatal if you were ever seen in the hotel
+bar. And to begin with, you must refuse all invitations, of any sort,
+whether to dances, parties, church sociables, or even Sunday dinners."
+
+"Why _Sunday_ dinners?"
+
+"Because Sunday's the only day you'll be invited. Dinner on week-days
+is from twelve to twelve-thirty, and it's strictly a business
+matter--no time for guests. But you needn't fret; they won't ask you
+till they've sized you up pretty carefully."
+
+"Oh!..."
+
+"Moreover, you must be very particular about your dress; it must be
+absolutely faultless, but very quiet: clothing sober--dark greys and
+blacks--and plain, but the very last word as to cut and fit. And
+everything must be in keeping--the very best of shirts, collars, ties,
+hats, socks, shoes, underwear--." Kellogg caught Duncan's look and
+laughed. "Your laundress will report on everything, you know; so you
+must be impeccable."
+
+"I'll be even that--whatever it is."
+
+"Be very particular about having your shoes polished, shave daily and
+manicure yourself religiously--but don't let 'em catch you at it."
+
+"Would they raid me if they did?"
+
+"And then, my son, you must work."
+
+Kellogg paused to let his lesson sink in. After a time Duncan observed
+plaintively: "I knew there was a catch in it somewhere. What kind of
+work?"
+
+"It doesn't make any difference, so long as you get and hold some job
+in the town."
+
+"Well, that lets me out. You'll have to sic some other poor devil on
+this glittering proposition of yours. I couldn't hold a job in--"
+
+"Wait! I'll tell you how to do it in just a minute."
+
+"I don't mind listening, but--"
+
+"You'll cinch the whole business by going to church without a break.
+Don't ever fail--morning and evening every Sunday. Don't forget that."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"It's the most important thing of all."
+
+"Does going to church make such a hit with the young female
+Jasper--the Jasperette, as it were?"
+
+"It'll make you more solid than anything else with her popper and
+mommer, and that's very necessary when you're a candidate for their
+ducats as well as their daughter. You must work and you must go to
+church."
+
+"That can't be all. Surely you can think of something else?"
+
+"Those are the cardinal rules--church and work until you've landed your
+heiress. After that you can move back to civilisation.... Now as soon
+as you strike your town you want to make arrangements for board and
+lodging in some old woman's house--preferably an old maid. You'll be
+sure to find at least half a dozen of 'em, willing to take boarders,
+but you want to be equally sure to pick out the one that talks the
+most, so that she'll tell the neighbours all about you. Don't worry
+about that, though, they all talk. When you've moved In, stock up your
+room with about twenty of the driest-looking books in the world--law
+books look most imposing; fix up a table with lots of stationery--pens
+and pencils, red and black ink and all that sort of thing; make the
+room look as if you were the most sincere student ever. And by no means
+neglect to have a well-worn Bible prominently in evidence: you can buy
+one second-hand at some book-store before you start out."
+
+"I'd have to, of course. I thank you for the flattery. Proceed with the
+programme of the gay, mad life I must lead. I'm going to have a swell
+time: that's perfectly plain."
+
+"As soon as you're shaken down in your room, make the rounds of the
+stores and ask for work. Try and get into the dry-goods emporium if you
+can: the girls all shop there. But anything will do, except a grocery
+or a hardware store and places like that. You mustn't consider any
+employment that would soil your clothes or roughen your lily-white
+hands."
+
+"You expect me to believe I'd have any chance of winning a
+millionaire's daughter if I were a ribbon-clerk in a dry-goods store?"
+
+"The best in the world. The ribbon-clerk is her social equal; he calls
+her Mary and she calls him Joe."
+
+"Done with you: me for the ribbon counter. Anything else?"
+
+"The storekeepers aren't apt to employ you at first; they'll be
+suspicious of you."
+
+"They will be afterwards, all right. However--?"
+
+"So you must simply call on them--walk in, locate the boss and tell
+him: 'I'm looking for employment.' Don't press it; just say it and get
+out."
+
+"No trouble whatever about that; it's always that way when I ask for
+work."
+
+"They'll send for you before long, when they make up their minds that
+you're a decent, moral young man; for they know you'll draw trade. And
+every Sunday--"
+
+"I know: church!"
+
+"Absolutely.... Pick out the one the rich folks go to. Go in quietly
+and do just as they do: stand up and kneel, look up the hymns and sing,
+just when they do. Be careful not to sing too loud, or anything like
+that: just do it all modestly, as if you were used to it. Better go to
+church here two or three times and get the hang of it...."
+
+"Here, now--"
+
+"Nearly all the wealthy codgers in such towns are deacons, you see, and
+though they may not speak to you for months on the street, it's their
+business to waylay you after the service is over and shake hands with
+you and tell you they hope you enjoyed the sermon and ask you to come
+again. And you can bank on it, they'll all take notice from the first."
+
+"It's no wonder Bartlett made you a partner, Harry."
+
+"Now behave. I want you to get in right. ... If you follow the rules
+I've outlined, not only will all the girls in town be falling over
+themselves to get to you first, but their fond parents will be egging
+them on. Then all you've got to do is to pick out the one with the
+biggest bundle and--"
+
+"Make a play for her?"
+
+"Not on your life. That would be fatal. Your part is to put yourself in
+her way. She'll do all the courting, and when she scents the
+psychological moment she'll do the proposing."
+
+"It doesn't sound natural, but you certainly seem to know what you're
+drooling about."
+
+"You can anchor to that, Nat."
+
+"And are you finished?"
+
+"I am. Of course I'll probably think of more things to wise you to,
+before you go."
+
+Duncan laughed shortly and tilted back in his chair, selecting another
+cigarette. "And you're the chap who wanted me to go to some bromidic
+old show to-night! Harry, you're immense. Why didn't you ever let me
+suspect you had all this romantic imagination in your system?"
+
+"Imagination be blowed, son. This is business." Kellogg removed the
+stopper from the decanter and filled both glasses again. "Well, what do
+you say?"
+
+"I've just said my say, Harry. It's amazing; I'm proud of you."
+
+"But will you do it?"
+
+"Everything else aside, how can I? I've got to live, you know."
+
+"But I propose to stake you."
+
+Duncan came down to earth. "No, you won't; not a cent. I'm in earnest
+about this thing: no more sponging on you, Harry. Besides--"
+
+"No, seriously, Nat: I mean this, every word of it. I want you to do
+it--to please me, if you like; I've a notion something will come of it.
+And I believe from the bottom of my heart there's not the slightest
+risk if you'll play the cards as they fall, according to Hoyle."
+
+"Harry, I believe you do."
+
+"I do, firmly. And I'll put the proposition on a business basis, if you
+like."
+
+"Go on; there's no holding you."
+
+"You start out to-morrow and order your war kit. Get everything you
+need, and plenty of it, and have the bills sent to me. You can be ready
+inside a fortnight. The day you start I'll advance you five hundred
+dollars. When you're married you can repay me the amount of the
+advances with interest at ten per cent, and I'll consider it a mighty
+good deal for myself. Now, will you?"
+
+"You mean it?"
+
+"Every word of it. Well?"
+
+For a moment longer Duncan hesitated; then the vision of what he must
+return to, otherwise, decided him. In desperation he accepted. "It's a
+drowning man's straw," he said, a little breathlessly. "I'm sure I
+shouldn't. But I will."
+
+Kellogg flung a hand across the table, palm uppermost.
+
+"Word of honour, Nat?"
+
+Duncan let his hand fall into it. "Word of honour! I'll see it
+through."
+
+"Good! It's a bargain." Kellogg lifted his glass high in air. "To the
+fortune hunter!" he cried, half laughing.
+
+Duncan nervously fingered the stem of his glass. "God help the future
+Mrs. Duncan!" he said, and drank.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+TRIUMPH OF MR. HOMER LITTLEJOHN
+
+The twenty-first of June was a day of memorable triumph to me, a day of
+memorable events for Radville.
+
+Only the evening previous Will Bigelow and I had indulged in
+acrimonious argument in the office of the Bigelow House, the subject of
+contention being the importance of the work to which I am devoting my
+declining years, to wit, the recording of _The History of Radville
+Township, Westerly County, Pennsylvania_; Will maintaining with that
+obstinacy for which he is famous, that nothing ever had happened, does
+happen, can or will happen in our community, I insisting gently but
+firmly that it knows no day unmarked by important occurrence (for it
+would ill become me, as the only literary man in Radville, to yield a
+point in dispute with the proprietor of the town tavern). Besides, he
+was wrong, even as I was indisputably right--only he had not the grace
+to admit it. We ended vulgarly with a bet, Will wagering me the best
+five-cent Clear Havana in the Bigelow House sample-room that nothing
+worth mentioning would take place in Radville before sundown of the
+following day.
+
+I left him, returning to my room at Miss Carpenter's (Will and I are
+old friends, but I refuse to eat the food he serves his guests), warmed
+by the prospect of certain triumph if a little appalled by the prospect
+of winning the stake; and sympathising a little with Will, who, for all
+his egregious stubborness, has some excuse for upholding his
+unreasonable and ridiculous views. He knows no better, having never had
+the opportunity to find out for himself how utterly absurd are his
+claims for the outside world. Whereas I have.
+
+He's an adventurer at heart, Will Bigelow, a romantic soul crusted
+heavily with character--like a volcano smouldering beneath its lava.
+For many years he has managed the Bigelow House, with his thoughts
+apart from it, his eyes ever seeking the horizon that recedes beyond
+the soaring rim of our encircling cup of hills, his heart forever
+yearning forth to the outer world; which he erroneously conceives to be
+a theatre of events--as if outside of Radville only could there be
+things worth seeing, considering, or doing, or matters of any sort that
+move momentously! As long as I've known the man (and we played truant
+together fifty years ago--hookey, we called it then) he's had his heart
+set on going forth from Radville, "for to admire and for to see, for to
+view this wide world o'er"; always he has presented himself to me as
+one poised on the pinnacle of purpose, ready the next instant to dive
+and strike out into the teeming unknown beyond the barrier hills. But
+this promise he has never fulfilled. He still maintains that he will
+surely go--next week--after the hayin's over--as soon as the ice is
+in--the minute Mary graduates from High School. ... But I know he never
+will.
+
+So to Will Radville is as dull as ditchwater to a teamster; to me it's
+as fascinating as that same ditchwater to a biologist with a
+microscope. I see nothing going on in the world outside of Radville
+more important than our daily life. Too long I have lived away from it,
+a stranger in strange lands, not to appreciate its relative
+significance in the scheme of things. It makes all the difference--the
+view-point: Will sees Radville from its homely heart outwards, I stand
+on its boundaries, a native but yet, somehow in the local esteem (by
+reason of my long residence in the East) an outlander. Thus I get a
+perspective upon the place, to Will and his ilk denied.
+
+It seems curious that things should have fallen out thus for the two of
+us: that Will Bigelow, all afire with the lust for travel, should never
+have mustered up enterprise enough to break his home ties, whilst I
+whose dearest desire had always been to live no day of my alloted span
+away from Radville, should have been, in a manner which I'm bound
+presently to betray, forced out into the world; that he, the rebellious
+stay-at-home, cursing the destiny which chained him, should have
+prospered and become the man of substance he is, while I, mutinously
+venturing, should have returned only to watch my sands run out in
+poverty--what's little better.
+
+Not that I would have you think me whining: I have enough, little but
+ample for my simple needs, if inadequate for my ambitions or my
+neighbours' necessities. My editorial work for the _Radville
+Citizen_ is quite remunerative, while my weekly column of local
+gossip for the _Westerly Gazette_ brings me in a little, and I've
+one or two other modest sources of still more modest income. But
+Radville folks are poor, many of them, many who are very dear to me for
+old sake's sake. There's Sam Graham.... Though I wouldn't have you
+understand that as a community we are not moderately prosperous and
+contented, comfortable if not energetic and advanced. This is not a
+pushing town: it has never known a boom. That I'm sure will some day
+come, but I hope not in my time. I have faith in the mountains that
+fold us roundabout; they are rich with the possibilities of coal and
+iron, and year by year are being more and more widely opened up and
+developed; year by year the ranks of flaming, reeking coke ovens push
+farther on beside the railway that penetrates our valley. But as yet
+their smoke does not foul our skies, nor does their refuse pollute our
+river, nor their soot tarnish our vegetation. And as I say, I hope this
+is not to be while I live, though sometimes I have fears: Blinky
+Lockwood made a fortune selling the coal that was discovered beneath
+his father's old farm over Westerly way, and ever since that there's
+been more or less quiet prospecting going on in our vicinity. I shall
+be sorry to see the day when Radville is other than as it is: the
+quiet, peaceful, sleepy little town, nestling in the bosom of the
+hills, clean, sweet and wholesome....
+
+But this is rambling far from the momentous twenty-first of June, my
+day of triumph.
+
+I shall try to set down connectedly and coherently the events which
+culminated in the humbling of Will Bigelow to the dust.
+
+To begin with, we were early startled by the rumour that Hiram Nutt,
+theretofore deemed unconquerable, had been disastrously defeated at
+checkers in Willoughby's grocery--and that by Watty the tailor, of all
+men in Radville. The rumour was confirmed by eleven in the forenoon,
+and in itself should have provided us with a nine days' wonder.
+
+As it happened, an event happening almost simultaneously confused our
+minds. At eleven-fifteen Miss Carpenter's household was thrown into
+consternation by the scandalous behaviour of her black cat, Caesar, who
+chose suddenly to terminate a long and outwardly respectable career as
+Miss Carpenter's familiar by having kittens under the horse-hair sofa
+in the parlour. Incidentally this indelicate and ungentlemanly
+behaviour temporarily unloosed the hinges of Miss Carpenter's reason,
+so that my supper suffered that evening, and for several days she
+wandered round the house with blank and witless eyes. Perhaps I should
+have warned her, for I had latterly come to suspect Caesar of leading a
+double life; but for reasons which seemed sufficient I had refrained.
+
+By the noon train Roland Barnette received his new summer suit from
+Chicago. I did not see it till evening, but heard of it before one,
+since Roland donned it immediately and wore it to the bank that very
+afternoon. I understand it caused something very near a run on the
+bank; people came in to draw a dollar or so or get change and lingered
+to feast their outraged visions, so that Blinky Lockwood, the
+president, had to send Roland home to change before closing-time. He
+changed back, however, as soon as off duty, and spent the rest of the
+afternoon and evening hours in Sothern and Lee's, at the soda-fountain;
+which Sothern and Lee did not object to, since it drew trade.
+
+Pete Willing established a record by getting drunk at Schwartz's bar by
+three in the afternoon, his best previous time being four-thirty; and
+Mrs. Willing chased him up Centre Street until, at the corner of Main,
+he blundered into the arms of Judge Scott; who ordered him to arrest
+and lock himself up; which Pete, being the sheriff, solemnly did,
+saying that it was preferable to a return to home and wife.
+
+At five o'clock there was a dog-fight in front of Graham's drug-store.
+
+At five-forty-five the evening train lurched in, bearing The Mysterious
+Stranger.
+
+Tracey Tanner saw him first, having driven down to the station with his
+father's surrey on the off-chance of picking up a quarter or so from
+some drummer wishing to be conveyed to the Bigelow House. Only
+outlanders pay money for hacks in Radville; everybody else walks, of
+course. Naturally Tracey took The Mysterious Stranger for a drummer; he
+had three trunks and a heavy packing-box, so Tracey's misapprehension
+was pardonable. Instinctively he drove him to the Bigelow House; Will
+now and again makes Tracey a present of a bottle of sarsaparilla or
+lemon-pop, with the result that Tracey calls Tannehill, who runs the
+opposition hotel, a skinflint and never takes strangers there except on
+their express desire. The Mysterious Stranger merely asked to be driven
+to the best hotel. This is not like most commercial travellers, who as
+a rule know where they want to go, even in a strange town, having made
+inquiry in advance from their brothers of the road. Tracey made a note
+of this, and is further on record as having observed that this stranger
+was rather better dressed than the run of drummers, if not so nobbily.
+Moreover, he was reticent under the cross-fire of Tracey's
+irrepressible conversation, and failed to ask the name of the first
+pretty girl they passed; who happened to be Angle Tuthill. Finally The
+Mysterious Stranger actually tipped Tracey a whole quarter for carrying
+his suit-case into the hotel office.
+
+With these incitements it would have been unreasonable to expect Tracey
+to do otherwise than linger around for the good health of his sense of
+inquisitiveness, which would else have been severely sprained.
+
+Will Bigelow was dozing behind the desk, lulled by the sound of Hi
+Nutt's voice in the barroom, as he explained to all and sundry just how
+he had inadvertently permitted Watty the tailor to best him at checkers
+that morning. Otherwise the office was deserted. Tracey wakened Will by
+stamping heavily across the floor, and Will mechanically pushed down
+his spectacles and dipped a pen in ink, slewing the register round for
+the guest's signature. He says he knew at a glance that The Mysterious
+Stranger was no travelling man, but this is a moot point, Tracey's
+memory being minutely accurate and at variance with Will's assertion.
+
+The Mysterious Stranger was a young man, rather severely clothed in a
+dark suit which excited no interest in Bigelow's understanding,
+although I, when I saw him later, had no difficulty in realising that
+it had never been made by a tailor whose place of business was more
+than five doors removed from Fifth Avenue. He was tallish, but not
+really tall, and carried himself with a slight stoop which took way
+from his real height. Tracey says he had a way of looking at you as if
+he was smiling inside at some joke he'd heard a long time ago; and I
+don't know but that's a fairly apt description of his ordinary
+expression. He had a way, too, of nodding jerkily at you--just once--to
+show he recognised you or understood what you were driving at; at other
+times he carried his head a trifle to one side and slightly forward. He
+was a man you wouldn't forget, somehow, though what there was about him
+that was remarkable nobody seemed to know.
+
+He nodded that jerky way in answer to Will Bigelow's "G'devenin'," and
+without saying anything took the pen and started to register. He had to
+stop, however, for Tracey was pressing him so close upon the right that
+he couldn't get any play for his elbow, and after a minute or two he
+asked Tracey politely would he mind stepping round to the left, where
+he could see just as well. So Tracey did. Then he wrote his name in a
+good round hand: "Nathaniel Duncan, N.Y."
+
+"I'd like a room with a bath," he told Will: "something simple and
+chaste, within the means of a man in moderate circumstances."
+
+Will thought he was joking at first, but he didn't smile, so Will
+explained that there was a bathroom on the third floor at the end of
+the hall, though there wasn't much call for it. "I could give you a
+room next to that," he said, "but you wouldn't want it, I guess."
+
+"Why not?" asked The Mysterious Stranger.
+
+"Because," said Will, "'taint near the sample-room."
+
+"That doesn't make any difference; I'm on the wagon."
+
+The only sense Will could get out of that was that the young man was
+travelling for a buggy house and hadn't brought any samples with him.
+"I thought," he allowed, "as how you'd be wantin' a place to display
+your samples, but of course if you're in the wagon business--"
+
+"Oh," said Mr. Duncan, "I thought you meant the 'sample-room' over
+there." He nodded toward the bar. "That's what you call the
+dispensaries of intoxicating liquors in this part of the country, is it
+not?"
+
+Will made a noise resembling an affirmative, and as soon as he got his
+breath explained that travelling men generally wanted a sort of a
+showroom next to theirs and that that was called a sample-room, too.
+
+"But I'm not a travelling man," said The Mysterious Stranger. "So I
+shall have as little use for the one as the other."
+
+"Then the room on the third floor'll do for you," said Will. "How long
+do you calculate on stayin'?"
+
+"That will depend," said Mr. Duncan: "a day or so--perhaps longer;
+until I can find comfortable and more permanent quarters."
+
+In his amazement Will jabbed the pen so hard into the potato beside the
+ink-well that he never could get the nib out and had to buy a new one.
+"You don't mean to say you're thinkin' of coming here to live?" he
+gasped.
+
+"Yes, I do," said the young man apologetically. "I don't think you'll
+find me in the way. I shall be very quiet and unobtrusive. I'm a
+student, looking for a quiet place in which to pursue my studies."
+
+"Well," said Will, "you've found it all right. There ain't no quieter
+place in Pennsylvany than Radville, Mr. Duncan. I hope you'll like it,"
+he said, sarcastic.
+
+"I shall endeavour to," said the young man.
+
+"And now may I go to my room, please? I should like to renovate my
+travel-stained person to some extent before dinner."
+
+"You'll have time," said Will; "dinner's at noon to-morrow. I guess
+you're thinkin' about supper. That's ready now. Here, Tracey, you carry
+this gentleman's things up to number forty-three."
+
+But Tracey had already gone, and such was his haste to spread the news
+that he forgot to take the horse and surrey back to the stable, but
+left it standing in front of the hotel till eight o'clock; for which
+oversight, I am credibly informed, his father justly dealt with him
+before sending him to bed.
+
+I have never been able to understand how we failed to hear of it at
+Miss Carpenter's before seven o'clock. That was the hour when, having
+finished supper and my first evening pipe, I started down-town to the
+_Citizen_ office, intending to stop in at the Bigelow House on the
+way and confound Will with the list of the day's happenings. Main
+Street was pretty well crowded for that hour, I remember noticing, and
+most of the townsfolk were grouped together on the corners, underneath
+the lamps, discussing something rather excitedly. I paid no particular
+attention, realising that between Caesar, Pete Willing, Roland
+Burnette's suit and the checker game, they had enough to talk about. So
+it wasn't until I walked into the Bigelow House office that I either
+heard or saw anything of The Mysterious Stranger.
+
+Will Bigelow was in his usual place behind the desk, and looked, I
+thought, rather disgruntled. His reply to my "Howdy, Will?" sounded
+somewhat snappish. But he got out of his chair and moved round the end
+of the desk just as the young man came out of the dining-room door.
+Then Will pulled up and I realised that he was calling my attention to
+the stranger.
+
+So far as I could see, he seemed an ordinary, everyday, good-looking,
+good-natured young man, whose naturally sunny disposition had been
+insulted by the food recently set before him. He wandered listlessly
+out upon the porch and stood there, with his hands in his pockets,
+looking up and down Centre Street, just then being shadowed into the
+warm, purple June dusk, beneath its double row of elms. We've always
+thought it a rather attractive street, and that night it seemed
+especially lively with its trickle of girls and boys strolling up and
+down, and the groups of grown folks on the corners, and Roland
+Burnette's summer suit conspicuous through Sothern and Lee's
+plate-glass windows; and I supposed the young man was admiring it all.
+But now I know him better. He felt just the same about Main Street,
+corner of Centre, Radville, as I should have about Broadway and
+Forty-second Street, New York, if you had set me down there and told me
+I'd got to get accustomed to the idea that I must live there. He was
+saying, deep down in his heart: "O _Lord_!"--with the rising
+inflection.
+
+Will grabbed my arm, without saying anything, and pulled me into the
+bar.
+
+"Hello!" I said, as he went round behind and opened the cigar-case,
+"what's up?"
+
+He took out two boxes of the finest five-centers in town and placed
+them before me. "Them's up," he said. "You win. Have one."
+
+It staggered me to have him give in that way; I had been looking
+forward to a long and diverting dispute. "I guess you've heard
+everything worth hearing about to-day's history," I said, disappointed,
+as I selected the least unpleasant looking of the cigars.
+
+"No, I haven't," he said. "I didn't have to hear anything. What earned
+you that smoke took place right here in this office.... Here," he said,
+striking a match for me.
+
+I had been trying to put the cigar away so that I might dispose of it
+without hurting Will's feelings, but he had me, so I recklessly poked
+the thing into the automatic clipper and then into my mouth. "What do
+you mean?" I asked, puffing.
+
+"Come 'long outside," said Will; and we went out on the porch just in
+time to see Mr. Duncan going wearily upstairs to his room. "I mean,"
+said Will, _"him"_. And then he told me all about it.
+
+"But things like that don't happen every day," he wound up defensively.
+"I'll go you another cigar on to-morrow."
+
+"No, you won't," I said indignantly; and furtively dropped the infamous
+thing over the railing.
+
+I am never successful in my little attempts at deception, even in
+self-defence. In all candour I believe my disposition of that cigar
+would have gone undetected but for my notorious bad luck. Of course
+Bigelow's setter, Pompey, had to be asleep right under the spot where I
+dropped the cigar, and equally of course the burning end had to make
+instantaneous connection with his nerve centres, via his hide, with such
+effect that he arose in agony and subsequently used coarse language.
+Investigation naturally discovered my empty-handed perfidy. To no one
+else in Radville would this have happened.
+
+On the other hand, no one else in Radville would have thrown away the
+cigar.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+MARGARET'S DAUGHTER
+
+Discomfort roused Duncan from his rest at an early hour, the morning
+following his arrival in Radville. I must confess that the beds in the
+Bigelow House are no better than they should be; in fact, according to
+Duncan, not so good. Duncan ought to know; he has slept in one of them,
+or tried to; a trial thus far to me denied. From what he has said,
+however, I shudder to think what will become of me should I ever lose
+the shelter of Miss Carpenter's second-story front and be thrown out
+into a heartless world to choose between the Bigelow House and Frank
+Tannehill's Radville Inn....
+
+Duncan arose and consulted the two-dollar watch which he had left on
+the pine washstand by the window. It was half-past seven o'clock, and
+that seemed early to him. He was tired and would willingly have turned
+in again, but a rueful glance at the couch of his night-long vigil
+sufficed him. He lifted a hand to Heaven and vowed solemnly: "Never
+again!"
+
+As he bent over the washstand and poured a cupful of water into the
+china basin, thus emptying the pitcher, he was conscious of a pain in
+his back; but a thought cheered him. "They must have decent stables in
+this town," he considered, brightening. "The haymows for mine, after
+this."
+
+He dressed with scrupulous care, mindful of Kellogg's parting words,
+the sense of which was that first impressions were most important. "All
+the same," Duncan thought, "I don't believe they count in a dead-and-
+alive place like this. There's no one here with sufficient animation to
+realise I'm in town." This shows how little he understood our little
+community. A day of enlightenment was in store for him.
+
+Pansy Murphy was scrubbing out the office when he came down for
+breakfast. She is large, of what is known as a full complexion,
+good-hearted and energetic. His pause at the foot of the stairs, as he
+surveyed in dismay the seven seas of soapy water that occupied the
+floor, aroused her. She sat back suddenly on her heels and looked her
+fill of him, with her blue Irish eyes very wide, and her mouth a trap.
+He bowed politely. Pansy saved herself from falling over backwards by a
+supreme effort, scrubbed her hair out of her eyes with a very wet hand,
+and gave him "Good-marrin', Misther Dooncan," in a brogue as rich as
+you could wish for.
+
+He started violently. "Heavens!" he said. "I am discovered!"
+
+"Make yer moind aisy about thot," Pansy assured him. "'Tis known all
+over town who ye arre, what's yer name, how manny troonks ye've brought
+wid ye, and th' rayson f'r yer comin' here."
+
+"A comforting thought, thank you," he commented: "to awake to find
+one's self grown famous over-night!..."
+
+"Now ye know," she returned, emboldened, "what it is to be a big toad
+in a small puddle."
+
+"I thank you." He nodded again, with a comprehensive survey of the
+reeking floor. "I'm afraid I do." With which he slipped and slid over
+to and through the swinging wicker doors of the dining-room.
+
+It was deserted. From the negligee of the tables, littered with the
+plates and dishes, dreary survivors of a dozen breakfasts, he divined
+that he was the tardiest guest in the household. A slatternly young
+woman in a soiled shirt-waist--the waitress--received him with great
+calm and waved him toward a table by the window, where an unused cover
+was laid. He went meekly, dogged by her formidable presence. She stood
+over him and glared down.
+
+"Haman neggs," she said defiantly, "steakan nomlette."
+
+"I'll be a martyr," he told her civilly. "Me for the steak."
+
+She frowned gloomily and tramped away. He folded his hands and, cheered
+by an appetising aroma of warm water and yellow soap from the office,
+considered the prospect from the window by his side. Three children and
+a yellow dog came along and watched him do it, dispassionately
+reviewing his points in clear young voices. Tracey Tanner ambled into
+view on the other side of the street and beamed at him generously, his
+round red face resembling, Duncan thought, more than anything else a
+summer sun rising through mist. Josie Lockwood (he was to discover her
+name later) passed with her pert little nose ostentatiously pointed
+away from him; none the less he detected a gleam in the corner of her
+eye.... Others went by, singly or in groups, all more or less openly
+interested in him.
+
+He tried to look unconscious, but with ill success. There was nothing
+particularly engaging in the view: the broad, dusty street lined with
+commonplace structures of "frame" and brick, glowing in the morning
+sunshine. There were, to be sure, cool shadows beneath the trees, but
+the suggestion was all of summer heat. There was a watering-trough and
+hitching-rail directly opposite, a little to one side of Hemmenway's
+feed-store, and there a well-fed mare stood, drooping dejectedly
+between the shafts of a dilapidated buggy. On the corner was a
+two-storey brick building with large plate-glass windows on the ground
+floor for the display of intimate articles of feminine apparel. The
+black and gold sign above proclaimed it: "The Fair. Dry Goods &
+Notions. Leonard & Call." Duncan considered it with grave respect. "The
+scene of my future activities," he observed.
+
+By this time his audience had become too large and friendly for his
+endurance. He rose and retired to a less public table.
+
+In her own good time the waitress returned with a plate, and a small
+oval platter in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. She placed
+them before him with a manner that told him plainly he could never make
+himself the master of her affections. The small oval platter was
+discovered to contain a small segment of dark-brown ham and two fried
+eggs swimming in grease.
+
+Duncan questioned the woman with mute, appealing eyes.
+
+"Steak's run out," she told him curtly.
+
+"Leaving no address?" he inquired with forced gaiety.
+
+A suppressed smile softened her austerity, and she turned away to hide
+it. "To think," he wondered, "that a sense of humour should inhabit
+that!" He broke a roll and munched it gloomily, pondering this
+revelation. "And such humour !" he added, with justice.
+
+After an interval the woman returned. He had refrained from the staple
+dish. She indicated it with a grimy forefinger.
+
+"Please!" he begged plaintively. "I'm never very hungry in the
+morning."
+
+"I guess you don't like the table here," she observed icily, clearing
+away.
+
+"Do you?"
+
+"I don't have to; I live home."
+
+He stared. Could it be possible...?
+
+"I know a good old one, too," he ventured hopefully. "Now here." He
+drew his coffee cup toward him and began to stir with energy. "You say:
+'It looks like rain'; and I'll say: 'Yes, but it tastes a little like
+coffee.'"
+
+She clattered away indignantly. He rose, depressed, and sighing sought
+the outer air.
+
+In the course of a forenoon's stroll Radville discovered itself to him
+in all its squalor and its loveliness. It sits in the centre of a broad
+valley of rolling meadow-land, studded with infrequent homesteads,
+broken into rather extensive farms, threaded by a shallow silver stream
+that gives its all in tribute to the Susquehanna far in the south. The
+barrier mountains rise about it like the sides of a bowl, with a great
+V-shaped piece chipped out of the southern wall. This break we call the
+Gap; through it the railroad comes to us, through it the river escapes.
+The hills rear high and steep, their swelling flanks cloaked in sombre
+green and grey, with here and there a bald spot like a splash of ochre
+where there's been a landslide, climbing directly from the plain, with
+no foothills. A recluse, I have thought, must have chosen this spot for
+a town site; sickened of the world, he sought seclusion--and found it
+here to his heart's content. Until the coke-ovens come, following the
+miners, with their attendant hordes of Slovaks, Poles and Hungarians,
+we shall be near to God, for we shall know peace....
+
+The town has been laid out with great rectangularity; the river divides
+it unequally. On the western bank is the larger community--locally, the
+Old Town, retaining its characteristics of sobriety, quiet and comfort;
+here, also, is the business centre--such business as there is. Here
+Duncan found homely residences sitting back from the street in ample
+grounds--grounds, perhaps, not very carefully groomed, but in spite of
+that attractive and pleasant to the eye. With one or two exceptions,
+none were strongly suggestive of wealth. He detected a trace of
+ostentation, and no taste whatever, in Lockwood's new villa (I'm told
+that's the polite designation for the edifice he caused to be erected
+what time the plague of riches smote him and the old home on Cherry
+Street became too small for the collective family chest), and there was
+quiet dignity in the quaintly columned facade of the Bohun mansion, now
+occupied solely by old Colonel Bohun, lonely and testy, reputed the
+richest as well as the most miserable man in the county. But as to his
+wealth, I doubt if rumour runs by more than tradition; Blinky
+Lockwood's new-found hundred-thousands are growing rapidly toward the
+million mark, unless Blinky's a worse business man than the town takes
+him to be.
+
+An old stone arch (whereon lovers linger in the moonlight) spans the
+stream and links the Old Town with the new, which we sometimes term the
+Flats, but more often simply Over There. It is a sordid huddle of dingy
+and down-at-the-heel tenements, housing the poorer working classes and
+the frankly worthless and ruffianly riff-raff of the neighbourhood.
+There are eight gin-mills Over There as against two sample-rooms in the
+Old Town, and of the local constabulary two-thirds lead exciting lives
+patrolling the Flats; the remaining third is ordinarily to be found
+dozing in the backroom of Schwartz's, and if roused will answer to the
+name and title of Pete Willing, Sheriff and Chief of Police.
+
+Duncan reviewed both sides of the municipal face with fine
+impartiality--the Flats last; and turned back to the Old Town. "There's
+one thing," he communed as he reached the bridge: "If these people ever
+find me out they'll run me across the river--sure."
+
+He paused there, looking up and down the valley with contemplative
+gaze; and it was there I found him.
+
+As is my custom, I had devoted the earlier morning hours to the
+compilation of that work which is to gain for the name of Littlejohn a
+trifle more respect than, I fear, it owns in Radville nowadays; and
+afterwards, again in accordance with habit, had started out for my
+morning constitutional. As I was about to leave the house Miss
+Carpenter waylaid me and, in a voice still tremulous from the shock of
+yesterday, asked me to hunt up Jake Sawyer in the Flats and tell him to
+come and cut the grass.
+
+I was not in the least unwilling, for the walk was not long, and the
+morning very pleasant--not too warm, and bright with the smiling spirit
+of June. I don't remember feeling more cheerful and at peace with the
+world than when I marched off on my mission. The cloud I might, of
+course, have anticipated: clouds always come, and a lifetime has taught
+me to be sceptical of that tale about the silver lining. And even when
+it came it seemed no more depressing, of no more significant moment,
+than the cloud shadow that scurries across a wheat-field with no effect
+other than to enhance the beauty of the sunshine that pursues it.
+
+Old Colonel Bohun was the cloud-shadow of that morning. I met him
+turning into Main Street from Mortimer--at the head of which his
+mansion stands. He came down the sidewalk, but with a hint of haste in
+his manner: a tall old man, bending beneath the burden of his years,
+his fierce old face and iron-grey hair shaded as always by the black
+slouch hat with the flapping brim, his rounded shoulders cloaked with
+the black Inverness cape he wore summer and winter. In spite of his age
+and evident decrepitude, he bodied forth the spirit of what he had
+been, and none could pass him without knowledge of his presence; he
+drew eyes as a magnet draws filings, and drawing, held them in respect.
+I doubted if there were a man in Radville who could meet the old
+colonel with anything but a mingling of fear and deference--with one or
+two exceptions. For myself I hated him heartily, and he, looking down
+at me from the peak of pride whereon his iron soul perched, despised me
+with equal intensity. So we got along famously at our infrequent
+encounters.
+
+This morning I caught a flash of fire from his red-rimmed old eyes, and
+told myself I was sorry for whoever crossed his path before he returned
+to his lonely castle. It was his habit at odd intervals to foray down
+the village streets with one grievance or another rankling in his
+bosom, seeking some unlucky one upon whose head to wreak his
+resentment. We had come to recognise the heavy, slow tapping of his
+thick cane as a harbinger of trouble, even as you might prognosticate a
+thunderstorm from the rumbling beneath the horizon.
+
+I saw he recognised me and gave him a civil salute, which he returned
+with a brusque nod and a sharper, "Good-morning, Littlejohn," as he
+passed. Then he swung into Main Street, paralleling my course on the
+opposite sidewalk, and went _thump-thumping_ along, darting quick
+glances hither and yon beneath his heavy brows, like some dark
+incarnation of perverse pride and passion.
+
+Partly because the sight of him sensibly influenced my mood, and partly
+because inevitably he made me think of Sam Graham, I turned off at
+Beech Street, leaving him to pursue his way toward the centre of town.
+Graham's one-horse drug-store stood on Beech, a block south of Main.
+That being the least promising location in town for a business of any
+sort, Sam had naturally selected it when he concluded to set up shop.
+If Sam had ever in his life displayed any symptoms of business
+sagacity, Radville would never have recovered from the shock. I believe
+it was Legrand Gunn, our only really certificated village wit, who
+coined the epigram: "As useless as to take a prescription to Graham's."
+The implication being that Graham didn't carry sufficient stock to
+fill any prescription; which was largely true; he couldn't; he hadn't
+the money to stock up with. What little he took in from time to time
+went in part to the support of Betty and himself, but mainly to pay
+interest on his debts and buy raw materials for models of his
+thousand-and-one inventions. Most Radvillians firmly believed that Sam
+has at some time or other in his busy, worthless career invented
+everything under the sun, practicable or impracticable--the former
+always a few days after somebody else had taken out patents for the
+identical device. But at that time no one believed he would ever make a
+cent out of any one of the children of his ingenious brain; nor was I,
+in this respect, more credulous than any of my fellow-townsmen.
+
+I lingered a moment outside the shop, thinking of the change that had
+come over it since the death of Margaret Graham, Betty's mother. For,
+despite its out-of-the-way location, the shop had not always been
+unprofitable; while Margaret lived (my heart still ached with the
+memory of her name) Sam's business had prospered. She had been one of
+those woman who can rise to any emergency in the interest of her loved
+ones; the first to realise Sam's improvidence and lack of executive
+ability, she had taken hold of the business with a firm hand and made
+it pay--while she lived. It has never ceased to be a source of
+wondering speculation to me, that she, with her gentle training, so
+wholly aloof from every thought of commerce or economy, should have
+proven herself so thorough and level-headed a business woman. There's
+no accounting for it, indeed, save on the theory that she conceived it
+a woman's function to make up for man's deficiencies; Sam needed her,
+so she become his wife; he needed a manager, so she had became that
+also....
+
+During Margaret's regime, as I say, the shop had thrived. Sam had few
+ill-wishers in Radville; the trade came his way. Then Betty was born
+and Margaret died....
+
+Most of this I have on hearsay. I left Radville shortly after their
+marriage and did not return until some months after Margaret's burial.
+By that time the shop had begun to show signs of neglect; its stock was
+decimated, its trade likewise. Sam was struggling with his inventions
+more fiercely than ever--seeking forgetfulness, I always thought. The
+business was allowed to take care of itself. He had always a serene
+faith in his tomorrows.
+
+Now the little shop had been far distanced by the competition of
+Sothern and Lee. It was twenty years behind the times, as the saying
+is. Small, darksome, dreary and dingy, it served chiefly as a
+living-room for Sam, his daughter, and his cronies, as well as for his
+workshop. He had a bench and a ramshackle lathe in one corner, where
+you might be sure to find him futilely pottering at almost any hour. He
+owned the little building--or that portion in it which it were a farce
+to term the equity above the mortgage--and Betty kept house for him in
+three rooms above the store.
+
+I saw nothing of him as I stepped across the street, and was wondering
+if he were at home when, through the small, dark panes of glass in his
+show windows I discerned his white old head bobbing busily over
+something on the rear counter. I pushed the door open and entered. He
+looked up with his never-failing smile of welcome and a wave of his
+hand.
+
+"Howdy, Homer? Come in. Well, well, I'm glad to see you. Sit down--I
+think that chair there by the stove will hold together under you."
+
+"What are you doing, Sam?" I asked.
+
+"Fixin' up the sody fountain. 'Meant to get it working last month,
+Homer, but somehow I kind of forgot."
+
+He rubbed away briskly at the single faucet which protruded above the
+counter, lathering it briskly with a metal polish that smelt to Heaven.
+
+"Do much sody trade, Sam?"
+
+He paused, passing his worn old fingers reflectively across a chin
+snowy with a stubble of neglected beard. "No," he allowed thoughtfully,
+"not so much as we used to, now that Sothern and Lee've got this
+new-fangled notion of puttin' ice cream in a nickel glass of sody. Most
+of the young folks go there, now, but still I get a call flow and
+then--and every little bit helps." He rubbed on ferociously for a
+moment. "'Course, I'd do more, likely, if I carried a bigger line of
+flavours."
+
+"How many do you carry?"
+
+"One," he admitted with a sigh, "vanilly."
+
+While I filled my pipe he continued to rub very industriously.
+
+"Why don't you get more?"
+
+He flashed me one of his pale, genial smiles. "I'm thinkin' of it,
+Homer, soon's I get some money in. Next week, mebbe. There's a man in
+N'York that mebbe can be int'rested in one of my inventions, Roland
+Barnette says. Mebbe he'd be willin' to put a little money in it,
+Roland says, and of course if he does, I'll be able to stock up
+considerable."
+
+I sighed covertly for him. He rubbed, humming a tuneless rhythm to
+himself.
+
+"Roland's goin' to write to him about it."
+
+"What invention?" I asked, incredulous.
+
+Sam put down his bottle of polish and came round the counter, beaming;
+nothing pleases him better than an opportunity to exhibit some one of
+his innumerable models. "I'll show you, Homer," he volunteered
+cheerfully, shuffling over to his work-bench. He rasped a match over
+its surface and applied the flame to a small gas-bracket fixed to the
+wall. A strong rush of gas extinguished the match, and he turned the
+flow half off before trying again. This time the vapour caught and
+settled to a steady, brilliant flame as white as and much softer than
+acetylene.
+
+"There!" he said in triumph. "What d'ye think of that, Homer?"
+
+"Why," I said, "I didn't know you had an acetylene plant."
+
+"No more have I, Homer."
+
+"But what is that, then?" I demanded.
+
+"It's my invention," he returned proudly.
+
+"I've been workin' on it two years, Homer, and only got it goin'
+yestiddy. It's going to be a great thing, I tell you."
+
+"But what _is_ it, Sam?"
+
+"It's gas from crude petroleum, Homer. See ..." he continued,
+indicating a tank beneath the bench which seemed to be connected with
+the bracket by a very simple system of piping, broken by a smaller,
+cylindrical tank. "Ye put the oil in there--just crude, as it comes out
+of the wells, Homer; it don't need refinin'--and it runs through this
+and down here to this, where it's vaporised--much the same's they
+vaporise gasoline for autymobile engines, ye know--and then it just
+naturally flows up to the bracket--and there ye are."
+
+"It's wonderful, Sam," said I, wondering if it really were.
+
+"And the best part of it is the economy, Homer. A gallon will run one
+jet six weeks, day in and out. And simple to install. I tell ye--"
+
+"Have you got it patented yet?"
+
+"Yes, siree! took out patents just as soon as it struck me how simple
+it 'ud be--more than two years ago. Only, of course, it took time to
+work it out just right, 'specially when I had to stop now and then
+'cause I needed money for materials. But it's all right now, Homer,
+it's all right now."
+
+"And you say Roland Barnette's writing to some one in New York about
+it?"
+
+"Yes; he promised he would. I explained it to Roland and he seemed real
+int'rested. He's kind, very kind."
+
+I was inclined to doubt this, and would probably have said something to
+that effect had not a shadow crossing the window brought me to my feet
+in consternation. But before I could do more than rise, Colonel Bohun
+had flung open the door and stamped in. He stopped short at sight of
+me, misguided by his near-sighted eyes, and singled me out with a
+threatening wave of his heavy stick.
+
+"Well, sir!" he snarled. "I've come for my answer. Have you sense
+enough in your addled pate to understand that, man? I've come for my
+answer!"
+
+"And may have it, whatever it may be, for all of me," I told him.
+
+His face flushed a deeper red. "Oh, it's only you, is it, Littlejohn? I
+took you for that fool Graham, in this damned dark hole. Where is he?"
+
+I looked to Graham and he followed the direction of my gaze to the
+work-bench, where Sam stood with his back to it, his worn hands folded
+quietly before him. He seemed a little whiter than usual, I thought;
+and perhaps it was only my fancy that made him appear to tremble ever
+so slightly. For he was quite calm and self-possessed--so much so that
+I realised for the first time there was another man in Radville besides
+myself who did not fear old Colonel Bohun.
+
+"I'm here, colonel," he said quietly. "What is it you wish?"
+
+The colonel swung on him, shaking with passion. But he held his tongue
+until he had mastered himself somewhat: a feat of self-restraint on his
+part over which I marvel to this day.
+
+"You know well, Graham," he said presently. "You got my letter--the
+letter I wrote you a week ago?"
+
+"Yes," said Sam, with a start of comprehension. "Yes, I got it."
+
+"Then why the devil, man, don't you answer it?"
+
+Sam's apologetic smile sweetened his face.
+
+"Why," he said haltingly--"I'm sure I meant no offence, but--you see,
+I'm a very busy man--I forgot it."
+
+"The hell you forgot it. D'ye expect me to believe that, man?"
+
+"I'm afraid you'll have to."
+
+Bohun was speechless for a moment, stricken dumb by a second seizure of
+fury. But again he calmed himself.
+
+"Very well. I'll swallow that insolence for the present--"
+
+"It wasn't meant as such, I assure--"
+
+"Don't interrupt me! D'you hear? ... I've come for my answer. Yes, I've
+come down to that, Graham. If you can't accord me the common courtesy
+of a written reply--I've come to hear it from your mouth."
+
+Sam nodded thoughtfully. "Mebbe," he said, "you forgot you have failed
+to accord me the common courtesy of any sort of a communication
+whatever for twenty years, Colonel Bohun. Even when my wife, your
+daughter, died, you ignored my message asking you to her funeral...."
+
+"Be silent!" screamed the colonel. "Do you think I'm here to bandy
+words with you, fool? I demand my answer."
+
+"And as for that," continued Sam as evenly as if he had not been
+interrupted, "your proposition was so preposterous that it could have
+come only from you, and deserved no answer. But since you want it
+formally, sir, it's no."
+
+For a moment I feared Bohun would have a stroke. The back of the chair
+I had just vacated and his stick alone supported him through that dumb,
+terrible transport. He shook so violently that I looked momentarily to
+see the chair break beneath him. There was insanity in his eyes. When
+finally he was able to articulate it was in broken gasps.
+
+"I don't believe it," he stammered. "It's a lie. I don't believe it.
+It's madness--the girl wouldn't be so mad. ..."
+
+"What is it, father?"
+
+I don't know which of us three was the more startled by that simple
+question in Betty Graham's voice; Sam, at all events, showed the least
+surprise; the old colonel wheeled toward the back of the store, his jaw
+dropping and his eyes protruding as though he were confronted with a
+ghost. As, in a way, he was: even I had been struck by that strange,
+heartrending similarity to her mother's tone; and even I trembled a
+little to hear that voice, as it seemed, from beyond the grave.
+
+Betty stood at the foot of the staircase; alarmed by the noise of the
+colonel's raging, she had stolen down, unheard by any of us. And in
+that moment I realised as never before that the girl had more of her
+mother in her than lay in that marvellous reproduction of Margaret
+Graham's voice. As she waited there one detected in her pose something
+of her mother's quiet dignity, in her eyes more than a little of
+Margaret's tragedy. Of Margaret's beauty I saw scant trace, I own; but
+in those days my eyes were blinded by the signs of overwork and
+insufficient nourishment that marred her young features, by the
+hopeless dowdiness of her garments.
+
+Abruptly she moved swiftly to her father's side and slipped her hand
+into his. "What is it, father?" she repeated, eyeing Colonel Bohun
+coldly.
+
+I thought Sam's eyes filled. His lips trembled and he had to struggle
+to master his voice. He smiled through it all, tenderly at his girl,
+but there was in that smile the weakness of the child grown old, the
+dependence of the man whose womanfolk must ever mother him.
+
+"Why, Betty," he said, tremulous--"why, Betty, your grandfather here
+has been kind enough to offer to take you and educate you and make a
+lady of you, and--and we were just talking it over, dear, just talking
+it over."
+
+"Do you mean that?" she flung at Bohun.
+
+He straightened up and held himself well in hand. "Is it the first you
+have heard of it?"
+
+"Yes." She looked inquiringly at her father.
+
+"Why didn't you tell her?" Bohun persisted harshly. "Were you afraid?"
+
+"No." Sam shook his head slowly. "I wasn't
+afraid. But it was unnecessary.... You see, Betty, Colonel Bohun is
+willing to do all this for you on several conditions. You must leave me
+and never see me again; you mustn't even recognise me should we meet
+upon the street; you must change your name to Bohun and never permit
+yourself to be known as Betty Graham. Then you must--"
+
+"Never mind, daddy dear," said the girl. "That is enough. I know now--I
+understand why you never told me. It's impossible. Colonel Bohun knew
+that when he made the offer, of course; he made it simply to harass
+you, daddy. It's his revenge...."
+
+She looked Bohun up and down with a glance of contempt that would have
+withered another man, poor, wan, haggard little maid of all work that
+she was.
+
+"And that's your answer, miss?" he snapped, livid with wrath.
+
+"I would not," she told him slowly, "accept a favour from you, sir, if
+I were starving...."
+
+Bohun drew himself up. "Then starve," he told her; and walked out of
+the shop.
+
+I gaped after his retreating figure. It seemed impossible, incredible,
+that he should have taken such an answer without yielding to a fit of
+insensate passion. And I was still marvelling when I heard Graham
+saying in a broken voice: "Betty! Betty, my little girl!"
+
+Then I, too, went away, with a mist before my eyes to dim the golden
+grace of June.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+INTRODUCTION TO MISS CARPENTER
+
+On my way back from the Flats I discovered Duncan sitting on the wall
+of the bridge, moodily donating pebbles to the water. His attitude
+suggested preoccupation with unhappy reflections, a humour from which
+the sound of my footsteps roused him. He looked up and caught my eye
+with an uncertain nod, as though he half recognised me--presumably
+having casually noticed me at the Bigelow House the previous evening.
+
+"Good-morning," said I cheerfully, with a slight break in my stride
+intended craftily to convey the impression that I was not altogether
+averse to a pause for gossip.
+
+He said "Good-morning," sombrely.
+
+"A pleasant day," I observed spontaneously, stopping.
+
+"Yes," he agreed. "By the way, have you a match about you?"
+
+I searched my pockets, found a box and handed it over.
+
+"I've been perishing for a ..." He slid his fingers into a waistcoat
+pocket, as one who should seek a cigarette-case; but the hand came
+forth empty. He bit his remark off abruptly, with a blank look in his
+eyes which was promptly succeeded by an expression of deepest chagrin.
+He got up and with a little bow returned the box.
+
+"I forgot," he said, apologetic.
+
+"I'm afraid I can't help you out," said I.
+
+"Oh, that's all right. I'd just forgotten that I don't smoke."
+
+I pretended not to notice his disconcertion.
+
+"You're to be congratulated; it's a shameful waste of time and money."
+
+"A filthy habit," said he warmly.
+
+"Indeed, yes," I chanted, finding my pipe and tobacco pouch.
+
+He caught my twinkle as I filled and lighted, and looked away, the
+shadow of a smile lurking beneath his small, closely clipped moustache.
+
+"I beg your pardon," he said a moment later, regarding me with more
+interest, "but--do you live here?"
+
+"Certainly. Why?"
+
+"I was sure of it," he replied soberly. "But don't you feel a bit
+lonesome, sometimes?"
+
+"Not in the least. Radville's one of the most interesting places on
+this side of the footstool." He sighed. "Indeed," I insisted, "you
+won't feel any more lonely after you've lived here a while, than I do
+now, Mr. Duncan."
+
+He opened his eyes at my acquaintance with his name, but jerked his
+head at me comprehendingly.
+
+"To be sure," he said. "You would know. But I'm only beginning to
+realise what it feels like to be a marked man."
+
+"I hear you intend to make Radville your permanent residence, Mr.
+Duncan?"
+
+"It's part of the system," he said obscurely. "It may prove a life
+sentence."
+
+"Don't you think you'll like it here?"
+
+"Oh, I'm strong for Radville," he declared earnestly. "It's all to the
+merry ... I beg your pardon."
+
+I stared curiously to see him colour like a school-girl. "What for?"
+
+"My mistake, sir; I forgot myself again. I don't use slang."
+
+"Oh!" I commented, wondering. He was beginning to puzzle me.
+
+In the pause the air began to rock with the heavy clanging of the clock
+in the Methodist Church steeple.
+
+"That's noon," I said. "We'll have to cut along: dinner's ready."
+
+Duncan immediately replanted himself firmly upon the parapet. "I know
+it," he said with some indignation.
+
+Again bewildered, I hesitated, but eventually advanced: "Our ways run
+together, Mr. Duncan, as far as the Bigelow House. My name is
+Littlejohn--Homer Littlejohn."
+
+He rose again to take my hand and assured me he was glad to make my
+acquaintance. "But," he added morosely, "I'll be damned if I go back to
+that hotel before dinner's over.... Great Scott! I forgot again. I
+don't swear!"
+
+"Have you any other unnatural accomplishments?" I inquired, chuckling.
+
+"I'm so full of 'em I can hardly stick," he assented gloomily. "I don't
+drink or smoke or swear or play pool or cards, and on Sundays I go to
+church."
+
+I laughed outright. "You've come to the right place for such exemplary
+virtues to be fully appreciated, Mr. Duncan."
+
+"That's all right," he said with a return of his indignation, "but it
+wasn't in the bargain that I should starve to death. Do you realise,
+Mr. Littlejohn," he continued, warming, "that you behold in me a young
+man in the prime of health actually on the point of wasting visibly
+away to a shadow of my former hardy self? It's a fact: I am. For the
+past two days I've had nothing to eat except railway sandwiches and
+coffee and the kind of fodder they pitchfork you at the Bigelow House.
+And I came here with a mind coloured with rosy anticipations of real
+old-fashioned country cooking. It's an outrage!"
+
+"Look here," said I: "why not come home with me for dinner? I'll be
+glad to have you, and Miss Carpenter won't mind your coming, I'm sure."
+
+He got up with alacrity. "Those are the first human words I've heard in
+Radville, sir! I accept with joy and gratitude. Come--lead me to it!"
+
+Now, Miss Carpenter doesn't like her meals delayed; so I would have
+been inclined to hasten this Mr. Duncan; but he saved me the trouble.
+
+"Miss Carpenter?" he asked without warning, as we hurried up Main
+Street.
+
+"My landlady, Mr. Duncan."
+
+"She takes boarders? An old maid?" he persisted eagerly.
+
+"An elderly spinster; boarders are her distraction as well as a source
+of income."
+
+"Do you think she'd take me in, Mr. Littlejohn?"
+
+"I'm sure of it. There's a vacant room ..."
+
+"Does she talk?"
+
+"Moderately."
+
+"Not a regular walking newspaper--no?"
+
+"Not exactly--"
+
+"Then I'm afraid it's no use," he sighed.
+
+I glanced up at his face, but it was inscrutable.
+
+"You--you want a landlady who talks?" I gasped, incredulous.
+
+"It's one of the rules," he said, again obscurely.
+
+I could make nothing of him. And had I any right to introduce to Hetty
+Carpenter a guest who came without credentials and talked more or less
+like a lunatic at large?
+
+"Mr. Duncan--" I began, uncomfortable.
+
+"Don't say it," he anticipated me. "I know you think I'm crazy--but I'm
+not. You would think so, naturally, because you're the only man here
+who's ever lived away from Radville long enough--not counting those who
+went to the World's Fair--."
+
+"How did you know?"
+
+"Bigelow told me last night; said you'd be glad to meet somebody from
+New York. I hope he's right. I'm glad, personally.... You see--May I
+request that you regard this as confidential?"
+
+"Yes--yes!"
+
+"I've come to Radville to make my fortune."
+
+The confession smote me witless: I could only gape. He nodded
+confirmation, with a most serious mien. At length I found strength to
+articulate. "From New York--?"
+
+"Yes. It's a new scheme. You see, Mr. Littlejohn,
+matters have come to such a state that a city-bred boy practically
+doesn't stand any show on earth of making good in the cities; your
+country-bred boys crowd him to the wall, nine times out of ten. They
+invade us in hordes, fresh from the open, strong, vigorous,
+clear-headed, ambitious.... What chance have we got? ... I've been
+figuring it out, you see, and I've come to the conclusion that it's my
+only salvation to get back to the country and improve some of the
+opportunities--the golden opportunities--that your boys have neglected,
+overlooked, in their mad desire to invade the commercial centres of the
+country."
+
+He seemed very much in earnest; I was watching him as closely as I
+might without making my scrutiny offensive; and there seemed to be the
+ring of conviction in his voice, while the expression of his eyes
+indicated concentrated thought. And how was I to know, then, that the
+concentration was due to the necessity of invention?
+
+"You follow me, Mr. Littlejohn?"
+
+"I was here first," I corrected. "Still, there's more in what you say
+than perhaps you realise."
+
+"If I'd made this discovery originally I'd agree with you, sir. But,
+quite to the contrary, it was pointed out to me by one of the shrewdest
+business minds in the United States--a man who'd been a country boy to
+begin with. And I've come to the conclusion that he's right."
+
+"So you're here."
+
+"Here I am."
+
+"And what do you propose doing?"
+
+"I'm reading law, Mr. Littlejohn; that I shall continue. In the
+meantime, I shall keep my eyes open. At any day, at any amount, the
+opportunity may present itself, the opportunity I'm looking for."
+
+"Probably you're right," I assented, impressed, as we turned a corner.
+
+A young woman in a very attractive linen gown was strolling toward us,
+quite prettily engaged with a book which she read as she walked, her
+fair young head bowed beneath a sunshade which tinted her face
+becomingly. She gave me a shy smile and a low-voiced greeting as we
+passed. Only my knowledge of the young woman prevented me from being
+blinded by her engaging appearance.
+
+"That," said I, when we were out of earshot, "shows you what a furore a
+good-looking young man can create in a town like this. Josie Lockwood
+has put on her best bib-and-tucker to go walking in this afternoon, on
+the off-chance of meeting you, Mr. Duncan."
+
+"Flattery note," he commented. "Who's Josie Lockwood?"
+
+"Daughter of Blinky Lockwood, the richest man in Radville."
+
+"Ah!" he said cryptically.
+
+We had come to Miss Carpenter's. I opened the gate for him, but he
+stood aside, refusing to precede me. And courtesy in the young folk of
+to-day warms my old heart.
+
+He had as much for Hetty Carpenter. Within an hour he had insinuated
+himself into her good graces with a deftness, an ease, that astounded.
+Within three hours he was established, bag and baggage, in her very
+best room.
+
+And thirty minutes after she had helped Duncan unpack, Hetty had to run
+downtown to buy a spool of thread.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+A WINDOW IN RADVILLE
+
+A jealous secret, which has never heretofore been divulged, is
+responsible for the prosperity of the Radville _Citizen_--at
+least, in very great measure. As the discoverer of this recipe for
+circulation, I have kept it carefully locked in my guilty bosom for
+many a year, and if I now betray it I do so without scruple, for the
+_Gazette_ is now established firmly in a groove of popularity from
+which you'd find it hard to oust the paper. So here's letting the cat
+out of the bag:
+
+The policy of the _Citizen_ has long been to devote its columns
+mainly to the exploitation of what is known in newspaper terminology as
+"the local story." Of the news of the great outside world we're
+parsimonious, recognising the fact that the coronation of King Edward
+VII. is a matter of much less import to our community than the
+holocaust which was responsible for the destruction of Sir
+Higginbottom's new hen-house. Similarly a West Indian tornado involving
+losses running up into hundreds of thousands of dollars sinks into
+relative insignificance as compared with the local weather forecast and
+its probable effect on crops not worth ten thousand; while the enforced
+abdication of the Sultan of Turkey gets a "stick" (a space in a
+newspaper column about as long as your forefinger, if you have a small
+hand) as contrasted with the column and a half assigned to the death of
+old Colonel Bohun.
+
+Now, naturally, a paper in a small country town can't afford a large
+and hustling staff of enthusiastic reporters; and very probably the
+_Citizen_ would overlook many items and stories of burning local
+interest were it not for the fact that the population has been
+cunningly made to serve in a reportorial capacity without either pay or
+its own knowledge. We literally get our local news by wireless; and
+from dawn to dark there's a constant supply of it on tap.
+
+It's this way: our editorial rooms are in the second storey of a
+building overlooking Court House Square. The lower floor is occupied by
+the Post Office, and in front of the Post Office are a hitching-post
+and two long, weather-scarred benches, while just across the road--I
+mean street--on the boundary of the square proper--is a near-bronze
+drinking-fountain and watering-trough erected from the proceeds of
+several fairs given by the local branch of the W. C. T. U. Naturally,
+indeed inevitably, all Radville gravitates to the Post Office, bringing
+the news with it, and stops to discuss it on the steps or the benches
+or by the fountain; and the acoustics are admirable. With a window open
+and scratch-pad handy, the keen-eared scribe at his desk in our offices
+can hardly fail to pick up every scrap of town information between
+sunrise and dusk.... Of course, in winter the supply's not so good.
+Winter before last we all suffered with colds acquired through keeping
+the windows open; and last winter our circulation fell off surprisingly
+through keeping them closed. This winter we contemplate cutting a
+trap-door through the floor for the ostensible purpose of ventilation.
+
+And thus it was that I managed to hear much of Mr. Duncan while I
+myself was engaged in formulating an estimate of the young man. He
+engaged the popular imagination no less than mine own, although I was
+more intimately associated with him--as a fellow-resident at Hetty
+Carpenter's. My professional duties making their habitual demands upon
+my time, I saw, it may be, less of him than many of our people.
+Certainly I learned less of his ways from first-hand knowledge. But
+from my desk (it's the nearest to the window right above the Post
+Office door) I was enabled to keep a pretty close line upon his habits
+and movements, during the first fortnight of his stay in Radville.
+
+At home I saw him with unvarying regularity at meal-times and less
+frequently after supper. Between whiles he seemed to observe a fairly
+regular routine: in the morning, after breakfast, he walked abroad for
+his health's sake; in the afternoon and evening he sequestered himself
+in his room for the pursuit of his legal studies. About the genuineness
+of these latter I was long without a question: having been privileged
+to inspect his room I found it redolent of an atmosphere of highly
+commendable application. His writing table was a model of neatness, and
+his store of legal treatises impressed one vastly. That no one, not
+even Hetty Carpenter, ever saw the room without remarking the open
+volume of "The Law of Torts," with its numerous pages painstakingly
+spaced by slips of paper by way of bookmarks, is an attested fact. That
+it was always the same volume is less widely known.
+
+Less directly (that is to say, via my window) I learned of him
+compendiously from sources which would have been anonymous but for my
+long acquaintance with the voices of the townspeople.... I write these
+pages at my desk at home and, if truth's to be told, somewhat
+surreptitiously; but with these voices ringing in my memory's ear I
+seem still to be sitting at my erstwhile desk by the window, looking
+out over Court House Square, chewing the rubber heel of my pencil the
+while I listen. It's summer weather and there's a smell in the air of
+dust and heat; the square simmers and shimmers in unclouded sunshine,
+its many green plots of grass a trifle grey and haggard with dust, the
+flagstaff with its two flanking cannon by the bandstand in the middle
+wavering slightly in the haze of heat; there are two rigs, a farm-wagon
+and a buckboard, hitched to the post below, and some boys are squirting
+water on one another by holding their hands over the lips of the
+fountain across the way. Immediately opposite, on the far side of the
+square, the Court House rises proudly in all the majesty of its
+columned front and clapboarded sides; farther along there's the
+Methodist Church, very severe, with its rows of sheds to one side for
+the teams of the more rural members. Behind them all bulk our hills,
+dim and purple against the overwhelming blue of the sky. It's very
+quiet: there are few sounds, and those few most familiar: the raucous
+war-cry of a rooster somewhere on the outskirts of town; an
+intermittent thudding of hoofs in the inch-deep dust of the roadway;
+Miles Stetson wringing faint but genuine shrieks of agony from his
+cornet, in a room behind the Opery House on the next street;
+periodically a shuffle of feet on the sidewalk below; less frequently
+the whine of the swinging doors at Schwartz's place; above it all,
+perhaps, the shrill but not unpleasant accents of Angie Tuthill as she
+pauses on the threshold downstairs and injects surprising information
+into the nothing-reluctant ears of Mame Garrison.
+
+" ... He's got six suits of clothes, three for summer and three for
+winter, and two others to wear to parties--one regular full-dress suit
+and another without any tails on the coat that he told Miss Carpenter
+was a dinner-coat, but Roland Barnette says he must've meant a Tuxedo,
+because nobody wears that kind of clothes except at night; so how could
+it be a dinner-coat?... And Miss Carpenter told Ma he's got twelve
+striped shirts and eight white ones and dozens of silk socks and two
+dozen neckties and handkerchiefs till you can't count and...."
+
+Mame punctuates this monologue with a regular and excusable "My land!"
+and the young voices fade away into the mid-summer afternoon quiet. I
+am free to resume my interrupted flight of fancy, but I refrain. The
+atmosphere is soporiferous, hardly conducive to editorial inspiration,
+and I find the commingled flavours of red-cedar, glue and rubber quite
+nourishing.
+
+Presently Dr. Mortimer, the minister, comes down the street in company
+with his deacon, Blinky Lockwood. They are discussing someone in
+subdued tones, but I catch references to a worthy young man and the
+vacancy in the choir.
+
+Josie Lockwood rustles into hearing with Bessie Gabriel in tow. Josie
+is rattling volubly, but with a hint of the confidential in her tone.
+She insists that: "Of course, I never let on, but every time we meet I
+can just feel him looking and...."
+
+Bessie interposes: "Why, Tracey Tanner's just crazy for fear he'll take
+on with Angie."
+
+I can see Josie's head toss at this. "I bet he don't know what Angie
+Tuthill looks like. That's too absurd..."
+
+"Absurd" is Josie's newest word. It's a very good word, too, but
+sometimes I fear she will wear it threadbare. It closes her remarks as
+the two girls dart into the Post Office, and there is peace for a time;
+then they emerge giggling, and I hear Josie declare: "I'd get Roland
+Barnette to do it, but he's so jealous. He makes me tired."
+
+Bessie's response is inaudible.
+
+"Well," Josie continues, "I'm simply not going to send them out until I
+meet him. Father said I could give it a week from Saturday, but I won't
+unless--"
+
+Bessie interrupts, again inaudibly.
+
+"Of course I could do that, but ... if I just said 'Miss Carpenter and
+guests' that nosey old Homer Littlejohn'd think I meant him too, and if
+I only said 'guest' it'd look too pointed. Don't you think so?"
+
+To my relief they pass from hearing, and I feel for my pipe for
+comfort. Anyway, I never did like Josie Lockwood.... Smoking, I
+meditate on the astonishing power of personality. Here is Mr. Nathaniel
+Duncan no more than a fortnight in our midst (the phrase is used
+callously, as something sacred to country journalism) and, behold! not
+yet has the town ceased to discuss him. The control he has over the
+local mind and imagination is certainly wonderful: the more so since he
+has apparently made no effort to attract attention; rather, I should
+say, to the contrary. Quiet and unassuming he goes his way, minding his
+own business as carefully as we would mind it for him, with all the
+good will in the world, if only we could find out what it is. But we
+can't leave him alone....
+
+Tracey Tanner interrupts my musings.
+
+"Hello!" he twangs, like a tuneless banjo.
+
+"'Lo, Tracey." This lofty and blase greeting can come from none other
+than Roland Barnette.
+
+"Where you goin'?"
+
+"Over to the railway station."
+
+"What for?"
+
+"To give you something to talk about. I'm going to send a telegram to a
+friend of mine in Noo York."
+
+"Aw, you ain't the only one can send telegrams. Sam Graham sent one
+just now."
+
+"_He_ did!"
+
+"Uh-huh. I was sort of hangin' round, when he came in, and I seen him
+send it myself."
+
+"Sam Graham telegraphing! Do you know; who to, Tracey?" Roland's
+superiority is wearing thin under contact with his curiosity. This
+surprising bit of news makes him distinctly more affable and inclined
+to lower himself to the social level of the son of the livery-stable
+keeper.
+
+As for myself, I am inclined to lean out of the window and call Tracey
+up, lest he get out of hearing before I hear the rest of it.
+Fortunately I am not thus obliged to compromise my dignity. The two are
+at pause.
+
+"Gimme a cigarette 'nd I'll tell you," bargains Tracey shrewdly. "Lew
+Parker told me after Sam'd gone."
+
+The deal is put through promptly.
+
+"He was telegraphin' to--Got a match?"
+
+For once I am in sympathy with Roland, whose tone betrays his desire to
+wring Tracey's exasperating neck.
+
+"Aw, he was only telegraphing to Gresham an' Jones for some sody water
+syrups."
+
+"Where'd he get the money?" There's fine scorn in Roland's comment.
+
+"I dunno, but he handed Lew a five-dollar bill to pay for the message."
+
+"Well, if Sam Graham's got any money he'd better hold on to it, instead
+of buying sody-water syrups. I guess Blinky Lockwood'll get after him
+when he finds it out. He owes Blinky a note at the bank and it's coming
+due in a day or two and Blinky ain't going to renew, neither."
+
+"Sam seemed cheerful 'nough. Anyhow, it ain't my funeral."
+
+I have now something to think about, indeed, and am more than half
+inclined to stroll up to Graham's and find out what has happened, on my
+own account, when the voices of Hi Nutt and Watty the tailor drift up
+to me. The cronies are coming down for their regular afternoon session
+on the Post Office benches--a function which takes place daily, just as
+soon as the sun gets round behind the building, so that the seats are
+shaded. And I pause, true to the ethics of journalism; it's my duty not
+to leave just yet.
+
+Surprisingly enough these two likewise are discussing Sam Graham. At
+least I can deduce nothing else from Hiram's first words, though their
+subject is for the moment nameless.
+
+"Yes, sir; he's the poorest man in this town."
+
+"Yes," Watty quavers; "yes, I guess he be."
+
+"An' he's got no more business sense _into_ him than God give a
+goose."
+
+"No, I guess he ain't."
+
+"Why, look at the way things has run down at his store since Margaret
+died. She kept things a-runnin' while she was alive."
+ "Yes, she was a fine woman, Margaret Bohun
+was."
+
+"An' they ain't no doubt about it, Sam had money into the bank when she
+died. But ever sinst then it's been all go out and no come in with him.
+He keeps fussin' and fussin' with them inventions of his, but no one
+ever heard tell of his gettin' anything out of 'em."
+
+"And what'd he do with all the money he had when Margaret died?"
+
+"Spent it, what he didn't lend and give away and lose endorsin' notes
+for his friends and then havin' to pay 'em. An' speakin' of notes, I
+heard Roland Barnette say, t'other day, that old Sam had a note comin'
+due to the bank, an' Blinky wasn't goin' to renew it any more."
+
+"'Course Sam can't pay it."
+
+"Certainly he can't. I was in his store day before yestiddy an' they
+wasn't nobody come in for nothin' while I was there. He don't do no
+business to speak of."
+
+"How long was you there, Hi?"
+
+"From nine o'clock to noon."
+
+"What doin'?"
+
+"Nuthin'; jes' settin' round."
+
+"I seen him to-day goin' into the bank. Guess he must've gone to see
+Lockwood 'bout thet note."
+
+"Well, I don't envy him his call on Blinky Lockwood none."
+
+"Mebbe he went in to deposit his coupons," Watty chuckled.
+
+Hiram snorted and there was silence while he filled and lit his pipe.
+
+"I hearn tell this mornin'," he resumed, "that Josie Lockwood's goin'
+to give a party next week."
+
+"Yes, I hearn it too. Angie Tuthill was talkin' 'bout it to Mame
+Garrison up to Leonard and Call's. She said they was goin' to have the
+biggest time this town ever see. Goin' to decyrate the grounds with
+lanterns an' have ice cream sent from Phillydelphy, and cakes, too.
+Can't make out what's come into Blinky to let that gal of his waste
+money like that."
+
+"I figger," says Hiram after a sapient pause, "she must be gettin' it
+up for thet New York dood."
+
+"Duncan?"
+
+"Uh-huh."
+
+"I didn't know he was 'quainted with the Lockwoods."
+
+"I didn't know he was 'quainted with nobody."
+
+"Nobody 'ceptin' Homer Littlejohn an' Hetty Carpenter, an' they don't
+seem to know much about him. I call him darn cur'us. Hetty says he
+allus a-settin' in his room, a-studyin' an' a-studyin' an' a-studyin'."
+
+"He goes walkin' mornin's, Hetty told me."
+
+"Wal, he don't come downtown much. Nobody hardly ever sees him 'cept to
+church."
+
+Hiram ponders this profoundly, finally delivering himself of an opinion
+which he has never forsaken. "I claim he's a s'picious character."
+
+"Don't look to me as though he knew 'nough to be much of anythin'."
+
+"Wal, now, if he's a real student an' they ain't no outs 'bout him,
+what in tarnation's he doin' here? Thet's jest what I'd like to have
+somebody tell me, Watty."
+
+"Hetty sez he sez he wants a quiet place to study."
+
+Hiram snorts with scorn. "Oh, fid-del! You don't catch no Noo York
+young feller a-settlin' down in Radville unless he's crazy or somethin'
+worse."
+
+"'Tain't no use tellin' Hetty Carpenter thet." "No; if anybody sez a
+word agin him she shets 'em right up."
+
+"'Tain't only Hetty, but all the wimmin's on his side."
+
+"Thet's proof enough to me he ain't right." "Wimmin," says Watty, as
+the result of a period of philosophical consideration, "is all crazy
+about clothes. When a feller's got good clothes you can't make them see
+no harm into him, no matter what he is. I pressed some of Duncan's last
+Satiddy. I never see clothes--such goods and linin's. They was made for
+him, too--made by a tailor on Fifth Avenue, Noo York. I fergit the name
+now."
+
+"Wal, Roland Barnette sez they ain't stylish. He sez they're too much
+like an undertaker's gitup."
+
+"Wal, Roland oughter know. He's the fanciest dressed-up feller in the
+county."
+
+"Yes, I guess he be."
+
+The subject apparently languishes, but I know that it still occupies
+their sage meditations; and presently this is demonstrated by Hiram,
+who expectorates liberally by way of preface.
+
+"When this cuss Duncan fust come here," he says with a self-contained
+chuckle, "ev'rybody but me figgered he had stacks of money. Guess they
+be singin' a different tune, now, sinst he's been goin' round askin'
+for work."
+
+This is news to me, and I sit up, sharing Watty's astonishment.
+
+"Be he a-doin' thet, Hiram?"
+
+"That's what he's been a-doin'."
+
+"Funny I missed hearin' about it."
+
+"He only started this mornin'. He went to Sothern and Lee's and Leonard
+and Call's and Godfrey's--'nd then I guess he must 'ev quit
+discouraged. They wouldn't none of them give him nothin'. Leastways,
+thet's what they said after he'd gone out. He didn't give anybody a
+reel chance to say anythin'. I was in Leonard and Call's and he came in
+an' asked for a job, but the minute Len looked at him he turned right
+round and slunk out without a-waitin' for Len to say a word." Hiram
+smoked in huge enjoyment of the retrospect. "He's the curiousest
+critter we ever had in this town."
+
+"Yes," agrees Watty, "I guess he be."
+
+At this juncture comes an interruption; Tracey Tanner returns,
+hot-foot. Either he has been running, or his breathlessness is due to
+excitement. Before the two upon the bench he pauses in agitated glee, a
+bearer of tremendous tidings.
+
+"Hello," he pants.
+
+"Now, you Tracey Tanner," Hiram cuts in sharply, "you run 'long an'
+don't be a-botherin' round. Seems like a body never can git a chance to
+rest, with you children allus a-buttin' in--"
+
+"Aw, shet up," says Tracey dispassionately. "I only wanted to tell you
+the news."
+
+Watty quavers: "What news, Tracey?"
+
+"Well," says the boy, "I'll tell you, Watty, but I wouldn't 've told
+him after what he said."
+
+"But what's the news, Tracey?" There is suspense in the iteration.
+
+"Well, seein's it's you, Watty--"
+
+"You Tracey Tanner, you run 'long and stop your jokin'!" interrupts
+Hiram with authority.
+
+"'Tain't no joke; it's news, I'm tellin' you. Sa-ay, what d'ye think,
+Watty?"
+
+"Yes, Tracey, yes? What is it, boy?"
+
+"Thet--Noo--York--dood," drawls Tracey, "is a-workin' for Sam Graham!"
+
+A dramatic pause ensues. I rise and find my coat.
+
+"Tracey Tanner," shrills Hiram, "be you a-tellin' the truth?"
+
+"Kiss my hand and cross my heart and vow Honest Injun, I seen him up
+there just now in the store, Watty, tendin' the sody fountain."
+
+"Wal," says Hiram, rising, "I don't believe a word of it, but if it's
+true we better be goin' round to see, Watty, 'cause it ain't a-goin' to
+last long. He won't stay after he finds out Sam ain't got no money to
+pay his wages with."
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+THE MAN OF BUSINESS IN EMBRYO
+
+There's no questioning the fact that two weeks of Radville had driven
+Duncan to desperation; on the morning of the fifteenth day he wakened
+in his room at Miss Carpenter's and lay for a time abed staring
+vacantly at the gaudily papered ceiling, not through laziness remaining
+on his back, but through sheer inertia. The prospect of rising to
+ramble through another purposeless, empty day appalled his imagination;
+it had been all very well when the humour of his project intrigued him,
+when the village was a novelty and its inhabitants "types" to be
+studied, watched, analysed and classified with secret amusement; but
+now he felt that he had already exhausted its possibilities; he was a
+foreigner in thought and instinct, had as little in common with
+Radvillians as any newly imported Englishman would have had. In plain
+language, he was bored to the point of extinction.
+
+"Why," he reflected aloud, "it doesn't seem reasonable, but I'm
+actually looking forward to the delirious dissipation of church next
+Sunday!
+
+"Me?...
+
+"If Kellogg could only see me now!"
+
+He laughed mirthlessly.
+
+"I must have done something to deserve this in my misspent life...
+
+"Wonder if nothing ever happens here?.... I'd give a whole lot, if I
+had it, for a good rousing fire on Main Street--the Bigelow House, for
+choice....
+
+"And it's got me to the point of drooling to myself, like those fellows
+you read about who get lost in the desert....
+
+"Come! Get out of this! And, my boy, remember to 'count that day lost
+whose low descending sun sees nothing accomplished, nothing done.'...
+
+"Probably misquoted, at that."
+
+Sullenly he rose and dressed.
+
+He was late at the breakfast and silent and reserved throughout that
+meal. Poor Miss Carpenter thought him dissatisfied and hung round his
+chair, purring with a solicitude that almost maddened him. As soon as
+possible he made his escape from the house.
+
+The walk he indulged in that morning took him in a wide circle: south
+on the road to the Gap, then eastwards, crossing the railroad and the
+river, north through a smiling agricultural region, east to the Flats,
+and so across the stone bridge to the Old Town once more. He was
+trudging up Street toward Centre shortly after eleven--hot, a little
+tired, and utterly disgusted. The exercise, instead of exhilarating,
+had depressed him; the quickened flow of blood through his veins, the
+vigour of the clean air he inhaled, demanded of him action of some
+sort; and he had nothing whatever to do with himself all afternoon save
+drowse over "The Law of Torts."
+
+Recognition of Leonard and Call's familiar shop-front fired him with a
+spirit of adventure and enterprise. He stopped short, thoughtfully
+rubbing his small moustache the wrong way, his vision glued to the
+embarrassingly candid window displays.
+
+"It'd be an awful thing for me to do....
+
+"Think of yourself, man, jumping counters in and out amongst all
+hose--those _Things!_ like a lunatic monkey performing on a Monday
+morning's clothes line!..."
+
+He thought deeply, and sighed. "It ain't moral....
+
+"But it's one of the rules, it must be did. Henry said a ribbon clerk
+was a social equal....
+
+"Come, now! No more shennanigan! Brace up! Be a man!...
+
+"A man? That's the whole trouble: I am a man; I've got no business in a
+place like that."
+
+He turned and moved away slowly. But the idea had him by the heels. He
+struggled against a growing resolution to return. Then enlightenment
+came to him suddenly. He paused again, grappling with this amazing
+revelation of self.
+
+"Great Scott! Harry was right, damn him! He said this place would
+reconstruct me from the inside out and vice versa, and by jinks! it
+has. I actually _want_ to work!...
+
+"Can you beat that--_me_!"
+
+He swung back to Leonard and Call's, mentally reviewing his
+instructions.
+
+"Let's see. I was to wait at least a month, to let the shopkeepers get
+accustomed to the sight of me.... _Hmm_.... Harry certainly has a
+cute way of expressing his thought.... But it can't be helped; I can't
+wait. If I do, I'll throw up the job....
+
+"I'm to walk in and say, politely: '_I'm looking for employment. If
+at any time you should have an opening here that you can offer me, I
+shall endeavour to give satisfaction. Good-day_.'...
+
+"But be careful not to press it. Just say it and get right out...."
+
+With the air of a man who knows his own mind he pulled open the wire
+screen-door and strode in.
+
+Two minutes later he emerged, breathing hard, but with the glitter of
+determination in his eye.
+
+"I wouldn't 've believed I could get away with it. Here goes for the
+next promising opening."
+
+He headed for Sothern and Lee's drug-store.
+
+"Wonder what that fellow would have said if I'd had the nerve to wait
+and listen...."
+
+In the drug-store he experienced less difficulty in making his speech
+and exit; he flattered himself that he accomplished both gracefully,
+even impressively. And indeed you may believe he left a gaping audience
+behind him. So likewise at Godfrey's notions and stationery shop.
+
+As he emerged from the latter the resonant clamour of the Methodist
+Church clock drove him home for dinner, hungry and glowing with
+self-approbation. At all events, no one had refused him: he had not
+been set upon and incontinently kicked out. He felt that he was getting
+on.
+
+"Now this afternoon," he mused, "I'll wind up the job. By night
+everyone in town will know I want work."
+
+But if he had thought a moment he would have realised that he might
+have spared himself the trouble; the consummation he so earnestly
+desired was already being brought about by resident and recognised, if
+unofficial, agents for the dissemination of news.
+
+It was two o'clock or thereabouts, I gather, when, shaping his course
+toward Radville's commercial centre, Duncan hesitated on the corner of
+Beech Street, cocking an incredulous eye up at the weather-worn sign
+which has for years adorned the side of Tuthill's grocery: a hand
+indicating fixedly:
+
+THIS WAY TO GRAHAM'S DRUG STORE
+
+"Two druggists in Radville!" he mused. "Is it possible?... Then it's
+Harry's mistake if the scheme fails; he said this was a one-horse
+country town, but I'm blest if it isn't a thriving metropolis! Two!...
+Here, I'm going to have a look."
+
+He turned up Beech and presently discovered the object of his quest, a
+two-storey building of "frame," guiltless of the ardent caress of a
+paint-brush since time out of mind. On the ground floor the windows
+were made up of many small square panes, several of which had been
+rudely mended. Through them the interior glimmered darkly. In the
+foreground stood a broken bottle, shaped like a mortuary urn and half
+full of pink liquid. Beside it reposed a broken packing-box in which
+bleary camphor-balls nestled between torn sheets of faded blue paper.
+Of these a silent companion in misery stood on the far side of the
+window: a towering pagoda-like cage of wire in which (trapped,
+doubtless, by means of some mysterious bait known only to alchemists)
+three worn but brutal-looking sponges were apparently slumbering in
+exhaustion. Back of these a dusty plaster cast of a male figure lightly
+draped seemed to represent the survival of the fittest over some
+strange and deadly patent medicine. The recessed door bore an
+inscription in gold letters, tarnished and half obliterated:
+
+AM GRAHAM
+ RUGS & CHEM C LS
+
+ R SCRIPTION CAREF LY C POUNDED
+
+"Looks like the very place for one of my acknowledged abilities," said
+Duncan. He turned the knob and entered, advancing to the middle of the
+dingy room. There, standing beside a cold and rusty stove whose pipe
+wandered giddily to a hole in the farthest wall (reminding him of some
+uncouth cat with its tail over its back), he surveyed with the single
+requisite comprehensive glance the tiers of shelves tenanted by a
+beggarly array of dingy bottles; the soda fountain with its company of
+glasses and syrup jars; the flanking counters with their broken
+show-cases housing a heterogenous conglomeration of unsalable wares;
+the aged and tattered posters heralding the virtues of potent affronts
+to the human interior--to say naught of its intelligence; the drab
+walls and debris-littered flooring.
+
+A slight grating noise behind him brought Duncan round with a start. At
+a work-bench near the window sat a white-haired man garbed baggily in
+an old crash coat and trousers. His head was bowed over something
+clamped in a vise, at which he was tinkering busily with a file. He did
+not look up, but, as his caller moved, inquired amiably: "Well?"
+
+"Good-morning," stammered Duncan; "er--I should say afternoon."
+
+"So you should," Sam admitted, still fussing with his work. "Anything
+you want?"
+
+Duncan swallowed hard and mastered his confusion. "Would it be possible
+for me to speak to the proprietor a moment?"
+
+"I should jedge it would. Go right along." Sam filed vigorously.
+
+"Might I ask--are you Mr. Graham?"
+
+"Yes, sir; that's me."
+
+The filing continued stridently. Duncan moved closer. There was scant
+encouragement to be gathered from Graham's indifferent attitude; yet
+his voice had been pleasant, kindly.
+
+"I--I'm looking for employment," said Duncan hastily. "If--"
+
+"Employment!"
+
+Graham dropped his tools with a clatter and faced round. For a moment
+his eyes twinkled and a wintry smile lightened his fine old features.
+"Well, I declare!" he said, rising. "You must be the stranger the whole
+town's been talkin' about."
+
+"If at any time," Duncan pursued hastily, "you should have an opening
+here that you can offer me, I shall endeavour to give satisfaction.
+Good-day, sir." And he made for the door.
+
+"Eh, just a minute," said Graham. "Are you in a hurry?"
+
+Duncan paused, smiling nervously. "Oh, no--only I mustn't press it, you
+know--just say it and get right--I mean I don't want to take up your
+valuable time, sir."
+
+Graham chuckled. "Guess the folks haven't been talking much to you
+about me," he suggested. "You seem to have a higher opinion of the
+value of my time than anybody else in Radville."
+
+"Yes, but--that is to say--"
+
+"But if you're really looking for a job, I'd like to give you one first
+rate."
+
+Duncan started toward him in breathless haste. "You--you'd like
+to!--You don't mean it!"
+
+"Yes," Graham nodded, smiling with enjoyment of his little joke. It was
+harmless; he didn't for a moment believe that Duncan really needed
+employment; and on the other hand it tickled him immensely to think
+that anyone should apply to him for work.
+
+"Well," said Duncan, staring, "you're the first man I ever met that
+felt that way about it."
+
+Sam's amusement dwindled. "The trouble is," he confessed--"the trouble
+is, my boy, my business is so small I don't need any help. There isn't
+much of anything to do here."
+
+"That's just the sort of a place I'd like," said Duncan impulsively.
+Then he laughed a little, uneasily. "I mean, I'm willing to take any
+position, no matter how insignificant. I mean it, honestly."
+
+"This might suit you, then--"
+
+"I wish you'd let me try it, sir."
+
+"But you don't understand." Graham was serious enough now; there wasn't
+any joke in what he had to say. "To tell you the truth, I can't afford
+it. When your pay was due, I'm afraid I shouldn't have any money to
+give you."
+
+Duncan dismissed this paltry consideration with a princely gesture. "I
+don't mind that part," he insisted. "Mr. Graham, if you'll teach me the
+drug business I'll work for you for nothing."
+
+He said it earnestly, for he meant it just a bit more seriously than he
+himself realised at the moment; and I'm glad to think it was because
+Sam's serene and gentle, guileless nature had appealed to the young
+man. He had that in him, that instinct for decency and the right, that
+made him like this simple, sweet and almost childish old man at
+sight--like him and want to help him, though he was hardly conscious of
+this and believed his motive rather more than less selfish, that he was
+grasping at this opportunity for relief from the deadly ennui that
+oppressed him as madly as a famished man at a crust. Indeed, the boy
+was eager to deceive himself in this respect, with youth's wholesome
+horror of sentiment.
+
+"Between you and me," he hurried on, "it's this way: I've been here for
+two weeks with nothing to do but look at a book, and it's got me crazy
+enough to want to work!"
+
+But still I like to think it was for a better reason, that his conduct
+then bore out my theory that there are streaks of human kindliness and
+right-thinking in all of us--buried deep though they may be by many an
+acquired stratum of callousness and egoism: the sediment of life caking
+upon the soul....
+
+But as for Sam, as soon as he recovered he shook his head in thoughtful
+deprecation. "Well, I swan!" he said. "I guess you must find it pretty
+slow down here. But"--brightening--"if you feel that way about it, I'd
+better take you over to Sothern and Lee's. They'd be glad to get you at
+the price."
+
+"And in a week they'd think they were over-paying me," Duncan argued.
+"No--I've been there. Why not try me on here?"
+
+"Well, I'm just a little bit afraid you wouldn't learn much, my boy. I
+don't do business enough to give you a good idea of it. Sothern and Lee
+get all the trade nowadays."
+
+"But look here, sir: don't you think if I came in here perhaps we could
+build up the business?"
+
+"No, I'm afraid not," Graham deprecated, pursing his lips and rubbing
+the white stubble of his beard with a toil-worn thumb.
+
+Duncan eyed him in bitter humour. "No, of course not. You're right--but
+somebody must have tipped you off."
+
+Graham paid little heed, whose mind was bent upon his own parlous
+circumstances. "I haven't got capital enough to stock up the store," he
+explained; "that's the real trouble. Folks have got into the habit of
+going to the other store because I'm out of so many things."
+
+"Well, to be sure," said Duncan, a little dashed; "you can't expect to
+do business unless you've got things to sell...."
+
+"I don't expect it, my boy," Sam assented dolefully. "'Twouldn't be in
+reason.... You see," he added, hope lightening his gloom, "I'm working
+on an invention of mine, and if that should work out I'd get some money
+and be able to get a fresh stock. Then I'd be glad to have you."
+
+Duncan brushed this impatiently aside. "How much business are you doing
+here now?"
+
+"Some days"--Graham reckoned it on his fingers--"I take in a dollar or
+two, and some days... nothing.... There's my sody fountain," he said
+with a jerk of a thumb toward it: "got that fixed up a little while
+ago, and it's bringing in a little. Not much. You see, I need more
+syrups. I've only got vanilly now."
+
+"Soda water!" Duncan jumped at the idea. "Hold on! All the girls round
+here drink soda, don't they?"
+
+"Oh, yes," said Graham abstractedly.
+
+The thought infused new life into the younger man's waning purpose.
+"Mr. Graham, I wish you'd let me come in here for a while. I don't care
+about wages."
+
+Graham lifted his shoulders resignedly. "Well, my boy, it don't seem
+right, but if you really want to work here for nothing, I'll be glad to
+have you; and if things look up with me, I'll be glad to pay you."
+
+Abruptly he found his hand grasped and pumped gratefully.
+
+"That's mighty good of you, Mr. Graham. When can I start?"
+
+"Why... whenever you like."
+
+In a twinkling Duncan's hat and gloves were off. "I'd like to, now," he
+said. "Where can we get more syrups?"
+
+"Unfortunately... I'll have to buy them."
+
+"How much?" Duncan's hand was in his pocket in an instant.
+
+"Oh, no, you mustn't do that." Sam backed away in alarm. "I couldn't
+allow it, my boy. It's good of you, but..."
+
+"Either," Nat told himself, "I'm asleep or someone's refusing to take
+money from me." He grinned cheerfully. "Oh, that's all right," he
+contended aloud. "I'll draw it down as soon as we begin to sell soda."
+He selected a bill from his slender store. "Will five dollars be
+enough?"
+
+"Oh, yes, but it wouldn't be right for me to--"
+
+But by this time Duncan was pressing the bill into his hand.
+"Nonsense!" he insisted. "How can we build up trade without syrup?"
+
+"But--but--"
+
+"And how can I learn the business without trade?" He closed Graham's
+unwilling fingers over the money and skipped away.
+
+Sighing, Graham gave over the unequal argument. "Well, if you're
+satisfied, my boy.... But I'll have to write to Elmiry for it."
+
+"Telegraph."
+
+"Telegraph!" Graham laughed. "That'd kill Lew Parker, I guess."
+
+"Who's he?"
+
+"Telegraph operator and ticket agent."
+
+"Well, he won't be missed much. Telegraph and tell 'em to send the
+goods C.O.D. Please, Mr. Graham. We want to get things moving here, you
+know; we've got to build up the business. We'll put out some signs and
+... and ... well, we'll get the people in the habit of coming here
+somehow. You'll see!"
+
+He raked the poverty-stricken shelves with a calculating eye, all his
+energy fired by enthusiasm at the prospect of doing something. Graham
+watched him with kindling liking and admiration. His old lips quivered
+a little before he voiced his thought.
+
+"You--you know, my boy, you've got splendid business ability," he
+asserted with whole-souled conviction.
+
+Duncan almost reeled. "What?" he cried.
+
+"I was just saying, you have wonderful business ability."
+
+"You're the first man that ever said that. I wonder if it's so."
+
+"I'm sure of it."
+
+"Well," said Nat, chuckling, "I'll write that to my chum. He'll--"
+
+"Oh, I can tell," Graham interrupted. "Now, I ... Well, you see, I've
+been a failure in business. So far as that goes, I've been a failure in
+everything all my life."
+
+Duncan stared for a moment, then offered his hand. "For luck," he
+explained, meeting Graham's puzzled gaze as his hand was taken.
+
+Wondering, Graham shook his head; and gratitude made his old voice
+tremulous. He put a hand over Duncan's, patting it gently.
+
+"I want you to know, my boy, that I appreciate..." His voice broke.
+"It's mighty kind of you to buy the syrup--very kind--"
+
+"Nothing of the sort; it's just because I've got great business
+ability." Duncan laughed quietly and moved away. "We'll want to clean
+up a bit," said he; "got a broom? I'll raise the dust a bit while
+you're out sending that wire."
+
+"You'll find one in the cellar, I guess, but--your clothes--"
+
+"Oh, that's all right. Where's the cellar?"
+
+"Underneath," Graham told him simply, taking down a battered hat from a
+hook behind the counter.
+
+"I know; but how do I get there?"
+
+"By the steps; you go through that door there into the hall. The steps
+are under the stairs to our rooms. I live above the store, you see."
+
+"Yes.... Good-bye, Mr. Graham."
+
+"Good-bye, my boy."
+
+Duncan watched the old man move slowly out of sight, then with a groan
+sat down on the counter to think it over. "It wouldn't be me if I
+didn't make a mess of things somehow," he told himself bitterly. "Now
+you have gone and went and done it, Mr. Fortune Hunter. You stand a
+swell chance of getting away with the goods when you take a wageless
+job in a spavined country drug-store with no trade worth mentioning and
+nothing to draw it with... just because that old duffer's the only
+human being you've spotted in this burg!...
+
+"Wonder what Harry would say if he heard about that wonderful business
+ability thing...
+
+"But what in thunder can we do to bring business to this bum joint?"
+
+He raked his surroundings with a discouraged glance.
+
+"Oh," he said thoughtfully, "hell!"
+
+Five minutes later Ben Sperry found him in the same position, his head
+bent in perplexed reverie. Sperry had been travelling for Gresham and
+Jones, a wholesale drug-house in Elmira, more years than I can
+remember. His friendship for Sam Graham, contracted during the days
+when Graham's was the drug-store of Radville, has survived the decay of
+the business. He's a square, decent man, Sperry, and has wasted many an
+hour trying to persuade Sam to pay a little more attention to the
+business. I suspect he suffered the shock of his placid life when he
+found Sam absent and the shop in the care of this spruce, well set-up
+young man.
+
+"Anything I can do for you?" chirped Duncan cheerfully, dropping off
+the counter as Sperry entered.
+
+"No-o; I just wanted to see old Sam. Is he upstairs?"
+
+"No, Mr. Graham's not in at present," Duncan told him civilly.
+
+Sperry wrinkled his brows over this problem. "You working here?" he
+asked.
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Well, I'll be hanged!"
+
+"Let us hope not," said Duncan pleasantly. He waited a moment, a little
+irritated. "Sure there's nothing _I_ can do for you?"
+
+"No-o," said Sperry slowly, struggling to comprehend. "Thank you just
+the same."
+
+"Not at all." Duncan turned away.
+
+"You see," Sperry pursued, "I don't buy from drug-stores: I sell to
+'em."
+
+Duncan faced about with new interest in the man. "Yes?" he said
+encouragingly.
+
+"My card," volunteered Sperry, fishing the slip of pasteboard from his
+waistcoat pocket. He dropped his sample case beside the stove and
+plumped down in the chair, to the peril of its existence. "I don't make
+this town very often," he pursued, while Duncan studied his card.
+"Sothern and Lee are the only people I sell to here, but I never miss a
+chance to chin a while with old Sam. So, having half an hour before
+train time, I thought I'd drop in."
+
+"Mr. Graham doesn't order from your house, then?"
+
+"Doesn't order from anybody, does he?"
+
+"I don't know; I've just come here. He'll be sorry to have missed you,
+though. He's just stepped out to wire your house--I gather from the
+fact that it's in Elmira; he mentioned that town, not the firm
+name--for some syrups."
+
+"You don't mean it!" Sperry gasped. "What's struck him all of a sudden?
+He ain't put in any new stock for ten years, I reckon."
+
+"Well, you see," Duncan explained artfully, "I've persuaded him, in a
+way, to try to make something out of the business here. We're going to
+do what we can, of course, in a small way at first."
+
+Sperry wagged a dubious head. "I dunno," he considered. "Sam's a nice
+old duffer, but he ain't got no business sense and never had; you can
+see for yourself how he's let everything run to seed here. Sothern and
+Lee took all his trade years ago."
+
+"Yes, I know; that's why he needs me," said Duncan brazenly. In his
+soul he remarked "O Lord!" in a tone of awe; his colossal impudence
+dazed even himself. "But don't you think he could get back some of the
+trade if the store was stocked up?"
+
+"No doubt about that at all," Sperry averred; "he'd get the biggest
+part of it."
+
+"You think so?"
+
+"Sure of it. You see, everybody round here likes Sam, and Sothern and
+Lee have always been outsiders. They'd swing to this shop in a minute,
+just on account of that. Fact is, I wasted a lot of talk on our firm a
+couple of years ago, trying to make our people give him some credit,
+but they couldn't see it. He owed them a bill then that was so old it
+had grown whiskers."
+
+"And still owes it, I presume?"
+
+"You bet he still owes it. Always will. It's so small that it ain't
+worth while suing for----"
+
+"Look here, Mr. Sperry, how much is this bill with the whiskers?"
+
+"About fifty dollars, I think," said the travelling man, fumbling for
+his wallet. "I'm supposed to ask for payment every time I strike town,
+you know, so I always have it with me; but I haven't had the heart to
+say a word to Sam for a good long time.... Here it is."
+
+Duncan studied carefully the memorandum: "To Mdse, as per bill
+rendered, $47.85." "I wonder..." he murmured.
+
+"Eh?" said Sperry.
+
+"I was wondering:... Suppose you were to tell your people that there's
+a young fellow here who'd like to give this store a boom.... Say he
+wants a little credit because--because Mr. Graham won't let him put in
+any cash----"
+
+"Not a bit of use," Sperry negatived. "I would, myself, but the
+house--no."
+
+"But suppose I pay this bill----"
+
+"Pay it? You really mean that?"
+
+"Certainly I mean it." Duncan produced the wad of bills which Kellogg
+had furnished him the night before his departure from New York. Thus
+far he had broken only one of the five-hundred-dollar gold
+certificates, and of that one he had the greater part left; living is
+anything but expensive in Radville.
+
+"I'm beginning to understand that I was cut out for an actor," he told
+himself as he thumbed the roll with a serious air and an assumed
+indifference which permitted Sperry to estimate its size pretty
+accurately.
+
+"That's quite a stack of chips you're carrying," Sperry observed.
+
+Duncan's hand airily wafted the remark into the limbo of the
+negligible. "A trifle, a mere trifle," he said casually. "I don't
+generally carry much cash about me. Haven't for five years," he added
+irrepressibly. He extracted a fifty-dollar certificate from the sheaf,
+and handed it over.
+
+"I'll take a receipt, but you needn't mention this to Mr. Graham just
+now."
+
+"No, certainly not." Sperry scrawled his signature to the bill.
+
+"And about that line of credit?----"
+
+"Well, with this paid, I guess you could have what you needed, in
+moderation. Of course----"
+
+"My name is Duncan--Nathaniel Duncan." Sperry made a memorandum of it
+on the back of an envelope. "Any former business connections?"
+
+"None that I care to speak about," Duncan confessed glumly.
+
+Sperry's face lengthened. "No references?"
+
+It took thought, and after thought courage; but Duncan hit upon the
+solution at length. "Do you know L. J. Bartlett & Company, the
+brokers?"
+
+"Do I know J. Pierpont Morgan?"
+
+"Then that's all right. Tell your people to inquire of Harry Kellogg,
+the junior partner. He knows all about me."
+
+Noting the name, Sperry put away the envelope. "That's enough. If he
+says you're all right, you can have anything you want." He consulted
+his watch. "Hmm. Train to catch.... But let's see: what do you need
+here?"
+
+Duncan reviewed the empty shelves, his face glowing. "Pills," he said
+with a laugh: "all kinds of pills and... everything for a regular,
+sure-enough drug-store, Mr. Sperry: everything Sothern and Lee carries
+and a lot of attractive things they don't.... Small lots, you know,
+until I see what we can sell."
+
+"I see. You leave it to me; I probably know what you need better than
+you do. I'll make out a list this afternoon and mail it to-night with
+instructions to ship it at the earliest possible moment."
+
+"Splendid!" Duncan told him. "You do that, and don't worry about our
+making good. I'm going to put all my time and energy into this
+proposition and----"
+
+"Then you'll make good all right," Sperry assured him. "All anybody's
+got to do is look at you to see you're a good business man." He
+returned Duncan's pressure and picked up his sample-case. "S'long,"
+said he, and left briskly, leaving Duncan speechless.
+
+As if to assure himself of his sanity he put a hand to his brow and
+stroked it cautiously. "Heavens!" he said, and sought the support of
+the counter. "That's twice to-day I've been told that in the same
+place!"...
+
+"It's funny," he said, half dazed, "I never could have pulled that off
+for myself!"
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+
+SMALL BEGINNINGS
+
+Presently Duncan moved and came out of his abstraction. "I'd better get
+that broom," he said slowly. "The place certainly needs some expert
+manicuring before we get that new stock in.... By George, I really
+begin to believe we've got a chance to do something, after all!...
+
+"Or else I'm dreaming...."
+
+He opened the back door and entered a narrow and dark hallway, almost
+stumbling over the lowest step of a flight of stairs communicating with
+the upper storey. From above he could hear a clatter of crockery,
+sounds of footsteps, a woman singing softly.
+
+"Graham's wife, I presume. Never struck me he might be married....
+Well, I'll be quiet. If she catches me now, before we're introduced,
+she'll take me for a burglar."
+
+On tiptoes he found the descent to the cellar, where by the aid of a
+match he discovered a floorbrush whose reasons for retirement from
+active employment were most evident even to his inexpert eye. None the
+less nothing better offered, and he took it back with him to the shop.
+
+Graham's tinkering was never of a cleanly sort; the floor was thick
+with a litter of rubbish--shavings, old nuts and bolts, bits of scrap
+tin and metal, torn paper, charred ends of matches: an indescribable
+mess. Duncan surveyed it ruefully, but with the will to do strong in
+him, took off his coat, turned up his trousers, and fell to. The
+disposition of the sweepings troubled him far less than the dust he
+raised; obviously the only place to put it was behind the counters.
+
+"Nobody'll see it there," he said in a glow of satisfaction, pausing
+with the room half cleared. "I always wondered what they did with that
+sort of truck--under the beds, I suppose. Funny Graham never thought of
+this, himself--it's so blame' easy."
+
+He resumed his labours, thrilled with the sensation of accomplishment.
+"One thing at least that I can do," he mused; "never again shall I fear
+starvation... so long as there's a broom handy." Absorbed he brushed
+away, raising a prodigious amount of dust and utterly oblivious to the
+fact that he was observed.
+
+Two shadows moved slowly athwart the windows, to which his back was
+turned, paused, moved on out of sight, returned. It was only during a
+pause for breath that he became aware of the surveillance.
+
+Straightening up, he looked, gasped and fled for the back of the store.
+"Heavens!" he whispered, aghast to recognise Josie Lockwood and Angie
+Tuthill, of whose ubiquitous shadows in his way he had been conscious
+so frequently within the past several days. "I _thought_ I must
+have made an impression.... Don't tell me they're coming in!"
+
+Behind the counter he struggled furiously into his coat. "They are," he
+said with a sinking heart; "and I'll bet a dollar my face is dirty!"
+
+Notwithstanding these misgivings, it was a very self-possessed young
+man, to all appearances, who moved sedately round the end of the
+counter to greet these possible customers. His bow was a very passable
+imitation of the real thing, he flattered himself; and there's no
+manner of doubt but that it flattered the two prettiest and most
+forward young women in Radville of that day.
+
+"May I have the honour of waiting on you, ladies?" he inquired with all
+the suavity of an accomplished salesman.
+
+Josie and Angie sidled together, giggling and simpering, quite overcome
+by his manner. A muffled "How de do?" from Angie and a half-strangled
+echo of the salutation from the other were barely articulate. But
+hearing them he bowed again, separately to each.
+
+"Good-afternoon," said he, and waited in an inquiring pose.
+
+"This--'this is Mr. Duncan, isn't it?" inquired Josie, controlling
+herself.
+
+"Yes, and you are Miss Lockwood, if I'm not mistaken?"
+
+Renewed giggles prefaced her: "Oh, how _did_ you know?"
+
+"Could anyone remain two weeks in Radville and not hear of Miss
+Lockwood?"
+
+The shot told famously. "How nice of you! Mr. Duncan, I want you to
+meet my friend, Miss Tuthill."
+
+"I've had the honour of admiring Miss Tuthill from a distance," Duncan
+assured the younger woman. And, "She'll burn up!" he feared secretly,
+watching the conflagration of blushes that she displayed. "Just think
+of getting away with a line of mush like that! Harry was right after
+all: this is a country town, all right."
+
+"And--and are you working here, Mr. Duncan?" Josie pursued.
+
+"I'm supposed to be; I'm afraid I don't know the business very well, as
+yet."
+
+"Oh, that's awf'ly nice," Angle thought.
+
+He thanked her humbly.
+
+"We didn't expect to see you here," Josie assured him. "We just thought
+we'd like some soda."
+
+"Soda!" he parroted, horrified. He cast a glance askance at the tawdry
+fountain. "Let's see: how d'you work the infernal thing?" he asked
+himself, utterly bewildered.
+
+"Yes," Angie chimed in; "it's so warm this afternoon, we----"
+
+"I've got to put it through somehow," he thought savagely. And aloud,
+"Yes, certainly," he said, and smiled winningly. "Will you be pleased
+to step this way?"
+
+Out of the corners of his eyes he detected the amused look that passed
+between the girls. "Oh, very well!" he said beneath his breath. "You
+may laugh, but you asked for soda, and soda you shall have, my dears,
+if you die of it." He put himself behind the counter with an air of
+great determination, and leaned upon it with both hands outspread until
+he realised that this was the pose of a groceryman. "What'll you have?"
+he demanded genially. "Er--that is--I mean, would you prefer vanilla
+or--ah--soda?"
+
+A chant antiphonal answered him:
+
+"I hate vanilla."
+
+"And so do I."
+
+"Oh, don't say that!" he pleaded. "Of course you know there's--ah--
+vanilla and vanilla..., Ah... some vanilla I know is detestable, but
+when you get a really fine vintage--ah--imported vanilla, it's quite
+another matter--ah--particularly at his season of the year----"
+
+His confusion was becoming painful.
+
+"Oh, is it?" asked Josie helpfully. Her eyes dwelt upon his with a
+confiding expression which he later characterised as a baby stare; and
+he was promptly reduced to babbling idiocy.
+
+"Indeed it is; no doubt whatever, Miss Lockwood. Especially just now,
+you know--ah--after the bock season--ah--I mean, when the weather is--
+is--in a way--you might put it--vanilla weather."
+
+"But I like chocolate best," Angle pouted. And he hated her consumedly
+for the moment.
+
+"Very well," Josie told him sweetly, "I'll have the vanilla."
+
+He thanked her with unnecessary effusion and turned to inspect the
+glassware. There could be no mistake about the right jar, however;
+there was nothing but vanilla, and seizing it he removed the metal cap
+and placed it before the girls. With less ease he discovered a whiskey
+glass and put it beside the bottle, with a cordial wave of the hand.
+ A pause ensued. Duncan was smiling fatuously, serene in the belief that
+he had solved the problem: the way to serve soda was to make them help
+themselves. It was very simple. Only they didn't... With a start he
+became sensible that they were eyeing him strangely.
+
+"You--ah--wanted vanilla, did you not?"
+
+"Yes, thanks, vanilla," Josie agreed.
+
+"Well, that's it," he said firmly, indicating the jar and the glass.
+
+Josie giggled. "But I don't want to drink it clear. You put the syrup
+in the glass, you know, and then the soda."
+
+"Oh, I see! You want to make a high-ba--ah--a long drink of it. Ah,
+yes!" He procured a glass of the regulation size. "Now I understand." A
+pause. "If you'll be good enough to help yourself to the syrup."
+
+"No; you do it," Josie pleaded.
+
+"Certainly." He lifted the whiskey-glass and the jar and began to pour.
+"If you'll just say when."
+
+"What? Oh, that's enough, thank you."
+
+"If I ever get out of this fix, I'll blow the whole shooting match," he
+promised himself, holding the glass beneath the faucet and fiddling
+nervously with the valves. For a moment he fancied the tank must be
+empty, for nothing came of his efforts. Then abruptly the fixture
+seemed to explode. "A geyser!" he cried, blinded with the dash of
+carbonated water and syrup in his face, while he fumbled furiously with
+the valves.
+
+As unexpectedly as it had begun the flow ceased. He put down the glass,
+found his handkerchief and mopped his dripping face. When able to see
+again he discovered the young women leaning against one of the
+show-cases, weak with laughter but at a safe remove.
+
+"Our soda's so strong, you know," he apologised. "But if you'll stay
+where you are, I'll try again."
+
+Warned by experience, he worked at the machine gingerly, finally
+producing a thin, spluttering trickle. Beaming with triumph, he looked
+up. "I think it's safe now," he suggested; "I seem to have it under
+control."
+
+Angie and Josie returned, torn by distrust but unable to resist the
+fascination of the stranger in our village. And there's no denying the
+boy was good-looking and a gentleman by birth: a being alien to their
+experience of men.
+
+He had filled one glass and was tincturing it with syrup when he caught
+again that confiding smile of Josie's, full upon him as the beams of a
+noon-day sun.
+
+"Haven't we seen you at church, Mr. Duncan?" she said prettily.
+
+"I think, perhaps, you may have," he conceded. "I have seen you, both."
+The second glass (for he was determined that Angie should not escape)
+took up all his attention for an instant. "Do you have to go, too?" he
+inquired out of this deep preoccupation.
+
+"What?"
+
+"I mean, do you attend regularly?" he amended hastily.
+
+"Oh, yes, of course," Josie simpered, accepting the glass he offered
+her. "You make it a rule to go every Sunday, don't you, Mr. Duncan?"
+
+He permitted himself an indiscretion, secure in the belief it would
+pass unchallenged: "It's one of the rules, but I didn't make it."
+
+"Did you know there was a vacancy in the choir?" Angle asked, taking up
+her glass.
+
+"Choir?"
+
+"Yes," Josie chimed in; "we were hoping you'd join. I want you to,
+awfully."
+
+"We're both in the choir," Angie explained.
+
+"And all the girls want you to join. Don't they, Angie?"
+
+"Oh, yes, indeed; they're all just dying to meet you."
+
+"I'll have to write and ask," he said abstractedly.
+
+"Why, what do you mean by that?"
+
+Josie's question struck him dumb with consternation. He made curious
+noises in his throat, and fancied (as was quite possible) that they
+eyed him in a peculiar fashion. "It's--I mean--a little trouble with my
+throat," he managed to lie, at length. "I must ask my physician if I
+may, first."
+
+"Oh, I see," said Josie.
+
+"But," he hastened to change the subject, "you're not drinking, either
+of you. I sincerely hope it's not so very bad."
+
+Angie replaced her glass, barely tasted. "Do you like it, Josie?"
+
+To Josie's credit it must be admitted that she made a brave attempt to
+drink. But the mixture was undoubtedly flat, stale and unprofitable.
+She sighed, put it back on the counter, and rose to the emergency.
+
+"Mine's perfectly lovely"--with a ravishing smile--"but it's not very
+sweet."
+
+"I made them dry for you--thought you'd like 'em that way," he
+stammered. "Perhaps you'd like 'em better if I put a collar on 'em?"
+
+The chorus negatived this suggestion very promptly.
+
+"Why don't you try a glass, Mr. Duncan?" Angie added with malice.
+
+"I'm on the wagon--I mean, I don't drink at all," he said wretchedly;
+and was deeply grateful for the diversion afforded by the entrance of a
+third customer.
+
+It was Tracey Tanner, as usual swollen with important tidings, as usual
+propelling himself through the world at a heavy trot. It has always
+been a source of wonderment to me how Tracey manages to keep so stout
+with all the violent exercise he takes.
+
+"Say, Angle," he twanged at sight of her, "I've been lookin' for you
+everywhere. Did you hear that----"
+
+He stopped instantaneously with open mouth as he saw Duncan behind the
+counter; and openmouthed he remained while the young man came round and
+advanced toward him, with a bland smirk accompanied by a professional
+bow and rubbing of hands.
+
+"May I have the pleasure of serving you, Mr. Tanner?"
+
+"Huh?" bleated Tracey, dumbfounded.
+
+"Is there anything you wish to purchase?"
+
+A violent emotion stirred in Tracey. Sounds began to emanate from his
+heaving chest. "N-n-no, ma'am!" he breathed explosively.
+
+Duncan bowed again, his face expressionless. "Then will you be good
+enough to excuse me?" He turned precisely and made his way back to the
+counter.
+
+As if released from some spell of strong enchantment by the movement,
+Tracey swung on his heel and lunged for the door.
+
+"What was it you wanted to ask me, Tracey?" Angie called after him.
+
+As the boy disappeared at a hand-gallop his response floated back: "I
+fergit."
+
+"I'm afraid I must have frightened him?" Duncan said inquiringly.
+
+"Oh, no, not at all," Josie reassured him; "he's just gone to tell
+everybody you're here."
+
+"Come, Josie, we've been here ever so long." Angie moved slowly toward
+the door, but Josie inclined to linger.
+
+"Don't hurry, I beg of you," Duncan interposed.
+
+"Oh, we haven't hurried," she said with a gush of gratification that
+startled the man. "You'll remember what I said about the choir, won't
+you?"
+
+He braced himself to take advantage of the opening. "I shall never
+forget it," he said impressively.
+
+She gave him her hand. "Then good-bye."
+
+"Not good-bye, I trust?" He retained the hand, despising himself
+inexpressibly.
+
+"Oh, we'll be in again, won't we Angie?"
+
+"Oh, yes, indeed."
+
+"My land, Angie! What do you think? I'd almost forgotten to pay for the
+soda?"
+
+"Please don't speak of it, Miss Lockwood--the pleasure--."
+
+"But I must, Mr. Duncan. How much is it?"
+
+Josie fingered the contents of her purse expectantly, but Duncan hung
+in the wind. He had no least notion what might be the price of soda
+water. "Two for a quarter?" he hazarded with his disarming grin.
+
+Angle choked with appreciation of this exquisite sally. "Ain't you
+funny!"
+
+"I'm afraid you're right," he conceded; "still I'd rather you didn't
+think so."
+
+"It's ten cents, isn't it, Mr. Duncan?"
+
+Josie was offering him a dime; he accepted it without question.
+
+"Thank you, very much," said he. "Good afternoon, ladies."
+
+He was aware of Angle's fluttering farewells on the sidewalk. Josie was
+lingering on the doorstep in an agony of untrained coquetry. He lowered
+his tone for her benefit, thereby adding new weight to his bombardment
+of her amateur defences.
+
+"Remember you promised to call again."
+
+Her giggles tore his ear-drums. "Th-thank you, I'm sure," she
+stammered, and fled.
+
+They disappeared. He wandered to the chair and threw himself limply
+into it. "That voice!" he said stupidly. "That giggle! I've got to woo
+and win... _that!_...
+
+"It serves me right," he concluded.
+
+The most hopeless of humours assailed him, and he yielded to it without
+a struggle. His attitude expressed his mood with relentless verity.
+Chin sunken upon his breast, eyes fairly distilling gloom, legs
+stretched out carelessly before him, he sat motionless, suffocating at
+the bottom of a gulf of discontent. His lips moved, sometimes
+noiselessly, again in whispers barely audible.
+
+"Years of this!... A matter of human endurance--no, superhuman!... If
+it wasn't for the bargain, I'd chuck it all and...
+
+"Well, the only way to forget your misery is to work, I suppose."
+
+He pulled himself together and stood up, wondering where he had left
+his broom, and simultaneously stiffened with surprise, aware that he
+was not alone. A glance, however, established the connection between
+the rear door, which stood ajar, and the young woman who stood staring
+at him in utterest stupefaction. This, he thought, must be the woman of
+the voice, upstairs.
+
+But she couldn't be Graham's wife. She was too young. Even beneath the
+mask of care and weariness, the all too plain evidences of privation,
+spiritual and mental as well as physical, that Betty wore unceasingly
+in those days, he could discern youth and grace and gentleness, and the
+nascent promise of prettiness that longed to be, to have the chance to
+show itself and claim its meed of deference and love. He was quick to
+see the intelligence in her mutinous eyes, and the sweet lines of her
+mouth, too often shaped in sullen mould, and no less quick to recognise
+that she would carry herself well, with spirit and dignity, once she
+were relieved of household toil and moil, once given the chance to
+discard her shapeless, bedraggled and threadbare garments for those
+dainty and beautiful things for which her starved heart must be sick
+with longing....
+
+"Good Lord!" he thought, pitiful, "it's worse here than I dreamed. Old
+Graham must need a keeper--and this child has been trying to be that,
+with nothing to keep him on."
+
+"Who are you?" the girl demanded sullenly, in a voice a little harsh
+and toneless. "What are you doing here? Where's my father?"
+
+"Mr. Graham has stepped out on business," Duncan replied. "You are his
+daughter, I believe?"
+
+"Yes, I'm his daughter, but----"
+
+"My name is Nathaniel Duncan. Mr. Graham has been kind enough to take
+me on as apprentice, so to speak."
+
+Her stare continued, intense, resentful, undeviating.
+
+"You mean you're going to work here?"
+
+"That my intention, Miss Graham." He nodded gravely.
+
+"What for?"
+
+"To learn the drug business."
+
+"Oh-h!" She flung herself a pace away, impatiently. "I'm not a child,
+and I don't want to be talked to like one."
+
+"I didn't mean to annoy you----"
+
+[Illustration: "You mean you're going to work here?"]
+
+"Well, you do. You've got no business in a run-down place like this--
+you with your fine clothes and your fine airs. You didn't come here to
+learn the drug business; you know as well as I do you've got some other
+motive."
+
+There was a truth in that to sting him. He smarted under its lash, but
+held his temper in check because he was sorry for the girl. "Perhaps
+you're right," he conceded; "perhaps I have some other motive. But
+that's neither here nor there. I'm here, and it is my present intention
+to learn the drug business in your father's store."
+
+"I don't believe you, Mister Duncan--or whatever your name is."
+
+"I'm sorry," he said patiently.
+
+Betty's lips twitched, contemptuous. "Well, saying you do mean to work
+here----"
+
+"I do."
+
+"Where do you think your pay's going to come from?"
+
+"Heaven, perhaps."
+
+"I guess you think that's funny, don't you?"
+
+"I confess, at the moment I did. But now I realise it's probably a
+bitter truth."
+
+He was too much for her, she saw, and the knowledge only served to fan
+her indignation and suspicions.
+
+"You're making a mistake," she snapped. "Father can't pay you nothing."
+
+"He'll pay me all I'm worth," said Duncan meekly.
+
+She glared at him an instant longer, then mute for lack of a
+sufficiently scornful retort, turned and ran back up the steps,
+slamming the door behind her.
+
+Duncan drew a rueful face, contemplating the place where she had been.
+
+"I didn't think this was going to be a bed of roses--and it isn't," he
+concluded.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+
+ROLAND BARNETTE'S FRIEND
+
+Nat had a busy day or two after that, trying to set things to rights in
+the store for the better reception and display of the new stock. Sperry
+dropped him a line saying that the goods would arrive on the third day,
+and there was much to do to make way for it. He managed to get the shop
+cleaned up thoroughly with Betty's not unwilling but distinctly
+suspicious aid; the girl was apparently convinced that Duncan meant
+business, and that this would ostensibly work for her father's benefit,
+but she was distinctly dubious as to the _deus ex machina_. Duncan
+now and again would catch her watching him, her eyes dark with
+speculation; but when she detected his gaze her look would change
+instantly to one of hostility and defiance. He suspected that only her
+father's wishes prevented an open break with her; as it was he was
+conscious that there was no more than an armed truce between them. And
+he did not like it; it made him uncomfortable. He wasn't hardened
+enough to have an easy conscience, and Betty's open doubts as to the
+reason for his coming to Radville disturbed Duncan more than he would
+have cared to own.
+
+For all that, they worked together steadily, and accomplished a rather
+sensational transformation in the appearance of the place. The floor,
+counter and shelves were swept, washed, dusted and garnished with
+paint; that is, all but the floor received the attention of the
+paint-brush; Duncan managed to smuggle a quantity of oil-cloth into the
+shop and get it down before Graham could enter any protest: the effect
+approximated tiling nearly enough to brighten the room up wonderfully.
+Aside from this the old stock was routed out and, for the greater part,
+donated to the rubbish-heap. Teddy Smart, the glazier, was commissioned
+to repair the broken window-panes and show-cases. A can of metal polish
+freshened up the nickel and brass trimmings and rendered the single
+upright of the soda fountain almost attractive. The stove was uprooted
+and stored away, and its aspiring pipes dispensed with. Finally, after
+considerable argument, Graham consented to the removal of his
+work-bench to a shed in the back-yard. The model was suffered to
+remain, the tanks and burner being stored out of sight beneath one of
+the window-seats, more because Duncan considered it would be a good
+thing to have the light than because he understood or attached much
+importance to the contrivance. For that matter, he hadn't the time to
+listen to an exposition of its advantages, and Graham, recognising
+this, was content to abide his time, serene in the conviction that he
+would presently find in his assistant a willing and sympathetic
+listener.
+
+Between spasms of work Duncan had his hands full attending to the soda
+fountain. Soda water being practically the only salable thing in the
+store, it had to serve as an excuse for the inquisitiveness of many of
+my fellow-citizens, to say nothing of--I should put it, but
+especially--their wives and daughters. The consumption of vanilly sody
+in those two days broke all known Radville records, and stands a
+singular tribute to the Spartan fortitude of Radville womanhood,
+particularly the young strata thereof. Duncan, after he had succeeded
+in taming the fountain, seemed rather to enjoy than object to
+dispensing sody, standing inspection and receiving adulation and
+nickels in unequal proportions. By the end of the second day he could
+not truthfully have told his friend Willy Bartlett: "The list has
+shrunk." It had swollen enormously. There isn't any doubt but that he
+had a nodding acquaintance with every pretty girl in town, as well as
+with most not considered pretty.
+
+From my window in the _Citizen_ office I was able to keep a
+tolerably close account of events and obtain a consensus of public
+opinion. So far as the latter bore upon Duncan, it was divided into two
+rather distinct parties, one of course favouring him; and this was
+feminine almost exclusively. Tracey Tanner, to be sure, confessed
+within my hearing to a predilection for the Noo York dood, but was
+inclined to hedge and climb the fence when assailed by Roland's
+strictures. Roland, I suspect, was a wee mite jealous; he had been
+paying attention to--I mean, going with--Josie Lockwood for several
+months. Instinctively he must have divined his danger; and it's not in
+reason to exact admiration of the usurper from the usurped, even when
+the act of usurpation has not yet been definitely consummated. Roland
+went to the length of labelling Duncan "sissy," and professed to
+believe that Hiram Nutt was justified in calling him a "s'picious
+character"; Roland hinted darkly that Duncan knew New York no better
+than Will Bigelow.
+
+"And if he did come from there," he asseverated, "I betcher he didn't
+leave for no good purpose."
+
+His temper inspired me with the sapient reflection that it's a terrible
+thing to be in love, even if only with an old man's millions.
+
+"There's goin' to be a real Noo Yorker here before long," Roland
+boasted; "he's comin' to see me on some 'special private bus'ness of
+ourn."
+
+"Huh," commented Tracey, the sceptical. "What kind of a Noo Yorker'd
+come all the way here to see you?"
+
+"That's all right. You'll see when he gets here. He's a pro-motor."
+
+"A what?"
+
+"A pro-motor, a financier." Roland pronounced it "finnan seer," thus
+betraying symptoms of culture and bewildering Tracey beyond expression.
+
+"What's that?" he demanded aggressively.
+
+"That's a feller 't can take nothing at all and incorporate it and make
+money out of it," Roland defined with some hesitancy.
+
+"And that's why he's coming down here to take a look at you?" inquired
+Tracey, skipping nimbly round the corner.
+
+Curiously enough in my understanding (for I own to no great faith in
+Roland's statements, taking them by and large) his friend from New York
+put in an unheralded appearance in Radville that same night, on the
+evening train. The Bigelow House received him to its figurative bosom
+under the name of W.H. Burnham. He sent for Roland promptly and treated
+him to a dinner at the hotel; something which I have always regarded as
+a punishment several sizes too large for the crime. Later, having
+displayed him on the streets in witness to his good faith, Roland spent
+the evening with Mr. Burnham mysteriously confabulating behind closed
+doors in the hotel. Speculation ran rife through the town until nine
+o'clock, and land for several days basked in the heat of public
+interest.
+
+I happened accidentally to get a glimpse of Mr. Burnham after supper,
+although I had to miss my baked apple in order to get down town in
+time. He was a disappointment to some extent, although his mode of
+dress attracted much comment as being far more sprightly than Duncan's
+and less startling than Roland's. He had a self-confident air and a bit
+of swagger that filled the eye, but a face and a voice that detracted,
+the one too boldly good-looking, with eyes roving and predaceous, the
+other a suggestion too loud and domineering. ... I fear association
+with Duncan had vitiated my taste.
+
+However that may be, Roland got an hour off at the bank the following
+morning, and the pair of them, after wandering with evident aimlessness
+round the town, drifted as it were on the tide of hap-chance into
+Graham's drug-store.
+
+Duncan was at the station, superintending the transportation of the new
+stock, which had come by the early local; Betty was busy with her
+housework upstairs; and only old Sam kept the shop.
+
+Sam wasn't in the best of spirits. His evergreen optimism seldom
+withered, but in spite of all that had already been accomplished in
+behalf of the store, in spite of the rosier aspect of his declining
+fortunes and his confidence in and affection for Duncan, Sam was
+worried. He had been over to the bank once, even at that early hour,
+but Blinky Lockwood had driven out of town to see about foreclosing one
+of his numerous mortgages in the neighbourhood, and his note, which
+fell due at the bank that day, was still a weight upon Sam's mind.
+
+Roland and Burnham found him wandering nervously round the store,
+alternately taking his hat down from the peg, as if minded to make a
+second trip to the bank, and replacing it as he realised that patience
+was his part. He looked older and more worn than ordinarily, and seemed
+distinctly pleased to be distracted by his callers.
+
+"Why, hello, Roland!" he cried cheerfully, hanging up his hat for
+perhaps the twentieth time. And, "How de doo, sir?" he greeted the
+stranger.
+
+"Good-morning, sir," said Burnham pleasantly.
+
+"Say, Sam," Roland blundered with his usual adroitness, "this
+gentleman------"
+
+Burnham's hand fell heavily on his forearm and he checked as if
+throttled.
+
+"What's that, Roland?" Sam turned curiously to them.
+
+"Oh, nothin'; I was--er--just going to say that this gentleman's my
+friend from Noo York, Mr. Burnham. I was showin' him round the town and
+we just happened to look in."
+
+"The friend you were going to write to about my burner?" inquired Sam.
+"Well, I'm right glad to meet you, sir."
+
+It was here that Roland got a look from Mr. Burnham that withered him
+completely. His further contributions to the conversation were somewhat
+spasmodic and ineffectual.
+
+"Why, no, Mr. Graham," Burnham interposed deftly. "Mr. Barnette must've
+been talking of someone else he knew in New York. I----"
+
+"Didn't know he knew more'n one there," Sam observed mildly.
+
+Burnham's glance jumped warily to Sam's face, but withdrew reassured,
+having detected therein nothing but the old man's kindly and simple
+nature. "At all events," he continued, "I don't remember hearing
+anything about the matter (what did you call it? A burner, eh?) from
+Mr. Barnette."
+
+"I s'pose Roland forgot," Sam allowed. "He's so busy courtin' our
+pretty girls, Mr. Burnham----"
+
+"Yes, that was it," Roland put in hastily, seeing his chance to mend
+matters. "I did intend to write you about it, Mr. Burnham, but it kind
+of slipped my mind. We've had a lot of important business over to the
+bank recently."
+
+"By the way, Roland, did you just come from the bank? Is Mr. Lockwood
+back yet?"
+
+"No; I got off this morning. I don't think he is, Sam. Did you want to
+see him?"
+
+"Well, yes," Sam admitted. "I guess you know about that, Roland."
+
+"Mean business, sometimes, asking favours of these bankers, eh, Mr.
+Graham?" Burnham remarked, much too casually to have deceived anybody
+but old Sam.
+
+Graham nodded, dolefully. "Yes, it is unpleasant," he admitted
+confidingly. "You see, there's a note of mine come due to-day, and I'm
+not able to take care of it or pay the interest just now...." He
+thought it over gravely for a moment, then brightened. "But I guess
+it'll be all right. Mr. Lockwood's kind, very kind."
+
+"I'm afraid you're a little too sure, Sam," Roland contributed
+tactfully. "When there's money due Lockwood, he wants it, and most
+times he gets it or its equivalent."
+
+"Yes," Sam assented sadly, "I guess he does, mostly."
+
+"But," Burnham changed the subject adroitly, "what was this--burner,
+did you say?--that Mr. Barnette forgot to tell me about?"
+
+"Oh, just one of my inventions, sir."
+
+"I understand you're quite an inventor?"
+
+Sam's smile lightened his face like sunlight striking a snow-bound
+field. He nodded slowly, thinking of his past enthusiasms, his hopes
+and discouragements. "I've spent most of my life at it, sir, but
+somehow nothing has ever turned out well... not so far, I mean. But I
+mean to hit it yet."
+
+"That's the way to talk," Burnham cried heartily; "never give up, I
+say!... But tell me about some of these inventions, won't you?"
+
+"Wel-l"--Sam knitted his fingers and pursed his lips reflectively--"I
+patented a new type threshing machine, once, but I couldn't get anybody
+to take hold of it. You see, I haven't any money, Mr. Burnham."
+
+"How would you like to talk it over with me, some time? I'm interested
+in such things--as a sort of side issue."
+
+"Will you?" Sam's eagerness was not to be disguised.
+
+"Be glad to. Tell me, how did you get your power?"
+
+"From gas, sir--though coal will do 'most as well. You see, I've got
+this burner patented, that makes gas from crude oil--no waste, no odour
+nor trouble, and little expense. It'd be cheaper than coal, I thought;
+that's why I invented it. I could get steam up mighty quick with that
+gas arrangement. I use it for lighting here in the store, now."
+
+"Do you, indeed?" Burnham's tone indicated failing interest, but such
+diplomacy was lost on Sam.
+
+"If you've got time, I could show you; it's right over here."
+
+A glance at his watch accompanied Burnham's consent to spare a few
+minutes. "There's a telegram I must send presently," he said. "But I'd
+like to see this burner, if it won't take long."
+
+"No, not long; just a minute or two." Sam was already dragging the
+affair out from under the window box. "You see..."
+
+He went on to expound its virtues with all the fond enthusiasm of a
+father showing off his firstborn, and wound up with a demonstration of
+the illuminating appliance. I'm afraid, though, he got little
+encouragement from Mr. Burnham. He considered the machine with a
+dispassionate air, it's true, and admitted its practical advantages,
+but wasn't at all disposed to take a roseate view of its future.
+
+"Yes," he grudged, when Sam put a match to the jet, "that's certainly a
+very good light."
+
+"All right, ain't it?" chimed Roland, enthusiastic.
+
+"Oh, it may amount to something. It's hard to tell. Of course you know,
+sir," he continued, addressing Graham directly, "you've got competition
+to overcome."
+
+Sam's old fingers trembled to his chin. "No-o," he said, "I didn't know
+that. I've got the patent----"
+
+"Of course that's something. But the Consolidated Petroleum crowd has
+another machine, slightly different, which does the same work, and, I
+should say, does it better."
+
+"Is--is that so?" quavered Sam. "My patent----."
+
+"Now see here, Mr. Graham," Burnham argued, "we're practical men, both
+of us----"
+
+"No; I shouldn't say that about myself," Sam interrupted. "Now you,
+sir----I can see you're a man who understands such things. But I----"
+
+"Nevertheless, you must know that a patent isn't everything. You said a
+moment ago a man had to have money to make anything out of his
+inventions."
+
+"Did I?" Sam interjected, surprised.
+
+"Certainly you did; and dead right you are. A patent's all very well,
+but supposing you're up against a powerful competitor like the
+Consolidated Petroleum Company. They've got a patent, too. Granted it
+may be an infringement of yours even--what can you do against them."
+
+"Why, if it's an infringement----"
+
+"Sue, of course. But do you suppose they're going to lie down just
+because an unknown and penniless inventor sues them? Bless you, no!
+They'll fight to the last ditch, they'll engage the best legal talent
+in the country. You'll have to carry the case to the Supreme Court of
+the United States if you want a winning decision. And that's going to
+cost you thousands--hundreds of thou-sands--a million----"
+
+"Never mind; a thousand's enough," said Sam gently. "I see what you
+mean, sir. It's just another case where I've got no chance."
+
+"Oh, I wouldn't put it as strong as that------"
+
+"But I have no money."
+
+"Still, you never can tell. I'll think it over, if I get time."
+
+"Why, that's kind of you, sir, very kind."
+
+It was at this point that Roland rose to the occasion like the noble
+ass he is. Roland never could see more than an inch beyond the end of
+his nose.
+
+"Say, Mr. Burnham," he floundered, "don't you think you could help Sam
+to----"
+
+"I think," said Mr. Burnham, with additional business of looking at his
+watch, "I'd like to send that wire I spoke of."
+
+"Yes, Roland," Sam agreed meekly; "you mustn't keep your friend from
+his business. I'm glad you looked in, sir. You'll call again, I hope."
+
+"Thank you," said Burnham, moving toward the door.
+
+It was too much for Roland's sense of opportunity. He rolled in
+Burnham's wake, sullenly reluctant. "Say, Mr. Burnham," he exploded as
+they got to the door, "if you'll just offer Sam five----"
+
+_"That will do!"_ Roland collapsed as if punctured. Burnham turned
+to Graham with a wave of his hand. "I'm leaving on the afternoon train,
+but if I get time I may drop in again and talk things over with you.
+There might be something in that threshing machine you mentioned."
+
+"I'll be glad to show you anything I've got here..."
+
+"All right. Good-day. I'll see you again, perhaps."
+
+This cavalier snub was lost on Sam, an essential of whose serene soul
+is the quality of humility. He followed them to the door, as grateful
+as a lost dog for a stray pat instead of a kick. "Good-day, sir.
+Good-day, Roland," he sped their parting cheerfully.
+
+But it was a broken man who shut the door behind them and turned back,
+fingering his grey chin. There must have been a dimness in his eyes and
+a quiver to his wide-lipped, generous mouth.
+
+"Perhaps Mr. Burnham was right. Only I was kind of hopin'... Now Mr.
+Lockwood over there..."
+
+He shook himself to throw off the spell of depression and somehow
+managed to quicken again his abiding faith in the essential goodness of
+the world.
+
+"Well, well! He's kind, very kind."
+
+He began to restore his model to its hiding place, musing upon the
+ebb-tide in his affairs in his muddle-headed way, and in the process
+managed to convince himself that "it 'ud all come right."
+
+"With this young man in here, and everythin' gettin' fixed up, and new
+stock comin' in ... I'm sure Mr. Lockwood'll see it the right way ...
+for us.... He's kind, very kind."
+
+Thus it was that he presently called up the stairs in a very cheerful
+voice: "Betty, are you pretty near through up there?"
+
+The girl's weary voice came down to him without accent: "Yes, father,
+almost."
+
+"Well, then, you keep an eye on the store, please. I'm goin' to step
+out for a minute."
+
+"Yes, father."
+
+"And if--if anybody asks for me, I'll most likely be down to the depot,
+with Mr. Duncan."
+
+He didn't mention that he contemplated calling on Lockwood, because he
+feared it might worry Betty. ... As if a woman doesn't always
+understand when things are going wrong!
+
+Betty knew, or rather divined. And she had no hope, no faith such as
+made Sam what he was. She came down the steps listlessly, overborne by
+her knowledge of the world's wrongness. The glance with which she
+comprehended the renovated shop was bitter with contempt. What was the
+worth of all this? Nothing good would come of it; nothing good came of
+anything. Life was drab and dreary, made up of weary, profitless years
+and months and weeks and days, to each its appointed disappointment.
+
+Only her sense of duty sustained her. She owed something to old Sam for
+the gift of life, dismal though she found it. He needed her; what she
+could do for him she would. I have always thought that her affection
+for her father was less filial than maternal. He seemed such a child,
+she--so very old! She mothered him; it was her only joy to care for
+him. Her care was constant, unfailing, omniscient. In return she got
+only his love. But it was almost enough--almost, not quite, dearly as
+she prized it. There were other things a girl should have--indeed, must
+have, if her life were to be rounded out in fulness. And these, she
+understood, were forever denied her: apples of Paradise growing in her
+sight, heartrending in their loveliness so far beyond her reach....
+
+Sighing, she went to work. In work only could she forget.... The soda
+glasses needed cleaning, and the syrup jars replenishing (for the new
+order of syrups had come in the previous evening).
+
+After a time, to a tune of pounding feet, Tracey Tanner pranced into
+the shop with all the graceful abandon of a young elephant feeling its
+oats. His face was fairly scarlet from exertion and his eyes bulging
+with a sense of importance. The girl looked up without interest,
+nodding slightly in response to his breathless: "'Lo, Betty."
+
+"Father's gone out," she said, holding a glass to the light, suspicious
+of the lint from her dish towel.
+
+"I know--seen him down the street." The boy halted at the counter,
+producing a handful of square envelopes. "Note for you from the
+Lockwoods, Betty," he panted. "Josie ast me to bring it round."
+
+Betty put down her glass in consternation. From the Lockwoods?"
+
+"Uh-huh." Tracey offered it, but she withheld her hand, dubious.
+
+"For me, Tracey?"
+
+"Uh-huh. It's a ninvitation. I got four more to take." He thrust it
+into her reluctant fingers. "Got five, really, but one of 'em's for
+me."
+
+"An invitation, Tracey!"
+
+"Yeh. Hope you have a good time when it comes off." Already he was
+bouncing toward the door. "Goo'-bye."
+
+"But what is it, Tracey?"
+
+"Aw, it tells in the ninvitation. S'long."
+
+"From the Lockwoods!" she whispered.
+
+Suddenly she tore it open, her hands unsteady with nervousness.
+
+The envelope contained a square of heavy cardboard of a creamy tint
+with scalloped edges touched with gold. On the face of the card a round
+and formless hand had traced with evident pains the information:
+
+Miss Josephine Mae Lockwood
+
+Requests the Pleasure of your Company at a Lawn Fete and Dance to be
+held at the residence of her Parents, Mr. & Mrs. Geo. Lockwood,
+Saturday July 15, at 8 p. m. R.S.V.P.
+
+The envelope fluttered to the floor while the card was crushed between
+the girl's hands. For a moment her face was transfigured with delight,
+her eyes blank with rapturous visions of the joys of that promised
+night.
+
+"Oh!... it 'ud be grand!..."
+
+Then suddenly the light faded. Her eyes clouded, her face settled into
+its discontented lines. She stuffed the card heedlessly into the pocket
+of her dingy apron, and took up another glass.
+
+"But I can't go; I've got nothin' to wear...."
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+
+BLINKY LOCKWOOD
+
+She was scrubbing blindly at the same glass when, a quarter of an hour
+later, Blinky Lockwood strode into the store, his right eye twitching
+more violently than usual, as it always does in his phases of mental
+disturbance--as when, for instance, he fears he's going to lose a
+dollar.
+
+Lockwood is that type of man who was born to grow rich. He inherited a
+farm or two in the vicinity of Radville and the one over Westerly way,
+to which I have referred, and ... well, we've a homely paraphrase of a
+noted aphorism in Radville: "Them as has, gits." Lockwood had, to begin
+with, and he made it his business to get; and, as is generally the case
+in this unbalanced world of ours, things came to him to which he had
+never aspired. Fortune favoured him because he had no need of her
+favours; the discovery of coal under his Westerly acres was wholly
+adventitious, but it made him far and away the richest man in
+Radville--with the possible exception of old Colonel Bohun's
+traditional millions.
+
+In person he is as beautiful as a snake-fence, as alluring as a stone
+wall. Something over six feet in height, he walks with a stoop (one
+hand always in a trouser-pocket jingling silver) that materially
+detracts from his stature. His face, like his figure, is gaunt and
+lanky, his nose an emaciated beak; his mouth illustrates his attitude
+toward property--is a trap from which nothing of value ever escapes;
+his eyes are small and hard and set close together under lowering
+brows. He's grizzled, with hair not actually white, but grey as the iron
+from which his heart was fashioned. Aside from these characteristics his
+principal peculiarity is a nervous twitching of the right eye which has
+earned him his sobriquet of Blinky. Legrand Gunn said he contracted the
+affliction through squinting at the silver dollar to make sure none of
+its milling had been worn off. ... I have never known the man to wear
+anything but a rusty old frock coat, black, of course, and black and
+shiny broadcloth trousers, with a hat that has always a coating of dust
+so thick that it seems a mottled grey.
+
+He grunts his words, a grunt to each. He grunted at Betty when he saw
+her.
+
+"Where's your father?"
+
+She put down her glass and dish-rag. "I don't know, sir."
+
+"Don't know, eh?" he asked in an indescribably offensive tone.
+
+"I think he went to the bank to see you."
+
+"Oh, he did, eh? Did he have anything for me."
+
+The girl took up another glass. "I don't know, sir," she said wearily.
+"I'm afraid not."
+
+"Well, if he didn't there's no use see in' me. It won't do him any
+good."
+
+"I guess he knows that," she returned with a little flash of spirit.
+
+Lockwood looked her up and down as if he had never seen her before,
+then summarised his resentful impression of her attitude in an open
+sneer. "Does, eh? Well, that's a good thing; saves talk."
+
+She contained herself, saying nothing. He glared round the place,
+remarking the improvements.
+
+"You don't do no business here, not to speak of, do ye?"
+
+"No," she admitted without interest, "not to speak of."
+
+"Then what's the good of all this foolishness, fixing up?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"Costs money, don't it?"
+
+"I guess so."
+
+"And that money belongs to me."
+
+"It's Mr. Duncan's doing. Father ain't paying for it. He can't."
+
+"What's he doin', then? Sittin' round foolin' with his inventions,
+ain't he?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What's he inventin' now?"
+"I don't know much about it." She pointed to the model beneath the
+window. "That's the last thing, I guess."
+
+Blinky snorted and stamped over to the window, stooping to peer at the
+machine. "What's the good of that?" he demanded, disdainful; and
+without waiting for her response went on nagging. "Foolishness! That's
+what it is. Why don't you tell him not to waste his time this way?"
+
+"Because he likes it," said Betty hopelessly. "It's the only thing that
+makes life worth while to him. So I let him alone."
+
+"What difference does that make? It don't bring him in nothin', does
+it?"
+
+"No ..."
+
+"Nor do any good?"
+
+"No."
+
+"No, siree, it don't. He'd oughter stop it. What does he do with them
+things when he gets 'em finished?"
+
+"Patents them."
+
+"And then what?"
+
+"Nothin' that I know of."
+
+"That's it; nothing--nor ever will. Well, he's been getting money from
+me for those patents--I thought at fust there might be somethin' in
+'em--but he won't any more. I'd oughter had more sense."
+
+A little colour spotted the girl's sallow cheeks. "He'd never ha' got
+money from you if he hadn't thought he could pay it back," she told
+Blinky hotly.
+
+"No, nor if I hadn't thought he could----"
+
+She interjected a significant "Huh!" He broke off abruptly, pale with
+anger.
+
+"Well, I want to see him, and I want to see him before noon," he
+snapped. "I'm goin' over to the bank, an' if he knows what's good for
+him he'll come there pretty darn quick."
+
+"I'll try to find him for you; he must be somewhere round," she
+offered.
+
+"Well, you better. I ain't got much patience to-day."
+
+He swung on one heel and slouched out, as Betty turned to go upstairs.
+Presently she reappeared pinning on her sad little hat, and left the
+store.
+
+It was upwards of an hour before she returned, walking quickly and very
+erect, with her head up and shoulders back, her eyes suspiciously
+bright, the spots of colour in her cheeks blazing scarlet, her mouth
+set and hard, the little work-worn hands at her sides clenched tightly
+as if for self-control. Even old Sam, who had returned from the depot
+after missing Blinky at the bank--even he, blind as he ordinarily was,
+saw instantly that something was wrong with the child.
+
+"Why, Betty!" he cried in solicitude as she flung into the
+store--"Betty, dear, what's the matter?"
+
+For an instant she seemed speechless. Then she tore the hat from her
+head and cast it regardlessly upon the counter. "Father!" she cried.
+"Father!"--and gulped to down her emotion. "Can you get me some money?"
+
+"Money? Why, Betty, what--?"
+
+Her foot came down on the floor impatiently. "Can you get me some
+money?" she repeated in a breath.
+
+"Well--er--how much, Betty?" He tried to touch her, to take her to his
+arms, but she moved away, her sorry little figure quivering from head
+to feet.
+
+"Enough," she said, half sobbing--"enough to buy a dress--a nice
+dress--a dress that will surprise folks--"
+
+"But tell me what the matter is, Betty. Wanting a dress would never
+upset you like this."
+
+She whipped the cracked and crumpled card from her pocket and pushed it
+into his hand. "Look at that!" she bade him, and turned away,
+struggling with all her might to keep back the tears.
+
+He read, his old face softening. "Josie Lockwood's party, eh? And she's
+sent you an invitation. Well, that was kind of her, very kind."
+
+She swung upon him in a fury. "No, it was not kind. It was mean... It
+was mean!"
+
+"Oh, Betty," he begged in consternation, "don't say that. I'm sure--"
+
+"Oh, you don't know... I heard the girls talking in the post-office--
+Angle Tuthill and Mame Garrison and Bessie Gabriel... I was round by
+the boxes where they couldn't see me, but I could hear them, and they
+were laughing because I was invited. They said the reason Josie did it
+was because she knew I didn't have anything to wear, and she wanted to
+hear what excuse I'd make for not going. Ah, I heard them!"
+
+"Oh, but Betty, Betty," he pleaded; "don't you mind what they say.
+Don't--"
+
+"But I do mind; I can't help mindin'. They're mean." She paused, her
+features hardening. "I'm going to that party," she declared tensely:
+"I'm goin' to that party and--and I'm goin' to have a dress to go in,
+too! I don't care what I do--I'm goin' to have that dress!"
+
+Sam would have soothed her as best he might, but she would neither look
+at nor come near him.
+
+"We'll see," he said gently. "We'll see. I'll try--"
+
+She turned on him, exasperated beyond thought. "That only means you
+can't help me!"
+
+"Oh, no, it doesn't. I'll do what I can--"
+
+"Have you got any money now?"
+
+He hung his head to avoid her blazing eyes. "Well, no--not at present,
+but here's this new stock and--."
+
+"That doesn't mean anything, and you know it. You owe that note to Mr.
+Lockwood, don't you? And you can't pay it?"
+
+"Not to-day, Betty, but he'll give me a little more time, I'm sure.
+He's kind, very kind."
+
+"You don't know him. He's as mean--as mean as dirt--as mean as Josie."
+
+"Betty!"
+
+"Then if you did get any money you'd have to give it to him, wouldn't
+you?"
+
+"Yes, but--I'm sure--I think it'll come all right."
+
+"Ah, what's the use of talkin' that way? What's the use of talkin' at
+all? I know you can't do anything for me, and so do you!"
+
+Sam had dropped into his chair, unable to stand before this storm; he
+stared now, mute with amazement, at this child who had so long, so
+uncomplainingly, shared his poverty and privations, grown suddenly to
+the stature of a woman--and a tormented, passionate woman, stung to the
+quick by the injustice of her lot. He put out a hand in a feeble
+gesture of placation, but she brushed it away as she bent toward him,
+speaking so quickly that her words stumbled and ran into one another.
+
+"I can't understand it!" she raged. "Why is it that I have to be more
+shabby than any other girl in town? Why is it that the others have all
+the fun and I all the drudgery? Why is it that I can't ever go anywhere
+with the boys and girls and laugh and--and have a good time like the
+rest do?..."
+
+Sam bent his head to the blast. In his lap his hands worked nervously.
+But he could not answer her.
+
+"It ain't that I mind the cookin' and doin' the housework and--all the
+rest--but--why is it you can never give me anything at all? Why must it
+be that everyone looks down on us and sneers and laughs at us? Why is
+it that half the time we haven't got enough to eat?... Other men manage
+to take care of their families and give their children things to wear.
+You've got only us two to look after, and you can't even do that. It
+isn't right, it isn't decent, and if I were you I'd be ashamed of
+myself--!"
+
+Her temper had spent itself, and with this final cry she checked
+abruptly, with a catch at her breath for shame of what she had let
+herself say. But, childlike, she was not ready to own her sorrow; and
+she turned her back, trembling.
+
+Sam, too, was shaken. In his heart he knew there was justification for
+her indictment, truth in what she had said. And he was heartbroken for
+her. He got up unsteadily and put a gentle hand upon her shoulder.
+
+"Why, Betty--I--I--"
+
+A dry sob interrupted him. He pulled himself together and forced his
+voice to a tone of confidence. "Just be a little patient, dear. I'm
+sure things will be better with us, soon. Just a little more patience--
+that's all... Why, there was a gentleman here this morning, from Noo
+York City, talkin' about an invention of mine."
+
+The girl moved restlessly, shaking off his hand. "Invention!" she
+echoed bitterly. "Oh, father! Everybody knows they're no good. You've
+been wastin' time on 'em ever since I can remember, and you've never
+made a dollar out of one yet."
+
+He bowed to the truth of this, then again braced up bravely. "But this
+gentleman seemed quite interested. He's over to the Bigelow House now.
+I think I'll step over and have a talk with him--"
+
+"You'd much better go and have a talk with Blinky Lockwood," she told
+him brutally. "He's waitin' for you at the bank, and said he wasn't
+goin' to wait after twelve o'clock, neither!"
+
+"Wel-l, perhaps you're right. I'll go there. It's after twelve, but..."
+He started to get his hat and stopped with an exclamation: "Why, Nat!
+I didn't know you'd got back!"
+
+Duncan was at the back of the store, clearing the last remnants of the
+old stock from the shelves. "Yes," he said pleasantly, without turning,
+"I've been here some time, cleaning up the cellar, to make room for the
+stuff that's coming in. I came upstairs just a moment ago, but you were
+so busy talking you didn't notice me."
+
+He paused, swept the empty shelves with a calculating glance, and came
+out around the end of the counter. "Everything's in tip-top shape," he
+said. "I checked up the bill of lading myself, and there's not a thing
+missing, not a bit of breakage. Mr. Graham," he continued, dropping a
+gentle hand on the old man's shoulder, "you're going to have the finest
+drug-store in the State within six months. With the stuff that Sperry
+has sent us we can make Sothern and Lee look like sixty-five cents on
+the dollar.... We're going to make things hum in this old shop, and
+don't you forget it." He laughed lightly, with a note of encouragement.
+But he avoided Graham's eyes even as he did Betty's. He could not meet
+the pitiful look of the former, any more than that stare of hostility
+and defiance in the latter.
+
+"It's good of you, my boy," Graham quavered. "I--but I'm afraid it
+won't----"
+
+"Now don't say that!" Duncan interposed firmly. "And don't let me
+keep you. I think you said you were going out on business? And I'll be
+busy enough right here."
+
+And without exactly knowing how it had come about, Graham found himself
+in the street, stumbling downtown, toward the bank.
+
+When he had gone, Duncan would have returned to the shelves for a final
+redding-up. He desired least of all things an encounter with Betty in
+her present frame of mind, and he tried his level best to seem as one
+who had heard nothing, who was only concerned with his occupation of
+the moment. But from the instant that she had been made aware of his
+presence Betty had been watching him with smouldering eyes, wondering
+how much he had heard and what he was thinking of her. The keen
+repentance that gnawed at her heart, allied with shame that an alien
+should have been private to her exhibition, half maddened the child.
+With a sudden movement she threw herself in front of Duncan, thrusting
+her white, drawn face before his, her gaze searching his half in anger,
+half in morose distrust.
+
+"So you were listening!"
+
+"I'm sorry," he said uncomfortably.
+
+She drew a pace away, holding herself very straight while she threw him
+a level glance of unqualified contempt.
+
+"I didn't mean to hear anything," he argued plaintively. "I was in
+the room before I understood, and by the time I did, it was too late--
+you had finished."
+
+"Oh, don't try to explain. I--I hate you!"
+
+He held her eyes inquiringly. "Yes," he said in the tone of one who
+solves a puzzling problem, "I believe you do."
+
+She looked away, shaking with passion. "You just better believe it."
+
+"But," he went on quietly, "you don't hate your father, too, do you,
+Miss Graham?"
+
+She swung back to meet his stare with one that flamed with indignation.
+
+"What do you mean by that, Mr. Duncan?"
+
+"I mean," he said, faltering in where one wiser would have feared to
+venture--"I'm going to give you a bit of advice. Don't you talk to your
+father again the way you did just now."
+
+"What business is that of yours?"
+
+"None," he admitted fairly. "But just the same I wouldn't, if I were
+you."
+
+"Well, you ain't me!" she cried savagely. "You ain't me! Understand
+that? When I want advice from you, I'll ask for it. Until I do, you
+let me alone."
+
+"Very well," he replied, so calmly that she lost her bearings for a
+moment. And inevitably this, emphasising as it did all that she
+resented most in him--his education, wit, address, his advantages of
+every sort--only served further to infuriate the child.
+
+"Oh, I know why you talk that way," she said, rubbing her poor little
+hands together.
+
+"Do you?" he asked in wonder.
+
+"Yes, I do--you!..."
+
+Suddenly she found words--poverty-stricken words, it's true, but the
+best she had wherewith to express herself. And for a little they flowed
+from her lips, a scalding, scathing torrent. "It's because you go to
+church all the time and try to look like a saint and--and try to make
+out you're too religious for anything, and like to hear yourself givin'
+Christian advice to poor miserable sinners--like me. You think that's
+just too lovely of you. That's why you said it, if you want to know.
+... Folks wonder what you're doing here, don't they? Guess you know
+that--and like it, too. It makes 'em look at you and talk about you,
+and that's what you like. _I_ could tell 'em. You're only here to
+show off your good clothes and your finger-nails and the way you part
+your hair and--and all the other things you do that nobody in Noo York
+would pay any attention to!"
+
+He faced her soberly, attentively. She was a little fool, he knew, and
+making a ridiculous figure of herself. But--his innate honesty told him
+--she was right, in a way; she had hit upon his weakest point. He was
+in Radville to "show off," as she would have said, to make an
+impression and ... to reap the reward thereof. The way she spoke was
+ludicrous, but what she said was mostly plain truth. He nodded
+submissively.
+
+"A pretty good guess at that," he acknowledged candidly.
+
+"Yes, it is, and I know it, and you know it. ... Oh, it's easy enough
+to give advice when you've got plenty of money and fine clothes and ...
+but..."
+
+"I understand," he said when she paused to get a grip upon herself and
+find again the words she needed. "You needn't say any more. The only
+reason I said what I did was because I'm strong for your father and ...
+well, I wanted to do you a good turn, too."
+
+"I don't want any of your good turns!"
+
+"Then I apologise."
+
+"And I don't want your apologies, neither!"
+
+"All right, only ... think over what I said, some time."
+
+"I had a good reason for saying what I did."
+
+"I know you had."
+
+"You know I had!" She looked at him askance. She had been on the point
+of relenting a little, of calming, of being a bit ashamed of herself.
+But his quiet acquiescence rekindled her resentment. "How do you know?
+You!" she said bitterly.
+
+
+"Because I'm not what you think I am, altogether."
+
+"I guess you're not," she observed acidly.
+
+"But I don't mean what you mean. I mean you think I'm conceited and
+rich and don't know what trouble is. Well, you're mistaken. I've been
+up against it the worst way for five years, and I know just how it
+feels to see other people getting up in the world when you're at the
+bottom of the heap with no chance of squirming out--to know that they
+have things you haven't got any chance of getting. I've been through
+the mill myself. Why, I've kept out of the way for days and days rather
+than let my prosperous friends see how shabby I was. Many's the time
+I've dodged round corners to avoid meeting men I knew would invite me
+to have dinner or luncheon or a drink--of soda--or something, for fear
+they'd find out that I couldn't treat in return. Many a time I've gone
+hungry for days and weeks and slept on park benches ... until an old
+friend found me and took me home with him."
+
+The ring of sincerity in his manner and tone silenced the girl,
+impressed her with the conviction of his absolute sincerity. The tumult
+in her mind quieted. She eyed him with attention, even with interest
+temporarily untinged with resentment. And seeing that he had succeeded
+in gaining this much ground in her regard, Duncan dared further,
+pushing his advantage to its limits.
+
+"But it's your father I wanted to talk about," he hurried on. "I'd bet
+a lot he knows more than any other man in this town; and besides, he's
+a fine, square, good-hearted old gentleman. Anybody can see that.
+Only, he's got one terrible fault: he doesn't know how to make money.
+And that's mighty tough on you--though it's just as tough on him. But
+when you roast him for it, like you did just now ... you only make him
+feel as miserable as a yellow dog ... and that doesn't help matters a
+little bit. He can't change into a sharp business crook now; ... he's
+too old a man. ... Before long he ... he won't be with you at all and
+... when he's gone you'll be sore on yourself ... sure! ... if you keep
+on throwing it into him the way I heard you. ... And that's on the
+level."
+
+He paused in confusion; the role of preacher sat upon him awkwardly, a
+sadly misfit garment. He felt self-conscious and ill at ease, yet with
+a trace of gratulation through it all. For he felt he'd carried his
+point. He could see no longer any animus in the pale, wistful little
+face that looked up into his--only sympathy, understanding, repentance
+and (this troubled him a bit) a faint flush of dawning admiration.
+Presently she grew conscious of herself again, and looked aside, humbled
+and distressed.
+
+"I--I won't do it again," she faltered, twisting her hands together.
+
+"Bully for you!" he cried, and with an abrupt if artificial resumption
+of his business-like air turned away to a show-case--to spare her the
+embarrassment of his regard.
+
+"I didn't think," said the voice behind him; "I didn't mean to--
+something happened that almost drove me wild and..."
+
+"I know," he said gently.
+
+After a bit she spoke again: "I'll go up and get dinner ready now."
+
+"That's all right," he returned absently. "I'll tend the store."
+
+He heard her footsteps as she crossed to the door and opened it. There
+followed a pause. Then she came hurriedly back. He faced about to meet
+her eyes shining with wonder.
+
+"I wanted to ask you," she said hastily, "if--was it this friend you
+spoke about--that found you in the park--who set you on the road to
+fortune?"
+
+"That's what he said," Duncan answered, twisting his brows whimsically.
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+
+DUNCAN'S GRUBSTAKE
+
+Like almost all business Radville, Duncan went home for his midday
+meal. It wasn't much of a walk from Sam Graham's store to Miss
+Carpenter's, and he didn't mind in the least.
+
+On this particular day he was sincerely hungry, but he had much to
+think about besides, and between the two he just bolted his food and
+made off, hot-foot for the store, greatly to the distress of his
+landlady.
+
+Naturally, knowing nothing about Sam's note, although he knew Pete
+Willing by sight as the sheriff and town drunkard in one, it didn't
+worry him at all to discover that gentleman tacking toward the store as
+he hurried up Beech Street, eager to get back to his job. The first
+intimation that he had of anything seriously amiss was when he entered,
+practically on Pete's heels.
+
+Pete Willing is the best-natured man in the world, as a general rule;
+drunk or sober, Radville tolerates him for just that quality. On only
+two occasions is he irritable and unmanageable: when his wife gets
+after him about the drink (Mrs. Willing is an able-bodied lady of Irish
+descent, with a will and a tongue of her own, to say nothing of
+an arm a blacksmith might envy) and when he has a duty to perform in
+his official capacity. It is in the latter instance that he rises
+magnificently to the dignity of his position. The majesty of the law in
+his hands becomes at once a bludgeon and a pandemonium. No one has ever
+been arrested in Radville, since Pete became sheriff, without the
+entire community becoming aware of it simultaneously. Pete's voice in
+moments of excitement carries like a cannonade. Legrand Gunn said that
+Pete had only to get into an argument in front of the Bigelow House to
+make the entire disorderly population of the Flats, across the river,
+break for the hills. (This is probably an exaggeration.)
+
+Tall, gaunt, gangling and loose-jointed, Duncan found Pete standing in
+the middle of the floor, hands in pockets and a noisome stogie thrust
+into a corner of his mouth, swaying a little (he was almost sober at
+the moment) and explaining his mission to old Sam in a voice of
+thunder.
+
+"I'm sorry about this, Sam," he bellowed, "but there ain't no use
+wastin' words 'bout it. I'm here on business."
+
+"But what's the matter, Sheriff?" Graham asked, his voice breaking.
+
+"Ah, you know you got a note due at the bank, don't you?"
+
+"Yes, but----"
+
+"Well, it's protested. Y'un'erstand that, don't you?"
+
+"Why, Pete!" Graham swayed, half-dazed.
+
+"An' I'm here to serve the papers onto you."
+
+"But--but there must be some mistake." Sam clutched blindly for his
+hat. "I'll step over and see Mr. Lockwood. He'll arrange to give me a
+little more time, I'm sure. He's always been kind, very kind."
+
+"Naw!" Pete bawled, "Mr. Lockwood don't want to see you unless you can
+settle. Y'can save yourself the trouble. Y'gottuh put up or git out!"
+
+"But, Pete--Mr. Lockwood said he didn't want to see me?"
+
+"Yah, that's what he said, and I got orders from him, soon's I got
+judgment to close y'up. And that goes, see!"
+
+"To--to turn me out of the store, Pete?" Graham's world had slipped
+from beneath his feet. He was overwhelmed, witless, as helpless as a
+child. And it was with a child's look of pitiful dismay and perplexity
+that he faced the sheriff.
+
+The father who has fallen short of his child's trust and confidence
+knows that look. To Duncan its appeal was irresistible. He had his
+hand in his pocket, clutching the still considerable remains of what
+Kellogg had termed his grubstake, before he knew it.
+
+"But--there must be some mistake," Graham repeated pleadingly. "It
+can't be--Mr. Lockwood surely wouldn't----"
+
+"Now there ain't no use whinin' about it!" Willing roared him into
+silence. "Law is Law, and----" He ceased quickly, surprised to find
+Duncan standing between him and his prey. "What----!" he began.
+
+"Wait!" Duncan touched him gently on the chest with a forefinger, at
+the same time catching and holding the sheriff's eye. "Are you," he
+inquired quietly, "labouring under the impression that Mr. Graham is
+deaf?"
+
+"What----!"
+
+Duncan turned to Sam, apologetically. "He said 'what.' Did you hear it,
+sir?"
+
+But by this time Pete was recovering to some degree. "What've you got
+to say about this?" he demanded, crescendo.
+
+"I'll show you," Duncan told him in the same quiet voice, "what I've
+got to say if you'll just put the soft pedal on and tell me the amount
+of that note."
+
+Pete struggled mightily to regain his vanished advantage, but try as he
+would he could not escape Duncan's cool, inquisitive eye. Visibly he
+lost importance as he yielded and dived into his pocket. "With interest
+and costs," he said less stridently, "it figgers up three hundred 'n'
+eighty dollars 'n' eighty-two cents."
+
+There's no use denying that Duncan was staggered. For the moment his
+poise deserted him utterly. He could only repeat, as one who dreams:
+_"Three hundred and eighty dollars!..."_
+
+His momentary consternation afforded Pete the opening he needed. The
+room shook with his regained sense of prestige.
+
+"Yes, three hundred 'n' eighty dollars 'n'--say, you look a-here!----"
+
+Again the calm forefinger touched him, and like a hypnotist's pass
+checked the rolling volume of noise. "Listen," begged Duncan: "if
+you've got anything else to tell me, please retire to the opposite side
+of the street and whisper it. Meanwhile, _be quiet!"_
+
+Pete's jaw dropped. In all his experience no one had ever succeeded in
+taming him so completely--and in so brief a time. He experienced a
+sensation of having been robbed of his spinal column, and before he
+could pull himself together was staring in awe, while with one final
+admonitory poke of his finger Duncan turned and made for the soda
+counter, beneath which was the till. His scanty roll of bills was in
+his right hand, and there concealed. He stepped behind the counter (old
+Sam watching him with an amazement no less absolute than Pete's),
+pulled out the till, bent over it with an assured air, and pushed back
+the coin slide. Then quite naturally, he produced--with his right
+hand--his four-hundred-and-odd dollars from the bill drawer, stood up
+and counted them with great deliberation.
+
+"One ... two ... three ... four."
+He smiled winningly at Pete. "Four hundred dollars, Mr. Sheriff. Now
+will you be good enough to hand over that note and the change and then
+put yourself, and that pickle you're wearing in your face, on the other
+side of the door?"
+
+Pete struggled tremendously and finally succeeded in producing from
+his system a still, small voice:
+
+"I ain't got the note with me, Mr. Duncan."
+
+"Then perhaps you won't mind going to the bank for it?"
+
+Half suffocated, Pete assented. "Aw'right, I'll go and git it. Kin I
+have the money?"
+
+"Certainly." Duncan extended the bills, then on second thought withheld
+them. "I presume you're a regular sheriff?" he inquired.
+
+Very proudly Pete turned back the lapel of his coat and distended the
+chest on which shone his nickel-plated badge of office. Duncan examined
+it with grave admiration.
+
+"It's beautiful," he said with a sigh. "Here."
+
+Gingerly, Pete grasped the bills, thumbed them over to make sure they
+were real, and bolted as for his life, his coat-tails level on the
+breeze.
+
+[Illustration: "Four hundred dollars, Mr. Sheriff"]
+
+There floated back to Duncan and old Sam his valedictory: "Wal, I'll be
+damned!"
+
+With a short, quiet laugh Duncan made as though to go out to the
+back-yard, where the new stock was being delivered, having been carted
+up from the station through the alley--thereby doing away with the
+necessity of cluttering up the store with a debris of packing. His
+primal instinct of the moment was to get right out of that with all the
+expedition practicable. He didn't want to be alone with old Sam another
+second. The essential insanity of which he had just done was patent;
+there was no excuse for it, and he was like to suffer severely as a
+consequence. But he wasn't sorry, and he did not want to be thanked.
+
+"I'm going," he said hurriedly, "to find me a hatchet and knock the
+stuffing out of some of those packing-cases. Want to get all that truck
+indoors before nightfall, you know----"
+
+But old Sam wasn't to be put off by any such obvious subterfuge as
+that. He put himself in front of Duncan.
+
+"Nat, my boy," he said, tremulous, "I can't let this go through--I
+can't allow you----"
+
+"There, now!" Duncan told him, unconcernedly yet kindly, "don't say
+anything more. It's over and done with."
+
+"But you mustn't--I'll turn over the store to you, if----"
+
+"O Lord!" Duncan's dismay was as genuine as his desire to escape
+Graham's gratitude. "No--don't! Please don't do that!"
+
+"But I must do something, my boy. I can't accept so great a kindness--
+unless," said Graham with a timid flash of hope--"you'll consider a
+partnership----"
+
+"That's it!" cried Duncan, glad of any way out of the situation.
+"That's the way to do it--a partnership. No, please don't say any more
+about it, just now. We can settle details later. ... We've got to get
+busy. Tell you what I wish you'd do while I'm busting open those boxes:
+if you don't mind going down to the station to make sure that
+everything's----"
+
+"Yes, I'll go; I'll go at once." Sam groped for Duncan's hand, caught
+and held it between both his own. "If--if fate--or something hadn't
+brought you here to-day--I don't know what would've happened to Betty
+and me. ..."
+
+"Never mind," Duncan tried to soothe him. "Just don't you think about
+it."
+
+Graham shook his head, still bewildered. "Perhaps," he stumbled on, "to
+a gentleman of your wealth four hundred dollars isn't much----"
+
+"No," said Duncan gravely, without the flicker of an eyelash:
+"nothing." Then he smiled cheerfully. "There, that's all right."
+
+"To me it's meant everything. I--I only hope I'll be able to repay
+you some day. God bless you, my boy, God bless you!"
+
+He managed to jam his hat awry on his white old head and found his way
+out, his hands fumbling with one another, his lips moving inaudibly--
+perhaps in a prayer of thanksgiving.
+
+Motionless, Duncan watched him go, and for several minutes thereafter
+stood without stirring, lost in thought. Then his quaint, deprecatory
+grin dawned. He found a handkerchief and mopped his forehead.
+
+"Whew!" he whistled. "I wouldn't go through that again for a million
+dollars."
+
+Gradually the smile faded. He puckered his brows and drew down the
+corners of his mouth. Thoughtfully he ran a hand into his pocket and
+produced the little crumpled wad of bills of small denominations,
+representing all he had left in the world. Smoothing them out on the
+counter, he arranged them carefully, summing up; then returned them to
+his pocket.
+
+"Harry," he observed--"Harry said I couldn't get rid of that stake in a
+year!...
+
+"He doesn't know what a fast town this is!"
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+
+THE BUSINESS MAN AND MR. BURNHAM
+
+It was, perhaps, within the next thirty minutes that Betty (who had
+been left in charge of the store while Duncan, with coat and collar off
+and sleeves rolled above his elbows, hacked and pounded and pried and
+banged at the packing-cases in the backyard) sought him on the scene of
+his labours.
+
+She waited quietly, a little to one side, watching him, until he should
+become aware of her presence. What she was thinking would have been
+hard to define, from the inscrutable eyes in her set, tired face of a
+child. There was no longer any trace of envy, suspicion or resentment
+in her attitude toward the young man. You might have guessed that she
+was trying to analyse him, weighing him in the scales of her
+impoverished and lopsided knowledge of human nature, and wondering if
+such conclusions as she was able to arrive at were dependable.
+
+In the course of time he caught sight of that patient, sad little
+figure, and, pausing, panting and perspiring under the July sun,
+cheerfully brandished his weapon from the centre of a widespread
+area of wreckage and destruction.
+
+"Pretty good work for a York dude--not?" he laughed.
+
+There was a shadowy smile in her grave eyes. "It's an improvement," she
+said evenly.
+
+He shot her a curious glance. "_Ouch!_" he said thoughtfully.
+
+"I just came to tell you," she went on, again immobile, "you're wanted
+inside."
+
+"Somebody wants to see _me?_" he demanded of her retreating back.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"But who--?"
+
+"Blinky Lockwood," she replied over her shoulder, as she went into the
+house.
+
+"Lockwood?" He speculated, for an instant puzzled. Then suddenly:
+"Father-in-law!" he cried. "Shivering snakes! he mustn't catch me like
+this! I, a business man!"
+
+Hastily rolling down his shirt-sleeves and shrugging himself into his
+coat, he made for the store, buttoning his collar and knotting his tie
+on the way.
+
+He found Blinky nosing round the room, quite alone. Betty had
+disappeared, and the old scoundrel was having quite an enjoyable time
+poking into matters that did not concern him and disapproving of them
+on general principles. So far as the improvements concerned old Sam
+Graham's fortunes, Blinky would concede no health in them. But with
+regard to Duncan there was another story to tell: Duncan apparently
+controlled money, to some vague extent.
+
+"You're Mr. Duncan, ain't you?" he asked with his leer, moving down to
+meet Nat.
+
+"Yes, sir. Mr. Lockwood, I believe?"
+
+"That's me." Blinky clutched his hand in a genial claw. "I'm glad to
+meet you."
+
+"Thank you," said Duncan. "Something I can do for you, sir?"
+
+"Wal, Pete Willin' was tellin' me you'd just took up this note of
+Graham's?"
+
+"Not exactly; the firm took it up."
+
+Blinky winked savagely at this. "The firm? What firm?"
+
+"Graham and Duncan, sir. I've been taken into partnership."
+
+"Have, eh?" Blinky grunted mysteriously and fished in his pocket for
+some bills and silver. "Wal, here's some change comin' to the firm,
+then; and here," he added, producing the document in question, "is
+Sam's note."
+
+"Thank you." Duncan ceremoniously deposited both in the till, going
+behind the soda fountain to do so, and then waited, expectant. Blinky
+was grunting busily in the key of one about to make an important
+communication.
+
+"I'm glad you're a-comin' in here with Sam," he said at length, with an
+acid grimace that was meant to be a smile.
+
+"Oh, it may be only temporary." Nat endeavoured to assume a seraphic
+expression, and partially succeeded. "I'm devoting much of my time to
+my studies," he pursued primly; "but nevertheless feel I should be
+earning something, too."
+
+"That's right; that's the kind of spirit I like to see in a young
+man.... You always go to church, don't you?"
+
+"No, sir--Sundays only."
+
+"That's what I mean. D'you drink?"
+
+"Oh, no, sir," Duncan parroted glibly: "don't smoke, drink, swear, and
+on Sundays I go to church."
+
+The bland smile with which he faced Lockwood's keen scrutiny disarmed
+suspicion.
+
+"I'm glad to hear that," Blinky told him. "I'm at the head of the
+temp'rance movement here, and I hope you'll join us, and set an example
+to our fast young men."
+
+"I feel sure I could do that," said Duncan meekly.
+
+Lockwood removed his hat, exposing the cranium of a bald-headed eagle,
+and fanned himself. "Warm to-day," he observed in an endeavour to be
+genial that all but sprained his temperament.
+
+Indeed, so great was the strain that he winked violently.
+
+Duncan observed this phenomenon with natural astonishment not unmixed
+with awe. "Yes, sir, very," he agreed, wondering what it might portend.
+
+"I believe I'll have a glass of sody."
+
+"Certainly." Duncan, by now habituated to the formulae of soda
+dispensing, promptly produced a bright and shining glass.
+
+"I see you've been fixin' this place up some."
+
+"Oh, yes," said Nat loftily. "We expect to have the best drugstore in
+the State. We're getting in new stock to-day, and naturally things are
+a little out of order, but we'll straighten up without delay. We'll try
+to deserve your esteemed patronage," he concluded doubtfully, with a
+hazy impression that such a speech would be considered appropriate
+under the circumstances.
+
+"You shall have it, Mr. Duncan, you shall have it!"
+
+"Thank you, I'm sure.... What syrup would you prefer?"
+
+"Just sody," stipulated Lockwood.
+
+His spasmodic wink again smote Duncan's understanding a mighty blow.
+Unable to believe his eyes, he hedged and stammered. Could it be--?
+This from the leader of the temperance movement in Radville?
+
+
+"I beg pardon----?"
+
+His denseness irritated Blinky slightly, with the result that the right
+side of his face again underwent an alarming convulsion. "I say," he
+explained carefully, "just--_plain_--sody."
+
+"On the level?"
+
+"What?" grunted Blinky; and blinked again.
+
+A smile of comprehension irradiated Nat's features. "Pardon," he said,
+"I'm a little new to the business."
+
+Blinky, fanning himself industriously, glared round the store while
+Duncan, turning his back, discreetly found and uncorked the whiskey
+bottle. He was still a trifle dubious about the transaction, but on the
+sound principles of doing all things thoroughly, poured out a liberal
+dose of raw, red liquor. Then, with his fingers clamped tightly about
+the bottom of the glass, the better to conceal its contents from any
+casual but inquisitive passer-by, he quickly filled it with soda and
+placed it before Blinky, accompanying the action with the sweetest of
+childlike smiles.
+
+Lockwood, nodding his acknowledgments, lifted the glass to his lips.
+Duncan awaited developments with some apprehension. To his relief,
+however, Blinky, after an experimental swallow, emptied the mixture
+expeditiously into his system; and smacked his thin lips resoundingly.
+
+"How," he demanded, "can anyone want intoxicatin' likers when
+they can get such a bracin' drink as that?"
+
+"I pass," Nat breathed, limp with admiration of such astounding
+hypocrisy.
+
+Blinky reluctantly pried a nickel loose from his finances and placed it
+on the counter. Duncan regarded it with disdain.
+
+"Ten cents more, please," he suggested tactfully.
+
+"What for?"
+
+"Plain sody." The explanation was accompanied by a very passable
+imitation of Blinky's blink.
+
+Happily for Duncan, Blinky has no sense of humour: if he had he would
+explode the very first time he indulged in introspection.
+
+"Not much," said he with his sour smile. "I guess you're jokin'....
+Well, good luck to you, Mr. Duncan. I'd like to have you come round and
+see us some evenin'."
+
+"Thank you very much, sir." Duncan accompanied Blinky to the door.
+"I've already had the pleasure of meeting your daughter, sir. She's a
+charming girl."
+
+"I'm real glad you think so," said Blinky, intensely gratified. "She
+seems to've taken a great shine to you, too. Come round and get
+'quainted with the hull family. You're the sort of young feller I'd
+like her to know." He paused and looked Nat up and down captiously,
+as one might appraise the points of a horse of quality put up for sale.
+"Good-day," said he, with the most significant of winks.
+
+"Oh, that's all right," Nat hastened to reassure him. "I won't say a
+word about it."
+
+Blinky, on the point of leaving, started to question this (to him)
+cryptic utterance, but luckily had the current of his thoughts diverted
+by the entrance of Roland Barnette, in company with his friend Mr.
+Burnham.
+
+Roland's consternation at this unexpected encounter was, in the mildest
+term, extreme. At sight of his employer he pulled up as if slapped.
+"Oh!" he faltered, "I didn't know you was here, sir."
+
+"No," said Blinky with keen relish, "I guess you didn't."
+
+"I--ah--come over to see Sam about that note," stammered Roland.
+
+"Wal, don't you bother your head 'bout what ain't your business, Roly.
+Come on back to the bank."
+
+"All right, sir." Roland grasped frantically at the opportunity to
+emphasise his importance. "Excuse me, Mr. Lockwood, but I'd like to
+interdoos you to a friend of mine, Mr. Burnham from Noo York."
+
+Amused, Burnham stepped into the breach. "How are you?" he said with
+the proper nuance of cordiality, offering his hand.
+
+Lockwood shook it unemotionally. "How de do?" he said, perfunctory.
+
+"I brought Mr. Burnham in to see Sam----"
+
+"Yes," Burnham interrupted Roland quickly; "Barnette's been kind enough
+to show me round town a bit."
+
+"Here on business?" inquired Lockwood pointedly.
+
+"No, not exactly," returned Burnham with practised ease, "just looking
+round."
+
+"Only lookin', eh?" Blinky's countenance underwent one of its erratic
+quakes as he examined Burnham with his habitual intentness.
+
+The New Yorker caught the wink and lost breath. "Ah--yes--that's all,"
+he assented uneasily. And as he spoke another wink dumbfounded him.
+"Why?" he asked, with a distinct loss of assurance. "Don't you believe
+it."
+
+"Don't see no reason why I shouldn't," grunted Blinky. "Hope you'll
+like what you see. Good day."
+
+"So long ... Mr. Lockwood," returned Burnham uncertainly.
+
+Lockwood paused outside the door. "Come 'long, Roland."
+
+"Yes, sir; right away; just a minute." Roland was lingering
+unwillingly, detained by Burnham's imperative hand. "What d'you want? I
+got to hurry."
+
+"What was he winking at me for?" demanded Burnham heatedly. "Have
+you----?"
+
+"Oh!" Roland laughed. "He wasn't winking. He can't help doing that.
+It's a twitchin' he's got in his eye. That's why they call him Blinky."
+
+"Oh, that was it!" Burnham accepted the explanation with distinct
+relief, while Duncan, who had been an unregarded spectator, suddenly
+found cause to retire behind one of the show-cases on important
+business.
+
+So that was the explanation!...
+
+After his paroxysm had subsided and he felt able to control his facial
+muscles, Duncan emerged, suave and solemn. Roland had disappeared with
+Blinky, and Burnham was alone.
+
+"Anything you wish, sir?" asked Nat.
+
+"Only to see Mr. Graham."
+
+"He's out just at present, but I think he'll be back in a moment or so.
+Will you wait? You'll find that chair comfortable, I think."
+
+"Believe I will," said Burnham with an air. He seated himself. "I can't
+wait long, though," he amended.
+
+"Yes, sir. And if you'll excuse me----?"
+
+Burnham's hand dismissed him with a tolerant wave. "Go right on about
+your business," he said with supreme condescension.
+
+And Duncan returned to his work in the backyard. It wasn't long before
+he found occasion to go back to the store, and by that time old Sam was
+there in conversation with Burnham. Neither noticed Nat as he entered,
+and to begin with he paid them little heed, being occupied with his
+task of depositing an armful of bottles without mishap and then placing
+them on the shelves. The hum of their voices from the other side of the
+counter struck an indifferent ear while he busied himself, but
+presently a word or phrase caught his interest, and he found himself
+listening, at first casually, then with waxing attention.
+
+"That's part of my business," he heard Burnham say in his sleek,
+oleaginous accents. "Sometimes I pick up an odd no-'count contraption
+that makes me a bit of money, and more times I'm stung and lose on it.
+It's all a gamble, of course, and I'm that way--like to take a gambling
+chance on anything that strikes my fancy--like that burner of yours."
+
+"Yes," Graham returned: "the gas arrangement."
+
+"It's a curious idea--quite different from the one I told you about;
+but I kinda took to it. There might be something to it, and again there
+mightn't. I've been thinking I might be willing to risk a few dollars
+on it, if we could come to terms."
+
+"Do you mean it, really?" said old Sam eagerly.
+
+"Not to invest in it, so to speak; I don't think it's chances are
+strong enough for that. But if you'd care to sell the patent outright
+and aren't too ambitious, we might make a dicker. What d'you say?"
+
+"Why, yes," said Graham, quivering with anticipation. "Yes, indeed,
+if--"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"If you really think it's worth anything, sir."
+
+"Well, as I say, there's no telling; but I was thinking about it at
+dinner, and I sort of concluded I'd like to own that burner, so I made
+out a little bill of sale, and I says to myself, says I: 'If Graham
+will take five hundred dollars for that patent, I'll give him spot
+cash, right in his hand,' says I."
+
+With this Burnham tipped back in his chair, and brought forth a wallet
+from which he drew a sheet of paper and several bills.
+
+"Five hundred dollars!" repeated Graham, thunderstruck by this
+munificence.
+
+"Yes, sir: five hundred, cash! To tell you the truth--guess you don't
+know it--I heard at the bank that they didn't intend to extend the time
+on that note of yours, and I thought this five hundred would come in
+handy, and kind of wanted to help you out. Now what do you say?"
+
+He flourished the bills under Graham's nose and waited, entirely at
+ease as to his answer.
+
+"Well," said the old man, "it is kind of you, sir--very kind. Everybody's
+been good to me recently--or else I'm dreamin'."
+
+"Then it's a bargain?"
+
+"Why, I hope it won't lose any money for you, Mr. Burnham," Sam
+hesitated, with his ineradicable sense of fairness and square-dealing.
+"Making gas from crude oil ought to--"
+
+Duncan never heard the end of that speech. For some moments he had been
+listening intently, trying to recollect something. The name of Burnham
+plucked a string on the instrument of his memory; he knew he had heard
+it, some place, some time in the past; but how, or when, or in respect
+to what he could not make up his mind. It had required Sam's reference
+to gas and crude oil to close the circuit. Then he remembered: Kellogg
+had mentioned a man by the name of Burnham who was "on the track of" an
+important invention for making gas from crude oil. This must be the
+man, Burnham, the tracker; and poor old Graham must be the tracked....
+
+Without warning Duncan ran round and made himself an uninvited third to
+the conference.
+
+"Mr. Graham, one moment!" he begged, excited. "Is this patent of yours
+on a process of making gas from crude oil?"
+
+Burnham looked up impatiently, frowning at the interruption, but Graham
+was all good humour.
+
+"Why, yes," he started to explain; "it's that burner over there that--"
+
+"But I wouldn't sell it just yet if I were you," said Nat. "It may be
+worth a good deal--"
+
+"Now look here!" Burnham got to his feet in anger. "What business 've
+you got butting into this?" he demanded, putting himself between Duncan
+and the inventor.
+
+"Me?" Duncan queried simply. "Only just because I'm a business man. If
+you don't believe it, ask Mr. Graham."
+
+"He's got a perfect right to advise me, Mr. Burnham," interposed
+Graham, rising.
+
+"Well, but--but what objection 've you got to his making a little money
+out of this patent?" Burnham blustered.
+
+"None; only I want to look into the matter first. I think it might be--
+ah--advisable."
+
+"What makes you think so?" demanded Burnham, his tone withering.
+
+"Well," said Nat, with an effort summoning his faculties to cope with a
+matter of strict business, "it's this way: I've got an _idea_," he
+said, poking at Burnham with the forefinger which had proven so
+effective with Pete Willing, "that you wouldn't offer five hundred iron
+men for this burner unless you expected to make something big out of
+it, and... it ought to be worth just as much to Mr. Graham as to you."
+
+"Ah, you don't know what you're talking about."
+
+"I know that," Nat admitted simply, "but I do happen to know you're
+promoting a scheme for making gas from crude oil, and if Mr. Graham
+will listen to me you won't get his patent until I've consulted my
+friend, Henry Kellogg."
+
+"_Kellogg!_"
+
+"Yes. You know--of L.J. Bartlett & Company." Nat's forefinger continued
+to do deadly work. Burnham backed away from it as from a fiery brand.
+
+"Oh, well!" he said, dashed, "if you're representing Kellogg"--and Nat
+took care not to refute the implication--"I--I don't want to interfere.
+Only," he pursued at random, in his discomfiture, "I can't see why he
+sent you here."
+
+"I'd be ashamed to tell you," Nat returned with an open smile. "Better
+ask him."
+
+Burnham gathered his wits together for a final threat. "That's what I
+will do!" he threatened. "And I'll do it the minute I can see him. You
+can bet on that, Mister What's-Your-Name!"
+
+"No, I can't," said Nat naively. "I'm not allowed to gamble."
+
+His ingenuous expression exasperated Burnham. The man lost control of
+his temper at the same moment that he acknowledged to himself his
+defeat. In disgust he turned away.
+
+"Oh, there's no use talking to you--"
+
+"That's right," Nat agreed fairly.
+
+"But I'll see you again, Mr. Graham--"
+
+"Not alone, if I can help it, Mr. Burnham," Duncan amended sweetly.
+
+"But," Burnham continued, severely ignoring Nat and addressing himself
+squarely to Graham, "you take my tip and don't do any business with
+this fellow until you find out who he is." He flung himself out of the
+shop with a barked: "Good-day!"
+
+"Well, Mr. Graham?" Duncan turned a little apprehensively to the
+inventor. But Sam's expression was almost one of beatific content. His
+weak old lips were pursed, his eyes half-closed, his finger tips
+joined, and he was rocking back and forth on his heels.
+
+"Margaret used to talk that way, sometimes," he remarked. "She was the
+best woman in the world--and the wisest. She used to take care of me
+and protect me from my foolish impulses, just as you do, my boy...."
+
+For a space Duncan kept silent, respecting the old man's memories, and
+a great deal humbled in spirit by the parallel Sam had drawn. Then: "I
+was afraid what I said would sound queer to you, sir," he ventured--
+"that you mightn't understand that I'm not here to do you out of your
+invention..."
+
+"There's nothing on earth, my boy,"--Graham's hand fell on Nat's arm--
+"could make me think that. But five hundred dollars, you see, would
+have repaid you for taking up that note, and--and I could have bought
+Betty a new dress for the party. But I'm sure you've done what's best.
+You're a business man--"
+
+"Don't!" Nat pleaded wildly. "I've been called that so much of late
+that it's beginning to hurt!"
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+
+MOSTLY ABOUT BETTY
+
+Sam Graham said to me, that night: "I don't know when so many things
+have happened to me in so short a time. It don't seem hardly possible
+it's only four days since that boy came in here asking for a job. It's
+wonderful, simply wonderful, the change he's made."
+
+He waved a comprehensive hand, and I, glancing round the transformed
+store, agreed with him. Everything was spick and span and mighty
+attractive--clean and neat-looking--with the new stock in the shining
+cases and arranged on the glistening white shelves: not all of it set
+out by any means, of course, but no unplaced goods in sight, cluttering
+up the counters or kicking round the floor.
+
+"The way he's worked----! You'd hardly believe it, Homer. He said he
+wanted to get home early so's to write a letter to a friend of his in
+New York, a Mr. Kellogg, junior member of L. J. Bartlett & Company,
+about my invention. But he insisted on leaving everything to rights for
+business to-morrow. And just look!"
+
+"But I thought Roland Barnette----?" I suggested with guile. Of
+course I'd heard a rumour of what had happened--'most everyone in town
+had--and how Roland and his friend, Mr. Burnham, had sort of fallen out
+on the way from the Bigelow House to the train; but no one knew
+anything definite, and I wanted to get "the rights of it," as Radville
+says.
+
+So I had dropped in at Graham's, on my way home from the office, as I
+often do, for an evening smoke and a bit of gossip: something I rarely
+indulge in, but which I've found has a curious psychological effect on
+the circulation of the _Citizen_--like a tonic. Sam was just at
+the point of closing up. He was alone, Duncan having gone home about an
+hour earlier, and Betty being upstairs, while (since it was quite
+half-past nine) all the rest of Radville, with few exceptions (chiefly
+to be noted at Schwartz's and round the Bigelow House bar) was making
+its final rounds of the day: locking the front door, putting out the
+lamp in its living-room, banking the fire in the range, ejecting the
+cat from the kitchen and wiping out the sink, and finally, odoriferous
+kerosene lamp in hand, climbing slowly to the stuffy upstairs
+bed-chamber. Indeed, the lights of Radville begin to go out about
+half-past eight; by ten, as a rule, the town is as lively as a
+cemetery.
+
+But I am by nature inexorable and merciless, a masterful man with such
+as old Sam; and it was an hour later before I left him, drained of
+the last detail of the day. He was a weary man, but a happy one, when
+he bade me good-night, and I myself felt a little warmed by his
+cheerfulness as I plodded up Main Street through the thick oppression
+of darkness beneath the elms.
+
+After a time I became aware that someone was overtaking me, and waited,
+thinking at first it would be one of my people. But it wasn't long
+before I recognised from the quick tempo of the approaching footfalls
+that this was no Radvillian. There was just light enough--starlight
+striking down through the thinner spaces in the interlacing foliage--to
+make visible a moving shadow, and when it drew nearer I saluted it with
+confidence.
+
+"Good-evening, Mr. Duncan."
+
+He stopped short, peering through the gloom. "Good-evening, but--Mr.
+Littlejohn? Glad to see you." He joined me and we proceeded homeward,
+he moderating his stride a trifle in deference to my age. "Aren't you
+late?"
+
+"A bit," I admitted. "I've been gossiping with Sam Graham."
+
+"Oh...?"
+
+"You're out late yourself, Mr. Duncan, for one of such regular, not to
+say abnormal, habits."
+
+He laughed lightly. "Had a letter I wanted to catch the first morning
+train."
+
+"Then you're interested in Sam's burner?"
+
+"No, I'm not, but I hope to interest others....Oh, yes: Mr. Graham
+told you about it, of course.... It just struck me that if a man of
+Burnham's stamp was willing to risk five hundred dollars on the
+proposition, he very likely foresaw a profit in it that might as well
+be Mr. Graham's. So I've sent a detailed description of the thing to a
+friend in New York, who'll look into it for me."
+
+He was silent for a little.
+
+"Who's Colonel Bohun?" he asked suddenly.
+
+"Why do you ask?"
+
+"I saw him this evening. He was passing the store and stopped to glare
+in as if he hated it--stopped so long that I got nervous and asked Miss
+Lockwood (she'd just happened in for a parting glass--of soda) whether
+he was an anarchist or a retired burglar. She told me his name, but was
+otherwise inhumanly reticent."
+
+"For Josie?" I chuckled; but he didn't respond. So I took up the tale
+of the first family of Radville.
+
+"The story runs," said I, "that the Bohuns were one of the F.F.V.'s;
+that they sickened of slavery, freed their slaves and moved North, to
+settle in Radville. I _believe_ they came from somewhere round
+Lynchburg; but that was a couple of generations ago. When the Civil War
+broke out the old Colonel up there"--I gestured vaguely in the general
+direction of the Bohun mansion--"couldn't keep out of it, and
+naturally he couldn't fight with the North. He won his spurs under
+Lee.... After the war had blown over he came home, to find that his
+only son had enlisted with the Radville company and disappeared at
+Gettysburg. It pretty nearly killed the old man--though he wasn't so
+old then; but there's fire in the Bohun blood, and his boy's action
+seemed to him nothing less than treason."
+
+"And that's what soured him on the world?"
+
+"Not altogether. He had a daughter--Margaret. She was the most
+beautiful woman in the world...." I suspect my voice broke a little
+just there, for there was a shade of respectful sympathy in the
+monosyllable with which he filled the pause. "He swore she should never
+marry a Northerner, but she did; I guess, being a Bohun, she had to,
+after hearing she must not. There were two of us that loved her, but
+she chose Sam Graham...."
+
+"Why," he said awkwardly--"I'm sorry."
+
+"I'm not: she was right, if I couldn't see it that way. They ran away--
+and so did I. I went East, but they came back to Radville. Colonel
+Bohun never forgave them, but they were very happy till she died.
+Betty's their daughter, of course: Sam's not the kind that marries more
+than once."
+
+Duncan thought this over without comment until we reached our gate.
+There he paused for a moment.
+
+"He's got plenty of money, I presume--old Bohun?"
+
+"So they say. Probably not much now, but a great deal more than he
+needs."
+
+"Then why doesn't somebody get after the old scoundrel and make him do
+something for that poor--for Miss Graham?" he asked indignantly.
+
+"He tried it once, but they wouldn't listen. His conditions were
+impossible," I explained. "She was to renounce her father and take the
+name of Bohun------."
+
+"What rot!" Duncan growled. "What an old fiend he must be! Of course he
+knew she'd refuse."
+
+"I suspect he did."
+
+Duncan hesitated a bit longer. "Anyhow," he said suddenly, "somebody
+ought to get after him and make him see the thing the right way."
+
+"S'pose you try it, Mr. Duncan?" I suggested maliciously, as we went up
+the walk.
+
+He stopped at the door. "Perhaps I shall," he said slowly.
+
+"I'd advise you not to. The last man that tried it has no desire to
+repeat the experiment."
+
+"Who was he?"
+
+"An old fool named Homer Littlejohn."
+
+Duncan put out his hand. "Shake!" he insisted. "We'll talk this over
+another time."
+
+We went in very quietly, lit our candles, and with elaborate care
+avoided the home-made burglar-alarm (a complicated arrangement of
+strings and tinpans on the staircase, which Miss Carpenter insists on
+maintaining ever since Roland Barnette missed a dollar bill and
+insisted his pocket had been picked on Main Street) and so mounted to
+our rooms. As we were entering (our doors adjoin) a thought delayed my
+good-night.
+
+"By the way, did you get your invitation to Josie Lockwood's party, Mr.
+Duncan? I happened to see it on the hall table this evening."
+
+"Yes," he assented quietly.
+
+"It's to be the social event of the year. I hope you'll enjoy it."
+
+"I'm not going."
+
+"Not going!... Why not?"
+
+"It's against the rules at first--I mean, business rules. I'll be so
+busy at the store, you know."
+
+"Josie'll be disappointed."
+
+"Thank you," said he gratefully. "Good-night."
+
+Alone, I was fain to confess he baffled my understanding.
+
+The rush of business to Graham's began the following morning: Duncan's
+hands were full almost from the first, and he had to relegate such
+matters as making final disposition of his stock and getting acquainted
+with it to the intervals between waiting upon customers. Old Sam must
+have put up more prescriptions in the next few days than he had within
+the last five years. Everybody wanted to take a look at the renovated
+store, shake Sam's hand, and see what the new partner was really like.
+Sothern and Lee's was for some days quite deserted, especially after
+Duncan took a leaf out of their book, bought an ice-cream freezer and
+began to serve dabs of cream in the sody. I've always maintained that
+our Radville folks are pretty thoroughly sot in their ways (the phrase
+is local), but the way they flocked to Graham's forced me to amend the
+aphorism with the clause: "except when their curiosity is aroused."
+Every woman in town wanted to know what Graham and Duncan carried that
+Sothern and Lee didn't, and how much cheaper they were than the more
+established concern; also they wanted to know Mr. Duncan. I suspect no
+drug-store ever had so many inquiries for articles that it didn't
+carry, but might possibly, or ought to, in the estimation of the
+prospective purchasers, as well as that at no time had Radvillians
+happened to think of so many things that they could get at a
+druggist's. People drove in from as far as twenty miles away, as soon
+as the news reached them, to buy notepaper and stamps--people who
+didn't write or receive a letter a month. Will Bigelow, even, dropped
+round and bought samples of the tobacco stock, from two-fors up to
+ten-centers--and smoked them with expressive snorts. Tracey Tanner's
+soda and cigarette trade was transferred bodily to Graham's from the
+first, and Roland Barnette gave it his patronage, albeit grudgingly, as
+soon as he found it impossible to shake Josie Lockwood's allegiance. I
+say grudgingly, because Roland didn't like the new partner, and had
+said so from the first. But everyone else did like him, almost without
+exception. His attentiveness and courtesy were not ungrateful after the
+way things were thrown at you at Sothern and Lee's, we declared.
+
+Duncan certainly did strive to please. No man ever worked harder in a
+Radville store than he did. And from the time that he began to believe
+there would be some reward for his exertions, that the business was
+susceptible to being built up by the employment of progressive methods,
+he grew astonishingly prolific of ideas, from our sleepy point of view.
+The window displays were changed almost daily, to begin with, and were
+made as interesting as possible; we learned to go blocks out of our way
+to find out what Graham and Duncan were exploiting to-day. And daily
+bargain sales were instituted--low-priced articles of everyday use,
+such as shaving soap, tooth brushes, and the like, being sold at a
+few cents above cost on certain days which were announced in advance by
+means of hand-lettered cards in the show-windows; whereas formerly we
+had always been obliged to pay full list-prices. An axiom of his creed
+as it developed was to the effect that stock must not be allowed to
+stand idle upon the shelves; if there were no call for a certain line
+of articles, it must be stimulated. I remember that, some time along in
+August, he began to worry about the inactivity in cough-syrups.
+
+"No one wants cough-syrups in summer," he told Graham; "that stuff's
+been here six weeks and more. It's getting out of training. Needs
+exercise. Look at this bottle: it says: 'Shake well.' Now it hasn't
+been shaken at all since it was put on the shelves, and I haven't got
+time to shake it every morning. We must either hire a boy to give it
+regular exercise, or sell it off and get in a fresh supply for the
+winter. I'll have to think up some scheme to make 'em take it off our
+hands."
+
+He did. Somehow or other he managed to convince us that forewarned was
+forearmed, that it was better to have a bottle or two of cough-syrup in
+our medicine chests at home than on the shelves of the drug-store, when
+the chill autumnal winds began to blow, especially when you could buy
+it now for thirty-nine cents, whereas it would be fifty-four in
+October.
+
+Still earlier in his career as a business man he noticed that the local
+practitioners wrote their prescriptions on odd scraps of paper.
+
+"That's all wrong," he declared. "We'll have to fix it." And by next
+morning the job-printing press back of the Court House was groaning
+under an order from Graham and Duncan's, and a few days later every
+physician within several miles of Radville received half a dozen neat
+pads of blanks with his name and address printed at the top and the
+advice across the bottom: "Go to Graham's for the best and purest drugs
+and chemicals." The backs of the blanks were utilised to request people
+living out of reach, but on rural free delivery routes, either to mail
+their prescriptions and other orders in, or have the physicians
+telephone them, promising to fill and despatch them by the first post.
+
+For he had a telephone installed within the first fortnight, and the
+next day advertised in the _Gazette_ that orders by telephone
+would receive prompt attention and be delivered without delay. Tracey
+Tanner became his delivery-boy, deserting his father's stables for the
+obvious advantages of three dollars a week with a chance to learn the
+business.... Sothern and Lee were quick to recognise the advantage the
+telephone gave Graham and Duncan, and promptly had one put in their
+store; but the delay had proven almost fatal: Radville had already
+got into the habit of telephoning to Graham's for a cake of soap, or
+whatnot, and it's hard to break a Radville habit.
+
+As business increased and the stock turned itself over at a profit,
+Duncan began to branch out, to make improvements and introduce new
+lines of goods. He it was who inoculated Radville with the habit of
+buying manufactured candies. Up to the time of his advent, we had been
+accustomed to and content with home-made taffies and fudges--and were,
+I've no doubt, vastly better off on that account. But Duncan, starting
+with a line of five- and ten-cent packages of indigestible sweets, in
+time made arrangements with a big Pittsburgh confectionery concern to
+ship him a small consignment of pound and half-pound "fancy" boxes of
+chocolates and bonbons twice a week. And taffy-pulls and fudge parties
+lapsed into desuetude.
+
+Later, Sperry introduced him to an association of druggists, of which
+he became a member, for the maintenance and exploitation of the cigar
+and tobacco trade in connection with the drug business. They installed
+at Graham's a handsome show-case and fixtures especially for the sale
+and display of cigars, and thereafter it was possible to purchase
+smokable tobacco in our town.
+
+Again, he treated Radville to its first circulating library,
+establishing a branch in the store. One could buy a book at a moderate
+price, and either keep it or exchange it for a fee of a few cents. I
+disputed the wisdom of this move, alleging, and with reason, that
+Radville didn't read modern fiction to any extent. But Duncan argued
+that it didn't matter. "They're going to try it on as a novelty, to
+begin with," he said, "and it'll bring 'em into the store for a few
+exchanges, at least. That's all I want. Once we get 'em in here, it'll
+be hard if we can't sell them something else. You'll see."
+
+He was right.
+
+Undoubtedly he made the business hum during those first few months; and
+after that it settled down to a steady forward movement. The store
+became a social centre, a place for people to meet. In time Tracey was
+promoted to be assistant and another boy engaged to make deliveries.
+... And Duncan had never been happier; he had found something he could
+understand and, understanding, accomplish; there was work for his hands
+to do, and they had discovered they could do it successfully. I don't
+believe he stopped to think about it very much, but he was conscious of
+that glow of achievement, that heightening of the spirits, that comes
+with the knowledge of success, be that success however insignificant,
+and it benefited him enormously....
+
+But this chronicle of progress has run away altogether with a desultory
+pen, which started to tell why Duncan didn't want to go to Josie
+Lockwood's party. I was long in finding out, but not so long as Duncan
+himself, perhaps; by which I mean to say that he was conscious of the
+desire not to go, and determined not to, without stopping to analyse
+the cause of that desire more than very superficially.
+
+It happened, toward the close of the eventful day already detailed at
+such length, that as Duncan was entering the house with a load of boxed
+goods, he heard voices in the store--young voices, of which one was
+already too familiar to his ears. He paused, waiting for them to get
+through with their business and go; for he had no time to waste just
+then, even upon the heiress of his manufactured destiny. Betty was
+keeping shop at the time (old Sam having gone upstairs for a little
+rest, who was overwrought and weary with the excitement of that day)
+and it was Duncan's hope that she would be able to serve the customers
+without his assistance.
+
+There were two of them, you see--Josie and Angle Tuthill--hunting as
+usual in couples; and while he waited, not meaning to eavesdrop but
+unwilling to betray his whereabouts by moving, he heard very clearly
+their passage with Betty.
+
+He overheard first, distinctly, Betty responding in expressionless
+voice: "Hello, Angie.... Hello, Josie."
+
+There ensued what seemed a slightly awkward pause. Then Josie,
+painfully sweet: "Did you get the invitation, Betty?"
+
+Betty moved into Duncan's range of vision, apparently intending to come
+and call him. She turned at the question, and he saw her small, thin
+little body and pinched face _en silhouette_ against the fading
+light beyond. He saw, too, that she was stiffening herself as if for
+some unequal contest.
+
+"The invitation?" she questioned dully, but with her head up and
+steady.
+
+"Why," said Josie, "I sent you one. To the party, you know--my lawn
+feet next week."
+
+I give the local pronunciation as it is.
+
+"Did you?"
+
+"I gave it to Tracey for you," persisted the tormentor. "Didn't you get
+it?"
+
+Betty caught at her breath, inaudibly; only Duncan could see the little
+spasm of mortification and anger that shook her.
+
+"Oh, perhaps I did," she said shortly. "I--I'll ask Mr. Duncan to wait
+on you."
+
+She swung quickly out into the hallway, slamming the door behind her
+and so darkening it that she didn't detect Duncan's shadowed figure.
+And if she had meant to call him, she must have forgotten it; for an
+instant later he heard her stumbling up the stairs, and as she
+disappeared he caught the echo of a smothered sob.
+
+He waited, motionless, too disturbed at the time to care to enter the
+store and endure Josie's vapid advances; and through the thin partition
+there came to him their comments on Betty's ungracious behaviour.
+
+"Well!... _did_ you ever!"
+
+That was Angle; Josie chimed in the same key: "Oh, what did you expect
+from that kind of a girl?"
+
+"_Ssh!_ maybe he's coming!"
+
+After a moment's silence, Josie: "Oh, come on. Don't let's wait any
+longer. I don't think it's healthy to drink sody so soon before dinner,
+anyway."
+
+"And, besides, we only wanted to hear--"
+
+Their voices with their footsteps diminished. Duncan allowed a prudent
+interval to elapse, entered the store and began to bestow the goods he
+had brought in.
+
+While he was at work the light failed. He stopped for lack of it just
+as Betty came downstairs.
+
+"Hello!" he said cheerfully. "Know where the matches are?"
+
+"Yes." She moved behind a counter and fetched him a few. "Are you 'most
+done?" she inquired, not unfriendly, as he took down from its bracket
+one of the oil lamps.
+
+"Hardly," he responded, touching a light to the wick and replacing the
+chimney. "It's a good deal of a job."
+
+"Yes..."
+
+He replaced the lamp, and in the act of turning toward another caught a
+glimpse of the girl's face, pale and drawn, her eyes a trifle reddened.
+And with that commonsense departed from him, leaving him wholly a prey
+to his impulse of pity. "Oh, thunder!" he told himself, thrusting a
+hand into his pocket. "I might as well be broke as the way I am now."
+He produced the scanty remains of his "grubstake."
+
+"Miss Graham..."
+
+"Yes?" she asked, wondering.
+
+"Could you get a party dress for thirty-four dollars?"
+
+"Thirty-four dollars!" she faltered.
+
+He discovered what small change he had in his pocket: it was like him
+to be extravagant, even extreme. "And fifty-three cents?" he pursued,
+with a nervous laugh.
+
+"Heavens!" the girl gasped. "I should think so!"
+
+"Then go ahead!" He offered her the money, but she could only stare,
+incredulous. "I'll stake you."
+
+"Oh..._no_, Mr. Duncan," she managed to say.
+
+"Oh, yes!" He tried to catch one of the hands that involuntarily had
+risen toward her face in a gesture of wonder. "Please do," he begged,
+his tone persuasive, "as a favour to me."
+
+But she evaded him, stepping back. "I couldn't take it; I couldn't
+really."
+
+"Yes, you can. Just try it once, and see how easy it is," he persisted,
+pursuing.
+
+"No, I can't." She looked up shyly and shook her head, that smile of
+her mother's for the moment illuminating her face almost with the
+radiance of beauty. "But I--I thank you very much--just the same."
+
+"But I want you to go to that party..."
+
+"You're awful' kind," she said softly, still smiling, "but I don't care
+to go, now. I--"
+
+"Don't care to! Why, you were insisting on going, a little while ago."
+
+"Yes," she admitted simply, "I know I was. But ... I've been thinking
+over what you said, since then, and I ... I've made up my mind I'd be
+out of place there."
+
+"Out of place!" he echoed, thunderstruck.
+
+"Yes. I've concluded I belong here in the store with father." She half
+turned away. "And I guess folks is better off if they stay where they
+belong...."
+
+
+She went slowly from the room, and he remained staring, stupefied.
+
+"You never can tell about a woman," he concluded with all the gravity
+of an original philosopher.
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+
+MANOEUVRES OF JOSIE
+
+Nat didn't go to the Lockwood lawn fete, and did excuse himself on the
+plea of being unable to leave the store. I'm afraid the young man had a
+faint, fond hope that Josie would be offended; but his excuse was
+accepted without remonstrance. And, indeed, it was at that time quite a
+reasonable one. Tracey had not been added to the staff, although
+business was booming, and Saturday night is, as everyone who has lived
+in a Radville knows, the busiest of the week; all the stores keep open
+late on Saturday--some as late as eleven--and frequently take in half
+the week's income between noon and the closing hour. Duncan really
+couldn't be spared; so it's probable that Josie cloaked her
+disappointment and comforted herself with the assurance that her
+selection of the day had been an error in judgment, of which she would
+not again be guilty.
+
+But the party came off, without fail, and that on a wonderful, still,
+moonlit night; and everybody voted it a splendid success. The
+_Citizen_ in its next issue recorded the event to the extent of a
+column and a half of reading matter, called it a social function, and
+described the gowns of the leading ladies of society present in
+bewildering phrases. I was not invited, but the owner of the paper was,
+and his wife wrote the description with the assistance of the entire
+editorial and reportorial force, a dictionary and some evil if
+suppressed language from the foreman of the composing-room. I read
+the proofs with an admiration strongly tinctured with awe, and found
+it lacking in one particular only: no mention was made of Roland
+Barnette's first open-faced suit.
+
+Roland had ordered it from a clothing-house in Chicago, and it arrived
+just in time. Having heard all about it from Roland's own lips (they
+dilated upon the matter to Watty the tailor, just beneath my window), I
+sort of hung round downtown Saturday evening in the hope of catching
+a glimpse of it, and was not disappointed. I was loitering in Graham's
+when Roland sauntered nonchalantly in at about a quarter to eight and
+called for a pack of "Sweets." Sam served him, and Duncan, happily for
+him disengaged at the moment, after one look at Roland retired
+precipitately behind the prescription counter--overcome, I judged from
+Roland's triumphant smirk, by deepest chagrin. Well, thought I, might
+he have been: he could never, by whatever wildest endeavour, have
+approximated Roland's splendour.
+
+The coat was bob-tailed (at least, so Watty described it within my
+hearing) and curiously double-breasted, caught together at the waist
+with a single button, thus revealing a shining expanse of very stiff
+shirt-bosom; which creaked, for some reason. With this Roland wore a
+ribbed white-silk waistcoat, very brilliant low-cut patent leather
+shoes, and white-silk socks. The trousers were strikingly cut, as to
+each leg, after the physical configuration of the domestic pear, and
+the effect of the whole was measurably enhanced by an opera-hat--one
+of those tall and striking contraptions that you can shut up by
+pressing gently but firmly upon the human midriff and looking
+unconscious, but which is apt to open with a resounding report if
+you're not careful... I am glad to be able to report that Roland failed
+to commit the solecism of wearing a red string tie; his tie was a
+sober black, firmly knotted at the factory. I'm glad too, for the
+sartorial honour of Radville, that Roland knew how to wear such
+fixin's: that is to say, with an expression of proud defiance.
+
+After he had departed, stepping high, Sam called me behind the counter
+to assist in reviving Duncan. We found him leaning upon the counter,
+his forehead resting upon a mortar, very red in the face and breathing
+stertorously; and when Sam addressed him, to learn what was the matter,
+he seemed unable to speak, but choked and beat the air feebly with his
+hands. Sam concluded he had swallowed something, and was, I think,
+right; he was plainly half strangled, and only recovered after we had
+beaten his back severely. Then he refused any explanation, beyond
+saying that he was subject to such seizures.
+
+After the party the town's excitement simmered down and subsided; we
+had become moderately accustomed to the presence of Duncan in our midst
+(strange as this may sound), and for some time nothing happened germane
+to the fate of the Fortune Hunter.
+
+On his part, he fell into a routine without the least evidence of
+discontent. He was early to rise and early to work, and rarely left the
+store save at meal hours and closing-up time. And in the course of our
+serene days, I began to notice in him an increasing interest in the
+affairs of the church; he seemed to look forward with a not uneager
+anticipation to the fixtures of its calendar. He attended with
+admirable regularity both morning and evening services, on Sunday, the
+mid-weekly prayer-meeting, and Friday evening choir practice. For in
+the course of time he had been won over to join the choir, and modestly
+discovered to our edification a barytone voice, wholly untrained but
+not unpleasing. Mrs. Rogers, our organist, averred his superiority to
+Packy Soule, whom he superseded, and was supported in this estimate by
+the remainder of the choir, with the exception of Roland Barnette,
+who helped with his reedy tenor. Josie Lockwood sang contralto and Bess
+Gabriel what we were informed was soprano--only Radville called it a
+treble. Tracey Tanner pumped the organ and puffed audibly in the
+pauses--a singular testimony to his devotion to Angie Tuthill, who
+"just sang" with the others, chiefly because she was Josie's nearest
+friend.
+
+I remember that, one Sunday night after evening service, Duncan
+confided to me, quite seriously, "that the church thing was getting to
+him." He seemed somewhat surprised, to a degree indignant, as if he
+suspected religion of having taken an advantage of him in some
+roundabout, underhand way.... He wondered audibly what Harry would
+think if he could see him now.
+
+He had settled down to a pretty steady correspondence with Kellogg,
+chiefly on business matters. Kellogg was investigating old Sam's
+burner, and seemed quite impressed with its possibilities. He had
+quarrelled with Roland's friend, Burnham, on Duncan's representations,
+and ordered him out of the offices of L. J. Bartlett & Company, it
+seemed. Later he opened up negotiations with a corporation known as the
+Modern Gas Company, I believe, a competitor of Consolidated Petroleum,
+and in due course representatives of both concerns came to Radville,
+examined the burner, and retired, non-committal. Then Bartlett sent
+a requisition for a model, and supplied the funds for making it--thus
+demonstrating his confidence. Sam never had such a good time in his
+life as when occupied with that model, and in his elation was inspired
+to invent two notable improvements on the machine--which were promptly
+patented. Then the model was despatched, receipt acknowledged, and
+nothing ensued for three or four months. Radville, which had been
+watching and wondering with open incredulity and dissatisfaction (this
+latter because neither Graham nor Duncan would talk about the matter),
+concluded that the whole business had gone up in smoke, said "I told ye
+so," and forgot it completely. Roland Barnette, I believe, drove the
+last nail in the coffin of our expectations that anything would ever
+come of it, by writing to Burnham that Duncan's negotiations had
+failed, and inviting him to renew his offer if he thought it worth
+while. Presumably he didn't, for Roland received no reply, and told the
+town so....
+
+I don't remember just how soon it was, but it was shortly after the
+formation of the firm of Graham and Duncan that the young man received
+his first invitation to dinner at the Lockwoods'. He accepted, of
+course, whether he wanted to or not, for there could be no excuse for
+his refusing a Sunday bid, and the Lockwoods made quite an event of
+it. The Soules were invited, because they were Araminta Lockwood's
+brother and sister-in-law, and the Godfreys came over from Westerly to
+grace the board as representatives of the Lockwood strain. Also Ben
+Lockwood attended--Blinky's first cousin and senior.
+
+Duncan described the function in a letter to Kellogg as the time of his
+young life. Undoubtedly it was in certain respects singular in his
+experience. The entire party walked home from church through a hot
+August noon, with that air of chastened joy common to a gathering of
+relations--an atmosphere of festive gloom and funeral baked meats
+painfully enlivened by exhilarating jests from old Ben, who was a
+connoisseur of vintages when it came to jokes. Duncan wished
+fervently, first that he might expire; secondly, and with greater
+intensity of feeling, that they all might die. Minta Lockwood, he felt,
+was slowly but expertly greasing him with adulation--as a python
+prepares its prey before dining (or is it a python?)--and he knew he
+was presently to be swallowed alive.
+
+They dined protractedly. The meal, consisting of baked chicken, mashed
+potatoes, boiled onions with cream sauce, boiled beets and green corn,
+followed by rhubarb pie and ice cream, was served by an independent,
+bony and red-faced specimen of the "help" genus. The atmosphere was
+stifling, with the heat of the day thickened by the steam and odour of
+cooked food. Duncan was seated consciously beside Josie--a circumstance
+of which, in fact, everyone else seemed tolerantly aware. He writhed in
+impotent agony, confronted alone by the consciousness he had brought
+this thing upon himself: it was a part of his punishment.
+
+At the conclusion of the meal, which endured throughout two
+interminable hours, the elder menfolk withdrew to the garden and the
+lawn, where they strolled about, sleepy eyes glistening with repletion,
+until finally they disappeared, to each his doze. The ladies
+foregathered in the parlour, conversing in undertones, with significant
+glances and liftings of their eyebrows. Nat was left to Josie, who
+conducted him to the side porch, out of sight of everybody, and planted
+herself in the baggy hammock there. She was gay, even brilliant within
+her limitations, arch, naive, coquettish, shy, petulant, by turns:
+animated by a sense of conquest. She supplied the major part of the
+conversation, chatting volubly on the thousand subjects she didn't
+understand, the dozen she did. In the most ingenuous manner imaginable
+she laid herself open to advances, not once, but a score of times; and
+when he failed to respond according to the code of Radville, had the
+wit to mask her chagrin, did she feel any: very probably she laid his
+lack of responsiveness at the door of his shyness (a quality he was
+wholly without) and liked him the better for it.
+
+It was on this day that she extracted from him his promise to join the
+choir; he acceded through apathy alone.
+
+"I don't care whether you can sing or not," she confessed, with a look.
+"But I do want somebody to walk home with me that ... I like."
+
+"That's a nice way of putting it," Duncan considered without emphasis.
+
+"Roland Barnette's always walked home with me, but I think he's just
+tiresome."
+
+"Why?" inquired the young man, with some interest.
+
+She averted her head, plucking at the strands of the hammock. "Oh,
+_you_ know," she said diffidently.
+
+"Oh?" Nat was enlightened. "Then I'm sorry for Roland."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"I can't blame him, you know." He couldn't help this: the time, the
+place, the girl inspired, indeed incited, one to banality.
+
+"Why?" she persisted.
+
+"Oh, _you_ know." He caught the intonation of her previous words
+precisely.
+
+She had the grace to blush and hang her head; but he received a
+thrilling sidelong glance.
+
+"Ah... aren't you awful to talk that way, Mr. Duncan?"
+
+"Yes," he admitted meekly.
+
+"Then you will join the choir?" she pursued, failing to fathom the
+meaning of that humble acquiescence. Any other boy or man of her
+acquaintance would have taken her remark as openly provocative.
+
+"Oh, yes," he agreed listlessly.
+
+"I'm so glad..."
+
+He thanked her, but avoided her eye.
+
+"We might's well begin to-night," she suggested presently, with
+diffident, downcast eyes.
+
+"What--the choir?" He was startled. "Oh, I couldn't without a
+rehearsal--"
+
+"No, I didn't mean that..."
+
+"No?"
+
+"I mean about Roland." She was paying minute attention to the lace
+insertion of her skirt. From this circumstance he divined that he was
+on dangerous ground, but could not, in his stupidity, understand just
+what made it dangerous.
+
+"About Roland--?"
+
+"Yes; I mean... You know what I mean, Mr. Duncan?"
+
+"I assure you I do not, Miss Lockwood."
+
+"About not walking home with him any more. I don't want to. I wish
+you'd commence to-night, instead of choir practice night. I'd much
+rather walk home with you."
+
+"After evening service, you mean?" She nodded. "It'll be a great
+pleasure."
+
+"Really?" She gave him her eyes now.
+
+"Really," he assured her.
+
+"Ah, I don't believe you mean that!"
+
+"But indeed I do...."
+
+It was not until nearly five o'clock that he was given a chance to
+escape. He had, even then, to refuse inflexibly an invitation to stay
+to supper.
+
+Minta Lockwood--an expansive woman, generously convex--almost
+smothered him with appreciation of his thanks. She held his hand in a
+large, moist palm and beamed upon him, saying: "Now't you know the way,
+Mr. Duncan...."
+
+"Yes," Blinky insisted, blinking roguishly, "drop in any time. Take pot
+luck. We're plain people, Mr. Duncan, but allus glad to see our
+friends. Drop in any time."
+
+Josie accompanied him to the front gate, where etiquette required him
+to linger for a parting chat....
+
+"Good-bye." The girl gave him her hand. "I'm real glad you came--at
+last."
+
+"The pleasure has been all mine," insisted the gallant bromide, fishing
+the trite phrase desperately from the grey vacuity of his thoughts.
+"You won't forget?"
+
+"Forget what?"
+
+"About to-night?"
+
+"Do you imagine I could?..."
+
+Josie returned to the family conclave, to interrupt a symposium on
+Duncan's qualities. He was unanimously approved, on every point. She
+took no part in the conversation, but listened, aglow with the pride of
+triumph, until old Ben chose to observe:
+
+"He seems to've taken a right smart set for Josie."
+
+Then she rose, blushing, and tossed her pretty, pert head. "How you all
+do talk!" she cried. "I'm not thinking about Mr. Duncan that way." And
+she left the gathering.
+
+"You might's well begin now as later," pursued her, accompanied by
+chucklings; and she tossed her head, but wasn't at all displeased, be
+sure.
+
+Duncan wrote to Kellogg in his room that night after church: "I don't
+want to sound immodest, but it looks as if you were right, old man:
+apparently there's nothing to it...
+
+"Probably I should have stayed on for supper, but I couldn't; I should
+have choked. As it was, my soul was curdling. Another ten minutes and I
+should have jumped down on the lawn and run round the house on all
+fours, yapping and foaming at the mouth, and have wound up by
+biting old Blinky..
+
+"The worst of it all is, I know I'm ungrateful: I know they mean well.
+But why is it that people who mean well almost invariably grate upon
+your sensibilities like the screeching of a slate-pencil?
+
+"In this case, I suspect it's a case of when Snob meets Snob. A snob, I
+take it, is a fellow who holds himself your superior because he looks
+at things in a different way. That counts me a snob in my mental
+attitude toward the Lockwoods. I don't understand their conception of
+life--wasn't brought up to understand it. And yet I know they're not a
+bad sort, though they bore me to death what time I'm not laughing in my
+sleeve at them. Blinky, for instance, is an old screw, but he can't
+help that; he was born that way; and aside from the fact that money has
+made him snobbish toward his neighbours, he's a simple, honest,
+square-dealing (according to his lights) old Jasper. He's not snobbish
+toward me, because I've got something he admires but can't understand
+and never can acquire; but he's a snob of the first water when it comes
+to somebody like this old prince I'm working for--Graham--and his
+daughter. And so is Josie....
+
+"But I mustn't say mean things about my future spouse, I presume....
+That is the great trouble with your infernal scheme, Harry: it seems
+to be working like a charm, and now that I've got something to do I'm
+not so strong for it as I was. But I gave you my word. ... Only, mind
+this: if the rules prescribe a perpetual course of Sunday dinners,
+_en famille_, it's going to break down and turn out a natural-born
+flivver. There are limits to human endurance, and I'm human, whatever
+else I am not...."
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+
+WHERE RADVILLE FEARED TO TREAD
+
+Summer slumbered to its close, a drowsy autumn settled upon our valley,
+in which its traditional peace seemed but the more profound. The skies
+darkened to an ineffable intensity of blue; the livery of the fields
+was changed, green giving place to gold; the woodlands and lower slopes
+of our hills flamed with the scarlet of dying sumach, with the russet
+and orange and crimson of a foliage making merry against its moribund
+to-morrows; a drought parched the land, and our little river lessened
+to a mere trickle of water. The daylight hours became sensibly
+abbreviated; while they endured they were golden and warm and hazy:
+faint veils of purple shrouded the distances. Twilight fell early, its
+air sweet with the tang of dead leaves raked into heaping bonfires by
+the children of the town. The nights were long and cool, with a hint of
+frosts to come. Day dissolved into day almost imperceptibly. ...
+
+Josie Lockwood announced that she was going away to school in New York
+for the winter. Pete Willing took the pledge and kept it almost a
+month. Will Bigelow secured time-tables and laboriously mapped out his
+semi-annually contemplated trip to the East: like the others
+destined never to come off. Tracey Tanner went to work for Graham and
+Duncan. The _Citizen_ gained eighteen subscribers; four old ones
+paid up their accounts. Babies were born, people married and died,
+loved and hated, lived in striving or sloth, accomplished or failed.
+Roland Barnette paid ostentatious attentions to Bess Gabriel, who
+tolerated him simply because she didn't much like Josie; but, blighted
+by Josie's supreme indifference, this budding passion drooped and
+failed by mutual consent of both parties concerned. Angie Tuthill
+became more conspicuously than ever the orb of Tracey's universe.
+Duncan walked home with Josie on two weekday evenings and twice on
+Sundays, and learned how to play Halma and Parcheesi, as well as how
+long to linger at the front gate in the gloaming, saying good-night.
+Eight young women of the town set their caps for him, at one time or
+another and... set them back again, because he was too blind to see. As
+a body they united with the female element in Radville in condemning
+Josie for a heartless flirt, and sympathising with Nat, behind his
+back, for being so nice and at the same time so easily taken in. Mrs.
+Lockwood gave a Bridge party which failed as such because Radville knew
+not Bridge; but everybody went and played progressive euchre, instead.
+The drug-store prospered in moderation, Sothern and Lee vainly
+contesting its conquering campaign. And Duncan grew thoughtful.
+
+One has more time to think unselfishly in Radville than in a great
+city, where there's rarely more time than enough to think of one's own
+concerns. And Duncan was making time to think about others--notably,
+Betty Graham. The girl was, as usual, shy, reticent, reserved; she kept
+her thoughts to herself, sharing the most intimate not even with old
+Sam, who _would_ talk; but Duncan divined that she was unhappy.
+The easier circumstances of the family had provided her with a few
+simple frocks, adequate clothing which she had gone without for years,
+and with a sufficiency of wholesome and appetising food: with these,
+peace of mind should likewise have come to her, and content. But Duncan
+thought they hadn't. Relieved, on Tracey's engagement, of any share in
+the store service, she had only the housework for herself and father to
+occupy her; her associations with the girls of her age were distant and
+constrained. Usage wears into tradition in the Radvilles of our land;
+even with the young folks this is so; and in Betty's case, the girl had
+for so long been "out of it," debarred by her unfortunate circumstances
+from participation in the pastimes, pleasures and duties of her
+generation, that by common consent, unspoken but none the less
+absolute, she remained an outsider. You might say that she relied on
+her father alone for companionship. Duncan she avoided, unobtrusively
+but with pains; he consorted with those with whom she had nothing in
+common, and she would not thrust herself upon him or seem to seek his
+notice. Her early suspicion and sullen resentment of his intrusion into
+their affairs had vanished; there remained only a gnawing consciousness
+that to him she was little or nothing, that his vision ranged above her
+humble head. She was not the sort to take this ill; she was reasonable
+enough to believe it natural. But she would not willingly intrude upon
+his thoughts--who little knew how much she did occupy his leisure
+moments.
+
+He saw her go and come, a wistful shadow on the borders of his
+occupations, self-contained, a little timid, but at the same time brave
+in her own quiet, uncomplaining fashion. And the distant look in those
+soft eyes he divined to be one of longing for that which she might not
+possess--the advantages that other girls had, socially and
+educationally, the pleasures they contrived, the attentions they
+received, the thousand and one slight things that make existence life
+for a woman. He saw her drooping insensibly day by day, growing a
+little paler, a shade more aloof and listless. And he became infinitely
+concerned for her.
+
+He told himself he had solved the problem of her disease, but its
+remedy remained beyond his reach. The business was doing very well
+indeed, but it was still young and must be subjected to as few
+financial drains as possible; as it ran, there was an income sufficient
+to board, lodge and clothe the three of them, maintain the credit of
+the partnership, and now and again admit of a slight but advantageous
+addition to the stock or fixtures. Things would certainly be better in
+the course of time, but... Kellogg he would not beg another dollar of,
+the bank was an equally impossible resource; there wasn't a chance in a
+hundred that Lockwood would refuse to accommodate the growing concern
+with money in reason, but the concern, individually and collectively,
+would never ask it of him. There remained--?
+
+It came to pass that he left the store early one evening, excusing
+himself on the plea of some slight indisposition, and lost himself for
+the space of two hours. I mean to say, that no one knew where he went
+until long after. When he came home some time after ten he told me he
+had been for a walk....
+
+He found himself shortly after eight at pause by the gate to the Bohun
+place. The night was dark and murmurous with a sibilant wind that sent
+the leaves drifting, softly clashing one with another. At the far end
+of the straight brick walk, up through the formal grounds, he could
+just see the glimmer of the stately columns, and, between them, to one
+side, a little twinkling light. The gate was closed, but he tried it
+and found it on the latch. He entered and scuffled up the walk, ankle
+deep in fallen leaves. His footfalls as he crossed the porch sounded
+startlingly loud by contrast; he even fancied a note of indignation in
+the cavernous echoes of the knocker on the front door. He waited with a
+thumping heart, aware that he was venturing where even fools would fear
+to tread.
+
+An aged negro butler, one of the freed slaves brought from Virginia by
+the Bohuns, admitted him to the hall and took his card, smothering his
+own wonderment. For in those days nobody disturbed the silence and the
+peace of decay of the Bohun mansion save its master. And Duncan had
+long to wait in the wide, gloomy, musty hall before the servant
+returned.
+
+"Cunnul Bohun will see yo', suh," he said, and ushered him into the
+library--a great, high-ceiled, shadowy room illuminated by a single
+lamp, tenanted by the old colonel alone.
+
+Bohun received the young man standing: he was as courteous beneath his
+own roof as he was impossible away from it. A quaint old figure, with
+his grey hair tousled and his dressing-gown draped grotesquely from his
+shoulders, he stood by the fireplace, Duncan's card between his
+fingers, and bowed ceremoniously.
+
+"Mr. Duncan, I believe?"
+
+Nat returned the bow. "Yes, sir," he said. "Will you be good enough to
+pardon this intrusion, Colonel Bohun, and spare me five minutes of your
+time?"
+
+The colonel nodded. "At your service, sir," he replied, and waited
+grimly--perhaps not unsuspicious of the nature of his visitor's errand,
+since he could not have been ignorant of his place in Radville.
+
+Duncan had his own way of getting at things--generally more circuitous
+than now, though he struck on a tangent sufficiently acute momentarily
+to puzzle Bohun.
+
+"May I inquire, sir, if you are acquainted with the firm of L.J.
+Bartlett & Company of New York?"
+
+"I have heard of it, Mr. Duncan, through the newspapers."
+
+"You know that it ranks pretty high, then, I presume?"
+
+"I understand that such is the case."
+
+"Then would you mind doing me the favour of writing to Mr. Henry
+Kellogg, the junior partner, and asking him about me?"
+
+The colonel stiffened. "May I ask why I should do anything so
+uncalled-for?"
+
+"Because it isn't uncalled-for, sir. I mean, you won't think so after
+I've explained."
+
+Bohun inclined his head, searching Nat's face with his keen, bright
+eyes.
+
+"You see, sir, it's this way: I want you to entrust me with a
+considerable sum of money, and naturally you wouldn't do that without
+knowing something about me."
+
+"I incline very much to doubt that I should do it in any event, Mr.
+Duncan."
+
+"Oh, don't say that. You don't know the circumstances, as yet." Nat
+jerked his head earnestly at the colonel. "You see, you're said to be
+one of the richest men in town, and I'm certainly one of the poorest,
+so of course I turn to you in a case like this."
+
+"In a case like what, Mr. Duncan?" Something in the young man's manner
+seemed to tickle the colonel; Duncan could have sworn that the eyes
+were twinkling beneath the savagely knitted brows.
+
+"Well, you must understand I'm in business here in Radville--a partner
+in a growing and prospering concern--ah--doing--very well, in point of
+fact."
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"But we haven't any spare capital; in fact, we haven't got any capital
+worth mentioning. But the business is entirely sound and solvent."
+
+"I congratulate you, sir."
+
+"Thank you very much.... Now I'm interested in a rather singular
+case: that of a young woman--a girl, I should say--daughter of my
+partner. She's a good girl and wonderfully sweet and fine, sir. She
+comes of one of the best families in these parts--"
+
+"On her mother's side," suggested the colonel drily.
+
+"So I'm told, sir. But she's been neglected. Circumstances have been
+against her. She hasn't had a real chance in life, but she ought to
+have it, and I'm going to see that she gets it, one way or another."
+
+"You haven't finished?" said the colonel coldly, as he paused for
+breath and thought.
+
+"Not quite, sir," said Duncan. "Good sign!" he told himself: "he hasn't
+ordered me thrown out yet." And he hurried on, speaking quickly in the
+semi-humorous style he had, more arresting to the attention than
+absolute gravity would have been.
+
+"To come down to cases, sir, she ought to be sent to a good
+boarding-school for a few years. It'll make a new woman of her--a woman
+to be proud of. She's got that in her--it only needs to be brought
+out."
+
+"And before you leave, sir," said the colonel with significant
+precision, "will you be so kind as to inform me why you think this
+should interest me?"
+
+"No," said Duncan candidly; "I haven't got the nerve to. But what I
+wanted to propose was this: that you lend me five hundred dollars to
+cover the expense of the first year, on condition that I represent the
+money as coming from the profits of the business and, in short, keep
+the transaction between ourselves absolutely quiet. If you'll inquire
+of Mr. Kellogg he'll tell you I can be trusted to keep my word.
+Furthermore"--he galloped, suspecting that his time was perilously
+short and desiring to get it all out of his system--"I'll guarantee you
+repayment within a year, and that you shan't be annoyed this way a
+second time."
+
+Bohun looked him over from head to foot, bowed in silence, and
+turning--both had stood throughout this passage--grasped a bell-rope by
+the chimney, and pulled it violently.
+
+Duncan turned to the door, hat in hand, realising that he had his
+answer and was lucky to get away with one so mild. Only the emergency
+could have spurred him to the point of so outrageous an impertinence.
+
+In the desolate fastnesses of that dreary house somewhere a bell
+tinkled discordantly. A moment later the white-headed darky butler
+opened the door.
+
+"Suh?" he said.
+
+Colonel Bohun essayed to speak, cleared his throat angrily, and
+indicated Duncan with a courteous gesture.
+
+"Scipio," said he, "this gentleman will have a glass of wine with me."
+
+"Yassuh!" stammered the negro, overcome with astonishment.
+
+Bohun turned to his guest. "Won't you be seated, Mr. Duncan?" he said.
+"You have interested me considerably, sir, and I should be glad to
+discuss the matter with you."
+
+Speechless, Duncan gasped incoherently and moved toward a chair as the
+servant reappeared with a tray on which was a decanter of sherry and
+two old-fashioned, thin-stemmed crystal glasses. He placed this on the
+library table, filled the glasses, and at a sign from Bohun retired.
+
+"Sir," said the colonel, indicating the tray, "to you."
+
+"I--I thank you, sir." Duncan lifted one of the glasses. Bohun took up
+the one remaining, and held it toward his guest with the gracious
+gesture of a bygone day.
+
+"I hold it a privilege, sir," he said, "to drink to the only gentleman
+of spirit it's been my good fortune to meet this many a year."
+
+By way of an aside, it should be mentioned that this was the first and
+only drink Duncan took while he lived in Radville.
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+
+TRACEY'S TROUBLES
+
+Probably nothing ever gave rise to more comment in Radville than Betty
+Graham's departure to spend the winter at a boarding-school near
+Philadelphia. Hardly anyone knew anything about it--in fact, the rumour
+of it was just being noised about and contemptuously discredited on all
+hands--when Tracey galloped down Main Street Monday morning with the
+news that she had left on the early train. He himself had remained in
+ignorance of the impending event until requested to carry Betty's bag
+down to the station....
+
+She left under convoy of a certain Mrs. Hamilton, who lived in
+Philadelphia and had been visiting her cousin, Mrs. Will Bigelow.
+Duncan had met this lady at a church sociable and, apparently, taken a
+liking to her; for he prevailed upon her, via Sam Graham and Will
+Bigelow, to see the girl safely to her school, after superintending the
+purchase of a suitable wardrobe in Philadelphia.
+
+So Betty was gone--herself, I believe, no less surprised and
+incredulous than the rest of us.
+
+Radville was at first stupefied, then clamorous; but there was little
+information to be got out of old Sam. I found him busy working on his
+new model and much preoccupied with that. When interrogated and given
+to understand that I would not be put off, he roused a bit, but beyond
+being unquestionably a very happy man, seemed himself slightly dazed by
+the amazing circumstances. I learned from him that Nat had evidently
+made all his plans in advance, but had withheld his announcement of
+them until the Saturday prior to that Monday; and then he had fairly
+whirled Betty and her father off their feet and left them no time to
+think or to raise objections.
+
+"There's no use at all arguing with that boy," Sam told me, with the
+fond smile that I was beginning to recognise as the invariable
+accompaniment of his thoughts about Nat; "when he says a thing must
+be, it must. When he first came here I told him he was a wonderful
+business man, and he laughed at me, but now I know he is. Why, he gave
+Betty a hundred dollars to buy clothes with in Philadelphia, and said
+he'd have more for her by Christmas, besides paying all the expenses of
+that school--which must be considerable. I don't see how the store's
+going to stand the strain--though it's doing splendidly since he came
+in, splendidly!--but he says it's all right, and so it must be...."
+
+Duncan himself refused to be interviewed. He told everybody who had
+the impudence to mention the matter to him, that it was Mr. Graham's
+affair: Mr. Graham was a substantial business man, he said, and if he
+chose to send his daughter away to school he had a perfect right to do
+so. I don't believe even Josie Lockwood got more than that out of him,
+for if she had we would have heard of it; and Josie was unmistakably a
+little jealous, and undoubtedly questioned Nat.
+
+One direct result of it all was to hasten Josie's own leave-taking. It
+would never do to let the Grahams eclipse the Lockwoods, you see. Josie
+had been talking of going to a school in Maryland, but Betty's move to
+a fashionable centre like Philadelphia made her change her mind; and
+arrangements were made by which Josie was able to go Betty one better:
+a young ladies' seminary in New York City itself received Josie. She
+left us bereaved about a week after Betty vanished from our ken, but
+promised to be back for the Christmas holidays--an announcement which
+Duncan received with expressions of chastened joy, as he did her
+promise to write to him regularly, in return for his covenant to
+respond promptly.... Betty, by the way, had made no such arrangement;
+but she wrote twice a week to old Sam, and I understand she never
+failed to include a message to Nat.
+
+Betty was happy, she protested in every communication, and wholly
+content. She was getting along. The other girls liked her and she liked
+them (these statements being made in the order of their relative
+importance). Lots of them, of course, were frightfully swell (Betty
+annexed "frightfully" at school, by the by) and had all sorts of
+clothes; but Betty was perfectly content with her modest outfit, and
+none of the other girls seemed to mind how she dressed. They were all
+kind and nice, and she'd never had such a good time.... I quote these
+expressions from memory of Sam's digest of her letters.
+
+Of Josie I heard less; I know that Graham and Duncan's mail seldom
+lacked a personal communication to Duncan, postmarked at New York; our
+postmaster told me so. But Duncan was reticent, and the Lockwoods said
+little. I gathered an impression that Josie was not altogether happy
+in her new surroundings.... One inferred there was a difference between
+New York and Philadelphia, that one was less friendly and sociable
+than the other.
+
+Josie kept her promise and came home for Christmas. She was reticent as
+to her impressions of the New York seminary, but seemed extremely glad
+to be home, notwithstanding the fact that Nat had apparently contracted
+no disturbing alliances with the other belles of our village. And
+Roland remained true--a reliable second string to Josie's bow. Roland
+was working hard at the bank, with an application that earned Blinky
+Lockwood's regard and outspoken approbation; and his Christmas raiment
+proved the sensation of the season. But none of us believed he had any
+chance against Duncan: Josie's attitude toward the latter was such
+that we confidently anticipated the announcement of their engagement
+before she went away again. But it didn't come, for some reason. We
+bore up under the disappointment bravely, all things considered,
+sustained by a very secure feeling that the proclamation couldn't be
+long deferred.
+
+In passing, I should mention that Betty didn't come home once
+throughout the entire school term. The Christmas and Easter holidays
+she spent with a girl friend at her Philadelphia home.
+
+Meanwhile, life in our town simmered gently. Things went on much as
+they might have been expected to. I don't recall much essential to this
+narrative, in the way of events; and part of the ground I've covered on
+earlier pages. Duncan continued to make progress: for one thing, I
+recall that he put in hot soda with whipped cream, which helped a lot
+to hold the trade regained in the summer from Sothern and Lee. And he
+bought a new soda fountain, a very magnificent affair, installing it in
+the early spring. Graham and Duncan's, in short, became a town
+institution: to it Radville pointed with pride....
+
+He remained reserved, retiring, inconspicuous, and puzzling to our
+understanding. In his effort (never very successful) to strike off the
+shackles of modern slang, he fell into a way of speech that bewildered
+those unable to realise what an abiding sense of humour underlay it--as
+water runs beneath ice--more, I think, a matter of intonation and
+significant silences, than a mere play upon words and phrases; which,
+coupled with an unshakable sobriety of demeanour, furnished us with
+wonder and some admiration, but no resentment. We liked him pretty
+well and mostly unanimously: he was a good fellow, if queer; entitled
+to his idiosyncrasy, if he chose to keep one....
+
+There was a certain night, by way of illustration--a bitter night,
+along toward the first of January--when trade was dull, as it always is
+after Christmas, and there was nobody in the store save Nat and Tracey.
+Each had their task, whatever it may have been, and each was busied
+with it, but of the two Tracey seemed the more restless. His ample, if
+low, forehead was decidedly corrugated; his always rosy face owned an
+added trace of scarlet--a flush of perturbation; his chubby hands were
+inexpert, clumsy. He stumbled, fumbled, forgot and (in our homely
+phrase) flummoxed generally; his mind was elsewhere, and his hands and
+feet went anywhere but where they should have gone: a condition which
+eventually excited Duncan's attention.
+
+He broke a long silence in the store. "What's the trouble, Tracey?"
+
+Tracey pulled up with a stare of confusion. "I--I dunno, Mr. Duncan; I
+was thinkin', I guess."
+
+"Anything gone wrong?"
+
+"Not yet." Niobe would have made the response with a greater show of
+cheer.
+
+Duncan looked up curiously, struck by the boy's tone. "Somebody been
+demonstrating that your doll's stuffed with sawdust, Tracey?"
+
+"No-o, but..."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Say, Mr. Duncan--" Tracey's confusion became terrific.
+
+"Say on, Mr. Tanner."
+
+The interjection diverted Tracey's train of thought to an
+inconsiderable siding. "I only called you Mr. Duncan," he said,
+aggrieved, "'cause you're my boss."
+
+"That's a poor excuse, Tracey. You call Mr. Graham 'Sam,' and he's
+likewise your boss."
+
+"I know. But it's diff'runt."
+
+"I don't see it. Even Nats have their place in the cosmic system,
+Tracey."
+
+"I dunno what that is, but you ain't like Sam."
+
+"The loss is mine, Tracey. Proceed."
+
+"But, Mr. Duncan..."
+
+"I beg of you, speak to me as to a friend."
+
+Tracey struggled perceptibly. The words, when they came, were blurted.
+"Ah... I was only thinkin' 'bout Angie."
+
+"Do you ever think about anything else?"
+
+"No," Tracey admitted honestly, "not much. But I was wonderin'--"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Are you stuck on Angie, Mr. Duncan?" demanded Tracey desperately.
+
+"Great snakes! I hope not!" Duncan cast an anxious glance about him,
+and discovered the poster depicting the gentleman in strange attire
+vainly endeavouring to free his overcoat (I believe it's his overcoat)
+from the bench upon which a pot of glue has been spilled. He lifted a
+reverent hand to the card. "Tracey," he said solemnly, "I swear to you
+that not even that indispensable article of commerce could stick me on
+Angie."
+
+The boy sighed. "Thank you, Mr. Duncan. I was only worryin' because you
+and Angie is singin' together in the choir, now Josie Lockwood's gone
+to school, an'--an' Angie's the purtiest girl in town--and I was 'fraid
+'t you might like her best, when Josie's away. An' I wanted to ask you
+to pick out s'mother girl."
+
+Duncan chuckled silently. "Tracey," he said presently, "it strikes me
+you must be in love with Angie."
+
+The boy gulped. "I--I am."
+
+"And I think she's rather partial to you."
+
+"Do you, really, Mr. Duncan?"
+
+"I do. Do you want to marry her?"
+
+"Gee! I can't hardly wait!... Only," Tracey continued, disconsolate,
+"it ain't no use, really. She's so purty and swell and old man
+Tuthill's so rich--not like the Lockwoods, but rich, all the same--an'
+I'm only the son of the livery-stable man, an' fat an'--all that--an'--"
+
+"Nonsense, Tracey!" Nat interrupted firmly. "If you really want her and
+will follow the rules I give you, it's a cinch."
+
+"Honest, Mr. Duncan?"
+
+"I guarantee it, Tracey. Listen to me...." And Duncan expounded
+Kellogg's rules at length, adapting them to Tracey's circumstances, of
+course; and throughout maintained the gravity of a graven image. "You
+try, and you'll see if I'm not right," he concluded.
+
+"Gosh! I b'lieve you are!" Tracey cried admiringly. "I'm just going to
+see how it works."
+
+"Do, if you'd favour me, Tracey."
+
+Tracey was quiet for a time, working with the regularity of a mind
+relieved. But presently he felt unable to contain himself. Gratitude
+surged in his bosom, and he had to speak.
+
+"Sa-y, lis'en...."
+
+"Proceed, Tracey."
+
+"Say, Mist--Nat, you've treated me somethin' immense."
+
+"Your mistake, Tracey. I haven't treated anybody since I've been here:
+I'm on the wagon."
+
+"I mean just now, when we was talkin' 'bout me an' Angie. I'd--I'd like
+to help you the same way, if I could."
+
+"You would?" Duncan eyed the boy apprehensively, wondering what was
+coming.
+
+"Yes, indeedy, I would. An' p'rhaps I kin tell you somethin' that
+will."
+ "Speak, I beg."
+
+"You--er--you're tryin' to court Josie Lockwood, ain't you?"
+
+"Oh!" said Nat. "So that was it! That's a secret, Tracey," he averred.
+
+"All right. Only, if you are, she's your'n."
+
+"Just how do you figure that out?"
+
+"Oh, I kin tell. She was in here to-night with Roland."
+
+"To-night?"
+
+"Yes, just afore you come home from prayer-meetin'. She was lookin'
+for you, and when she seen you wasn't here, she wouldn't wait for no
+soda nor nothin'. Said she had a headache an' was goin' home. Roland
+went with her, but she didn't want him to. You just missed seein'
+her."
+
+"Heavens, what a blow!"
+
+"But Roland's takin' her home needn't upset you none."
+
+"Thank you for those kind words, Tracey." Nat sighed and passed a
+troubled hand across his brow. "You're a true friend."
+
+"I'm tryin' to be, Nat, same's you are to me." Tracey thought this
+over. "But you ain't foolin' me, are you?" he asked presently. "I mean
+'bout bein' a true friend?"
+
+"Why should I?"
+
+"Ah, I dunno. You're so cur'us, sometimes. I ain't never sure whether
+you mean what you're sayin' or not."
+
+"Oh, don't say that."
+
+"Well, I ain't the only one. Everybody in town says they don't
+understand you, half the time."
+
+Duncan left his counter and moved over to that at which Tracey was
+occupied. His face was entirely serious, his manner deeply
+sympathetic. "Tracey," he said, dropping a hand on the boy's shoulder,
+"do you know, nothing in life is harder to bear than not to be
+understood?"
+
+Tracey wrestled with this for a moment, but it was beyond him.
+
+"Then why the hell don't you talk so's folks'll know what it's about?"
+he demanded heatedly.
+
+"Because... _Hm_." Duncan hesitated, with his enigmatic smile.
+"Well, because the rules don't require it."
+
+"What d'you mean by _that_?" Tracey exploded.
+
+Nat couldn't explain, so he countered neatly. "This is one of your
+Angie... evenings, isn't it, Tracey?"
+
+"Yep, but--"
+
+"Well, you hurry along. I'll close up the shop."
+
+Tracey had slammed on his hat and was struggling into his overcoat
+almost as soon as the words were out of Nat's mouth.
+
+"Kin I?" he cried excitedly.
+
+"Yes," said Nat, watching the boy turn up his collar and button his
+overcoat to the throat, "I haven't got the heart to keep you."
+
+"Ah, thanks, Mr. Duncan."
+
+"But, Tracey..."
+
+The boy paused at the door. "What?"
+
+"Remember what I told you. Don't you make too much love. Let Angie do
+that."
+
+"Gosh, that'll be the hardest rule of all for me!" A shadow clouded
+Tracey's honest eyes. "But I got to do it that way, anyway. I can't
+ask her to marry me yit. I can't afford to get married."
+
+"It's a contrary world, Tracey, a contrary world!" sighed Nat in a tone
+of deepest melancholy.
+
+"What makes you say that? You kin git married's soon's you want to."
+
+"You think so, Tracey?"
+
+"All you got to do's ask Josie--"
+
+"I'm almost afraid you're right."
+
+"Why? Don't you want to git married?"
+
+"Well"--Nat smiled--"no. Don't believe I do. Not just now, at any
+rate."
+
+"Well, you don't have to if you don't want to.... G'd-night."
+
+"Yes, I do," Nat told Tracey's back. "The rules say so. If the girl
+asks me, I must."
+
+He grimaced ruefully beneath his wisp of a moustache. "Anyhow, I've got
+a few months left...."
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+
+A BARGAIN IS A BARGAIN
+
+So the winter wore away.... And as spring drew nigh upon our valley,
+Duncan seemed to grow perturbed, even as he had been in the autumn
+before Betty went away. He was pondering another scheme for the
+betterment of the condition of those he cared for, and gave it ample
+consideration before he broached it to old Sam, after swearing him to
+secrecy.
+
+He had to propose nothing more or less than an abandonment of the old
+Graham housekeeping quarters above the store and a removal of the
+_menage_ bodily to a vacant house on Beech Street, near the store,
+which could be rented, partly furnished, at a moderate rate.
+
+To begin with (thus ran his argument) the store itself was growing too
+small for the volume of business it commanded. More room was needed,
+both for storage and laboratory purposes, to say nothing of
+accommodation for Sam's models and work-bench. The latter had already
+been moved upstairs for the winter, the shed in the backyard being too
+cold to work in; and the laboratory end of the business was growing at
+such a rate that it was crowding the prescription counter to the
+wall--so to speak. You see, there really wasn't a more clever
+analytical chemist in the northern part of the State than Sam Graham,
+and now that the drug-store was becoming an influence in the
+neighbourhood he was receiving commissions from physicians operating in
+districts as far as fifty miles away. So a room was needed for that
+branch of the business alone.
+
+Moreover, a separate residence distinctly befitted the dignity of a
+man who was at once a prominent inventor and one of Radville's leading
+merchants (vide a "Personal" in the late issue of the Radville
+_Citizen_), to say nothing of the social position of his
+daughter--meaning Betty. And the house Duncan had his metaphorical eye
+upon was large enough to shelter Nat himself in addition to the Graham
+family. Thus they might pool their living expenses to the economical
+advantage of each.
+
+Finally, it would be a great and glad surprise for Betty on her
+homecoming.
+
+Graham fell in with the scheme without a murmur of dubiety or dissent.
+Whatever Nat proposed in Sam's understanding was right and feasible;
+and even if it wasn't really so, Nat would make it so.... They engaged
+the house and moved. Miss Ann Sophronsiba Whitmarsh, a maiden lady of
+forty-five or thereabouts, popularly known as "Phrony," had been coming
+in by the day to "do for" old Sam in the rooms above the shop. She was
+engaged as resident housekeeper for the new establishment, and entered
+upon her duties with all the discreet joy of one whose maternal
+instincts have been suppressed throughout her life. She mothered Sam
+and she mothered Nat and she panted in expectation of the day when she
+would have Betty to mother. Incidentally, she was one of the best
+housekeepers in Radville, and cooperated with all her heart with Nat
+in the task of making a home out of the new house. They arranged and
+disarranged and rearranged and discarded old furniture and bought new
+with almost the abandon of a newly married couple fitting out their
+first home.... It was surprising what they managed to accomplish with
+it; when they were finished, there wasn't a prettier nor a more
+home-like residence in all Radville--and Phrony Whitmarsh was Nat's
+slave, even as Miss Carpenter had been. She gave him all the credit for
+everything praiseworthy about the place: and with some reason; for, as
+a matter of fact, he had spared himself not at all in the business of
+scheming and contriving to make the new home suitable for the
+reception of Betty Graham....
+
+It's interesting when one has come to my time of life, to sit and
+speculate on the singular mental blindness of mortal man, such as that
+which kept Nat unaware of the real, rock-bottom reason why he was
+working so hard on the Beech Street house. I daresay the young idiot
+thought his motives as much selfish as anything else--told himself that
+he wanted a comfortable home--and this was his way of securing one--and
+all that rot. At all events, he told me as much, quite seriously--
+seemed to believe it himself; and this, in spite of the fact that Miss
+Carpenter had done everything imaginable to make him comfortable....
+
+Josie Lockwood came home again for the Easter holidays, but didn't
+return to finish her term in the New York school. Just why, we never
+discovered: the Lockwoods furnished us with no really satisfying
+explanation; they said that Josie didn't like New York, but I've always
+doubted that, especially since Josie married and insisted on moving
+straightway to that metropolis. I suspect she didn't get along with
+the class of young women with whom she was thrown at school, and I'm
+pretty certain she was uneasy about Nat all the time she was so far
+away from him. Anyway, she elected to remain in Radville and keep the
+young man dancing attendance on her day in and out. Which he did, as in
+duty bound; he liked the game less and less all the time, but Kellogg
+held his promise....
+
+It was during this period, between the Easter vacation and the end of
+the spring school term, that Roland Barnette's animosity toward Duncan
+became virulent. Looking back, I can recall the symptoms of his waxing
+hostility--as, for instance, the evening he spent in the
+_Citizen_ office, poring over back files of our exchanges. That
+seemed innocent enough at the time, a harmless freak on the part of the
+young man, and no one paid much attention to it; but it led to great
+things, in the end, and incidentally did Duncan a service which
+probably could have been accomplished through no other agency. This,
+however, is something that Roland doesn't realise to this day; and I'm
+inclined to doubt if you could ever make him understand it.
+
+Josie, of course, was prompt to oust Angie Tuthill from her place in
+the choir. After that she sang with Nat on Friday nights as well as
+Wednesdays and twice per Sunday. Between whiles she was a pretty
+constant patron of the store. There was no longer the least doubt in
+the collective mind of the town as to the inclination of Josie's
+affections. Nat himself gave evidence of his appreciation of the
+gravity of the situation, managing by some admirable diplomacy to evade
+the issue until the very last moment. But with the three--Roland, Nat,
+and Josie--so involved, we sensed a storm below the horizon, and
+awaited its breaking, if not with avidity, at least with quickened
+apprehension.
+
+The culmination came the day before Betty was to return--a day late in
+May, I remember, and a Friday at that.
+
+It began along toward evening. Duncan, alone in the store, was busy
+behind the prescription counter. The day had been humid, warm and
+sultry, and the doors and windows were open. The air was bland and
+still, and sound travelled easily. He could hear the musical clanking
+of hammers in Badger's smithy, on the next block, the deep-throated
+_hoot-toot_ of the late afternoon train as it rushed down the
+valley, sounds of fierce altercation from the home of Pete Willing near
+by, a boy rattling a stick along palings down on Main Street.... But he
+did not hear anybody enter the store: absorbed with his task, he
+thought himself quite alone until a well-kenned voice reached his ear.
+
+"Well!" it said, unctuous with appreciation of the sight of him.
+"_Old_ Doctor Duncan!"
+
+He let the pestle fall from his hand and jumped as if he had been stuck
+with a pin. His jaw dropped and his eyes bulged. "Great Scott!" he
+cried; and in a twinkling was round the counter, throwing himself into
+the arms of a man whom he hailed ecstatically: "Harry, by all that's
+wonderful!" He fairly danced with delight. "Henry Kellogg, Esquire!"
+he cried, holding him at arms' length and looking him over. "What in
+thunderation are you doing here?"
+
+Kellogg freed himself, only to seize both Nat's hands and squeeze them
+violently. "Wanted to see you," he replied, beaming. "On my way to
+Cincinnati on business--thought I'd drop off for a night and size you
+up. My, but it's good to get a look at you! How are you?"
+
+"Me? Look at me--picture of health. Harry, you've made a new man of
+me." Duncan pranced round his friend in a mild frenzy. "No booze--no
+smokes--no swears--work! I feel like a two-year-old: I could do a
+Marathon without turning a hair. Watch me kick up my heels and neigh!"
+He paused for breath. "And you?"
+
+"Fine as silk--but you've got it on me, Nat, physically. You're a sight
+to heal the blind."
+
+"And listen!" Nat crowed: "I'm a business man. Didn't you believe it?
+Pipe my shop!"
+
+Kellogg checked to obey the admonition of Duncan's gesticulations, and
+took a long look round the store. "Gad!" said he. "I'm blowed if it
+isn't true! It _was_ hard to credit your letters. But it's great,
+old man. I congratulate you, with all my heart."
+
+"Just wait and I'll tell you all about it. But first tell me how long
+you're going to be here."
+
+"Well, I plan to hang around with you a couple of days. My business in
+the West isn't pressing."
+
+"Good!"
+
+"Which is the least worst hotel?"
+
+"There ain't no such thing in the whole giddy town.... No, none of that
+hotel stuff, now I I'm going to put you up--and I'll do it in style,
+too. I wrote you about taking a new place for the Grahams?"
+
+"Yes, and I'm mighty keen to meet 'em. The girl here?"
+
+"Betty? No; she's coming home to-morrow. But Graham himself is upstairs
+in the laboratory. Take you up in a minute, but not before I've had a
+good look at you."
+
+Kellogg found himself a chair. "Well," he inquired, twinkling, "how's
+the scheme working out? Are you really living up to all the rules?"
+
+"Every singletary one."
+
+"You have got a strong constitution.... Even prayer-meetings?"
+
+"The church thing? Honest, Harry, I _own_
+it."
+
+"Bully for you, Nat. But how does it work? Was I right?"
+
+"I should say you were. It's so easy it's a shame to do it. If this
+thing ever should get into the papers there'd be a swarm of city men
+lighting out for the Rube centres so thick you wouldn't be able to see
+the sky."
+
+"I knew it! Trust your Uncle Harry." Kellogg waited a time for further
+particulars, but Duncan seemed stuck; his transports of the few
+minutes just gone were sensibly abated; and the sidelong look he gave
+Kellogg was both uneasy and rueful--apprehensive, indeed. So Kellogg
+had to pump for news. "And you've made a strong play for the fond
+affections of Lockwood's daughter?"
+
+"Certainly not!"
+
+"Not--?"
+
+"You forget your rules." Nat grinned, whimsical. "I let her to make a
+play for me."
+
+"Of course. My mistake.... But how has it worked?"
+
+"Oh! immense." Duncan's tone, however, was wholly destitute of
+enthusiasm. He stuck his hands in his trousers' pockets and half turned
+away from his friend, looking out of the window.
+
+Kellogg smiled secretly. "You mean you've won her already?"
+
+"Oh, there's nothing to it," said Duncan, shaking his head and meaning
+just the exact opposite of what his words conveyed, for of such is our
+modern slang.
+
+"Then you're engaged?" Kellogg had understood perfectly, you see.
+
+"No, not _yet_. I've got two months left--almost."
+
+"So you have. And since she's so strong for you, there's no hurry: let
+her take her time."
+
+"I only wish she would." Duncan removed one hand from the pocket the
+better to tug at his moustache. "It's got beyond that--to the point
+where I have to keep dodging her."
+
+"You don't mean it! That's splendid." Kellogg got up and slapped Nat's
+shoulder heartily. "But don't overdo the dodging. She might get her
+back up."
+
+"Not she. She'd eat out of my hand, if I'd let her. You don't
+understand."
+
+"What's the matter, then? Aren't you strong for her?"
+
+"I wish I were."
+
+"But why? Is there another----?"
+
+"No." Nat shook his head, honestly believing he was telling the truth.
+"Only ... I don't look at things the way I did once."
+
+"Just what do you mean by that?"
+
+Nat, squaring himself to face Kellogg, was very serious, now, and
+troubled. "See here, Harry," he said: "do you really want me to carry
+out the rest of the agreement?"
+
+"Most certainly I do. Why not?"
+
+"Because I'm pretty well fixed here. The business is making good--and
+so am I. It won't be long before I can pay you back, with interest, as
+we agreed, without having to marry that poor girl and ... and draw on
+her money to make good to you."
+
+"You want to go back on our agreement?" demanded Kellogg, with a show
+of disappointment and disgust.
+
+"Yes and no. I won't break faith with you, if you insist, but I'd give
+a lot if you'd let me off--let me pay back what you advanced and cry
+quits.... When you outlined this scheme I was down and three times
+out--willing to take a chance at anything, no matter how contemptible.
+Now... well, it's different."
+
+"Good heavens! You don't mean you'd be willing to _live_ here?"
+
+Nat smiled, but not mirthfully. "I don't know," he hesitated; "I'm
+afraid I'm beginning to like it."
+
+"You, Nat?" Kellogg's amazement was unfeigned. "You, ready to spend
+your life here slaving away in this measly store?"
+
+Duncan grunted indignantly. "Hold on, now. Don't you call this a measly
+store. There isn't a more complete drug-store in the State!"
+
+"Do you hear that?" Kellogg appealed vehemently to the universe at
+large. "Is it possible that this is Nat Duncan, the fellow who hated
+work so hard he couldn't earn a living?... Gad, I believe I've arrived
+just in time!"
+
+"In time for what?"
+
+"To save you from yourself, old man. Here's the heiress you came here
+to cop out, ready and anxious, everything else coming your way and ...
+and you're more than half inclined to back out.... You make me tired."
+
+"I suppose I must. But I can't help it. I can't make you see how the
+thing looks to me. You know--I've written you all about everything--
+what this place has meant to me. Until I came here I never realised it
+was in me to make good at anything. But here I have; I'm doing so well
+that I'd actually have some self-respect if I wasn't bound to play this
+low-down trick on Josie Lockwood. I've worked and succeeded and been
+of some service to people who were worth it----"
+
+"Who? Sam Graham?"
+
+"He and his daughter----"
+
+"Oh, his daughter!"
+
+"Now get that foolish idea out of your head; there's nothing in it.
+Betty's just a simple, sweet little girl, who's had a pretty hard time
+and never a real chance in life--until I managed to give it to her. And
+I'd feel pretty good about that if ... Oh, there's no use talking to
+you!"
+
+"No; go on; you're very entertaining." Kellogg laughed mockingly.
+
+"Well, I have tried to keep to the terms of our understanding; I
+singled out this Lockwood girl and worked all the degrees--didn't say
+much, you know--no love-making--just let her catch me looking sadly
+at her once in a while..."
+
+"That's the way to work it."
+
+"Yes, that's the way," Nat assented gloomily. "But the longer I keep it
+up the meaner I feel and... I wish you'd agree to call it off. ...
+These Rubes at first struck me as being nothing but a lot of jay
+freaks, but when I got to know them I realised they were just as human
+as we are. I like them now and... on the level, I'm getting kind of
+stuck on church.... As for work, why, I eat it up!"
+
+Kellogg laughed with delight "Nat," he cried, "my poor crazy friend,
+listen to me: This working and church-going and helping old Graham is
+all very noble and fine, and I'm glad you've done it. This drug-store
+is a monument to the business ability that I always knew was latent in
+you. And clean living hasn't done you any harm.... But now you're due
+to come down to earth. This place pays you a neat profit. Well and
+good! That's all it'll ever do. It's new to you now and you like the
+novelty and you're having the time of your life finding out you're good
+for something. But pretty soon it'll begin to stale on you, and before
+long you'll find yourself hating it and the town--and then you'll be
+back where you started. Now, I'm going to hold you to our bargain for
+your own sake. If you're stuck on the town and the work you can keep
+right on just as well after you're married; but when you do begin to
+tire of it, you'll want that fortune to fall back on and do what you
+like with. Don't let this chance slip--not on your life!"
+
+"But," Nat argued feebly, "think of the injustice to the girl. From
+the way I've behaved since I struck this burg she thinks I'm closely
+related to the saints."
+
+"Very well, then; I'll concede a point. If you really think you're
+taking a mean advantage of her, when she proposes to you tell her all
+about yourself--just the sort of a chap you've been. You needn't
+mention our agreement, however. Then if she wants to drop you, I'll
+have nothing to say."
+
+"Thank you for nothing," said Duncan bitterly. "A bargain's a bargain.
+I gave you my word of honour I'd go through with this thing, and I'll
+stick to it. But I tell you now, I don't like it."
+
+"Oh, I know how you feel, Nat. But I _know_ that some day you'll
+come to me and say: 'Harry, if you had let me back out, I'd never have
+forgiven you.'"
+
+"All right," said Nat impatiently. "I presume you know best."
+
+"You can bet I do. And now I'd like to meet old Graham."
+
+"I'll take you right up--no, I can't. Here comes a customer. But you
+just go through that door and upstairs; he'll be in the laboratory--the
+front room--and he knows all about you. I'll join you just as soon as
+Tracey gets back."
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+
+PROVING THE PERSPICUITY OF MR. KELLOGG
+
+A customer came and went, and then Nat noticed that twilight was
+beginning to darken the store. Though the hour wasn't late and the
+evenings were long at that season, the windows faced the east, and
+there were huge, overshadowing elms outside--just then heavy with
+luxuriant foliage; so dusk was always early in the room.
+
+It was one of Nat's axioms that a store, to be successful, should be
+always brilliantly lighted. It was a bit expensive, perhaps, but in the
+long run it paid. For that reason he installed electric light as soon
+as he felt the business could afford it.
+
+Now he moved to the windows and switched on the bulbs behind the huge
+glass jars filled with tinted water. Returning, he was about to connect
+up the remainder of the illuminating system, when Josie, entering,
+stayed him. Later he was glad of this.
+
+"Nat..."
+
+He knew that voice. "Why, Josie!" he exclaimed in surprise, swinging
+about to discover her standing on the threshold--very dainty and
+fetching, indeed, in one of the summery frocks she had brought back
+from New York.
+
+She moved over to him, holding out her hand. He took it with disguised
+reluctance. "Where's Tracey?" she asked with a look that first held his
+eyes, then reviewed the store.
+
+"This is his afternoon off," Nat reminded her.
+
+"Then you're all alone?" she deduced archly.
+
+"Oh, quite...."
+
+"I'm so glad." She sighed and dropped into a chair by the soda-water
+counter. "I wanted to see you--to talk to you alone."
+
+He bit his lip in his annoyance, shivering with a presentiment. "What
+about, Josie?"
+
+"About Wednesday night--after prayer meeting. Why didn't you wait for
+me?"
+
+"Why--ah--I had to get back to the store, you know--there were some
+cheques to be made out and sent off, and I'd forgotten them. Besides,"
+he added on inspiration, "you were talking with Roland and I didn't
+want to interrupt you."
+
+"So you left me to go home with him?"
+
+"Why, what else--"
+
+"You're making me awful' unhappy." Her voice trembled.
+
+"_I_, Josie?"
+
+"Yes. You knew I didn't want to walk home with Roland."
+
+"How could I know that?"
+
+"I should think you ought to know it, Nat, unless you're blind.
+Besides, I told you once."
+
+"True," he fenced desperately, "but that was a long time ago; and how
+could I be sure you hadn't changed your mind? Besides, you know, I
+mustn't monopolise you. If I do...."
+
+"Well?" she inquired sweetly as he paused on the lip of a break.
+
+"Why, if I do--ah--"
+
+"If you're afraid people will talk about us, seeing us so much
+together, you needn't worry. They're doing that now."
+
+"Why, Josie!"
+
+"Yes, they are. We've been going together so long, and then suddenly
+you don't seem to care about--care to be alone with me at all. This
+is the first chance I've had to talk to you, when there wasn't somebody
+else round, for I don't know how long. And even now you don't seem glad
+to see me."
+
+"You should _know_ I am...."
+
+"You don't act like it."
+
+"It's so unexpected," he muttered wretchedly.
+
+"You didn't really think I wanted Roland Barnette to go home with me
+Wednesday night, did you, Nat?"
+
+"It seemed so, but ... that's all right. Why shouldn't you?"
+
+She turned to him, trembling a little. "Must I tell you, Nat?"
+
+"O, no!" he cried in dismay. "Please don't----!"
+
+"I see I must," she persisted. "You're so blind. It----"
+
+"Josie, don't say anything you'll be sorry for," he entreated wildly.
+
+"I can't help it: I've got to. It was--it was because I wanted to be
+with you.... There!" she gasped, frightened by her own forwardness.
+
+"Now I've said it!"
+
+Duncan grasped frantically at straws. "But you don't really mean it,
+Josie: you know you don't," he floundered. "You're just saying that
+because you--you have such a kind heart and--ah--don't want to hurt
+me--ah--because----"
+
+She stemmed the flood of his protestations with a hand on his arm.
+"Nat," she said gently, looking up into his face, "would it make you
+happy to know I really meant it?"
+
+"Why--ah--why shouldn't it, Josie?"
+
+"Then please believe me, when I say it."
+
+"But I do believe it. I..." He stammered and fell still.
+
+"Because I do like you, Nat, very much, and--and it's very hard for me
+to know that folks think I'm pursuing you and that you're trying to
+avoid me."
+
+"Josie!" he exclaimed reproachfully.
+
+"Well, that's the way it looks," she affirmed plaintively. "You don't
+want it to, do you?"
+
+"Why, no; of course I don't."
+
+"Then why don't you stop it?" She watched his face, her manner coy and
+yielding. "Nat," she said in a softer voice, "if you like me as well as
+I like you----"
+
+He moved away a pace or two. "Ah, child!" he said, with a feeling that
+the term was not misapplied, somehow, "you don't know what you're
+saying."
+
+"Yes, I do." She pouted. "I don't believe you... care anything about
+me."
+
+"Oh, Josie, please----"
+
+"Well, anyway, you've never told me so." She turned an indignant
+shoulder to him.
+
+"How could I?"
+
+"Why couldn't you?"
+
+"But don't you see that I shouldn't, Josie?" He turned back to her
+side, looked down at her, pleaded his defence with the fire of
+desperation.
+
+"Just think: you are an only daughter." Just what this had to do with
+the case was not plain even to him. "An only daughter," he repeated--
+"ah--not only your father's only daughter, but your mother's only
+daughter. Your father--ah--is my friend. How unfair it would be to him."
+
+But the girl interrupted with decision. "But papa wants you to... He
+told me so."
+
+He could only pretend not to understand. "But consider, Josie: you are
+rich, an heiress: I'm a poor man. Would you like it to be said I was
+after your money?"
+
+"No one would dare say such a thing," she asserted with profound
+conviction.
+
+"Oh, yes, they would. You don't know the world as I do. And for all you
+know, they might be right. How do you know that------"
+
+"Nat!" A catch in her voice stopped him. "Don't say such horrid things!
+I could tell: a woman always can. I know you would be incapable of such
+a thing. Papa knows it, too. No one has ever got ahead of papa, and
+_he_ says you are a fine, steady, Christian man, and he would
+rather see me your wife than any------"'
+
+"Josie!"
+
+The interjection was so imperative that she was silenced. "Why, what,
+Nat?" she asked, rising.
+
+"The time has come," he declared; "you must know the truth."
+
+"Oh, Nat!"
+
+"I'm _not_ what you think me," he continued, dramatic.
+
+_"Oh, Nat!"_
+
+"Nor what your father thinks me, nor what anybody else in this town
+thinks me. I'm not a regular Christian--it's all a bluff: I didn't
+know anything about a church till I came here. I smoke and I drink and
+I swear and I gamble, and I only cut them all out in order to trick you
+into caring for me!"
+
+"Oh, Nat, I don't believe it."
+
+"Alas, Josie!" he protested violently, "it's true, only too true!"
+
+"But you did it to win my love, Nat?"
+
+"Ye-es." He saw suddenly that he had made a fatal mistake.
+
+"Then, Nat, I will be your wife in spite of all!"
+
+He found himself suddenly caught about the neck by the girl's arms. His
+head was drawn down until her cheek caressed his and he felt her lips
+warm upon his own.
+
+"Josie!" he gasped.
+
+"Nat, my darling!"
+
+With a supreme effort he pulled himself together and embraced the girl.
+"Josie," he said earnestly, "I--I'm going to try to be a good husband
+to you.... And that," he concluded, _sotto voce_, "wasn't in the
+agreement!"
+
+She held him to her passionately. "Dearest, I'm so glad!"
+
+"It makes me very happy to know you are, Josie," he murmured miserably.
+And to himself, while still she trembled in his embrace: "What a cur
+you are!... But I won't renege now; I'll play my hand out on the
+square, with her...."
+
+Upon this tableau there came a sudden intrusion. The back door opened
+and Graham came in, Kellogg at his heels. It was the voice of the
+latter that told the two they were discovered: a hearty "Hello! What's
+this?" that rang in Nat's ears like the trump of doom.
+
+In a flash the girl disengaged herself, and they were a yard apart by
+the time that Graham, blundering in his surprise, managed to turn on
+the lights at the switchboard. But even in the full glare of them he
+seemed unable to credit his sight.
+
+"Why, Nat!" he quavered, coming out toward the guilty pair. "Why,
+Nat...!"
+
+Duncan took a long breath and Josie's hand at one and the same time.
+"Mr. Graham," he said coolly, "I'm glad you're the first to know it.
+Josie has just ask--agreed to be my wife."
+
+Old Sam recovered sufficiently to take the girl's hand and pat it. "I'm
+mighty glad, my dear," he told her. "I congratulate you both with all
+my heart."
+
+"And so will I, when I have the right," Kellogg added, smiling.
+
+"Oh, I forgot." Nat hastened to remedy his oversight. "Josie, this is
+my dearest friend, Mr. Kellogg; Harry, this is Miss Lockwood."
+
+
+Josie gave Kellogg her hand. "I--I," she giggled--"I'm pleased to meet
+you, I'm sure."
+
+"I'm charmed. I've heard a great deal of you, Miss Lockwood, from Nat's
+letters, and I shall hope to know you much better before
+long."
+
+"It's awful' nice of you to say so, Mr. Kellogg."
+
+"And, Nat, old man!" Kellogg threw an arm round Duncan's shoulder. "I
+congratulate you! You're a lucky dog!"
+
+"I'm a dog, all right," said Nat glumly.
+
+"But we mustn't disturb these young people, Mr. Kellogg," Graham broke
+in nervously.
+
+"They'll--they'll have a lot to say to one another, I'm sure; so we'll
+just run along. I'm taking Mr. Kellogg up to the house, Nat. You'll
+follow us as soon as you can, won't you?"
+
+"Yes--sure."
+
+"I've got some news for you, too, that'll make you happy."
+
+"Never mind about that; it'll keep till supper, Mr. Graham." Kellogg
+laughed, taking the old man's arm. "Good-bye, both of you--good-bye for
+a little while."
+
+"Good-bye..."
+
+"Wasn't that terrible!" Josie turned back to Nat when they were alone.
+"I think it was real mean of Mr. Graham to turn on all the lights
+that way," she simpered. "Somebody else might've seen."
+
+"Yes," agreed the young man, half distracted; "but of course I daren't
+turn them off again."
+
+"Never mind. We can wait." Josie blushed.
+
+"I'll just sit here and wait--we can talk till Tracey comes, and then
+you can walk home with me."
+
+"Yes, that'll be nice," he agreed, but without absolute ecstasy.
+
+Fortunately for him, in his temper of that moment, Pete Willing reeled
+into the shop, two-thirds drunk, with his face smeared with blood from
+a cut on his forehead.
+
+"'Scuse me," he muttered huskily. "Kin I see you a minute, Doc?"
+
+He reeled and almost fell--would have fallen had not Duncan caught his
+arm and guided him to a chair. "Great Scott, Pete!" he cried. "What's
+happened to you?"
+
+"M' wife..." Pete explained thickly.
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+
+ROLAND SHOWS HIS HAND
+
+"Perhaps I'd better go." Josie, fluttering with alarm and a little
+pale, went quickly to the door.
+
+Duncan followed her a pace or two. "I can't leave just now," he
+stammered.
+
+"I don't mind one bit. I don't want to be in the way. I'll telephone
+from home.... Good-night, dearest!" On tiptoes she drew his face down
+to hers and kissed him. "I'm so happy..."
+
+Half dazed, Nat stared after her until her lightly moving figure merged
+with the shadows beneath the trees and was lost. Then, with a sigh, he
+turned back to Pete.
+
+The sheriff had undoubtedly suffered at the hands of that militant
+person, Mrs. Willing. "Great Scott!" Duncan exclaimed as he examined
+the two-inch gash in his head. "That's a bird, Pete."
+
+"M' wife done it," Willing muttered huskily. "Sh' threw side 'r th'
+house at me, I think."
+
+"Wife, eh?" The coincidence smote Duncan with redoubled force. He
+shivered "Well, she certainly gave it to you good." He went behind the
+counter to prepare a dressing for the wound, which, if wide, was
+neither deep nor serious and gave him little concern for Pete.
+
+The latter ruminated on the event, breathing stertorously, while Duncan
+was fixing up a wash of peroxide. "She'll kill me some day," he
+announced suddenly, with intense conviction in his tone.
+
+"Oh, don't say that...."
+
+Opposition roused Pete to a fury of assertion. "Yes, she will, sure!"
+he bawled. Then his emotion quieted. "But I'd 'bout as soon be dead's
+live with her, anyway."
+
+"_Um_." Nat got some absorbent cotton and adhesive plaster. "Been
+drinking again, hadn't you?"
+
+"Yesh," Pete admitted with a leer of drunken cunning. "But she druv me
+to it." He was quiet for a moment. "Mish'r Duncan," he volunteered
+cheerfully, "you ain't got _no_ idee how lucky y'are y'aint married."
+
+"Is that so?" Nat returned with the dressings.
+
+"No idee'tall." Pete surrendered his head to Nat's ministrations. "'Nd
+I hope y' won't never have."
+
+"But I'm going to be married, Pete."
+
+The sheriff assimilated this information and became abruptly
+intractable. He jerked his head away and swung round in his chair to
+argue the matter.
+
+"Oh, no!" he expostulated. "Don't, Mish'r Duncan. Don't never do it.
+Take warnin' from me."
+
+"But I'm engaged, Pete."
+
+"Maksh no diff'runsh--break it off." His voice rose to a howl of alarm.
+"F'r Gaw's sake, break it off!--now, before it's too late! Do anythin'
+rather'n that: drink--lie--steal--murder--c'mit suicide--don't care
+what--only _keep single!_" "Here," said Duncan, laughing, "sit back
+there and let me'tend to your head." He began to wash the wound with
+the peroxide. "There: that'll sting a bit, but not long.... But
+suppose, Pete, I'd get a lot of money by marrying?"
+
+"No matter how mush y'get, 'tain't enough!"
+
+"I'm inclined to think you're about right, Pete."
+
+"You bet I'm right. I'm married 'nd _I know_."
+
+Nat finished dressing the cut, smoothed down the ends of the adhesive
+tape, and stood back. "That's all right, now. Go home, wash your face,
+and sleep it off. Let me see you sober in the morning."
+
+"Huh!" Pete chuckled derisively. "Ain't goin' home t'night."
+
+"You've got to get some sleep: that's the only way for you to
+straighten up."
+
+"Well," agreed Pete, rising, "then I'll go over to the barn 'nd sleep
+with the horse."
+
+"Aren't you afraid he'll step on you?" asked Nat, amused.
+
+"Maybe he will," Pete replied fairly, "but I'd ruther risk that 'n m'
+wife."
+
+He swerved and lurched toward the door. "Thanks, doc, 'nd g'night," he
+mumbled, and incontinently collided with Roland Barnette.
+
+Roland was working under a full head of steam, apparently; his
+naturally sanguine complexion was several shades darker than the
+normal, and he was seething with repressed emotion--excitement,
+anticipated triumph, jealousy, envy and hatred: all centring upon the
+hapless head of Nat Duncan. Plunging along with his head down, his
+thoughts wholly preoccupied with his grievance and its remedy, he
+bumped into Willing and cannoned off, recognising him with an angry
+growl. The result of this was to stay Pete's departure; he grasped
+the frame of the door and steadied himself, glaring round at the
+aggressor.
+
+"'Lo, Roland," he said, focussing his vision. "Whash masser?"
+
+Roland disregarded him entirely. "Say, you!" he snorted, catching sight
+of Nat. "I want to see you."
+
+"Oh?" Nat drawled exasperatingly. He had never had much use for Roland,
+and now with hidden joy he read the signs of passion on the boy's
+inflamed countenance. Happy he would be, thought Nat, if Roland were to
+be delivered into his hands that night. He owed the world a grudge,
+just then, and needed nothing more than an object to wreak his
+vengeance upon. "Well, I'll stake you to a good long look," he added
+sweetly.
+
+"Ah-h! don't you try to be so funny; you might get hurt."
+
+Pete seemed to be suddenly electrified by Ro-land's matter. "Here!" he
+interposed. "Whajuh mean by that?" And relinquishing his grasp on the
+door, he reeled between the two and thrust his face close to Roland's.
+"Who're you talkin' to, an'way?" he demanded, truculent.
+
+Nat stepped forward quickly and grabbed Pete's arm. "That's all right,
+Pete," he soothed him. "Don't get nervous. Roly won't hurt anybody."
+
+The diminutive stung Roland to exasperation. "Why, damn you----!" he
+screamed, and promptly became inarticulate with rage.
+
+"Ah! ah! ah!" Nat wagged a reproving forefinger. "Naughty word, Roly!
+Careful, or you'll sour your chewing gum."
+
+"Now, say! Do you think----"
+
+At this juncture Pete drowned his words with an incoherent roar, having
+apparently reached the conclusion that the time had now arrived when it
+would be his duty and pleasure to eat Roland alive. Nat saved the young
+man by the barest inch; he grappled with Pete and drew himself aside
+just in time.
+
+"Steady, Pete!" he said quietly. "Steady, old man. Let Roland alone."
+
+"Awrh, I ain't 'fraid of him!" spluttered Pete.
+
+"Neither am I. Get out, won't you, and leave him to me."
+
+"Aw'right." Pete became more calm. "I'll leave him 'lone, but all the
+same I wan' it 'stinctly un'erstood I kin lick any man in town 'ceptin'
+m' wife. G'night, everybody."
+
+He gathered himself together and by a supreme effort lunged through the
+door and into the deepening dusk.
+
+"Well, Roly?" Nat asked, turning back.
+
+His ironic calm gave Roland pause. For a moment he lost his bearings
+and stammered in confusion. "I come in to tell you that me and you's
+apt to have trouble," he concluded.
+
+"Oh? And are you thinking of starting it?"
+
+"You bet I'll start it, and I'll start it damn' quick if you don't
+leave Josie Lockwood alone."
+
+"So that's the trouble, is it?" commented Nat thoughtfully.
+
+"Yes, that's the trouble. From now on I want you to let her alone, and
+you'll do it, too, if you know what's best for you."
+
+A suggestion of menace in his manner, unconnected with any hint of
+physical correction, caught Nat's attention. He frowned over it.
+
+"Just what do you mean by this line of talk?" he inquired blandly,
+stepping nearer.
+
+"I'll tell you what I mean." Roland clenched both fists and thrust his
+chin out pugnaciously. "I'd been a-goin' steady with Josie Lockwood for
+more'n a year before you come here and thought that, on account of her
+money, you could sneak in and cut me out...."
+
+"Was her money the reason you were after her, Roly?"
+
+"What----?" The question brought Roland momentarily up in the wind.
+"'Tain't none of your business if it was!" he snapped, recovering. "But
+here's what I'm gettin' at." He tapped his breast-pocket with a sneer
+of bucolic triumph. "Just about ten months ago," he continued
+meaningly, "they was a cashier skipped out of the Longacre National
+Bank in Noo Yawk, and they ain't got no track of him yet."
+
+So this was why Roland had been so assiduous a student of the back
+files in the Citizen office!
+
+"Indeed?"
+
+"Yes, indeed. I had my suspicions all along, but didn't say nothin',
+but just to-day I got a description of him, and the description just
+fits, Mr. Mortimer Henry."
+
+"Just fits Mr. Mortimer Henry? But what has that----?"
+
+"Ah, don't you try to seem too darn' innocent," Roland snarled. "You
+can't fool me!"
+
+A light dawned upon Nat, and laughter flooded his being, although
+outwardly he remained imperturbable--merely mildly curious. But his
+fingers were itching.
+
+"So you think I'm the absconding cashier, eh, Roly?"
+
+"You keep away from Josie 'r you'll find out what I think." Nat's
+placidity deceived Roland, who drew the wholly erroneous conclusion
+that he had succeeded in frightening his rival, and consequently dared
+a few lengths further in his tirade. "Why, if I was to go to Mr.
+Lockwood and tell him you're Mortimer Henry, alias Nat Duncan----"
+
+Duncan's temper suddenly snapped like a taut violin string.
+
+"That will do," he said icily. "That will be all for this evening,
+thanks."
+
+"Ah... Are you going to quit chasin' after Josie?"
+
+"I'll begin chasing after you if you don't clear out of here."
+
+"You better agree----"
+
+[Illustration: "Betty!"]
+
+Just there the storm burst. Ten seconds later Roland, with a confused
+impression of having been kicked by a mule, picked himself up out of
+the dust in the middle of the street and stared stupidly back at the
+store. Nat was waiting in the doorway for a renewal of hostilities, if
+any such there were to be. Seeing, however, that Roland had apparently
+sated his appetite for personal conflict, he picked up a dark object at
+his feet and held it out.
+
+"Here's your hat, Roly," he called.
+
+Roland spat out a mouthful of dust and swore beneath his breath. "Throw
+it out here," he replied prudently.
+
+Tossing him the hat, Nat turned contemptuously. "Come in again, any
+time you want to apologise," he shouted over his shoulder, as an
+afterthought.
+
+He paused in the middle of the store and felt of his necktie. It proved
+to be a little out of place, but otherwise he was as immaculate as was
+his wont. He reviewed the encounter and laughed quietly.
+
+"There's no cure for a fool," he mused....
+
+The telephone bell roused him from his reverie. He went over to the
+instrument, sat down, and put the receiver to his ear.
+
+"Hello?" he said.... "Oh, hello, Josie! ... What's that?... That's
+right, but I'm not used to it yet, you know.... Well, I'll try again.
+Now--ready?"
+
+He schooled his voice to a key of heartrending sentiment: "Hello,
+darling.... How's that? ... Told your father? Told him what?... Oh,
+about the engagement! Was he angry? ... Oh, he wasn't, eh? What did he
+say? ... Wasn't that nice of him!..."
+
+Conscious of a slight noise in the store he looked up. A young woman
+had just entered. She paused just inside the door, smiling at him a
+little timidly.
+
+Without another word to his fiancee Nat put down the telephone and
+hooked up the receiver.
+
+"Betty!" he cried wonderingly.
+
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+
+AS OTHERS SAW HIM
+
+If Nat's cry of recognition had been wondering, it was no less one of
+delight. The surprise he felt was perfectly natural; Betty wasn't to
+have returned until the morrow, and was therefore the last person he
+had expected to see when he looked up from the telephone desk. But it
+was the change in the girl that most stirred him: the change he had
+prophesied, planned for, anticipated eagerly throughout the long seven
+months of her absence; to have his expectations so wonderfully
+fulfilled, and more than fulfilled, pleased him beyond expression. And
+it's curious to speculate upon the fact that he fancied his greatest
+pleasure came from the knowledge that old Sam would be so overjoyed....
+
+It was really only a paraphrase of the old story of the grub and the
+butterfly. The little, starveling drudge who had found him in the
+store, that first day, had completely vanished; it was as if she had
+never been. In her place he discovered a girl all grace and loveliness,
+her slender figure ripening into gracious womanhood; a girl of mind and
+heart and understanding, all fire and tenderness; demure, intelligent,
+with a pretty pose of independence and sureness of herself moderated by
+modesty and reserve. Her travelling dress of sober colouring and severe
+lines became her bewitchingly. Beneath the brim of her dainty hat, with
+veil thrown back, her dark hair waved back, glossy with the sheen of
+perfect well-being, from a face serenely charming--the more so for her
+slightly deepened flush; and the eyes that shone into Nat's danced with
+the light of enjoyment, bred of his supreme astonishment....
+
+"Nat, I'm so glad to see you again!"
+
+He was speechless.
+
+She laughed, put down her suit-case, and moved toward him, offering him
+both her hands. He took them, stammering.
+
+"It's such a surprise, Betty----!"
+
+"I knew it would be. I just couldn't wait, Nat, when I found I could
+get here by the night train instead of tomorrow morning. I haven't been
+home, you know, but I couldn't resist the temptation to stop in here
+and see--what the store looked like after all these months. Besides, I
+thought that you or father----" Her eyes fell and she faltered,
+withdrawing her hands.
+
+By now he had himself in hand. "Why," he laughed, "you nearly took my
+breath away. Even now I can hardly believe it..."
+
+"Believe what, Nat?" she asked quickly.
+
+"That you're the same little Betty Graham. I never saw such a change."
+
+"It's a change for the better, isn't it, Nat?" she asked with a smile
+half wistful.
+
+"I should think it was. It's just marvellous!"
+
+"Did I seem so very awful, then?"
+
+"Nonsense. You know you didn't, only, now..."
+
+"Then you think father will be pleased?"
+
+"If he isn't, I'm blind!"
+
+She looked away, embarrassed, and touched by his interest and his
+feeling. "And does it make you a little proud, Nat?"
+
+"Proud!" he exclaimed blankly.
+
+"Because you know you've done it all. If there's any improvement in
+Betty Graham to-day, it's because of you. If it hadn't been for
+you----"
+
+"Never in the world; you don't know what you're talking about, Betty.
+Nobody but yourself could have brought about this change. It had to be
+in you before it could come out. You know that."
+
+She shook her head very decidedly, seating herself on one of the chairs
+by the soda-fountain. "Oh, no," she contradicted calmly and sincerely.
+"Why, Nat, don't you suppose I have any memory? You began making me a
+better girl the very first day we met here in the store, by the things
+you said to me. And ever since I've been watching you, while you were
+making life a Heaven for father and me, and thinking that if I were a
+man I'd try to be as near like you as I could."
+
+"Oh, don't say that," he pleaded wretchedly.
+
+"It's true.... And when you sent me away to school I promised myself
+I'd try to repay you for the sacrifice you must be making for me; that
+I'd follow your example as nearly as ever I could; that I'd work hard
+and try to treat people the way you do--kindly, Nat, and considerately,
+and bravely and tenderly and honestly----"
+
+He dropped into a chair near her and buried his head in his hands.
+"Don't!" he begged huskily. "Please, Betty, don't!"
+
+But she wouldn't stop, little guessing how she was racking his heart in
+her innocent desire to make him understand how deeply she appreciated
+all he had done for her. "And, O Nat, it's worked so wonderfully! It's
+made all the girls at school like me, and it's made me understand and
+like everybody else better; and now, what's ten thousand times the best
+of all, you notice an improvement the minute you see me! And I--I never
+was so happy in all my life." She bent forward and took one of his
+hands, patting it softly. "Nat, I think you're the very best man in the
+whole world!"
+
+"Don't!" he groaned. "Don't, for Heaven's sake!"
+
+"Oh, I know, Nat--I know you don't like me to say this, but I must,
+just the same, tell you the truth about yourself. It's so splendid to
+live the life you do. You're all unconscious of it, but I want you to
+realise it and know that I do, too. You've made everybody love you
+and..."
+
+But confusion silenced her, and she gently replaced his hand. For
+several moments neither spoke. Then Nat broke the tension with a short,
+hard laugh.
+
+"That's right," he said inscrutably; "that was the idea...."
+
+"Nat, what do you mean?"
+
+He turned to her. "Betty, does it make you--feel that way toward me?"
+
+She coloured divinely. "Why, Nat, of course ... Why, everyone..."
+
+"That's why I came here, Betty," he pursued, blind to her
+embarrassment. "I came here with the idea... of getting married...."
+
+He was staring gloomily at the floor and could not see the light that
+dawned upon the girl's face. Absorbed in the struggle with his
+conscience he had no least suspicion of how his words were affecting
+her. He knew only that he must somehow make a confession to her, that
+to own her regard and gratitude on the terms that then existed between
+them was utterly intolerable.
+
+"You never guessed that, did you?"
+
+"No," she breathed brokenly. "No, Nat, I--"
+
+"Well, it's the truth and...." He rose and moved away. "But I can't
+tell you just now--not now...."
+
+"No, not now, Nat." Betty, too, got up. "I think I'd better go home and
+see father--I mustn't forget--" she faltered, half blinded by the mist
+of the happiness before her eyes.
+
+"No--wait." She stopped to find his gaze full upon her; for the first
+time he comprehended that she had not understood, that, worst of all,
+she had misunderstood. "I must tell you," he blurted desperately, "I
+must."
+
+Instinctively she moved a step toward him. He hung his head.
+
+"To-night, Betty--this evening, just a little while ago, I became
+engaged to Josie Lockwood."
+
+She stood as if petrified throughout a wait that seemed to both
+interminable. Then he heard her catch her breath sharply. He looked up,
+frightened, but she was smiling steadily into his face. Somehow he
+found her hand in his.
+
+"Oh, Nat dear," she said, "I'm so glad for you.... I wish you all the
+happiness in the world. I ... Good-night."
+
+
+The hand slipped out of Nat's. He did not move, but waited there with
+his empty palm outstretched, despair in his eyes and hell in his heart,
+while she walked quietly from the store.
+
+After some time he awoke to the knowledge that she was gone.
+
+"Blithering fool!" he growled. "Why didn't I know I loved her like
+this?" He took a turn to and fro, distracted. "And now I've made a mess
+of everything! Good Lord! what can I do? I must do something or go
+mad!" He swung round behind the soda-fountain counter and seized a
+bottle. "I know what! The rules are off! I can have a drink! I can have
+two drinks! I can have a million drinks if I want 'em!"
+
+Pouring a generous dose of raw whiskey into the glass he lifted it to
+his lips and threw back his head. But the heavy bouquet of the liquor
+was stifling in his nostrils, and the first mouthful of it almost
+choked him. In a fury he flung the glass from him, so that it crashed
+and splintered upon the floor. "Great Heavens!" he cried. "I don't like
+the stuff any more.... But"--his gaze fell upon the cigar case--"I can
+have a smoke. That'll help some!"
+
+With feverish haste he snatched a cigar from the nearest box, gnawed
+off one end, and thrusting the other into the alcohol lighter, puffed
+vigorously. But to his renovated palate the potent fumes of the tobacco
+were no less repugnant than the whiskey had been. Half strangled, he
+plucked the cigar from his mouth and stamped on it.
+
+"Oh," he cried wildly, "I'll be--I'll be damned!"
+
+He paused, staring vacantly at nothing. "And even that doesn't do any
+good! God help me, I've forgotten how to swear!"
+
+To him, in this overwrought state, came Tracey, lumbering cheerfully
+in, his mouth shaped for a whistle. At sight of Nat he pulled up as if
+hit by a club.
+
+"'Evenin', Mister Duncan. What's the matter?"
+
+By an effort Nat brought his gaze to bear upon the boy and comprehended
+his existence.
+
+"Ain't you feeling well, Mr. Duncan?"
+
+"No--rotten!"
+
+"What's the matter?"
+
+"_Nothing_!" Nat shouted ferociously.
+
+"Anything I kin----"
+
+"_No_!"
+
+At that instant Kellogg appeared. "Hello, Nat! What's been keeping you?
+I came down to bring you home to supper."
+
+"Go to blazes with your supper! Keep away from me! Don't talk to me! I
+don't want anything to do with you, d'you understand? You and your
+confounded systems have got me into all this----"
+
+He caught sight of his hat abruptly, ceased talking, grabbed the hat
+and jammed it on his head, muttering; then started on a run for the
+door.
+
+"But what's the matter?" demanded Kellogg, thunderstruck. "Here! Hold
+on! Where are you going?"
+
+"To the only place I can get any consolation--church!"
+
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+
+ROLAND'S TRIUMPH
+
+But at the doorstep of the Methodist Church Nat hesitated. The building
+was dimly lighted, for it was choir practise night, and the door was
+ajar; but he couldn't bring himself to enter. He would not long have
+peace and quiet in which to think, there; presently would come Angle
+and Josie and Roland and...
+
+"I couldn't stand it; I'd probably murder Roland....
+
+"Besides, I've no right there--an impostor--a contemptible low-lived
+pup like me!...
+
+"Why the thunderation did I ever allow myself to be persuaded to come
+here? Why was I ever such a fool?...
+
+"How _could_ I be such a fool?..."
+
+He was walking, now, striding swiftly through the silent village
+streets, meeting few wayfarers and paying them no heed, whether they
+knew and greeted him or not. His entire consciousness was obsessed by
+regret, repentance and remorse. He had ruined everything, deceived
+everybody--even himself for a time--played the cad and the bounder with
+consummate address. There were no bounds to the contempt he felt for
+the man who had tricked these simple, kindly folk into believing him
+immaculate, impeccable; who had hoodwinked "that old prince, Graham,"
+and under false pretences gained his confidence and affection; who had
+deliberately set out to snare an innocent and trusting girl for the
+sake of the filthy money her father owned; who had made another and a
+better girl love him, though that he had done so unconsciously, only to
+break her heart; who had sacrificed everything, honour and decency and
+self-respect, to his greed for money.
+
+But it should go no further. He'd given what he called his word of
+honour to a despicable compact; there could be no dishonour so great as
+holding by that word, sticking to his bargain, maintaining the
+deception and--ruining the life of one woman--perhaps two: Josie
+Lockwood's, for he could never love her; and possibly Betty Graham's,
+for she was of that sort that loves once and once only. If she truly
+loved him...
+
+But by his own act he had placed himself forever beyond the joy of her
+love. He could never accept it, desire it as passionately as he
+might--and did. He could never consent to drag her down to his base
+level...
+
+To-morrow--no, to-night, that very night, he would unmask himself,
+declare his character to them all, pillory himself that all might see
+how low a man could fall. And to-morrow he would go, leave Radville,
+lose himself to all that had come to be so dear to him, forever....
+
+So, raving and ranting with the extravagance of youth, he passed
+through the village, out into the open country, and in the course of an
+hour and a half, back--all blindly: circling back to the store, in the
+course of his wanderings, as instinctly as a carrier pigeon shapes its
+course for home.
+
+It was with incredulity that he found himself again in that cheerful,
+cherished, homely place. But there he was when he came out of his
+abstraction: there in those familiar surroundings, with Tracey's round
+red face beaming at him over the cigar-stand like a lively counterfeit
+of the round red moon he had watched lift up into the skies, back there
+in the still countryside, just as he paused to turn back to town.
+
+He recollected his faculties and resumed command of himself
+sufficiently to acknowledge Tracey's greeting with a moody word.
+
+"All right, Tracey," he said abruptly. "You may go, now. I'll shut up
+the store."
+
+He looked at his watch, and was surprised to discover that it was no
+later than half-past eight. He seemed to have lived a lifetime in the
+last few hours.
+
+
+"Thank you, sir," said Tracey with a gush of gratitude. "I'll be glad
+to get off. Angle's waiting."
+
+"Angle----?"
+
+"Good-evening, Mr. Duncan."
+
+"Oh, Miss Tuthill!" Nat discovered that little rogue, all smiles and
+dimples and blushes, not distant from his elbow. "I didn't see you--I
+was thinking."
+
+"Guess we know what you was thinkin' about," observed Tracey, bringing
+his hat round the counter. "Everybody in town's talkin' about it."
+
+"About what?"
+
+"Ah, you know about what, and we're mighty glad of it, and we want to
+congratulate you, don't we, Angie."
+
+"Oh, yes, indeed, Mr. Duncan. It's just too sweet for anything."
+
+"O Lord!" groaned Nat.
+
+"I'm awful glad you done it when you did," pursued Tracey, oblivious to
+Nat in his own ecstatic temper. "I guess I wouldn't never 've got up
+the spunk to--to tell Angie what I did to-night, 'f it hadn't been we
+was talkin' 'bout your engagement to Josie. Then, somehow, it just
+seemed to bust right out of me, like I couldn't hold it no longer.
+Didn't it, Angie?"
+
+"Oh, Tracey, how can you talk so!"
+
+"Then you're engaged, too?" Nat inquired, rousing himself a little and
+smiling feebly upon them.
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"I'm glad to hear it. It's great news. Now run along, both of you, and
+don't forget you'll never be so happy again." With what he thought an
+expiring flash of humour he raised his hands above their heads. "Bless
+you, my children!" he said solemnly. "Now, for Heaven's sake, beat it!"
+
+Alone he went to the prescription desk and opening one of the drawers
+took out the firm's books. After that for some fifteen minutes there
+was nothing to be heard in the store save Nat's breathing and the
+scratching of his pen as he figured out a trial balance....
+
+Brisk footfalls disturbed him. He sighed and moved out into the store
+to find Kellogg there, suave and easy as always, yet with that in his
+manner, perceptible perhaps only to a friend of long-standing like Nat,
+to betray a mind far from complacent.
+
+"Oh, you're here!" he cried, with a distinct start of relief. "I've
+been looking all over for you."
+
+"I just got in." Nat brushed aside explanations curtly, intent upon his
+purpose. "Harry, I've got something to say to you: I'm not going
+through with this thing."
+
+"You're not?"
+
+"No; and that's final. I was just on the point of drawing you a cheque
+for three-hundred; that's all my share of the profits of this concern,
+so far; and my note for the balance. I'll pay that up as soon as I'm
+able--and I'll work like a terrier until I do. But as for the rest of
+it, I'm through."
+
+"Oh, you are?" Kellogg took a chair and tipped back, frowning gravely.
+"But what about your word to me?"
+
+"Damn that," said Duncan without heat. "The word of honour of a man
+who'd stoop to a trick as vile as I have doesn't amount to a
+continental shinplaster. I'll rather be dishonoured by breaking it than
+by ruining a woman's life."
+
+"Very well, if you feel that way about it," said Kellogg as coolly.
+"And you may keep your cheque and note: I wouldn't take them. You can
+pay me back when it's convenient--I don't care when. But what I want to
+know is what you mean to do?"
+
+"I mean to do the only thing left to do. I'm going to shut up here and
+then see Lockwood and Josie and tell them the whole story."
+
+"Hm," Kellogg reflected, quizzical. "You've got a pleasant little job
+ahead of you."
+
+"I don't care about that: I deserve all that's coming to me. I owe
+Josie a duty. Why, it's awful, Harry, to trick a girl into caring for
+you and then to--to----"
+
+"Break her heart?" Kellogg's tone was sardonic.
+
+"That's what I meant."
+
+"Don't flatter yourself, my boy. Josie Lockwood doesn't love you; she
+just set herself to win you because you're the best chance she's seen."
+Kellogg laughed quietly. "The system would have worked just as well if
+anyone else had tried it."
+
+"Do you think so--honest?" Nat's eagerness to believe him was
+undisguised.
+
+"I'm sure of it. The trouble is that people will say you've thrown her
+over--there isn't anyone in Radville who hasn't heard the news by this
+time; and that's going to make the girl feel pretty cheap. But only for
+a while: she'll get over it and solace herself with the next best
+thing.... And don't forget; you lose a fortune."
+
+"No, I don't," Duncan disclaimed. "I never had it and now I don't want
+it."
+
+"That's true enough," Kellogg admitted evenly. "And I hope you'll
+always feel that way about it; but, believe me, you'll find plenty of
+money a great help if you want to live a happy life."
+
+"There are better things than money to make a man happy; I'll pass up
+the money and try for the others."
+
+"That's true, too; but when did you find it out?"
+
+"Here--this last year.... You know I had everything my heart desired
+until the governor cashed in; and I used to think I was a pretty happy
+kid in those days. But now I've learned that you can beat that kind of
+happiness to death. Harry"--Duncan was growing almost sententious--"the
+real way to be happy is to work and have your work amount to something
+and--and to have someone who believes in you to work for."
+
+"Is this a sermon, Nat?"
+
+"Call it what you like: it goes, just the same. ... That's what I've
+found out this year."
+
+Kellogg let his chair fall forward and rose, imprisoning Nat's
+shoulders with two heavy but kindly hands. "And you're right!" he cried
+heartily. "I'm glad you had the backbone to back out, Nat. It was a
+low-down trick and I'm ashamed of myself for proposing it. I did it, I
+presume, simply because I'm a schemer at heart, and I knew it would
+work. It did work, but it's worked a finer way than I dreamed of: it's
+made a man of you, Nat, and I'm mightly glad and proud of you!"
+
+Nat swayed with amazement. "What's changed you all of a sudden?" he
+demanded blankly.
+
+Releasing him, Kellogg resumed his seat, laughing. "Well, a number of
+things. Among others, I've talked with Graham and I've met his
+daughter."
+
+"Oh-h!"
+
+"And that reminds me," Kellogg changed the subject briskly; "I
+understood from you that Graham was sole owner of that patent burner."
+
+"So he is."
+
+"He says not. I had a proposition to make him from the Mutual people,
+and he referred me to you, saying that you controlled the matter."
+
+"I've not the slightest interest in it!" Nat protested.
+
+"I know you haven't, but Graham insisted you owned the whole thing. I
+pressed him for an explanation, and he finally furnished one in his
+rambling, inconsequent, fine old way. He admitted that there wasn't any
+sort of an existing contract or agreement of any sort, even oral,
+between you, but just the same you'd been so good to him and his girl
+that he'd made up his mind--some time ago, I gather--to make you a
+present of the burner; but naturally he forgot to tell you about an
+insignificant detail like that."
+
+"Of course that's nonsense; I wouldn't and shant accept."
+
+"Of course you won't. I did you the honour to discount that. But he
+wouldn't say a word about the offer--yes or no--just left it all up to
+you. He says you're a business man, and that he's often thought what a
+help you must have been to me before you left New York."
+
+Nat laughed outright. "Can you beat that? ... But what is the offer?"
+
+"Fifty thousand cash and ten thousand shares of preferred
+stock--hundred dollars par."
+
+"What's that worth?"
+
+"At the market rate when I left town, seventy-eight." Kellogg waited a
+moment. "Well, what do you say?"
+
+"Say? Great Caesar's Ghost! What is there to say? Wire 'em an
+acceptance before they get their second wind.... You don't know how
+good this makes me feel, Harry; I can't thank you enough for what
+you've done. This'll square me with Graham to some extent, and I can
+clear out----"
+
+"No, you can't, Mr. Smarty! You ain't been 'cute enough."
+
+Both men, startled by the interruption, wheeled round to discover
+Roland Barnette dancing with excitement in the doorway, the while he
+beckoned frantically to an invisible party without. "Come on!" he
+shouted. "Here he is!"
+
+"What's eating you, Roly-Poly?" inquired
+
+Nat, too happy for the money to cherish animosity even toward his
+one-time rival.
+
+"You'll find out soon enough," snarled Roland. "Mr. Lockwood's got
+something to say to you, I guess."
+
+And on the heels of this announcement Lockwood strode into the store,
+Josie clinging to his arm, Pete Willing--a trifle more sanely drunk
+than he had been some hours previous--bringing up the rear.
+
+"So!" snarled Blinky, halting and transfixing Nat with the stare of his
+cold blue eyes. "So we've found you, eh?"
+
+"Oh? I didn't know I was lost."
+
+"No nonsense, young man. I ain't in the humour for foolin'." Blinky was
+unquestionably in no sort of a humour at all beyond an evil one. "I
+come here to have a word with you."
+
+"Well, sir?" Nat's tone and attitude were perfectly pacific.
+
+"Ah, there ain't no use beatin' 'round the bush. You've behaved
+yourself ever since you come to Radville, and insinooated yourself into
+our confidence, 'spite of the fact that nobody in town knows who you
+were before you came. But now Roland's laid a charge again' you, and I
+want to know the rights to it."
+
+"Well," Roland interposed cockily, "I accused him of it to-night and he
+didn't deny it."
+
+[Illustration: "You're a thief with a reward out for you!"]
+
+"What's more," Lockwood continued with rising colour, "Roland says he
+can prove it?"
+
+"Prove what?" Nat insisted. "Get down to facts, can't you?"
+
+"That you're a thief with a reward out for you," said Roland. "You're
+that Mortimer Henry what absconded from the Longacre National Bank in
+Noo York."
+
+There fell a brief pause. Nat bowed his head and tugged at his
+moustache, his shoulders shaking with emotion variously construed by
+those who watched him. Presently he looked up again, his features
+gravely composed.
+
+"Roly," said he, "Balaam must miss you terribly."
+
+"That ain't no answer." Lockwood put himself solidly between Nat and
+the object of his obscure remark--who was painfully digesting it. "I
+want to know about this. You got my daughter to say she'd marry you
+this evenin', and you've got to explain to me about this bank business
+before it goes any further."
+
+"Yes?" commented Nat civilly.
+
+"Yes!" thundered Blinky. "Do you deny it? ... Answer me."
+
+To Kellogg's huge diversion, Nat struck an attitude, "I refuse to
+answer," said he.
+
+"Aha! What'd I tell you?" This was Roland's triumphant crow.
+
+"Nat!" Josie advanced, trembling with excitement. "Tell me, what does
+this mean?"
+
+Duncan perforce avoided her gaze. "Don't ask," he said sadly.
+
+"Is it true?" she insisted.
+
+"You heard what Roly said," he replied, with a chastened expression.
+
+"Then you admit it?"
+
+"I admit nothing."
+
+"Oh-h!" The girl drew away from him as from defilement. "I--I hate
+you!" she cried in a voice of loathing
+
+"That's all right," he told her serenely; "I've despised myself all
+evening."
+
+The girl showed him a scornful back. "Papa----" she began.
+
+"Don't thank me, Josie. Roland done it all: he got onto him." Lockwood
+continued to watch Duncan with the air of a cat eyeing a mouse.
+
+Impulsively Josie moved to Roland's side and caught his arm. He drew
+himself up proudly.
+
+"I do thank you, Roland; I can never be grateful enough. I've been so
+foolish.
+
+"That's all right." Roland tucked the girl's hand beneath his arm and
+patted it down. "You wasn't to blame. I never seen anyone from Noo York
+yet that wasn't a crook."
+
+"Won't you please take me away from this--place, Roland?" she appealed.
+
+"I'll be mighty glad to see you home, Josie," he assured her
+generously, turning.
+
+In the act of leaving, Josie caught Nat's eye. She hung back for an
+instant, withering him with a glare. "Oh-h!" she cried. "How did you
+dare pretend to care for me?"
+
+He bowed politely. "It was one of the rules, Josie."
+
+"There's no need to tell you, I guess, that the engagement is broken."
+
+"None whatever, Miss Lockwood. Good-evening."
+
+"Come, Roland!"
+
+Arm in arm they left, with the haughty tread of the elect, while Pete
+Willing lurched to Duncan's side and caught his arm.
+
+"Come 'long to jail, Mish'r Duncan," he said with sympathy. "Mush
+bessher."
+
+"You look after him, Pete." Lockwood turned to leave with a final shot
+for Duncan. "I'll 'tend to your case in the mornin', young man, and
+I'll make you wish you never came to this town."
+
+"You needn't trouble. I feel that way about it already. _Good_-night."
+
+Lockwood left them, snarling. Nat caught Kellogg's eye and began to
+giggle. But Pete was still holding him fast, partially, beyond doubt,
+for support.
+
+"You've been saved just in time, Mish'r Duncan," he commented; "y'are
+mighty lucky man. Now lissen: you better make tracks. I ain't got no
+warrant to hold you, 'nd I wouldn't if I had."
+
+"You're a good fellow, Pete; but you needn't worry. I'm not the man
+they think me, and it'll be easy to prove."
+
+"Wal," said Pete, "jus' the same, you better git out, 'r you may have
+to marry her aft'all."
+
+"No, I won't."
+
+"Thank Gawd f'r that!" Pete exclaimed in maudlin gratitude. He swung
+widely toward the door, and by a miracle found it. "G'night, Mish'r
+Duncan. I feel s' good 'bout thish I'm goin' try goin' home 'nd face m'
+wife. G'night."
+
+"Good-night, Pete."
+
+"Well!" said Kellogg after a pause, "that was a bit of luck!"
+
+"Luck!" Nat seized his hat and began to turn off the lights. "It's more
+luck than I thought there was in the whole world. Come along."
+
+"Where are you going?"
+
+"First, to see Lockwood and have it out with him."
+
+"No, you aren't," Kellogg laughed as Nat locked the door. "You're going
+to leave Lockwood to me; I'll manage to ease his mind. You've got
+infinitely more important matters to attend to--and the sooner you find
+her, the better, Nat!"
+
+
+
+
+XXIII
+
+
+THE RAINBOW'S END
+
+The air was heavy with moisture and very still and warm; a heady
+fragrance of precocious blooms flavoured the air, vying with the scent
+of rain. The silence was profound, but shaken now and then by a grumble
+of distant thunder. The world hung breathless on the issue of the night.
+
+Since evenfall a wall of cloud, massive and portentous, had been
+climbing up over the western hills, slowly but with ominous steadiness
+obscuring the moon-swept sky with its far, pale wreaths of stars,
+blotting it out with monstrous folds and convolutions of impenetrable
+purple-black. Along its crest fire played like swords in the sunlight,
+and now and again sheeted flame lightened the monstrous expanse so that
+it glowed with the pale phosphorescence of a summer sea.
+
+As Duncan hurried homeward over sidewalks chequered in silver and ink,
+the advance of the cloud army seemed to become accelerated. With
+increasing frequency gusts of air set the trees a-shiver until their
+sibilant whispers of warning filled the valley. The rolling of the
+thunder grew more sharp, more instant upon the flashes.... When there
+was no wind the air seemed to quiver with terror--as a dog cringes to
+the whip....
+
+But of this Duncan was barely conscious.
+
+He gained the gate in the fence of wood paling, opened it, and entered.
+The lawn and house were lit with the unearthly radiance of moonlight
+threatened by eclipse. He could see the light in Graham's study and,
+through the open doors, the faint glow of the hall-lamp. But there was
+no one visible.
+
+He hurried up the path, tortured by impatience, fear, longing,
+despair....
+
+Then he saw what seemed at first a pale shadow detach itself from
+darker shades in the shrubbery and move toward him.
+
+"Nat, is it you?"
+
+"Betty!"
+
+His whole heart was in that cry; the girl thrilled to its timbre as
+though a master hand had struck a chord upon her heart-strings.
+
+"Nat, what--what is it?"
+
+"Betty, I want to tell you something."
+
+She came very slowly toward him, torn alternately by fear and hope.
+What did he mean?
+
+"Do you happen to remember that I told you a while ago I was engaged to
+Josie Lockwood?"
+
+[Illustration: "Forever and ever and a day"]
+
+"Nat! Could I forget? ... Why?"
+
+"Because ... it's broken off, Betty."
+
+"Broken off! ... How? Why?"
+
+"Because it had to be, sweetheart: because I love you."
+
+She was very close to him then. Her uplifted face shone like marble in
+the fading light. "Nat, I ... I don't understand."
+
+"Then, listen--I must tell you. It was all a plan, a scheme, my coming
+here, Betty. Everything I did, said, thought, was part of a
+contemptible trick.... I meant to marry Josie Lockwood, whom I'd never
+seen, for her money. ... Now you know what I was, dear.... But it's
+different, now. I'm not the same man who came to Radville ten months
+ago. I've learned a little to understand the right, I hope: I've
+learned to love and reverence goodness and purity and unselfishness and
+... And I want to be a man, the kind of a man you thought me: a man
+worthy of you and your love, Betty.... Because I love you. I want you
+to be my wife. ... And, O Betty, Betty, I need you to help me!"
+
+His voice broke. He waited, every nerve and fibre of him tense for her
+answer. While he had been speaking, the onrush of the storm had blotted
+out the moon. There was only darkness there in the garden--deep, dense
+darkness, so thick he could not even see the shimmer of her dress....
+
+Then suddenly she was in his arms, shaking and sobbing, straining him
+to her.
+
+"Oh, Nat, my Nat! I've loved you from the first day I ever saw you! You
+know I have."
+ "Betty! ... sweetheart..."
+
+There came an abrupt, furious patter of heavy drops of water, beating
+upon the foliage, splashing and rebounding from the house.
+
+"Forever and ever, Nat?"
+
+"Forever and ever and a day, my dear ... my dear!"
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Fortune Hunter, by Louis Joseph Vance
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FORTUNE HUNTER ***
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Fortune Hunter, by Louis Joseph Vance
+#3 in our series by Louis Joseph Vance
+
+Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
+copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing
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+**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**
+
+*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****
+
+
+Title: The Fortune Hunter
+
+Author: Louis Joseph Vance
+
+Release Date: January, 2006 [EBook #9747]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on October 15, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FORTUNE HUNTER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Suzanne Shell, Anuradha Valsa Raj,
+Tonya Allen and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: "You can be worth a million ... within a year"]
+
+
+THE FORTUNE HUNTER
+
+By
+
+Louis Joseph Vance
+
+Author Of "The Brass Bowl,"
+"The Bronze Bell," Etc.
+
+_With illustrations by_
+Arthur William Brown
+
+1910
+
+
+To
+George Spellvin, Esq.,
+
+_This book is cheerfully dedicated_
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+CHAPTER
+
+
+I.       FROM HIM THAT HATH NOT
+
+II.      TO HIM THAT HATH
+
+III.     INSPIRATION
+
+IV.      TRIUMPH OF MR. HOMER LITTLE JOHN
+
+V.       MARGARET'S DAUGHTER
+
+VI.      INTRODUCTION TO MISS CARPENTER
+
+VII.     A WINDOW IN RADVILLE
+
+VIII.    THE MAN OF BUSINESS IN EMBRYO
+
+IX.      SMALL BEGINNINGS
+
+X.       ROLAND BARNETTE'S FRIEND
+
+XI.      BLINKY LOCKWOOD
+
+XII.     DUNCAN'S GRUBSTAKE
+
+XIII.    THE BUSINESS MAN AND MR. BURNHAM
+ XIV.     MOSTLY ABOUT BETTY
+
+XV.      MANOEUVRES OF JOSIE
+
+XVI.     WHERE RADVILLE FEARED TO TREAD
+
+XVII.    TRACEY'S TROUBLES
+
+XVIII.   A BARGAIN IS A BARGAIN
+
+XIX.     PROVING THE PERSIPICUITY OF MR. KELLOGG
+
+XX.      ROLAND SHOWS HIS HAND
+
+XXI.     AS OTHERS SAW HIM
+
+XXII.    ROLAND'S TRIUMPH
+
+XXIII.   THE RAINBOW'S END
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+"You can be worth a million ... within a year"
+
+"You mean you're going to work here?"
+
+"Four hundred dollars, Mr. Sheriff"
+
+"Betty!"
+
+"You're a thief with a reward out for you"
+
+"Forever and ever and a day"
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+
+FROM HIM THAT HATH NOT
+
+Receiver at ear, Spaulding, of Messrs. Atwater & Spaulding, importers
+of motoring garments and accessories, listened to the switchboard
+operator's announcement with grave attention, acknowledging it with a
+toneless: "All right. Send him in." Then hooking up the desk telephone
+he swung round in his chair to face the door of his private office, and
+in a brief ensuing interval painstakingly ironed out of his face and
+attitude every indication of the frame of mind in which he awaited his
+caller. It was, as a matter of fact, anything but a pleasant one: he
+had a distasteful duty to perform; but that was the last thing he
+designed to become evident. Like most good business men he nursed a pet
+superstition or two, and of the number of these the first was that he
+must in all his dealings present an inscrutable front, like a
+poker-player's: captains of industry were uniformly like that,
+Spaulding understood; if they entertained emotions it was strictly in
+private. Accordingly he armoured himself with a magnificent
+imperturbability which at times almost deceived its wearer.
+
+Occasionally it deceived others: notably now it bewildered Duncan as he
+entered on the echo of Spaulding's "Come!" He had apprehended the
+visage of a thunderstorm, with a rattle of brusque complaints: he
+encountered Spaulding as he had always seemed: a little, urbane figure
+with a blank face, the blanker for glasses whose lenses seemed always
+to catch the light and, glaring, mask the eyes behind them; a
+prosperous man of affairs, well groomed both as to body and as to mind;
+a machine for the transaction of business, with all a machine's
+vivacity and temperamental responsiveness. It was just that quality in
+him that Duncan envied, who was vaguely impressed that, if he himself
+could only imitate, however minutely, the phlegm of a machine, he might
+learn to ape something of its efficiency and so, ultimately, prove
+himself of some worth to the world--and, incidentally, to Nathaniel
+Duncan. Thus far his spasmodic attempts to adapt to the requirements
+and limitations of the world of business his own equipment of misfit
+inclinations and ill-assorted abilities, had unanimously turned out
+signal failures. So he envied Spaulding without particularly admiring
+him.
+
+Now the sight of his employer, professionally bland and capable, and
+with no animus to be discerned in his attitude, provided Duncan with
+one brief, evanescent flash of hope, one last expiring instant of
+dignity (tempered by his unquenchable humour) in which to face his
+fate. Something of the hang-dog vanished from his habit and for a
+little time he carried himself again with all his one-time grace and
+confidence.
+
+"Good-afternoon, Mr. Spaulding," he said, replying to a nod as he
+dropped into the chair that nod had indicated. A faint smile lightened
+his expression and made it quite engaging.
+
+"G'dafternoon." Spaulding surveyed him swiftly, then laced his fat
+little fingers and contemplated them with detached intentness. "Just
+get in, Duncan?"
+
+"On the three-thirty from Chicago...."
+
+There was a pause, during which Spaulding reviewed his fingernails with
+impartial interest; in that pause Duncan's poor little hope died a
+natural death. "I got your wire," he resumed; "I mean, it got
+me--overtook me at Minneapolis.... So here I am."
+
+"You haven't wasted time."
+
+"I fancied the matter might be urgent, sir."
+
+Spaulding lifted his brows ever so slightly. "Why?"
+
+"Well, I gathered from the fact that you wired
+me to come home that you wanted my advice."
+
+A second time Spaulding gestured with his eyebrows, for once fairly
+surprised out of his pose. "_Your_ advice!..."
+
+"Yes," said Duncan evenly: "as to whether you ought to give up your
+customers on my route or send them a man who could sell goods."
+
+"Well...." Spaulding admitted.
+
+"Oh, don't think I'm boasting of my acuteness: anybody could have
+guessed as much from the great number of heavy orders I have not been
+sending you."
+
+"You've had bad luck...."
+
+"You mean you have, Mr. Spaulding. It was good luck for me to be
+drawing down my weekly cheques, bad luck to you not to have a man who
+could earn them."
+
+His desperate honesty touched Spaulding a trifle; at the risk of not
+seeming a business man to himself he inclined dubiously to relent, to
+give Duncan another chance. The fellow was likeable enough, his
+employer considered; he had good humour and even in dejection,
+distinction; whatever he was not, he was a man of birth and breeding.
+His face might be rusty with a day-old stubble, as it was; his
+shirt-cuffs frayed, his shoes down at the heel, his baggy clothing
+weirdly ready-made, as they were: there remained his air. You'd think
+he might amount to something, to somewhat more than a mere something,
+given half a chance in the right direction. Then what?... Spaulding
+sought from Duncan elucidation of this riddle.
+
+"Duncan," he said, "what's the trouble?"
+
+"I thought you knew that; I thought that was
+why you called me in with my route half-covered."
+
+"You mean--?"
+
+"I mean I can't sell your line."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"God only knows. I want to, badly enough. It's just general
+incompetence, I presume."
+
+"What makes you think that?"
+
+Duncan smiled bitterly. "Experience," he said.
+
+"You've tried--what else?"
+
+"A little of everything--all the jobs open to a man with a knowledge of
+Latin and Greek and the higher mathematics: shipping clerk,
+time-keeper, cashier--all of 'em."
+
+"And yet Kellogg believes in you."
+
+Duncan nodded dolefully. "Harry's a good friend. We roomed together at
+college. That's why he stands for me."
+
+"He says you only need the right opening--."
+
+"And nobody knows where that is, except my unfortunate employers: it's
+the back door going out, for mine every time.... Oh, Harry's been a
+prince to me. He's found me four or five jobs with friends of his--like
+yourself. But I don't seem to last. You see I was brought up to be
+ornamental and irregular rather than useful; to blow about in motor
+cars and keep a valet busy sixteen hours a day--and all that sort of
+thing. My father's failure--you know about that?"
+
+Spaulding nodded. Duncan went on gloomily, talking a great deal more
+freely than he would at any other time--suffering, in fact, from that
+species of auto hypnosis induced by the sound of his own voice
+recounting his misfortunes, which seems especially to affect a man down
+on his luck.
+
+"That smash came when I was five years out of college--I'd never
+thought of turning my hand to anything in all that time. I'd always had
+more coin than I could spend--never had to consider the worth of money
+or how hard it is to earn: my father saw to all that. He seemed not to
+want me to work: not that I hold that against him; he'd an idea I'd
+turn out a genius of some sort or other, I believe.... Well, he failed
+and died all in a week, and I found myself left with an extensive
+wardrobe, expensive tastes, an impractical education--and not so much
+of that that you'd notice it--and not a cent.... I was too proud to
+look to my friends for help in those days--and perhaps that was as
+well; I sought jobs on my own.... Did you ever keep books in a
+fish-market?"
+
+"No." Spaulding's eyes twinkled behind his large, shiny glasses.
+
+"But what's the use of my boring you?" Duncan made as if to rise,
+suddenly remembering himself.
+
+"You're not. Go on."
+
+"I didn't mean to; mostly, I presume, I've been blundering round an
+explanation of Kellogg's kindness to me, in my usual ineffectual
+way--felt somehow an explanation was due you, as the latest to suffer
+through his misplaced interest in me."
+
+"Perhaps," said Spaulding, "I am beginning to understand. Go on: I'm
+interested. About the fish-market?"
+
+"Oh, I just happened to think of it as a sample experience--and the
+last of that particular brand. I got nine dollars a week and earned
+every cent of it inhaling the atmosphere. My board cost me six and the
+other three afforded me a chance to demonstrate myself a captain of
+finance--paying laundry bills and clothing myself, besides buying
+lunches and such-like small matters. I did the whole thing, you
+know--one schooner of beer a day and made my own cigarettes: never
+could make up my mind which was the worst. The hours were easy, too:
+didn't have to get to work until five in the morning.... I lasted five
+weeks at that job, before I was taken sick: shows what a great
+constitution I've got."
+
+He laughed uncertainly and paused, thoughtful, his eyes vacant, fixed
+upon the retrospect that was a grim prospect of the imminent future.
+
+"And then--?"
+
+"Oh--?" Duncan roused. "Why, then I fell in with Kellogg again; he
+found me trying the open-air cure on a bench in Washington Square.
+Since then he's been finding me one berth after another. He's a
+sure-enough optimist."
+
+Spaulding shifted uneasily in his chair, stirred by an impulse whose
+unwisdom he could not doubt. Duncan had assuredly done his case no good
+by painting his shortcomings in colours so vivid; yet, somehow
+strangely, Spaulding liked him the better for his open-hearted
+confession.
+
+"Well...." Spaulding stumbled awkwardly.
+
+"Yes; of course," said Duncan promptly, rising. "Sorry if I tired you."
+
+"What do you mean by: 'Yes, of course'?"
+
+"That you called me in to fire me--and so that's over with. Only I'd be
+sorry to have you sore on Kellogg for saddling me on you. You see, he
+believed I'd make good, and so did I in a way: at least, I hoped to."
+
+"Oh, that's all right," said Spaulding uncomfortably. "The trouble is,
+you see, we've nothing else open just now. But if you'd really like
+another chance on the road, I--I'll be glad to speak to Mr. Atwater
+about it."
+
+"Don't you do it!" Duncan counselled him sharply, aghast. "He might say
+yes. And I simply couldn't accept; it wouldn't be fair to you, Kellogg,
+or myself. It'd be charity--for I've proved I can't earn my wages; and
+I haven't come to that yet. No!" he concluded with determination, and
+picked up his hat.
+
+"Just a minute." Spaulding held him with a gesture. "You're forgetting
+something: at least I am. There's a month's pay coming to you; the
+cashier will hand you the cheque as you go out."
+
+"A month's pay?" Duncan said blankly. "How's that? I've drawn up to the
+end of this week already, if you didn't know it."
+
+"Of course I knew it. But we never let our men go without a month's
+notice or its equivalent, and--"
+
+"No," Duncan interrupted firmly. "No; but thank you just the same. I
+couldn't. I really couldn't. It's good of you, but ... Now," he broke
+off abruptly, "I've left my accounts--what there is of them--with the
+book-keeping department, and the checks for my sample trunks. There'll
+be a few dollars coming to me on my expense account, and I'll send you
+my address as soon as I get one."
+
+"But look here--" Spaulding got to his feet, frowning.
+
+"No," reiterated Duncan positively. "There's no use. I'm grateful to
+you for your toleration of me--and all that. But we can't do anything
+better now than call it all off. Good-bye, Mr. Spaulding."
+
+Spaulding nodded, accepting defeat with the better grace because of an
+innate conviction that it was just as well, after all. And,
+furthermore, he admired Duncan's stand. So he offered his hand: an
+unusual condescension. "You'll make good somewhere yet," he asserted.
+
+"I wish I could believe it." Duncan's grasp was firm since he felt more
+assured of some humanity latent in his late employer. "However ...
+Good-bye."
+
+"Good luck to you," rang in his ears as the door put a period to the
+interview. He stopped and took up the battered suitcase and rusty
+overcoat which he had left outside the junior partner's office, then
+went on, shaking his head. "Much obliged," he said huskily to himself.
+"But what's the good of that. There's no room anywhere for a
+professional failure. And that's what I am; just a ne'er-do-well. I
+never realised what that meant, really, before, and it's certainly
+taken me a damn' long time to find out. But I know now, all right...."
+
+Outside, on the steps of the building, he paused a moment, fascinated
+by the brisk spectacle afforded by lower Broadway at the hour when the
+cave-like offices in its cliff-like walls begin to empty themselves,
+when the overlords and their lieutenants close their desks and turn
+their faces homewards, leaving the details of the day's routine to be
+wound up by underlings. In the clear light of the late spring afternoon
+a stream of humanity was high and fluent upon the sidewalks. Duncan had
+glimpses of keen-faced men, bright-faced women, eager boys, quickened
+all by that manner of efficiency and intelligence which seems so
+integrally American. A well-dressed throng, well-fed, amiable and
+animated, looking ever forward, the resistless tide of affairs that
+gave it being bore it onward; it passed the onlooker as a strong
+current passes flotsam in a back-eddy, with no pause, no turning aside.
+Acutely he felt his aloofness from it, who had no part in its interests
+and scarcely any comprehension of them. The sunken look, the leanness
+of his young face, seemed suddenly accentuated; the gloom in his
+discontented eyes deepened; his slight habitual stoop became more
+noticeable. And a second time he nodded acquiescence to his unspoken
+thought.
+
+"There," said he, singling out a passer-by upon whose complacent
+features prosperity had set its smug hall-mark--"there, but for the
+grace of God, goes Nat Duncan!" He rolled the paraphrase upon his
+tongue and found it bitter--not, however, with a tonic bitterness.
+"Lord, what a worthless critter I am! No good to myself--nor to anybody
+else. Even on Harry I'm a drag--a regular old man of the mountains!"
+
+Despondently he went down to the sidewalk and merged himself with the
+crowd, moving with it though a thousand miles apart from it, and
+presently diverging, struck across-town toward the Worth Street subway
+station.
+
+"And the worst of it is, he's too sharp not to find it out--if he
+hasn't by this time--and too damn' decent by far to let me know if he
+has! ... It can't go on this way with us: I can't let him ... Got to
+break with him somehow--now--to-day. I won't let him think me ... what
+I've been all along to him.... Bless his foolish heart!..."
+
+This resolution coloured his reverie throughout the uptown journey. And
+he strengthened himself with it, deriving a sort of acrid comfort from
+the knowledge that henceforth none should know the burden of his
+misfortunes save himself. There was no deprecation of Kellogg's
+goodness in his mood, simply determination no longer to be a charge
+upon it. To contemplate the sum total of the benefits he had received
+at Kellogg's hands, since the day when the latter had found him ill and
+half-starved, friendless as a stray pup, on the bench in Washington
+Square, staggered his imagination. He could never repay it, he told
+himself, save inadequately, little by little--mostly by gratitude and
+such consideration as he purposed now to exhibit by removing himself
+and his distresses from the other's ken. Here was an end to comfort for
+him, an end to living in Kellogg's rooms, eating his food, busying his
+servants, spending his money--not so much borrowed as pressed upon him.
+He stood at the cross-roads, but in no doubt as to which way he should
+most honourably take, though it took him straight back to that from
+which Kellogg had rescued him.
+
+There crawled in his mind a clammy memory of the sort of housing he had
+known in those evil days, and he shuddered inwardly, smelling again the
+effluvia of dank oilcloth and musty carpets, of fish-balls and fried
+ham, of old-style plumbing and of nine-dollar-a-week humanity in the
+unwashen raw--the odour of misery that permeated the lodgings to which
+his lack of means had introduced him. He could see again, and with a
+painful vividness of mental vision, the degenerate "brownstone fronts"
+that mask those haunts of wretchedness, with their flights of crumbling
+brownstone steps leading up to oaken portals haggard with flaking
+paint, flanked by squares of soiled note-paper upon which inexpert
+hands had traced the warning, not: "Abandon hope all ye who enter
+here," but: "Furnished rooms to let with board." And pursuing this grim
+trail of memory, whether he would or no--again he climbed, wearily at
+the end of a wearing day, a darksome well of a staircase up and up to
+an eyrie under the eaves, denominated in the terminology of landladies
+a "top hall back"--a cramped refuge haunted by pitiful ghosts of the
+hopes and despairs of its former tenants. And he remembered with
+reminiscently aching muscles the comfort of such a "single bed" as is
+peculiar (one hopes) to top hall backs, and with a qualm what it was to
+cook a surreptitious meal on a metal heater clamped to the gas-bracket
+(with ears keen to catch the scuffle of the landlady's feet as she
+skulked in the hall, jealous of her gas bill).
+
+And to this he must return, to that treadmill round of blighted days
+and joyless nights must set his face....
+
+Alighting at the Grand Central Station he packed the double weight of
+his luggage and his cares a few blocks northward on Madison Avenue ere
+turning west toward the bachelor rooms which Kellogg had established in
+the roaring Forties, just the other side of _the_ Avenue--Fifth
+Avenue, on a corner of which Duncan presently was held up for a time by
+a press of traffic. He lingered indifferently, waiting for the mounted
+policeman to clear a way across, watching the while with lack-lustre
+eyes the interminable procession of cabs and landaus, taxis and
+town-cars that romped by hazardously, crowding the street from curb to
+curb.
+
+The day was of young June, though grey and a little chill with the
+discouraged spirit of a retarded season. Though the hegira of the
+well-to-do to their summer homes had long since set in, still there
+remained in the city sufficient of their class to keep the Avenue
+populous from Twenty-third Street north to the Plaza in the evening
+hours. The suggestion of wealth, or luxury, of money's illimitable
+power, pervaded the atmosphere intensely, an ineluctable influence, to
+an independent man heady, to Duncan maddening. He surveyed the parade
+with mutiny in his heart. All this he had known, a part of it had
+been--upon a time. Now ... the shafts of his roving eyes here and there
+detected faces recognisable, of men and women whose acquaintance he had
+once owned. None recognised him who stood there worn, shabby and tired.
+He even caught the direct glance of a girl who once had thought him
+worth winning, who had set herself to stir his heart and--had been
+successful. To-day she looked him straight in the eyes, apparently,
+with undisturbed serenity, then as calmly looked over and through and
+beyond him. Her limousine hurried her on, enthroned impregnably above
+the envious herd.
+
+He sped her transit with a mirthless chuckle. "You're right," he said,
+"dead right. You simply don't know me any more, my dear--you musn't;
+you can't afford to any more than I could afford to know you."
+
+None the less the fugitive incident seemed to brim his disconsolate
+cup. In complete dejection of mind and spirit he pushed on to Kellogg's
+quarters, buoyed by a single hope--that Kellogg might be out of town or
+delayed at his office.
+
+In that event Duncan might have a chance to gather up his belongings
+and escape unhandicapped by the immediate necessity of justifying his
+course. At another time, surely, the explanation was inevitable; say
+to-morrow; he was not cur enough to leave his friend without a word.
+But to-night he would willingly be spared. He apprehended unhappily the
+interview with Kellogg; he was in no temper for argumentation, felt
+scarcely strong enough to hold his own against the fire of objections
+with which Kellogg would undoubtedly seek to shake his stand. Kellogg
+could talk, Heaven alone knew how winningly he could talk! with all the
+sound logic of a close reasoner, all the enthusiasm of youth and
+self-confidence, all the persuasiveness of profound conviction singular
+to successful men. Duncan had been wont to say of him that Kellogg
+could talk the hind-leg off of a mule. He recalled this now with a sour
+grin: "That means me..."
+
+The elevator boy, knowing him of old, neglected to announce his
+arrival, and Duncan had his own key to the door of Kellogg's apartment.
+He let himself in with futile stealth: as was quite right and proper,
+Kellogg's man Robbins was in attendance--a stupefied Robbins,
+thunderstruck by the unexpected return of his master's friend and
+guest. "Good Lord!" he cried at sight of Duncan. "Beg your pardon, sir,
+but--but it can't be you!"
+
+"Your mistake, Robbins. Unfortunately it is." Duncan surrendered his
+luggage. "Mr. Kellogg in?"
+
+"No, sir. But I'm expecting him any minute. He'll be surprised to see
+you back."
+
+"Think so?" said Duncan dully. "He doesn't know me, if he is."
+
+"You see, sir, we thought you was out West."
+
+"So you did." Duncan moved toward the door of his own bedroom, Robbins
+following.
+
+"It was only yesterday I posted a letter to you for Mr. Kellogg, sir,
+and the address was Omaha."
+
+"I didn't get that far. Fetch along that suitcase, will you please? I
+want to put some clean things in it."
+
+"Then you're not staying in town over night, Mr. Duncan?"
+
+"I don't know. I'm not staying here, anyway." Duncan switched on the
+lights in his room. "Put it on the bed, Robbins. I'll pack as quickly
+as I can. I'm in a hurry."
+
+"Yes, sir, but--I hope there's nothing wrong?"
+
+"Then you lose," returned Duncan grimly: "everything's wrong." He
+jerked viciously at an obstinate bureau drawer, and when it yielded
+unexpectedly with the well-known impishness of the inanimate, dumped
+upon the floor a tangled miscellany of shirts, socks, gloves, collars
+and ties.
+
+"Didn't you like the business, sir?"
+
+"No, I didn't like the business--and it didn't like me. It's the same
+old story, Robbins. I've lost my job again--that's all."
+
+"I'm very sorry, sir."
+
+"Thank you--but that's all right. I'm used to it."
+
+"And you're going to leave, sir?"
+
+"I am, Robbins."
+
+"I--may I take the liberty of hoping it's to take another position?"
+
+"You may, but you lose a second time. I've just made up my mind I'm not
+going to hang round here any longer. That's all."
+
+"But," Robbins ventured, hovering about with exasperating
+solicitude--"but Mr. Kellogg'd never permit you to leave in this way,
+sir."
+
+"Wrong again, Robbins," said Duncan curtly, annoyed.
+
+"Yes, sir. Very good, sir." With the instinct of the well-trained
+servant, Robbins started to leave, but hesitated. He was really very
+much disturbed by Duncan's manner, which showed a phase of his
+character new in Robbins' experience of him. Ordinarily reverses such
+as this had seemed merely to serve to put Duncan on his mettle, to
+infuse him with a determination to try again and win out, whatever the
+odds; and at such times he was accustomed to exhibit a mad
+irresponsibility of wit and a gaiety of spirit (whether it were a mask
+or no) that only outrivalled his high good humour when things
+ostensibly were going well with him.
+
+Intermittently, between his spasms of employment, he had been Kellogg's
+guest for several years, not infrequently for months at a time; and so
+Robbins had come to feel a sort of proprietary interest in the young
+man, second only to the regard which he had for his employer. Like most
+people with whom Duncan came in contact, Robbins admired him from a
+respectful distance, and liked him very well withal. He would have been
+much distressed to have harm happen to him, and he was very much
+concerned and alarmed to see him so candidly discouraged and sick at
+heart. Perhaps too quick to draw an inference, Robbins mistrusted his
+intentions; his dour habit boded ill in the servant's understanding:
+men in such moods were apt to act unwisely. But if only he might
+contrive to delay Duncan until Kellogg's return, he thought the former
+might yet be saved from the consequences of folly of some insensate
+sort. And casting about for an excuse, he grasped at the most sovereign
+solace he knew of.
+
+"Beg pardon, sir," he advanced, hesitant, "but perhaps you're just
+feeling a bit blue. Won't you let me bring you a drop of something?"
+
+"Of course I will," said Duncan emphatically over his shoulder. "And
+get it now, will you, while I'm packing.... And, Robbins!"
+
+"Sir?"
+
+"Only put a little in it."
+
+"A little what, sir?"
+
+"Seltzer, of course."
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+TO HIM THAT HATH
+
+It had been a forlorn hope at best, this attempt of his to escape
+Kellogg: Duncan acknowledged it when, his packing rudely finished, he
+started for the door, Robbins reluctantly surrendering the suit-case
+after exhausting his repertoire of devices to delay the young man. But
+at that instant the elevator gate clashed in the outer corridor and
+Kellogg's key rattled in the lock, to an accompanying confusion of
+voices, all masculine and all very cheerful.
+
+Duncan sighed and motioned Robbins away with his luggage. "No hope
+now," he told himself. "But--O Lord!"
+
+Incontinently there burst into the room four men: Jim Long, Larry
+Miller, another whom Duncan did not immediately recognise, and Kellogg
+himself, bringing with them an atmosphere breezy with jubilation.
+Before he knew it Duncan was boisterously overwhelmed. He got his
+breath to find Kellogg pumping his hand.
+
+"Nat," he was saying, "you're the only other man on earth I was wishing
+could be with me tonight! Now my happiness is complete. Gad, this is
+lucky!"
+
+"You think so?" countered Duncan, forcing a smile. "Hello, you boys!"
+He gave a hand to Long and Miller. "How're you all?" He warmed to their
+friendly faces and unfeigned welcome. "My, but it's good to see you!"
+There was relief in the fact that Kellogg, after a single glance,
+forbore to question his return; he was to be counted upon for tact, was
+Kellogg. Now he strangled surprise by turning to the fourth member of
+the party.
+
+"Nat," he said, "I want you to meet Mr. Bartlett. Mr. Bartlett, Mr.
+Duncan."
+
+A wholesome smile dawned on Duncan's face as he encountered the blank
+blue stare of a young man whose very smooth and very bright red face
+was admirably set off by semi-evening dress. "Great Scott!" he cried,
+warmly pressing the lackadaisical hand that drifted into his. "Willy
+Bartlett--after all these years!"
+
+A sudden animation replaced the vacuous stare of the blue eyes.
+"Duncan!" he stammered. "I say, this is rippin'!"
+
+"As bad as that?" Duncan essayed an accent almost English and nodded
+his appreciation of it: something which Bartlett missed completely.
+
+He was very young--a very great deal younger, Duncan thought, than when
+they had been classmates, what time Duncan shared his rooms with
+Kellogg: very much younger and suffering exquisitely from
+over-sophistication. His drawl barely escaped being inimitable; his air
+did not escape it. "Smitten with my old trouble," Duncan appraised him:
+"too much money... Heaven knows I hope he never recovers!"
+
+As for Willy, he was momentarily more nearly human than he had seemed
+from the moment of his first appearance. "You know," he blurted, "this
+is simply extraordinary. I say, you chaps, Duncan and I haven't met for
+years--not since he graduated. We belonged to the same frat, y'know,
+and had a jolly time of it, if he was an upper-class man. No side about
+him at all, y'know--absolutely none whatever. Whenever I had to go out
+on a spree, I'd always get Nat to show me round."
+
+"I was pretty good at that," Duncan admitted a trifle ruefully.
+
+But Willy rattled on, heedless. "He knew more pretty gels, y'know... I
+say, old chap, d'you know as many now?"
+
+Duncan shook his head. "The list has shrunk. I'm a changed man, Willy."
+
+"Ow, I say, you're chawfin'," Willy argued incredulously. "I don't
+believe that, y'know--hardly. I say, you remember the night you showed
+me how to play faro bank?"
+
+"I'll never forget it," Duncan told him gravely. "And I remember what a
+plug we thought my room-mate was because he wouldn't come with us." He
+nodded significantly toward the amused Kellogg.
+
+"Not him!" cried Willy, expostulant. "Not really? Why it cawn't be!"
+
+"Fact," Duncan assured him. "He was working his way through college,
+you see, whereas I was working my way through my allowance--and then
+some. That's why you never met him, Willy: he worked--and got the
+habit. We loafed--with the same result. That's why he's useful and
+you're ornamental, and I'm--" He broke off in surprise. "Hello!" he
+said as Robbins offered a tray to the three on which were slim-stemmed
+glasses filled with a pale yellow, effervescent liquid. "Why the blond
+waters of excitement, please?" he inquired, accepting a glass.
+
+From across the room Larry Miller's voice sounded. "Are you ready,
+gentlemen? We'll drink to him first and then he can drink to his royal
+little self. To the boy who's getting on in the world! To the junior
+member of L.J. Bartlett and Company!"
+
+Long applauded loudly: "Hear! Hear!" And even Willy Bartlett chimed in
+with an unemotional: "Good work!" Mechanically Duncan downed the toast;
+Kellogg was the only man not drinking it, and from that the meaning was
+easily to be inferred. With a stride Duncan caught his hand and crushed
+it in his own.
+
+"Harry," he said a little huskily, "I can't tell you how glad I am!
+It's the best news I've had in years!"
+
+Kellogg's responsive pressure was answer enough. "It makes it doubly
+worth while, to win out and have you all so glad!" he said.
+
+"So you've taken him into the firm, eh?" Duncan inquired of Bartlett.
+
+The blue eyes widened stonily. "The governor has. I'm not in the
+business, y'know. Never had the slightest turn for it, what?" Willy set
+aside his glass. "I say, I must be moving. No, I cawn't stop, Kellogg,
+really. I was dressin' at the club and Larry told me about it, so I
+just dropped round to tell you how jolly glad I am."
+
+"Your father hadn't told you, then?"
+
+"Who, the governor?" Willy looked unutterably bored. "Why, he gave up
+tryin' to talk business with me long ago. I can't get interested in it,
+'pon my word. Of course I knew he thought the deuce and all of you, but
+I hadn't an idea they were goin' to take you into the firm. What?"
+
+Long and Miller interrupted, proposing adieus which Kellogg vainly
+contended.
+
+"Why, you're only just here--" he expostulated.
+
+
+
+"Cawn't help it, old chap," Willy assured him earnestly. "I must go,
+anyway. I've a dinner engagement."
+
+"You'll be late, won't you?"
+
+"Doesn't matter in the least; I'm always late. 'Night, Kellogg.
+Congratulations again."
+
+"We just dropped round to take off our hats to you," Long continued,
+pumping Kellogg's hand.
+
+"And tell you what a good fellow we think you are," added Miller,
+following suit.
+
+"You don't know how good you make me feel," Kellogg told them.
+
+Under cover of this diversion Duncan was making one last effort to slip
+away; but before he could gather together his impedimenta and get to
+the door Willy Bartlett intercepted him.
+
+"I say, Duncan--"
+
+"Oh, hell!" said Duncan beneath his breath. He paused ungraciously
+enough.
+
+"We've got to see a bit of one another, now we've met again, y'know.
+Wish you'd look me up--Half Moon Club'll get me 'most any time. We'll
+have to arrange to make a regular old-fashioned night of it, just for
+memory's sake."
+
+Duncan nodded, edging past him. "I've memories enough," he said.
+
+"Right-oh! Any reason at all, y'know, just so we have the night."
+
+"Good enough," assented Duncan vaguely. He suffered his hand to be
+wrung with warmth. "I'll not forget--good-night." Then he pulled up and
+groaned, for Willy's insistence had frustrated his design: Kellogg had
+suddenly become alive to his attitude and hailed him over the heads of
+Long and Miller.
+
+"Nat, I say! Where the devil are you going?"
+
+"Over to the hotel," said Duncan.
+
+"The deuce you are! What hotel?"
+
+"The one I'm stopping at."
+
+"Not on your life. You're not going just yet--I haven't had half a
+chance to talk to you. Robbins, take Mr. Duncan's things."
+
+Duncan, set upon by Robbins, who had been hovering round for just that
+purpose, lifted his shoulders in resignation, turning back into the
+room as Miller and Long said good-night to him and left at Bartlett's
+heels, and smiled awry in semi-humorous deprecation of the way in which
+he let Kellogg out-manoeuvre him. When it came to that, it was hard to
+refuse Kellogg anything; he had that way with him. Especially if one
+liked him... And how could anyone help liking him?
+
+Kellogg had him now, holding him fast by either shoulder, at arm's
+length, and shaking a reproving head at his friend. "You big duffer!"
+he said. "Did you think for a minute I'd let you throw me down like
+that?"
+
+Duncan stood passive, faintly amused and touched by the other's show of
+affection. "No," he said, "I didn't really think so. But it was worth
+trying on, of course."
+
+"Look here, have you dined?"
+
+'At this suggestion Duncan stiffened and fell back. "No, but--"
+
+Kellogg swept the ground from under his feet. "Robbins," he told the
+man, "order in dinner for two from the club, and tell 'em to hurry it
+up."
+
+"Yes, sir," said Robbins, and flew to obey before Duncan could get a
+chance to countermand his part in the order.
+
+"And now," continued Kellogg, "we've got the whole evening before us in
+which to chin. Sit down." He led Duncan to an arm-chair and gently but
+firmly plumped him into its capacious depths. "We'll have a snug little
+dinner here and--what do you say to taking in a show afterwards?"
+
+"I say no."
+
+"You dassent, my boy. This is the night we celebrate. I'm feeling
+pretty good to-night."
+
+"You ought to, Harry." Duncan struggled to rouse himself to share in
+the spirit of gratulation with which Kellogg was bubbling. "I'm mighty
+glad, old man. It's a great step up for you."
+
+"It's all of that. You could have knocked me over with a feather when
+Bartlett sprang it on me this morning. Of course, I was expecting
+something--a boost in salary, or something like that. Bartlett knew
+that other houses in the Street had made me offers--I've been pretty
+lucky of late and pulled off one or two rather big deals--but a
+partnership with L.J. Bartlett--! Think of it, Nat!"
+
+"I'm thinking of it--and it's great."
+
+"It'll keep me mighty busy," Kellogg blundered blindly on; "it means a
+lot of extra work--but you know I like to work...."
+
+"That's right, you do," agreed Duncan drearily. "It's queer to me--it
+must be a great thing to like to work."
+
+"You bet it's a great thing; why, I couldn't exist if I couldn't work.
+You remember that time I laid off for a month in the country--for my
+health's sake? I'll never forget it: hanging round all the time with my
+hands empty--everyone else with something to do. I wouldn't go through
+with it again for a fortune. Never felt so useless and in the way--"
+
+"But," interrupted Duncan, knitting his brows as he grappled with this
+problem, "you were independent, weren't you? You had money--could pay
+your board?"
+
+"Of course; nevertheless, I felt in the way."
+
+"That's funny...."
+
+"It's straight."
+
+"I know it is; it wouldn't be you if you didn't love work. It wouldn't
+be me if I did.... Look here, Harry; suppose you didn't have any money
+and couldn't pay your board--and had nothing to do. How'd you feel in
+that case?"
+
+"I don't know. Anyhow, that's rot--"
+
+"No, it isn't rot. I'm trying to make you understand how I feel
+when--when it's that way with me.... As it generally is." He raised one
+hand and let it fall with a gesture of despondency so eloquent that it
+roused Kellogg out of his own preoccupation.
+
+"Why, Nat!" he cried, genuinely sympathetic. "I've been so taken up
+with myself that I forgot.... I hadn't looked for you till to-morrow."
+
+"You knew, then?"
+
+"I met Atwater at lunch to-day. He told me; said he was sorry, but--"
+
+"Yes. Everybody is always sorry, _but_--"
+
+Kellogg let his hand fall on Duncan's shoulder. "I'm sorry, too, old
+man. But don't lose heart. I know it's pretty tough on a fellow--"
+
+"The toughest part of it is that you got the job for me--and I
+_had_ to fall down."
+
+"Don't think of that. It's not your fault--"
+
+"You're the only man who believes that, Harry."
+
+"Buck up. I'll stumble across some better opening for you before long,
+and--"
+
+"Stop right there. I'm through--"
+
+"Don't talk that way, Nat. I'll get you in right somewhere."
+
+"You're the best-hearted man alive, Harry--but I'll see you damned
+first."
+
+"Wait." Kellogg demanded his attention. "Here's this man Burnham--you
+don't know him, but he's as keen as they make 'em. He's on the track of
+some wonderful scheme for making illuminating gas from crude oil; if it
+goes through--if the invention's really practicable--it's bound to work
+a revolution. He's down in Washington now--left this afternoon to look
+up the patents. Now he needs me, to get the ear of the Standard Oil
+people, and I'll get you in there."
+
+"What right've you got to do that?" demanded Duncan. "What the dickens
+do I know about illuminating gas or crude oil? Burnham'd never thank
+you for the likes o' me."
+
+"But--thunder!--you can learn. All you need--."
+
+"Now see here, Harry!" Duncan gave him pause with a manner not to be
+denied. "Once and for all time understand I'm through having you
+recommend an incompetent--just because we're friends."
+
+"But, Harry--"
+
+"And I'm through living on you while I'm out of a job. That's final."
+
+"But, man--listen to me!--when we were at college--"
+
+"That was another matter."
+
+"How many times did you pay the room-rent when I was strapped? How many
+times did your money pull me through when I'd have had to quit and
+forfeit my degree because I couldn't earn enough to keep on?"
+
+"That's different. You earned enough finally to square up. You don't
+owe me anything."
+
+"I owe you the gratitude for the friendly hand that put me in the way
+of earning--that kept me going when the going was rank. Besides, the
+conditions are just reversed now; you'll do just as I did--make good in
+the world and, when it's convenient, to me. As for living here, you're
+perfectly welcome."
+
+"I know it--and more," Duncan assented a little wearily. "Don't think I
+don't appreciate all you've done for me. But I know and you must
+understand that I can't keep on living on you,--and I won't."
+
+For once baffled, Kellogg stared at him in consternation. Duncan met
+his gaze steadily, strong in the sincerity of his attitude. At length
+Kellogg surrendered, accepting defeat. "Well...." He shrugged
+uncomfortably. "If you insist ..."
+
+"I do."
+
+"Then that's settled."
+
+"Yes, that's settled."
+
+"Dinner," said Robbins from the doorway, "is
+served."
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+INSPIRATION
+
+"Look here, Nat," demanded Kellogg, when they were half way through the
+meal, "do you mind telling me what you're going to do?"
+
+Duncan pondered this soberly. "No," he replied in the end.
+
+Kellogg waited a moment, but his guest did not continue. "What does
+that kind of a 'No' mean, Nat?"
+
+"It means I don't mind telling you."
+
+Again an appreciable pause elapsed.
+
+"Well, then, what do you mean to do?"
+
+"I'm sure I don't know."
+
+Kellogg regarded him sombrely for a moment, then in silence returned
+his attention to his plate; and in silence, for the most part, the
+remainder of the dinner was served and eaten. Duncan himself had
+certainly enough to occupy his mind, while Kellogg had altogether
+forgotten his own cause for rejoicing in his concern for the fortunes
+of his friend. He was entirely of the opinion that something would have
+to be done for Nat, with or without his consent; and he sounded the
+profoundest depths of romantic impossibilities in his attempts to
+discover some employment suited to Duncan's interesting but
+impracticable assortment of faculties and qualifications, natural and
+acquired. But nothing presented itself as feasible in view of the fact
+that employment which would prove immediately remunerative was
+required. And by the time that Robbins, clearing the board, left them
+alone with coffee and cigars and cigarettes, Kellogg was fain to
+confess failure--though the confession was a very private one, confined
+to himself only.
+
+"Nat," he said suddenly, rousing that young man out of the dreariest of
+meditations, "what under the sun _can_ you do?"
+
+"Me? I don't know. Why bother your silly old head about that? I'll make
+out somehow."
+
+"But surely there's something you'd rather do than anything else."
+
+"My dear sir," Duncan told him impressively, "the only walk of life in
+which I am fitted to shine is that of the idle son of a rich and
+foolish father. Since I lost that job I've not been worth my salt."
+
+"That's piffle. There isn't a man living who hasn't some talent or
+other, some sort of an ability concealed about his person."
+
+"You can search me," Duncan volunteered gloomily.
+
+His unresponsiveness irritated Kellogg; he thought a while, then
+delivered himself of a didactic conclusion:
+
+"The trouble with you is you were brought up all wrong."
+
+"Well, I've been brought down all right. Besides, that's a platitude in
+my case."
+
+"Let's see: I've know you--er--nine years."
+
+"Is it that long?" Duncan looked up from a gloomy inspection of the
+interior of his demitasse, displaying his first gleam of interest in
+this analysis of his character. "You are a long-suffering old duffer.
+Any man who'd stand for me for nine years--"
+
+"That'll be all of that," Kellogg cut in sharply. "I was going on to
+say that you can't room with a man for four terms at college and then
+know him, off and on, for five years more, pretty intimately, without
+forming a pretty clear estimate of what he's worth in your own mind."
+
+"And I don't mind telling you, Harry, I think you're the best little
+business man as well as the finest sort of an all-round good-fellow on
+this continent."
+
+"Thanks awfully. I presume that's why you're determined to throw me
+down just at the time you need me most.... What I was trying to get at
+is the fact that I've never doubted your ultimate success for an
+instant."
+
+"You'd be a mighty lonesome minority in a congress of my employers,
+Harry."
+
+"Given the proper opportunity--"
+
+"Hold on," Duncan interrupted. "I know just what you're going to say,
+and it's all very fine, and I'm proud that you want to say it of me.
+But you're dead wrong, Harry. The truth is I haven't got it in me--the
+capacity to succeed. Just as much as you love work, I hate it. I ought
+to know, for I've had a good, hard try at it--several tries, in fact.
+And you know what they came to."
+
+"But if you persist in this way, Nat,--don't you know what it means?"
+
+"None better. It means going back to what you helped me out of--the
+life that nearly killed me."
+
+"And you'd rather--"
+
+"I'd rather that a thousand years before I'd sponge on you another
+day.... But, on the level, I'd as lieve try the East River or turn on
+the gas.... What's the use? That's the way I feel."
+
+"That's fool talk. Brace up and be a man. All you need is a way to earn
+money."
+
+"No," Duncan insisted firmly: "get it. I'll never be able to earn
+it--that's a cinch."
+
+Kellogg laughed a little mirthlessly, absorbed in revolving something
+which had popped into his head within the last few moments. "There are
+ways to get it," he admitted abstractedly, "if you're not too
+particular."
+
+"I'm not. I only wish I understood the burglar business."
+
+This time Kellogg laughed outright. He sat up with a new spirit in his
+manner. "You mean you'd steal to get money?"
+
+"Oh, well ..." Duncan smiled a trace sheepishly. "I can't think of
+anything hardly I wouldn't do to get it."
+
+"Very well, my son. Now attend to uncle." Kellogg leaned across the
+table, fixing him with an enthusiastic eye. "Here, have a smoke. I'm
+going to demonstrate high finance to your debased intelligence." He
+thrust the cigarette case over to Duncan, who helped himself
+mechanically, his gaze held in wonder to Kellogg's face.
+
+"Fire when ready," he assented.
+
+"I know a way," said Kellogg slowly, "by which, if you'll discard a
+scruple or two, you can be worth a million dollars--or
+thereabouts--within a year."
+
+Duncan held a lighted match until it singed his fingertips, the while
+he stared agape. "Say that again," he requested mildly.
+
+"You can be worth a million in a year."
+
+"Ah!" Duncan nodded slowly and comprehendingly. He turned aside in his
+chair and raked a second match across the sole of his shoe. "Let him
+rave," he observed enigmatically, and began to smoke.
+ "No, I'm not dippy; and I'm perfectly serious."
+
+"Of course. But what'd they do to me if I were caught?"
+
+"This is not a joke; the proposition's perfectly legal; it's being done
+right along."
+
+"And I could do it, Harry?"
+
+"A man of your calibre couldn't fail."
+
+"Would you mind ringing for Robbins?" Duncan asked abruptly.
+
+"Certainly." Kellogg pressed a button at his elbow. "What d'you want?"
+
+"A straight-jacket and a doctor to tell which one of us needs it."
+
+Kellogg, chagrined as he always was if joked with when expounding one
+of his schemes, broke into a laugh that lasted until Robbins appeared.
+
+"You rang, sir?"
+
+"Yes. Put those decanters over here, and some glasses, please."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+The man obeyed and withdrew. Kellogg filled two glasses, handing one to
+Duncan.
+
+"Now be decent and listen to me, Nat. I've thought this thing over
+for--oh, any amount of time. I'll bet anything it will work. What d'you
+say? Would you like to try it?"
+
+"Would I like to try it?" A conviction of Kellogg's earnestness forced
+itself upon Duncan's understanding. "Would I--!" He lifted his glass
+and drained it at a gulp. "Why, that's the first laugh I've had for a
+month!"
+
+"Then I'll tell you--"
+
+Duncan placed a pleading hand on his forearm. "Don't kid me, Harry," he
+entreated.
+
+"Not a bit of it. This is straight goods. If you want to try it and
+will follow the rules I lay down, I'll guarantee you'll be a rich man
+inside of twelve months."
+
+"Rules! Man, I'll follow all the rules in the world! Come on--I'm
+getting palpitation of the heart, waiting. Tell it to me: what've I got
+to do?"
+
+"Marry," said Kellogg serenely.
+
+"Marry!" Duncan echoed, aghast.
+
+"Marry," reaffirmed the other with unbroken gravity.
+
+"Marry--who?"
+
+"A girl with a fortune.... You see, I can't guarantee the precise size
+of her pile. That all depends on luck and the locality. But it'll run
+anywhere from several hundred thousand up to a million--perhaps more."
+
+Duncan sank back despondently. "You ought to be ashamed of yourself,
+Harry," he said dully; "you had me all excited, for a minute."
+
+"No, but honestly, I mean what I say."
+
+"Now look here: do you really think any girl with a million would take
+a chance on me?"
+
+"She'll jump at it."
+
+Duncan thought this over for a while. Then his lips twitched. "What's
+the matter with her?" he inquired. "I'm willing to play the game as it
+lies, but I bar lunatics and cripples."
+
+"There's no particular her--yet. You can take your pick. I've no more
+idea where she is than you have."
+
+"Now I know you're stark, staring, gibbering----"
+
+"Not a bit of it. I'm inspired--that's all. I've solved your
+problem--you only can't believe it."
+
+"How could I? What the devil are you getting at, anyhow?"
+
+"This pet scheme of mine. Lend me your ears. Have you ever lived in a
+one-horse country town--a place with one unspeakable hotel and about
+twenty stores and five churches?"
+
+"No ..."
+
+"I have; I was born in one of 'em.... Have you any idea what becomes of
+the young people of such towns?"
+
+"Not a glimmering."
+
+"Then I'll enlighten your egregious density. ...The boys--those who've
+got the stuff in them--strike out for the cities to make their
+everlasting fortunes. Generally they do it, too."
+
+"The same as you."
+
+"The same as me," assented Kellogg, unperturbed. "But the yaps, the
+Jaspers, stay there and clerk in father's store. After office-hours
+they put on their very best mail-order clothes and parade up and down
+Main Street, talking loud and flirting obviously with the girls. The
+girls haven't much else to do; they don't find it so easy to get away.
+A few of 'em escape to boarding-schools and colleges, where they meet
+and marry young men from the cities, but the majority of them have to
+stay at home and help mother--that's a tradition. If there are two
+children or more, the boys get the chance every time; the girls stay
+home to comfort the old folks in their old age. Why, by the time
+they're old enough to think of marrying--and they begin young, for
+that's about the only excitement they find available--you won't find a
+small country town between here and the Mississippi where there aren't
+about four girls to every boy."
+
+"It's a horrible thought ..."
+
+"You'd think so if you knew what the boys were like. There isn't one in
+ten that a girl with any sense or self-respect could force herself to
+marry if she ever saw anything better. Do you begin to see my drift?"
+
+"I do not. But go on drifting."
+
+"No? Why, the demand for eligible males is three hundred per cent. in
+excess of the supply. Don't you know--no, you don't: I got to that
+first--that there are twenty times as many old maids in small country
+towns as there are in the cities? It's a fact, and the reason for it is
+because when they were young they couldn't lower themselves to accept
+the pick of the local matrimonial market. Now, do you see--?"
+
+"You're as interesting as a magazine serial. Please continue in your
+next. I pant with anticipation."
+
+"You're an ass.... Now take a young chap from a city, with a good
+appearance, more or less a gentleman, who doesn't talk like a yap or
+walk like a yap or dress like a yap or act like a yap, and throw him
+into such a town long enough for the girls to get acquainted with him.
+He simply can't lose, can't fail to cop out the best-looking girl with
+the biggest bank-roll in town. I tell you, there's nothing to it!"
+
+"It's wonderful to listen to you, Harry."
+
+"I'm talking horse sense, my son. Now consider yourself: down on your
+luck, don't know how to earn a decent living, refusing to accept
+anything from your friends, ready (you say) to do almost anything to
+get some money.... And think of the country heiresses, with plenty of
+money for two, pining away in--in innocuous desuetude--hundreds of
+them, fine, straight, good girls, girls you could easily fall in love
+with, sighing their lives away for the lack of the likes of you....
+Now, why not take one, Nat--when you come to consider it, it's your
+duty--marry her and her bank-roll, make her happy, make yourself happy,
+and live a contented life on the sunny side of Easy Street for the rest
+of your natural born days? Can't you see it now?"
+
+"Yes," Duncan admitted, half-persuaded of the plausibility of the
+scheme. "I see--and I admire immensely the intellect that conceived the
+notion, Harry. But ... I can't help thinking there must be a catch in
+it somewhere."
+
+"Not if you follow my instructions. You see, having come from just such
+a hole-in-the-ground, I know just what I'm talking about. Believe me,
+everything depends on the way you go about it. There are a lot of
+things to contend with at first; you won't enjoy it at all, to begin
+with. But I can demonstrate how it can be managed so that you'll win
+out to a moral certainty."
+
+Duncan drew a deep breath, sat back and looked Kellogg over very
+critically. There was not a suspicion of a gleam of humour in his face;
+to the contrary, it blazed with the ardour of the instinctive schemer,
+the man who, with the ability to originate, throws himself heart and
+soul into the promotion of the product of his imagination. Kellogg was
+not sketching the outlines of a gigantic practical joke; he believed
+implicitly in the feasibility of his project; and so strongly that he
+could infuse even the less susceptible fancy of Duncan with some of his
+faith.
+
+"If I didn't know you so well, Harry," said Duncan slowly, "I'd be
+certain you were mad. I'm not at all sure that I'm sane. It's raving
+idiocy--and it's a pretty damned rank thing to do, to start
+deliberately out to marry a woman for her money. But I've been through
+a little hell of my own in my time, and--it's not alluring to
+contemplate a return to it. There's nothing mad enough nor bad enough
+to stop me. What've I got to do?"
+
+Kellogg beamed his triumph. "You'll try it on, then?"
+
+"I'll try anything on. It's a contemptible, low-lived piece of
+business--but good may come of it; you can't tell. What've I got to
+do?"
+
+Slipping back, Kellogg knitted his fingers and stared at the ceiling,
+smiling faintly to himself as he enumerated the conditions that first
+appealed to his understanding as essentials toward success.
+
+"First, pick out your town: one of two or three thousand
+inhabitants--no larger. I'd suggest, at a hazard guess, some place in
+the interior of Pennsylvania. Most of such towns have at least one rich
+man with a marriageable daughter--but we'll make sure of that before we
+settle on one. Of course any suburban town is barred."
+
+"How so?"
+
+"Oh, they don't count. The girls always know people in the city--can
+get there easily. That spoils the game."
+
+"How about the game laws?"
+
+"I'm coming to them. Of course there isn't an open or close season, and
+the hunting's always good, but there are a few precautionary measures
+to be taken if you want to be sure of bagging an heiress. You won't
+like most of 'em."
+
+"Like 'em! I'll live by them!"
+
+"Well, here come the things you mustn't do. You mustn't swear or use
+slang; you mustn't smoke and you mustn't drink--"
+
+"Heavens! are these people as inhuman as all that?"
+
+"Worse than that. It might be fatal if you were ever seen in the hotel
+bar. And to begin with, you must refuse all invitations, of any sort,
+whether to dances, parties, church sociables, or even Sunday dinners."
+
+"Why _Sunday_ dinners?"
+
+"Because Sunday's the only day you'll be invited. Dinner on week-days
+is from twelve to twelve-thirty, and it's strictly a business
+matter--no time for guests. But you needn't fret; they won't ask you
+till they've sized you up pretty carefully."
+
+"Oh!..."
+
+"Moreover, you must be very particular about your dress; it must be
+absolutely faultless, but very quiet: clothing sober--dark greys and
+blacks--and plain, but the very last word as to cut and fit. And
+everything must be in keeping--the very best of shirts, collars, ties,
+hats, socks, shoes, underwear--." Kellogg caught Duncan's look and
+laughed. "Your laundress will report on everything, you know; so you
+must be impeccable."
+
+"I'll be even that--whatever it is."
+
+"Be very particular about having your shoes polished, shave daily and
+manicure yourself religiously--but don't let 'em catch you at it."
+
+"Would they raid me if they did?"
+
+"And then, my son, you must work."
+
+Kellogg paused to let his lesson sink in. After a time Duncan observed
+plaintively: "I knew there was a catch in it somewhere. What kind of
+work?"
+
+"It doesn't make any difference, so long as you get and hold some job
+in the town."
+
+"Well, that lets me out. You'll have to sic some other poor devil on
+this glittering proposition of yours. I couldn't hold a job in--"
+
+"Wait! I'll tell you how to do it in just a minute."
+
+"I don't mind listening, but--"
+
+"You'll cinch the whole business by going to church without a break.
+Don't ever fail--morning and evening every Sunday. Don't forget that."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"It's the most important thing of all."
+
+"Does going to church make such a hit with the young female
+Jasper--the Jasperette, as it were?"
+
+"It'll make you more solid than anything else with her popper and
+mommer, and that's very necessary when you're a candidate for their
+ducats as well as their daughter. You must work and you must go to
+church."
+
+"That can't be all. Surely you can think of something else?"
+
+"Those are the cardinal rules--church and work until you've landed your
+heiress. After that you can move back to civilisation.... Now as soon
+as you strike your town you want to make arrangements for board and
+lodging in some old woman's house--preferably an old maid. You'll be
+sure to find at least half a dozen of 'em, willing to take boarders,
+but you want to be equally sure to pick out the one that talks the
+most, so that she'll tell the neighbours all about you. Don't worry
+about that, though, they all talk. When you've moved In, stock up your
+room with about twenty of the driest-looking books in the world--law
+books look most imposing; fix up a table with lots of stationery--pens
+and pencils, red and black ink and all that sort of thing; make the
+room look as if you were the most sincere student ever. And by no means
+neglect to have a well-worn Bible prominently in evidence: you can buy
+one second-hand at some book-store before you start out."
+
+"I'd have to, of course. I thank you for the flattery. Proceed with the
+programme of the gay, mad life I must lead. I'm going to have a swell
+time: that's perfectly plain."
+
+"As soon as you're shaken down in your room, make the rounds of the
+stores and ask for work. Try and get into the dry-goods emporium if you
+can: the girls all shop there. But anything will do, except a grocery
+or a hardware store and places like that. You mustn't consider any
+employment that would soil your clothes or roughen your lily-white
+hands."
+
+"You expect me to believe I'd have any chance of winning a
+millionaire's daughter if I were a ribbon-clerk in a dry-goods store?"
+
+"The best in the world. The ribbon-clerk is her social equal; he calls
+her Mary and she calls him Joe."
+
+"Done with you: me for the ribbon counter. Anything else?"
+
+"The storekeepers aren't apt to employ you at first; they'll be
+suspicious of you."
+
+"They will be afterwards, all right. However--?"
+
+"So you must simply call on them--walk in, locate the boss and tell
+him: 'I'm looking for employment.' Don't press it; just say it and get
+out."
+
+"No trouble whatever about that; it's always that way when I ask for
+work."
+
+"They'll send for you before long, when they make up their minds that
+you're a decent, moral young man; for they know you'll draw trade. And
+every Sunday--"
+
+"I know: church!"
+
+"Absolutely.... Pick out the one the rich folks go to. Go in quietly
+and do just as they do: stand up and kneel, look up the hymns and sing,
+just when they do. Be careful not to sing too loud, or anything like
+that: just do it all modestly, as if you were used to it. Better go to
+church here two or three times and get the hang of it...."
+
+"Here, now--"
+
+"Nearly all the wealthy codgers in such towns are deacons, you see, and
+though they may not speak to you for months on the street, it's their
+business to waylay you after the service is over and shake hands with
+you and tell you they hope you enjoyed the sermon and ask you to come
+again. And you can bank on it, they'll all take notice from the first."
+
+"It's no wonder Bartlett made you a partner, Harry."
+
+"Now behave. I want you to get in right. ... If you follow the rules
+I've outlined, not only will all the girls in town be falling over
+themselves to get to you first, but their fond parents will be egging
+them on. Then all you've got to do is to pick out the one with the
+biggest bundle and--"
+
+"Make a play for her?"
+
+"Not on your life. That would be fatal. Your part is to put yourself in
+her way. She'll do all the courting, and when she scents the
+psychological moment she'll do the proposing."
+
+"It doesn't sound natural, but you certainly seem to know what you're
+drooling about."
+
+"You can anchor to that, Nat."
+
+"And are you finished?"
+
+"I am. Of course I'll probably think of more things to wise you to,
+before you go."
+
+Duncan laughed shortly and tilted back in his chair, selecting another
+cigarette. "And you're the chap who wanted me to go to some bromidic
+old show to-night! Harry, you're immense. Why didn't you ever let me
+suspect you had all this romantic imagination in your system?"
+
+"Imagination be blowed, son. This is business." Kellogg removed the
+stopper from the decanter and filled both glasses again. "Well, what do
+you say?"
+
+"I've just said my say, Harry. It's amazing; I'm proud of you."
+
+"But will you do it?"
+
+"Everything else aside, how can I? I've got to live, you know."
+
+"But I propose to stake you."
+
+Duncan came down to earth. "No, you won't; not a cent. I'm in earnest
+about this thing: no more sponging on you, Harry. Besides--"
+
+"No, seriously, Nat: I mean this, every word of it. I want you to do
+it--to please me, if you like; I've a notion something will come of it.
+And I believe from the bottom of my heart there's not the slightest
+risk if you'll play the cards as they fall, according to Hoyle."
+
+"Harry, I believe you do."
+
+"I do, firmly. And I'll put the proposition on a business basis, if you
+like."
+
+"Go on; there's no holding you."
+
+"You start out to-morrow and order your war kit. Get everything you
+need, and plenty of it, and have the bills sent to me. You can be ready
+inside a fortnight. The day you start I'll advance you five hundred
+dollars. When you're married you can repay me the amount of the
+advances with interest at ten per cent, and I'll consider it a mighty
+good deal for myself. Now, will you?"
+
+"You mean it?"
+
+"Every word of it. Well?"
+
+For a moment longer Duncan hesitated; then the vision of what he must
+return to, otherwise, decided him. In desperation he accepted. "It's a
+drowning man's straw," he said, a little breathlessly. "I'm sure I
+shouldn't. But I will."
+
+Kellogg flung a hand across the table, palm uppermost.
+
+"Word of honour, Nat?"
+
+Duncan let his hand fall into it. "Word of honour! I'll see it
+through."
+
+"Good! It's a bargain." Kellogg lifted his glass high in air. "To the
+fortune hunter!" he cried, half laughing.
+
+Duncan nervously fingered the stem of his glass. "God help the future
+Mrs. Duncan!" he said, and drank.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+TRIUMPH OF MR. HOMER LITTLEJOHN
+
+The twenty-first of June was a day of memorable triumph to me, a day of
+memorable events for Radville.
+
+Only the evening previous Will Bigelow and I had indulged in
+acrimonious argument in the office of the Bigelow House, the subject of
+contention being the importance of the work to which I am devoting my
+declining years, to wit, the recording of _The History of Radville
+Township, Westerly County, Pennsylvania_; Will maintaining with that
+obstinacy for which he is famous, that nothing ever had happened, does
+happen, can or will happen in our community, I insisting gently but
+firmly that it knows no day unmarked by important occurrence (for it
+would ill become me, as the only literary man in Radville, to yield a
+point in dispute with the proprietor of the town tavern). Besides, he
+was wrong, even as I was indisputably right--only he had not the grace
+to admit it. We ended vulgarly with a bet, Will wagering me the best
+five-cent Clear Havana in the Bigelow House sample-room that nothing
+worth mentioning would take place in Radville before sundown of the
+following day.
+
+I left him, returning to my room at Miss Carpenter's (Will and I are
+old friends, but I refuse to eat the food he serves his guests), warmed
+by the prospect of certain triumph if a little appalled by the prospect
+of winning the stake; and sympathising a little with Will, who, for all
+his egregious stubborness, has some excuse for upholding his
+unreasonable and ridiculous views. He knows no better, having never had
+the opportunity to find out for himself how utterly absurd are his
+claims for the outside world. Whereas I have.
+
+He's an adventurer at heart, Will Bigelow, a romantic soul crusted
+heavily with character--like a volcano smouldering beneath its lava.
+For many years he has managed the Bigelow House, with his thoughts
+apart from it, his eyes ever seeking the horizon that recedes beyond
+the soaring rim of our encircling cup of hills, his heart forever
+yearning forth to the outer world; which he erroneously conceives to be
+a theatre of events--as if outside of Radville only could there be
+things worth seeing, considering, or doing, or matters of any sort that
+move momentously! As long as I've known the man (and we played truant
+together fifty years ago--hookey, we called it then) he's had his heart
+set on going forth from Radville, "for to admire and for to see, for to
+view this wide world o'er"; always he has presented himself to me as
+one poised on the pinnacle of purpose, ready the next instant to dive
+and strike out into the teeming unknown beyond the barrier hills. But
+this promise he has never fulfilled. He still maintains that he will
+surely go--next week--after the hayin's over--as soon as the ice is
+in--the minute Mary graduates from High School. ... But I know he never
+will.
+
+So to Will Radville is as dull as ditchwater to a teamster; to me it's
+as fascinating as that same ditchwater to a biologist with a
+microscope. I see nothing going on in the world outside of Radville
+more important than our daily life. Too long I have lived away from it,
+a stranger in strange lands, not to appreciate its relative
+significance in the scheme of things. It makes all the difference--the
+view-point: Will sees Radville from its homely heart outwards, I stand
+on its boundaries, a native but yet, somehow in the local esteem (by
+reason of my long residence in the East) an outlander. Thus I get a
+perspective upon the place, to Will and his ilk denied.
+
+It seems curious that things should have fallen out thus for the two of
+us: that Will Bigelow, all afire with the lust for travel, should never
+have mustered up enterprise enough to break his home ties, whilst I
+whose dearest desire had always been to live no day of my alloted span
+away from Radville, should have been, in a manner which I'm bound
+presently to betray, forced out into the world; that he, the rebellious
+stay-at-home, cursing the destiny which chained him, should have
+prospered and become the man of substance he is, while I, mutinously
+venturing, should have returned only to watch my sands run out in
+poverty--what's little better.
+
+Not that I would have you think me whining: I have enough, little but
+ample for my simple needs, if inadequate for my ambitions or my
+neighbours' necessities. My editorial work for the _Radville
+Citizen_ is quite remunerative, while my weekly column of local
+gossip for the _Westerly Gazette_ brings me in a little, and I've
+one or two other modest sources of still more modest income. But
+Radville folks are poor, many of them, many who are very dear to me for
+old sake's sake. There's Sam Graham.... Though I wouldn't have you
+understand that as a community we are not moderately prosperous and
+contented, comfortable if not energetic and advanced. This is not a
+pushing town: it has never known a boom. That I'm sure will some day
+come, but I hope not in my time. I have faith in the mountains that
+fold us roundabout; they are rich with the possibilities of coal and
+iron, and year by year are being more and more widely opened up and
+developed; year by year the ranks of flaming, reeking coke ovens push
+farther on beside the railway that penetrates our valley. But as yet
+their smoke does not foul our skies, nor does their refuse pollute our
+river, nor their soot tarnish our vegetation. And as I say, I hope this
+is not to be while I live, though sometimes I have fears: Blinky
+Lockwood made a fortune selling the coal that was discovered beneath
+his father's old farm over Westerly way, and ever since that there's
+been more or less quiet prospecting going on in our vicinity. I shall
+be sorry to see the day when Radville is other than as it is: the
+quiet, peaceful, sleepy little town, nestling in the bosom of the
+hills, clean, sweet and wholesome....
+
+But this is rambling far from the momentous twenty-first of June, my
+day of triumph.
+
+I shall try to set down connectedly and coherently the events which
+culminated in the humbling of Will Bigelow to the dust.
+
+To begin with, we were early startled by the rumour that Hiram Nutt,
+theretofore deemed unconquerable, had been disastrously defeated at
+checkers in Willoughby's grocery--and that by Watty the tailor, of all
+men in Radville. The rumour was confirmed by eleven in the forenoon,
+and in itself should have provided us with a nine days' wonder.
+
+As it happened, an event happening almost simultaneously confused our
+minds. At eleven-fifteen Miss Carpenter's household was thrown into
+consternation by the scandalous behaviour of her black cat, Caesar, who
+chose suddenly to terminate a long and outwardly respectable career as
+Miss Carpenter's familiar by having kittens under the horse-hair sofa
+in the parlour. Incidentally this indelicate and ungentlemanly
+behaviour temporarily unloosed the hinges of Miss Carpenter's reason,
+so that my supper suffered that evening, and for several days she
+wandered round the house with blank and witless eyes. Perhaps I should
+have warned her, for I had latterly come to suspect Caesar of leading a
+double life; but for reasons which seemed sufficient I had refrained.
+
+By the noon train Roland Barnette received his new summer suit from
+Chicago. I did not see it till evening, but heard of it before one,
+since Roland donned it immediately and wore it to the bank that very
+afternoon. I understand it caused something very near a run on the
+bank; people came in to draw a dollar or so or get change and lingered
+to feast their outraged visions, so that Blinky Lockwood, the
+president, had to send Roland home to change before closing-time. He
+changed back, however, as soon as off duty, and spent the rest of the
+afternoon and evening hours in Sothern and Lee's, at the soda-fountain;
+which Sothern and Lee did not object to, since it drew trade.
+
+Pete Willing established a record by getting drunk at Schwartz's bar by
+three in the afternoon, his best previous time being four-thirty; and
+Mrs. Willing chased him up Centre Street until, at the corner of Main,
+he blundered into the arms of Judge Scott; who ordered him to arrest
+and lock himself up; which Pete, being the sheriff, solemnly did,
+saying that it was preferable to a return to home and wife.
+
+At five o'clock there was a dog-fight in front of Graham's drug-store.
+
+At five-forty-five the evening train lurched in, bearing The Mysterious
+Stranger.
+
+Tracey Tanner saw him first, having driven down to the station with his
+father's surrey on the off-chance of picking up a quarter or so from
+some drummer wishing to be conveyed to the Bigelow House. Only
+outlanders pay money for hacks in Radville; everybody else walks, of
+course. Naturally Tracey took The Mysterious Stranger for a drummer; he
+had three trunks and a heavy packing-box, so Tracey's misapprehension
+was pardonable. Instinctively he drove him to the Bigelow House; Will
+now and again makes Tracey a present of a bottle of sarsaparilla or
+lemon-pop, with the result that Tracey calls Tannehill, who runs the
+opposition hotel, a skinflint and never takes strangers there except on
+their express desire. The Mysterious Stranger merely asked to be driven
+to the best hotel. This is not like most commercial travellers, who as
+a rule know where they want to go, even in a strange town, having made
+inquiry in advance from their brothers of the road. Tracey made a note
+of this, and is further on record as having observed that this stranger
+was rather better dressed than the run of drummers, if not so nobbily.
+Moreover, he was reticent under the cross-fire of Tracey's
+irrepressible conversation, and failed to ask the name of the first
+pretty girl they passed; who happened to be Angle Tuthill. Finally The
+Mysterious Stranger actually tipped Tracey a whole quarter for carrying
+his suit-case into the hotel office.
+
+With these incitements it would have been unreasonable to expect Tracey
+to do otherwise than linger around for the good health of his sense of
+inquisitiveness, which would else have been severely sprained.
+
+Will Bigelow was dozing behind the desk, lulled by the sound of Hi
+Nutt's voice in the barroom, as he explained to all and sundry just how
+he had inadvertently permitted Watty the tailor to best him at checkers
+that morning. Otherwise the office was deserted. Tracey wakened Will by
+stamping heavily across the floor, and Will mechanically pushed down
+his spectacles and dipped a pen in ink, slewing the register round for
+the guest's signature. He says he knew at a glance that The Mysterious
+Stranger was no travelling man, but this is a moot point, Tracey's
+memory being minutely accurate and at variance with Will's assertion.
+
+The Mysterious Stranger was a young man, rather severely clothed in a
+dark suit which excited no interest in Bigelow's understanding,
+although I, when I saw him later, had no difficulty in realising that
+it had never been made by a tailor whose place of business was more
+than five doors removed from Fifth Avenue. He was tallish, but not
+really tall, and carried himself with a slight stoop which took way
+from his real height. Tracey says he had a way of looking at you as if
+he was smiling inside at some joke he'd heard a long time ago; and I
+don't know but that's a fairly apt description of his ordinary
+expression. He had a way, too, of nodding jerkily at you--just once--to
+show he recognised you or understood what you were driving at; at other
+times he carried his head a trifle to one side and slightly forward. He
+was a man you wouldn't forget, somehow, though what there was about him
+that was remarkable nobody seemed to know.
+
+He nodded that jerky way in answer to Will Bigelow's "G'devenin'," and
+without saying anything took the pen and started to register. He had to
+stop, however, for Tracey was pressing him so close upon the right that
+he couldn't get any play for his elbow, and after a minute or two he
+asked Tracey politely would he mind stepping round to the left, where
+he could see just as well. So Tracey did. Then he wrote his name in a
+good round hand: "Nathaniel Duncan, N.Y."
+
+"I'd like a room with a bath," he told Will: "something simple and
+chaste, within the means of a man in moderate circumstances."
+
+Will thought he was joking at first, but he didn't smile, so Will
+explained that there was a bathroom on the third floor at the end of
+the hall, though there wasn't much call for it. "I could give you a
+room next to that," he said, "but you wouldn't want it, I guess."
+
+"Why not?" asked The Mysterious Stranger.
+
+"Because," said Will, "'taint near the sample-room."
+
+"That doesn't make any difference; I'm on the wagon."
+
+The only sense Will could get out of that was that the young man was
+travelling for a buggy house and hadn't brought any samples with him.
+"I thought," he allowed, "as how you'd be wantin' a place to display
+your samples, but of course if you're in the wagon business--"
+
+"Oh," said Mr. Duncan, "I thought you meant the 'sample-room' over
+there." He nodded toward the bar. "That's what you call the
+dispensaries of intoxicating liquors in this part of the country, is it
+not?"
+
+Will made a noise resembling an affirmative, and as soon as he got his
+breath explained that travelling men generally wanted a sort of a
+showroom next to theirs and that that was called a sample-room, too.
+
+"But I'm not a travelling man," said The Mysterious Stranger. "So I
+shall have as little use for the one as the other."
+
+"Then the room on the third floor'll do for you," said Will. "How long
+do you calculate on stayin'?"
+
+"That will depend," said Mr. Duncan: "a day or so--perhaps longer;
+until I can find comfortable and more permanent quarters."
+
+In his amazement Will jabbed the pen so hard into the potato beside the
+ink-well that he never could get the nib out and had to buy a new one.
+"You don't mean to say you're thinkin' of coming here to live?" he
+gasped.
+
+"Yes, I do," said the young man apologetically. "I don't think you'll
+find me in the way. I shall be very quiet and unobtrusive. I'm a
+student, looking for a quiet place in which to pursue my studies."
+
+"Well," said Will, "you've found it all right. There ain't no quieter
+place in Pennsylvany than Radville, Mr. Duncan. I hope you'll like it,"
+he said, sarcastic.
+
+"I shall endeavour to," said the young man.
+
+"And now may I go to my room, please? I should like to renovate my
+travel-stained person to some extent before dinner."
+
+"You'll have time," said Will; "dinner's at noon to-morrow. I guess
+you're thinkin' about supper. That's ready now. Here, Tracey, you carry
+this gentleman's things up to number forty-three."
+
+But Tracey had already gone, and such was his haste to spread the news
+that he forgot to take the horse and surrey back to the stable, but
+left it standing in front of the hotel till eight o'clock; for which
+oversight, I am credibly informed, his father justly dealt with him
+before sending him to bed.
+
+I have never been able to understand how we failed to hear of it at
+Miss Carpenter's before seven o'clock. That was the hour when, having
+finished supper and my first evening pipe, I started down-town to the
+_Citizen_ office, intending to stop in at the Bigelow House on the
+way and confound Will with the list of the day's happenings. Main
+Street was pretty well crowded for that hour, I remember noticing, and
+most of the townsfolk were grouped together on the corners, underneath
+the lamps, discussing something rather excitedly. I paid no particular
+attention, realising that between Caesar, Pete Willing, Roland
+Burnette's suit and the checker game, they had enough to talk about. So
+it wasn't until I walked into the Bigelow House office that I either
+heard or saw anything of The Mysterious Stranger.
+
+Will Bigelow was in his usual place behind the desk, and looked, I
+thought, rather disgruntled. His reply to my "Howdy, Will?" sounded
+somewhat snappish. But he got out of his chair and moved round the end
+of the desk just as the young man came out of the dining-room door.
+Then Will pulled up and I realised that he was calling my attention to
+the stranger.
+
+So far as I could see, he seemed an ordinary, everyday, good-looking,
+good-natured young man, whose naturally sunny disposition had been
+insulted by the food recently set before him. He wandered listlessly
+out upon the porch and stood there, with his hands in his pockets,
+looking up and down Centre Street, just then being shadowed into the
+warm, purple June dusk, beneath its double row of elms. We've always
+thought it a rather attractive street, and that night it seemed
+especially lively with its trickle of girls and boys strolling up and
+down, and the groups of grown folks on the corners, and Roland
+Burnette's summer suit conspicuous through Sothern and Lee's
+plate-glass windows; and I supposed the young man was admiring it all.
+But now I know him better. He felt just the same about Main Street,
+corner of Centre, Radville, as I should have about Broadway and
+Forty-second Street, New York, if you had set me down there and told me
+I'd got to get accustomed to the idea that I must live there. He was
+saying, deep down in his heart: "O _Lord_!"--with the rising
+inflection.
+
+Will grabbed my arm, without saying anything, and pulled me into the
+bar.
+
+"Hello!" I said, as he went round behind and opened the cigar-case,
+"what's up?"
+
+He took out two boxes of the finest five-centers in town and placed
+them before me. "Them's up," he said. "You win. Have one."
+
+It staggered me to have him give in that way; I had been looking
+forward to a long and diverting dispute. "I guess you've heard
+everything worth hearing about to-day's history," I said, disappointed,
+as I selected the least unpleasant looking of the cigars.
+
+"No, I haven't," he said. "I didn't have to hear anything. What earned
+you that smoke took place right here in this office.... Here," he said,
+striking a match for me.
+
+I had been trying to put the cigar away so that I might dispose of it
+without hurting Will's feelings, but he had me, so I recklessly poked
+the thing into the automatic clipper and then into my mouth. "What do
+you mean?" I asked, puffing.
+
+"Come 'long outside," said Will; and we went out on the porch just in
+time to see Mr. Duncan going wearily upstairs to his room. "I mean,"
+said Will, _"him"_. And then he told me all about it.
+
+"But things like that don't happen every day," he wound up defensively.
+"I'll go you another cigar on to-morrow."
+
+"No, you won't," I said indignantly; and furtively dropped the infamous
+thing over the railing.
+
+I am never successful in my little attempts at deception, even in
+self-defence. In all candour I believe my disposition of that cigar
+would have gone undetected but for my notorious bad luck. Of course
+Bigelow's setter, Pompey, had to be asleep right under the spot where I
+dropped the cigar, and equally of course the burning end had to make
+instantaneous connection with his nerve centres, via his hide, with such
+effect that he arose in agony and subsequently used coarse language.
+Investigation naturally discovered my empty-handed perfidy. To no one
+else in Radville would this have happened.
+
+On the other hand, no one else in Radville would have thrown away the
+cigar.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+MARGARET'S DAUGHTER
+
+Discomfort roused Duncan from his rest at an early hour, the morning
+following his arrival in Radville. I must confess that the beds in the
+Bigelow House are no better than they should be; in fact, according to
+Duncan, not so good. Duncan ought to know; he has slept in one of them,
+or tried to; a trial thus far to me denied. From what he has said,
+however, I shudder to think what will become of me should I ever lose
+the shelter of Miss Carpenter's second-story front and be thrown out
+into a heartless world to choose between the Bigelow House and Frank
+Tannehill's Radville Inn....
+
+Duncan arose and consulted the two-dollar watch which he had left on
+the pine washstand by the window. It was half-past seven o'clock, and
+that seemed early to him. He was tired and would willingly have turned
+in again, but a rueful glance at the couch of his night-long vigil
+sufficed him. He lifted a hand to Heaven and vowed solemnly: "Never
+again!"
+
+As he bent over the washstand and poured a cupful of water into the
+china basin, thus emptying the pitcher, he was conscious of a pain in
+his back; but a thought cheered him. "They must have decent stables in
+this town," he considered, brightening. "The haymows for mine, after
+this."
+
+He dressed with scrupulous care, mindful of Kellogg's parting words,
+the sense of which was that first impressions were most important. "All
+the same," Duncan thought, "I don't believe they count in a dead-and-
+alive place like this. There's no one here with sufficient animation to
+realise I'm in town." This shows how little he understood our little
+community. A day of enlightenment was in store for him.
+
+Pansy Murphy was scrubbing out the office when he came down for
+breakfast. She is large, of what is known as a full complexion,
+good-hearted and energetic. His pause at the foot of the stairs, as he
+surveyed in dismay the seven seas of soapy water that occupied the
+floor, aroused her. She sat back suddenly on her heels and looked her
+fill of him, with her blue Irish eyes very wide, and her mouth a trap.
+He bowed politely. Pansy saved herself from falling over backwards by a
+supreme effort, scrubbed her hair out of her eyes with a very wet hand,
+and gave him "Good-marrin', Misther Dooncan," in a brogue as rich as
+you could wish for.
+
+He started violently. "Heavens!" he said. "I am discovered!"
+
+"Make yer moind aisy about thot," Pansy assured him. "'Tis known all
+over town who ye arre, what's yer name, how manny troonks ye've brought
+wid ye, and th' rayson f'r yer comin' here."
+
+"A comforting thought, thank you," he commented: "to awake to find
+one's self grown famous over-night!..."
+
+"Now ye know," she returned, emboldened, "what it is to be a big toad
+in a small puddle."
+
+"I thank you." He nodded again, with a comprehensive survey of the
+reeking floor. "I'm afraid I do." With which he slipped and slid over
+to and through the swinging wicker doors of the dining-room.
+
+It was deserted. From the negligée of the tables, littered with the
+plates and dishes, dreary survivors of a dozen breakfasts, he divined
+that he was the tardiest guest in the household. A slatternly young
+woman in a soiled shirt-waist--the waitress--received him with great
+calm and waved him toward a table by the window, where an unused cover
+was laid. He went meekly, dogged by her formidable presence. She stood
+over him and glared down.
+
+"Haman neggs," she said defiantly, "steakan nomlette."
+
+"I'll be a martyr," he told her civilly. "Me for the steak."
+
+She frowned gloomily and tramped away. He folded his hands and, cheered
+by an appetising aroma of warm water and yellow soap from the office,
+considered the prospect from the window by his side. Three children and
+a yellow dog came along and watched him do it, dispassionately
+reviewing his points in clear young voices. Tracey Tanner ambled into
+view on the other side of the street and beamed at him generously, his
+round red face resembling, Duncan thought, more than anything else a
+summer sun rising through mist. Josie Lockwood (he was to discover her
+name later) passed with her pert little nose ostentatiously pointed
+away from him; none the less he detected a gleam in the corner of her
+eye.... Others went by, singly or in groups, all more or less openly
+interested in him.
+
+He tried to look unconscious, but with ill success. There was nothing
+particularly engaging in the view: the broad, dusty street lined with
+commonplace structures of "frame" and brick, glowing in the morning
+sunshine. There were, to be sure, cool shadows beneath the trees, but
+the suggestion was all of summer heat. There was a watering-trough and
+hitching-rail directly opposite, a little to one side of Hemmenway's
+feed-store, and there a well-fed mare stood, drooping dejectedly
+between the shafts of a dilapidated buggy. On the corner was a
+two-storey brick building with large plate-glass windows on the ground
+floor for the display of intimate articles of feminine apparel. The
+black and gold sign above proclaimed it: "The Fair. Dry Goods &
+Notions. Leonard & Call." Duncan considered it with grave respect. "The
+scene of my future activities," he observed.
+
+By this time his audience had become too large and friendly for his
+endurance. He rose and retired to a less public table.
+
+In her own good time the waitress returned with a plate, and a small
+oval platter in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. She placed
+them before him with a manner that told him plainly he could never make
+himself the master of her affections. The small oval platter was
+discovered to contain a small segment of dark-brown ham and two fried
+eggs swimming in grease.
+
+Duncan questioned the woman with mute, appealing eyes.
+
+"Steak's run out," she told him curtly.
+
+"Leaving no address?" he inquired with forced gaiety.
+
+A suppressed smile softened her austerity, and she turned away to hide
+it. "To think," he wondered, "that a sense of humour should inhabit
+that!" He broke a roll and munched it gloomily, pondering this
+revelation. "And such humour !" he added, with justice.
+
+After an interval the woman returned. He had refrained from the staple
+dish. She indicated it with a grimy forefinger.
+
+"Please!" he begged plaintively. "I'm never very hungry in the
+morning."
+
+"I guess you don't like the table here," she observed icily, clearing
+away.
+
+"Do you?"
+
+"I don't have to; I live home."
+
+He stared. Could it be possible...?
+
+"I know a good old one, too," he ventured hopefully. "Now here." He
+drew his coffee cup toward him and began to stir with energy. "You say:
+'It looks like rain'; and I'll say: 'Yes, but it tastes a little like
+coffee.'"
+
+She clattered away indignantly. He rose, depressed, and sighing sought
+the outer air.
+
+In the course of a forenoon's stroll Radville discovered itself to him
+in all its squalor and its loveliness. It sits in the centre of a broad
+valley of rolling meadow-land, studded with infrequent homesteads,
+broken into rather extensive farms, threaded by a shallow silver stream
+that gives its all in tribute to the Susquehanna far in the south. The
+barrier mountains rise about it like the sides of a bowl, with a great
+V-shaped piece chipped out of the southern wall. This break we call the
+Gap; through it the railroad comes to us, through it the river escapes.
+The hills rear high and steep, their swelling flanks cloaked in sombre
+green and grey, with here and there a bald spot like a splash of ochre
+where there's been a landslide, climbing directly from the plain, with
+no foothills. A recluse, I have thought, must have chosen this spot for
+a town site; sickened of the world, he sought seclusion--and found it
+here to his heart's content. Until the coke-ovens come, following the
+miners, with their attendant hordes of Slovaks, Poles and Hungarians,
+we shall be near to God, for we shall know peace....
+
+The town has been laid out with great rectangularity; the river divides
+it unequally. On the western bank is the larger community--locally, the
+Old Town, retaining its characteristics of sobriety, quiet and comfort;
+here, also, is the business centre--such business as there is. Here
+Duncan found homely residences sitting back from the street in ample
+grounds--grounds, perhaps, not very carefully groomed, but in spite of
+that attractive and pleasant to the eye. With one or two exceptions,
+none were strongly suggestive of wealth. He detected a trace of
+ostentation, and no taste whatever, in Lockwood's new villa (I'm told
+that's the polite designation for the edifice he caused to be erected
+what time the plague of riches smote him and the old home on Cherry
+Street became too small for the collective family chest), and there was
+quiet dignity in the quaintly columned façade of the Bohun mansion, now
+occupied solely by old Colonel Bohun, lonely and testy, reputed the
+richest as well as the most miserable man in the county. But as to his
+wealth, I doubt if rumour runs by more than tradition; Blinky
+Lockwood's new-found hundred-thousands are growing rapidly toward the
+million mark, unless Blinky's a worse business man than the town takes
+him to be.
+
+An old stone arch (whereon lovers linger in the moonlight) spans the
+stream and links the Old Town with the new, which we sometimes term the
+Flats, but more often simply Over There. It is a sordid huddle of dingy
+and down-at-the-heel tenements, housing the poorer working classes and
+the frankly worthless and ruffianly riff-raff of the neighbourhood.
+There are eight gin-mills Over There as against two sample-rooms in the
+Old Town, and of the local constabulary two-thirds lead exciting lives
+patrolling the Flats; the remaining third is ordinarily to be found
+dozing in the backroom of Schwartz's, and if roused will answer to the
+name and title of Pete Willing, Sheriff and Chief of Police.
+
+Duncan reviewed both sides of the municipal face with fine
+impartiality--the Flats last; and turned back to the Old Town. "There's
+one thing," he communed as he reached the bridge: "If these people ever
+find me out they'll run me across the river--sure."
+
+He paused there, looking up and down the valley with contemplative
+gaze; and it was there I found him.
+
+As is my custom, I had devoted the earlier morning hours to the
+compilation of that work which is to gain for the name of Littlejohn a
+trifle more respect than, I fear, it owns in Radville nowadays; and
+afterwards, again in accordance with habit, had started out for my
+morning constitutional. As I was about to leave the house Miss
+Carpenter waylaid me and, in a voice still tremulous from the shock of
+yesterday, asked me to hunt up Jake Sawyer in the Flats and tell him to
+come and cut the grass.
+
+I was not in the least unwilling, for the walk was not long, and the
+morning very pleasant--not too warm, and bright with the smiling spirit
+of June. I don't remember feeling more cheerful and at peace with the
+world than when I marched off on my mission. The cloud I might, of
+course, have anticipated: clouds always come, and a lifetime has taught
+me to be sceptical of that tale about the silver lining. And even when
+it came it seemed no more depressing, of no more significant moment,
+than the cloud shadow that scurries across a wheat-field with no effect
+other than to enhance the beauty of the sunshine that pursues it.
+
+Old Colonel Bohun was the cloud-shadow of that morning. I met him
+turning into Main Street from Mortimer--at the head of which his
+mansion stands. He came down the sidewalk, but with a hint of haste in
+his manner: a tall old man, bending beneath the burden of his years,
+his fierce old face and iron-grey hair shaded as always by the black
+slouch hat with the flapping brim, his rounded shoulders cloaked with
+the black Inverness cape he wore summer and winter. In spite of his age
+and evident decrepitude, he bodied forth the spirit of what he had
+been, and none could pass him without knowledge of his presence; he
+drew eyes as a magnet draws filings, and drawing, held them in respect.
+I doubted if there were a man in Radville who could meet the old
+colonel with anything but a mingling of fear and deference--with one or
+two exceptions. For myself I hated him heartily, and he, looking down
+at me from the peak of pride whereon his iron soul perched, despised me
+with equal intensity. So we got along famously at our infrequent
+encounters.
+
+This morning I caught a flash of fire from his red-rimmed old eyes, and
+told myself I was sorry for whoever crossed his path before he returned
+to his lonely castle. It was his habit at odd intervals to foray down
+the village streets with one grievance or another rankling in his
+bosom, seeking some unlucky one upon whose head to wreak his
+resentment. We had come to recognise the heavy, slow tapping of his
+thick cane as a harbinger of trouble, even as you might prognosticate a
+thunderstorm from the rumbling beneath the horizon.
+
+I saw he recognised me and gave him a civil salute, which he returned
+with a brusque nod and a sharper, "Good-morning, Littlejohn," as he
+passed. Then he swung into Main Street, paralleling my course on the
+opposite sidewalk, and went _thump-thumping_ along, darting quick
+glances hither and yon beneath his heavy brows, like some dark
+incarnation of perverse pride and passion.
+
+Partly because the sight of him sensibly influenced my mood, and partly
+because inevitably he made me think of Sam Graham, I turned off at
+Beech Street, leaving him to pursue his way toward the centre of town.
+Graham's one-horse drug-store stood on Beech, a block south of Main.
+That being the least promising location in town for a business of any
+sort, Sam had naturally selected it when he concluded to set up shop.
+If Sam had ever in his life displayed any symptoms of business
+sagacity, Radville would never have recovered from the shock. I believe
+it was Legrand Gunn, our only really certificated village wit, who
+coined the epigram: "As useless as to take a prescription to Graham's."
+The implication being that Graham didn't carry sufficient stock to
+fill any prescription; which was largely true; he couldn't; he hadn't
+the money to stock up with. What little he took in from time to time
+went in part to the support of Betty and himself, but mainly to pay
+interest on his debts and buy raw materials for models of his
+thousand-and-one inventions. Most Radvillians firmly believed that Sam
+has at some time or other in his busy, worthless career invented
+everything under the sun, practicable or impracticable--the former
+always a few days after somebody else had taken out patents for the
+identical device. But at that time no one believed he would ever make a
+cent out of any one of the children of his ingenious brain; nor was I,
+in this respect, more credulous than any of my fellow-townsmen.
+
+I lingered a moment outside the shop, thinking of the change that had
+come over it since the death of Margaret Graham, Betty's mother. For,
+despite its out-of-the-way location, the shop had not always been
+unprofitable; while Margaret lived (my heart still ached with the
+memory of her name) Sam's business had prospered. She had been one of
+those woman who can rise to any emergency in the interest of her loved
+ones; the first to realise Sam's improvidence and lack of executive
+ability, she had taken hold of the business with a firm hand and made
+it pay--while she lived. It has never ceased to be a source of
+wondering speculation to me, that she, with her gentle training, so
+wholly aloof from every thought of commerce or economy, should have
+proven herself so thorough and level-headed a business woman. There's
+no accounting for it, indeed, save on the theory that she conceived it
+a woman's function to make up for man's deficiencies; Sam needed her,
+so she become his wife; he needed a manager, so she had became that
+also....
+
+During Margaret's régime, as I say, the shop had thrived. Sam had few
+ill-wishers in Radville; the trade came his way. Then Betty was born
+and Margaret died....
+
+Most of this I have on hearsay. I left Radville shortly after their
+marriage and did not return until some months after Margaret's burial.
+By that time the shop had begun to show signs of neglect; its stock was
+decimated, its trade likewise. Sam was struggling with his inventions
+more fiercely than ever--seeking forgetfulness, I always thought. The
+business was allowed to take care of itself. He had always a serene
+faith in his tomorrows.
+
+Now the little shop had been far distanced by the competition of
+Sothern and Lee. It was twenty years behind the times, as the saying
+is. Small, darksome, dreary and dingy, it served chiefly as a
+living-room for Sam, his daughter, and his cronies, as well as for his
+workshop. He had a bench and a ramshackle lathe in one corner, where
+you might be sure to find him futilely pottering at almost any hour. He
+owned the little building--or that portion in it which it were a farce
+to term the equity above the mortgage--and Betty kept house for him in
+three rooms above the store.
+
+I saw nothing of him as I stepped across the street, and was wondering
+if he were at home when, through the small, dark panes of glass in his
+show windows I discerned his white old head bobbing busily over
+something on the rear counter. I pushed the door open and entered. He
+looked up with his never-failing smile of welcome and a wave of his
+hand.
+
+"Howdy, Homer? Come in. Well, well, I'm glad to see you. Sit down--I
+think that chair there by the stove will hold together under you."
+
+"What are you doing, Sam?" I asked.
+
+"Fixin' up the sody fountain. 'Meant to get it working last month,
+Homer, but somehow I kind of forgot."
+
+He rubbed away briskly at the single faucet which protruded above the
+counter, lathering it briskly with a metal polish that smelt to Heaven.
+
+"Do much sody trade, Sam?"
+
+He paused, passing his worn old fingers reflectively across a chin
+snowy with a stubble of neglected beard. "No," he allowed thoughtfully,
+"not so much as we used to, now that Sothern and Lee've got this
+new-fangled notion of puttin' ice cream in a nickel glass of sody. Most
+of the young folks go there, now, but still I get a call flow and
+then--and every little bit helps." He rubbed on ferociously for a
+moment. "'Course, I'd do more, likely, if I carried a bigger line of
+flavours."
+
+"How many do you carry?"
+
+"One," he admitted with a sigh, "vanilly."
+
+While I filled my pipe he continued to rub very industriously.
+
+"Why don't you get more?"
+
+He flashed me one of his pale, genial smiles. "I'm thinkin' of it,
+Homer, soon's I get some money in. Next week, mebbe. There's a man in
+N'York that mebbe can be int'rested in one of my inventions, Roland
+Barnette says. Mebbe he'd be willin' to put a little money in it,
+Roland says, and of course if he does, I'll be able to stock up
+considerable."
+
+I sighed covertly for him. He rubbed, humming a tuneless rhythm to
+himself.
+
+"Roland's goin' to write to him about it."
+
+"What invention?" I asked, incredulous.
+
+Sam put down his bottle of polish and came round the counter, beaming;
+nothing pleases him better than an opportunity to exhibit some one of
+his innumerable models. "I'll show you, Homer," he volunteered
+cheerfully, shuffling over to his work-bench. He rasped a match over
+its surface and applied the flame to a small gas-bracket fixed to the
+wall. A strong rush of gas extinguished the match, and he turned the
+flow half off before trying again. This time the vapour caught and
+settled to a steady, brilliant flame as white as and much softer than
+acetylene.
+
+"There!" he said in triumph. "What d'ye think of that, Homer?"
+
+"Why," I said, "I didn't know you had an acetylene plant."
+
+"No more have I, Homer."
+
+"But what is that, then?" I demanded.
+
+"It's my invention," he returned proudly.
+
+"I've been workin' on it two years, Homer, and only got it goin'
+yestiddy. It's going to be a great thing, I tell you."
+
+"But what _is_ it, Sam?"
+
+"It's gas from crude petroleum, Homer. See ..." he continued,
+indicating a tank beneath the bench which seemed to be connected with
+the bracket by a very simple system of piping, broken by a smaller,
+cylindrical tank. "Ye put the oil in there--just crude, as it comes out
+of the wells, Homer; it don't need refinin'--and it runs through this
+and down here to this, where it's vaporised--much the same's they
+vaporise gasoline for autymobile engines, ye know--and then it just
+naturally flows up to the bracket--and there ye are."
+
+"It's wonderful, Sam," said I, wondering if it really were.
+
+"And the best part of it is the economy, Homer. A gallon will run one
+jet six weeks, day in and out. And simple to install. I tell ye--"
+
+"Have you got it patented yet?"
+
+"Yes, siree! took out patents just as soon as it struck me how simple
+it 'ud be--more than two years ago. Only, of course, it took time to
+work it out just right, 'specially when I had to stop now and then
+'cause I needed money for materials. But it's all right now, Homer,
+it's all right now."
+
+"And you say Roland Barnette's writing to some one in New York about
+it?"
+
+"Yes; he promised he would. I explained it to Roland and he seemed real
+int'rested. He's kind, very kind."
+
+I was inclined to doubt this, and would probably have said something to
+that effect had not a shadow crossing the window brought me to my feet
+in consternation. But before I could do more than rise, Colonel Bohun
+had flung open the door and stamped in. He stopped short at sight of
+me, misguided by his near-sighted eyes, and singled me out with a
+threatening wave of his heavy stick.
+
+"Well, sir!" he snarled. "I've come for my answer. Have you sense
+enough in your addled pate to understand that, man? I've come for my
+answer!"
+
+"And may have it, whatever it may be, for all of me," I told him.
+
+His face flushed a deeper red. "Oh, it's only you, is it, Littlejohn? I
+took you for that fool Graham, in this damned dark hole. Where is he?"
+
+I looked to Graham and he followed the direction of my gaze to the
+work-bench, where Sam stood with his back to it, his worn hands folded
+quietly before him. He seemed a little whiter than usual, I thought;
+and perhaps it was only my fancy that made him appear to tremble ever
+so slightly. For he was quite calm and self-possessed--so much so that
+I realised for the first time there was another man in Radville besides
+myself who did not fear old Colonel Bohun.
+
+"I'm here, colonel," he said quietly. "What is it you wish?"
+
+The colonel swung on him, shaking with passion. But he held his tongue
+until he had mastered himself somewhat: a feat of self-restraint on his
+part over which I marvel to this day.
+
+"You know well, Graham," he said presently. "You got my letter--the
+letter I wrote you a week ago?"
+
+"Yes," said Sam, with a start of comprehension. "Yes, I got it."
+
+"Then why the devil, man, don't you answer it?"
+
+Sam's apologetic smile sweetened his face.
+
+"Why," he said haltingly--"I'm sure I meant no offence, but--you see,
+I'm a very busy man--I forgot it."
+
+"The hell you forgot it. D'ye expect me to believe that, man?"
+
+"I'm afraid you'll have to."
+
+Bohun was speechless for a moment, stricken dumb by a second seizure of
+fury. But again he calmed himself.
+
+"Very well. I'll swallow that insolence for the present--"
+
+"It wasn't meant as such, I assure--"
+
+"Don't interrupt me! D'you hear? ... I've come for my answer. Yes, I've
+come down to that, Graham. If you can't accord me the common courtesy
+of a written reply--I've come to hear it from your mouth."
+
+Sam nodded thoughtfully. "Mebbe," he said, "you forgot you have failed
+to accord me the common courtesy of any sort of a communication
+whatever for twenty years, Colonel Bohun. Even when my wife, your
+daughter, died, you ignored my message asking you to her funeral...."
+
+"Be silent!" screamed the colonel. "Do you think I'm here to bandy
+words with you, fool? I demand my answer."
+
+"And as for that," continued Sam as evenly as if he had not been
+interrupted, "your proposition was so preposterous that it could have
+come only from you, and deserved no answer. But since you want it
+formally, sir, it's no."
+
+For a moment I feared Bohun would have a stroke. The back of the chair
+I had just vacated and his stick alone supported him through that dumb,
+terrible transport. He shook so violently that I looked momentarily to
+see the chair break beneath him. There was insanity in his eyes. When
+finally he was able to articulate it was in broken gasps.
+
+"I don't believe it," he stammered. "It's a lie. I don't believe it.
+It's madness--the girl wouldn't be so mad. ..."
+
+"What is it, father?"
+
+I don't know which of us three was the more startled by that simple
+question in Betty Graham's voice; Sam, at all events, showed the least
+surprise; the old colonel wheeled toward the back of the store, his jaw
+dropping and his eyes protruding as though he were confronted with a
+ghost. As, in a way, he was: even I had been struck by that strange,
+heartrending similarity to her mother's tone; and even I trembled a
+little to hear that voice, as it seemed, from beyond the grave.
+
+Betty stood at the foot of the staircase; alarmed by the noise of the
+colonel's raging, she had stolen down, unheard by any of us. And in
+that moment I realised as never before that the girl had more of her
+mother in her than lay in that marvellous reproduction of Margaret
+Graham's voice. As she waited there one detected in her pose something
+of her mother's quiet dignity, in her eyes more than a little of
+Margaret's tragedy. Of Margaret's beauty I saw scant trace, I own; but
+in those days my eyes were blinded by the signs of overwork and
+insufficient nourishment that marred her young features, by the
+hopeless dowdiness of her garments.
+
+Abruptly she moved swiftly to her father's side and slipped her hand
+into his. "What is it, father?" she repeated, eyeing Colonel Bohun
+coldly.
+
+I thought Sam's eyes filled. His lips trembled and he had to struggle
+to master his voice. He smiled through it all, tenderly at his girl,
+but there was in that smile the weakness of the child grown old, the
+dependence of the man whose womanfolk must ever mother him.
+
+"Why, Betty," he said, tremulous--"why, Betty, your grandfather here
+has been kind enough to offer to take you and educate you and make a
+lady of you, and--and we were just talking it over, dear, just talking
+it over."
+
+"Do you mean that?" she flung at Bohun.
+
+He straightened up and held himself well in hand. "Is it the first you
+have heard of it?"
+
+"Yes." She looked inquiringly at her father.
+
+"Why didn't you tell her?" Bohun persisted harshly. "Were you afraid?"
+
+"No." Sam shook his head slowly. "I wasn't
+afraid. But it was unnecessary.... You see, Betty, Colonel Bohun is
+willing to do all this for you on several conditions. You must leave me
+and never see me again; you mustn't even recognise me should we meet
+upon the street; you must change your name to Bohun and never permit
+yourself to be known as Betty Graham. Then you must--"
+
+"Never mind, daddy dear," said the girl. "That is enough. I know now--I
+understand why you never told me. It's impossible. Colonel Bohun knew
+that when he made the offer, of course; he made it simply to harass
+you, daddy. It's his revenge...."
+
+She looked Bohun up and down with a glance of contempt that would have
+withered another man, poor, wan, haggard little maid of all work that
+she was.
+
+"And that's your answer, miss?" he snapped, livid with wrath.
+
+"I would not," she told him slowly, "accept a favour from you, sir, if
+I were starving...."
+
+Bohun drew himself up. "Then starve," he told her; and walked out of
+the shop.
+
+I gaped after his retreating figure. It seemed impossible, incredible,
+that he should have taken such an answer without yielding to a fit of
+insensate passion. And I was still marvelling when I heard Graham
+saying in a broken voice: "Betty! Betty, my little girl!"
+
+Then I, too, went away, with a mist before my eyes to dim the golden
+grace of June.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+INTRODUCTION TO MISS CARPENTER
+
+On my way back from the Flats I discovered Duncan sitting on the wall
+of the bridge, moodily donating pebbles to the water. His attitude
+suggested preoccupation with unhappy reflections, a humour from which
+the sound of my footsteps roused him. He looked up and caught my eye
+with an uncertain nod, as though he half recognised me--presumably
+having casually noticed me at the Bigelow House the previous evening.
+
+"Good-morning," said I cheerfully, with a slight break in my stride
+intended craftily to convey the impression that I was not altogether
+averse to a pause for gossip.
+
+He said "Good-morning," sombrely.
+
+"A pleasant day," I observed spontaneously, stopping.
+
+"Yes," he agreed. "By the way, have you a match about you?"
+
+I searched my pockets, found a box and handed it over.
+
+"I've been perishing for a ..." He slid his fingers into a waistcoat
+pocket, as one who should seek a cigarette-case; but the hand came
+forth empty. He bit his remark off abruptly, with a blank look in his
+eyes which was promptly succeeded by an expression of deepest chagrin.
+He got up and with a little bow returned the box.
+
+"I forgot," he said, apologetic.
+
+"I'm afraid I can't help you out," said I.
+
+"Oh, that's all right. I'd just forgotten that I don't smoke."
+
+I pretended not to notice his disconcertion.
+
+"You're to be congratulated; it's a shameful waste of time and money."
+
+"A filthy habit," said he warmly.
+
+"Indeed, yes," I chanted, finding my pipe and tobacco pouch.
+
+He caught my twinkle as I filled and lighted, and looked away, the
+shadow of a smile lurking beneath his small, closely clipped moustache.
+
+"I beg your pardon," he said a moment later, regarding me with more
+interest, "but--do you live here?"
+
+"Certainly. Why?"
+
+"I was sure of it," he replied soberly. "But don't you feel a bit
+lonesome, sometimes?"
+
+"Not in the least. Radville's one of the most interesting places on
+this side of the footstool." He sighed. "Indeed," I insisted, "you
+won't feel any more lonely after you've lived here a while, than I do
+now, Mr. Duncan."
+
+He opened his eyes at my acquaintance with his name, but jerked his
+head at me comprehendingly.
+
+"To be sure," he said. "You would know. But I'm only beginning to
+realise what it feels like to be a marked man."
+
+"I hear you intend to make Radville your permanent residence, Mr.
+Duncan?"
+
+"It's part of the system," he said obscurely. "It may prove a life
+sentence."
+
+"Don't you think you'll like it here?"
+
+"Oh, I'm strong for Radville," he declared earnestly. "It's all to the
+merry ... I beg your pardon."
+
+I stared curiously to see him colour like a school-girl. "What for?"
+
+"My mistake, sir; I forgot myself again. I don't use slang."
+
+"Oh!" I commented, wondering. He was beginning to puzzle me.
+
+In the pause the air began to rock with the heavy clanging of the clock
+in the Methodist Church steeple.
+
+"That's noon," I said. "We'll have to cut along: dinner's ready."
+
+Duncan immediately replanted himself firmly upon the parapet. "I know
+it," he said with some indignation.
+
+Again bewildered, I hesitated, but eventually advanced: "Our ways run
+together, Mr. Duncan, as far as the Bigelow House. My name is
+Littlejohn--Homer Littlejohn."
+
+He rose again to take my hand and assured me he was glad to make my
+acquaintance. "But," he added morosely, "I'll be damned if I go back to
+that hotel before dinner's over.... Great Scott! I forgot again. I
+don't swear!"
+
+"Have you any other unnatural accomplishments?" I inquired, chuckling.
+
+"I'm so full of 'em I can hardly stick," he assented gloomily. "I don't
+drink or smoke or swear or play pool or cards, and on Sundays I go to
+church."
+
+I laughed outright. "You've come to the right place for such exemplary
+virtues to be fully appreciated, Mr. Duncan."
+
+"That's all right," he said with a return of his indignation, "but it
+wasn't in the bargain that I should starve to death. Do you realise,
+Mr. Littlejohn," he continued, warming, "that you behold in me a young
+man in the prime of health actually on the point of wasting visibly
+away to a shadow of my former hardy self? It's a fact: I am. For the
+past two days I've had nothing to eat except railway sandwiches and
+coffee and the kind of fodder they pitchfork you at the Bigelow House.
+And I came here with a mind coloured with rosy anticipations of real
+old-fashioned country cooking. It's an outrage!"
+
+"Look here," said I: "why not come home with me for dinner? I'll be
+glad to have you, and Miss Carpenter won't mind your coming, I'm sure."
+
+He got up with alacrity. "Those are the first human words I've heard in
+Radville, sir! I accept with joy and gratitude. Come--lead me to it!"
+
+Now, Miss Carpenter doesn't like her meals delayed; so I would have
+been inclined to hasten this Mr. Duncan; but he saved me the trouble.
+
+"Miss Carpenter?" he asked without warning, as we hurried up Main
+Street.
+
+"My landlady, Mr. Duncan."
+
+"She takes boarders? An old maid?" he persisted eagerly.
+
+"An elderly spinster; boarders are her distraction as well as a source
+of income."
+
+"Do you think she'd take me in, Mr. Littlejohn?"
+
+"I'm sure of it. There's a vacant room ..."
+
+"Does she talk?"
+
+"Moderately."
+
+"Not a regular walking newspaper--no?"
+
+"Not exactly--"
+
+"Then I'm afraid it's no use," he sighed.
+
+I glanced up at his face, but it was inscrutable.
+
+"You--you want a landlady who talks?" I gasped, incredulous.
+
+"It's one of the rules," he said, again obscurely.
+
+I could make nothing of him. And had I any right to introduce to Hetty
+Carpenter a guest who came without credentials and talked more or less
+like a lunatic at large?
+
+"Mr. Duncan--" I began, uncomfortable.
+
+"Don't say it," he anticipated me. "I know you think I'm crazy--but I'm
+not. You would think so, naturally, because you're the only man here
+who's ever lived away from Radville long enough--not counting those who
+went to the World's Fair--."
+
+"How did you know?"
+
+"Bigelow told me last night; said you'd be glad to meet somebody from
+New York. I hope he's right. I'm glad, personally.... You see--May I
+request that you regard this as confidential?"
+
+"Yes--yes!"
+
+"I've come to Radville to make my fortune."
+
+The confession smote me witless: I could only gape. He nodded
+confirmation, with a most serious mien. At length I found strength to
+articulate. "From New York--?"
+
+"Yes. It's a new scheme. You see, Mr. Littlejohn,
+matters have come to such a state that a city-bred boy practically
+doesn't stand any show on earth of making good in the cities; your
+country-bred boys crowd him to the wall, nine times out of ten. They
+invade us in hordes, fresh from the open, strong, vigorous,
+clear-headed, ambitious.... What chance have we got? ... I've been
+figuring it out, you see, and I've come to the conclusion that it's my
+only salvation to get back to the country and improve some of the
+opportunities--the golden opportunities--that your boys have neglected,
+overlooked, in their mad desire to invade the commercial centres of the
+country."
+
+He seemed very much in earnest; I was watching him as closely as I
+might without making my scrutiny offensive; and there seemed to be the
+ring of conviction in his voice, while the expression of his eyes
+indicated concentrated thought. And how was I to know, then, that the
+concentration was due to the necessity of invention?
+
+"You follow me, Mr. Littlejohn?"
+
+"I was here first," I corrected. "Still, there's more in what you say
+than perhaps you realise."
+
+"If I'd made this discovery originally I'd agree with you, sir. But,
+quite to the contrary, it was pointed out to me by one of the shrewdest
+business minds in the United States--a man who'd been a country boy to
+begin with. And I've come to the conclusion that he's right."
+
+"So you're here."
+
+"Here I am."
+
+"And what do you propose doing?"
+
+"I'm reading law, Mr. Littlejohn; that I shall continue. In the
+meantime, I shall keep my eyes open. At any day, at any amount, the
+opportunity may present itself, the opportunity I'm looking for."
+
+"Probably you're right," I assented, impressed, as we turned a corner.
+
+A young woman in a very attractive linen gown was strolling toward us,
+quite prettily engaged with a book which she read as she walked, her
+fair young head bowed beneath a sunshade which tinted her face
+becomingly. She gave me a shy smile and a low-voiced greeting as we
+passed. Only my knowledge of the young woman prevented me from being
+blinded by her engaging appearance.
+
+"That," said I, when we were out of earshot, "shows you what a furore a
+good-looking young man can create in a town like this. Josie Lockwood
+has put on her best bib-and-tucker to go walking in this afternoon, on
+the off-chance of meeting you, Mr. Duncan."
+
+"Flattery note," he commented. "Who's Josie Lockwood?"
+
+"Daughter of Blinky Lockwood, the richest man in Radville."
+
+"Ah!" he said cryptically.
+
+We had come to Miss Carpenter's. I opened the gate for him, but he
+stood aside, refusing to precede me. And courtesy in the young folk of
+to-day warms my old heart.
+
+He had as much for Hetty Carpenter. Within an hour he had insinuated
+himself into her good graces with a deftness, an ease, that astounded.
+Within three hours he was established, bag and baggage, in her very
+best room.
+
+And thirty minutes after she had helped Duncan unpack, Hetty had to run
+downtown to buy a spool of thread.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+A WINDOW IN RADVILLE
+
+A jealous secret, which has never heretofore been divulged, is
+responsible for the prosperity of the Radville _Citizen_--at
+least, in very great measure. As the discoverer of this recipe for
+circulation, I have kept it carefully locked in my guilty bosom for
+many a year, and if I now betray it I do so without scruple, for the
+_Gazette_ is now established firmly in a groove of popularity from
+which you'd find it hard to oust the paper. So here's letting the cat
+out of the bag:
+
+The policy of the _Citizen_ has long been to devote its columns
+mainly to the exploitation of what is known in newspaper terminology as
+"the local story." Of the news of the great outside world we're
+parsimonious, recognising the fact that the coronation of King Edward
+VII. is a matter of much less import to our community than the
+holocaust which was responsible for the destruction of Sir
+Higginbottom's new hen-house. Similarly a West Indian tornado involving
+losses running up into hundreds of thousands of dollars sinks into
+relative insignificance as compared with the local weather forecast and
+its probable effect on crops not worth ten thousand; while the enforced
+abdication of the Sultan of Turkey gets a "stick" (a space in a
+newspaper column about as long as your forefinger, if you have a small
+hand) as contrasted with the column and a half assigned to the death of
+old Colonel Bohun.
+
+Now, naturally, a paper in a small country town can't afford a large
+and hustling staff of enthusiastic reporters; and very probably the
+_Citizen_ would overlook many items and stories of burning local
+interest were it not for the fact that the population has been
+cunningly made to serve in a reportorial capacity without either pay or
+its own knowledge. We literally get our local news by wireless; and
+from dawn to dark there's a constant supply of it on tap.
+
+It's this way: our editorial rooms are in the second storey of a
+building overlooking Court House Square. The lower floor is occupied by
+the Post Office, and in front of the Post Office are a hitching-post
+and two long, weather-scarred benches, while just across the road--I
+mean street--on the boundary of the square proper--is a near-bronze
+drinking-fountain and watering-trough erected from the proceeds of
+several fairs given by the local branch of the W. C. T. U. Naturally,
+indeed inevitably, all Radville gravitates to the Post Office, bringing
+the news with it, and stops to discuss it on the steps or the benches
+or by the fountain; and the acoustics are admirable. With a window open
+and scratch-pad handy, the keen-eared scribe at his desk in our offices
+can hardly fail to pick up every scrap of town information between
+sunrise and dusk.... Of course, in winter the supply's not so good.
+Winter before last we all suffered with colds acquired through keeping
+the windows open; and last winter our circulation fell off surprisingly
+through keeping them closed. This winter we contemplate cutting a
+trap-door through the floor for the ostensible purpose of ventilation.
+
+And thus it was that I managed to hear much of Mr. Duncan while I
+myself was engaged in formulating an estimate of the young man. He
+engaged the popular imagination no less than mine own, although I was
+more intimately associated with him--as a fellow-resident at Hetty
+Carpenter's. My professional duties making their habitual demands upon
+my time, I saw, it may be, less of him than many of our people.
+Certainly I learned less of his ways from first-hand knowledge. But
+from my desk (it's the nearest to the window right above the Post
+Office door) I was enabled to keep a pretty close line upon his habits
+and movements, during the first fortnight of his stay in Radville.
+
+At home I saw him with unvarying regularity at meal-times and less
+frequently after supper. Between whiles he seemed to observe a fairly
+regular routine: in the morning, after breakfast, he walked abroad for
+his health's sake; in the afternoon and evening he sequestered himself
+in his room for the pursuit of his legal studies. About the genuineness
+of these latter I was long without a question: having been privileged
+to inspect his room I found it redolent of an atmosphere of highly
+commendable application. His writing table was a model of neatness, and
+his store of legal treatises impressed one vastly. That no one, not
+even Hetty Carpenter, ever saw the room without remarking the open
+volume of "The Law of Torts," with its numerous pages painstakingly
+spaced by slips of paper by way of bookmarks, is an attested fact. That
+it was always the same volume is less widely known.
+
+Less directly (that is to say, via my window) I learned of him
+compendiously from sources which would have been anonymous but for my
+long acquaintance with the voices of the townspeople.... I write these
+pages at my desk at home and, if truth's to be told, somewhat
+surreptitiously; but with these voices ringing in my memory's ear I
+seem still to be sitting at my erstwhile desk by the window, looking
+out over Court House Square, chewing the rubber heel of my pencil the
+while I listen. It's summer weather and there's a smell in the air of
+dust and heat; the square simmers and shimmers in unclouded sunshine,
+its many green plots of grass a trifle grey and haggard with dust, the
+flagstaff with its two flanking cannon by the bandstand in the middle
+wavering slightly in the haze of heat; there are two rigs, a farm-wagon
+and a buckboard, hitched to the post below, and some boys are squirting
+water on one another by holding their hands over the lips of the
+fountain across the way. Immediately opposite, on the far side of the
+square, the Court House rises proudly in all the majesty of its
+columned front and clapboarded sides; farther along there's the
+Methodist Church, very severe, with its rows of sheds to one side for
+the teams of the more rural members. Behind them all bulk our hills,
+dim and purple against the overwhelming blue of the sky. It's very
+quiet: there are few sounds, and those few most familiar: the raucous
+war-cry of a rooster somewhere on the outskirts of town; an
+intermittent thudding of hoofs in the inch-deep dust of the roadway;
+Miles Stetson wringing faint but genuine shrieks of agony from his
+cornet, in a room behind the Opery House on the next street;
+periodically a shuffle of feet on the sidewalk below; less frequently
+the whine of the swinging doors at Schwartz's place; above it all,
+perhaps, the shrill but not unpleasant accents of Angie Tuthill as she
+pauses on the threshold downstairs and injects surprising information
+into the nothing-reluctant ears of Mame Garrison.
+
+" ... He's got six suits of clothes, three for summer and three for
+winter, and two others to wear to parties--one regular full-dress suit
+and another without any tails on the coat that he told Miss Carpenter
+was a dinner-coat, but Roland Barnette says he must've meant a Tuxedo,
+because nobody wears that kind of clothes except at night; so how could
+it be a dinner-coat?... And Miss Carpenter told Ma he's got twelve
+striped shirts and eight white ones and dozens of silk socks and two
+dozen neckties and handkerchiefs till you can't count and...."
+
+Mame punctuates this monologue with a regular and excusable "My land!"
+and the young voices fade away into the mid-summer afternoon quiet. I
+am free to resume my interrupted flight of fancy, but I refrain. The
+atmosphere is soporiferous, hardly conducive to editorial inspiration,
+and I find the commingled flavours of red-cedar, glue and rubber quite
+nourishing.
+
+Presently Dr. Mortimer, the minister, comes down the street in company
+with his deacon, Blinky Lockwood. They are discussing someone in
+subdued tones, but I catch references to a worthy young man and the
+vacancy in the choir.
+
+Josie Lockwood rustles into hearing with Bessie Gabriel in tow. Josie
+is rattling volubly, but with a hint of the confidential in her tone.
+She insists that: "Of course, I never let on, but every time we meet I
+can just feel him looking and...."
+
+Bessie interposes: "Why, Tracey Tanner's just crazy for fear he'll take
+on with Angie."
+
+I can see Josie's head toss at this. "I bet he don't know what Angie
+Tuthill looks like. That's too absurd..."
+
+"Absurd" is Josie's newest word. It's a very good word, too, but
+sometimes I fear she will wear it threadbare. It closes her remarks as
+the two girls dart into the Post Office, and there is peace for a time;
+then they emerge giggling, and I hear Josie declare: "I'd get Roland
+Barnette to do it, but he's so jealous. He makes me tired."
+
+Bessie's response is inaudible.
+
+"Well," Josie continues, "I'm simply not going to send them out until I
+meet him. Father said I could give it a week from Saturday, but I won't
+unless--"
+
+Bessie interrupts, again inaudibly.
+
+"Of course I could do that, but ... if I just said 'Miss Carpenter and
+guests' that nosey old Homer Littlejohn'd think I meant him too, and if
+I only said 'guest' it'd look too pointed. Don't you think so?"
+
+To my relief they pass from hearing, and I feel for my pipe for
+comfort. Anyway, I never did like Josie Lockwood.... Smoking, I
+meditate on the astonishing power of personality. Here is Mr. Nathaniel
+Duncan no more than a fortnight in our midst (the phrase is used
+callously, as something sacred to country journalism) and, behold! not
+yet has the town ceased to discuss him. The control he has over the
+local mind and imagination is certainly wonderful: the more so since he
+has apparently made no effort to attract attention; rather, I should
+say, to the contrary. Quiet and unassuming he goes his way, minding his
+own business as carefully as we would mind it for him, with all the
+good will in the world, if only we could find out what it is. But we
+can't leave him alone....
+
+Tracey Tanner interrupts my musings.
+
+"Hello!" he twangs, like a tuneless banjo.
+
+"'Lo, Tracey." This lofty and blase greeting can come from none other
+than Roland Barnette.
+
+"Where you goin'?"
+
+"Over to the railway station."
+
+"What for?"
+
+"To give you something to talk about. I'm going to send a telegram to a
+friend of mine in Noo York."
+
+"Aw, you ain't the only one can send telegrams. Sam Graham sent one
+just now."
+
+"_He_ did!"
+
+"Uh-huh. I was sort of hangin' round, when he came in, and I seen him
+send it myself."
+
+"Sam Graham telegraphing! Do you know; who to, Tracey?" Roland's
+superiority is wearing thin under contact with his curiosity. This
+surprising bit of news makes him distinctly more affable and inclined
+to lower himself to the social level of the son of the livery-stable
+keeper.
+
+As for myself, I am inclined to lean out of the window and call Tracey
+up, lest he get out of hearing before I hear the rest of it.
+Fortunately I am not thus obliged to compromise my dignity. The two are
+at pause.
+
+"Gimme a cigarette 'nd I'll tell you," bargains Tracey shrewdly. "Lew
+Parker told me after Sam'd gone."
+
+The deal is put through promptly.
+
+"He was telegraphin' to--Got a match?"
+
+For once I am in sympathy with Roland, whose tone betrays his desire to
+wring Tracey's exasperating neck.
+
+"Aw, he was only telegraphing to Gresham an' Jones for some sody water
+syrups."
+
+"Where'd he get the money?" There's fine scorn in Roland's comment.
+
+"I dunno, but he handed Lew a five-dollar bill to pay for the message."
+
+"Well, if Sam Graham's got any money he'd better hold on to it, instead
+of buying sody-water syrups. I guess Blinky Lockwood'll get after him
+when he finds it out. He owes Blinky a note at the bank and it's coming
+due in a day or two and Blinky ain't going to renew, neither."
+
+"Sam seemed cheerful 'nough. Anyhow, it ain't my funeral."
+
+I have now something to think about, indeed, and am more than half
+inclined to stroll up to Graham's and find out what has happened, on my
+own account, when the voices of Hi Nutt and Watty the tailor drift up
+to me. The cronies are coming down for their regular afternoon session
+on the Post Office benches--a function which takes place daily, just as
+soon as the sun gets round behind the building, so that the seats are
+shaded. And I pause, true to the ethics of journalism; it's my duty not
+to leave just yet.
+
+Surprisingly enough these two likewise are discussing Sam Graham. At
+least I can deduce nothing else from Hiram's first words, though their
+subject is for the moment nameless.
+
+"Yes, sir; he's the poorest man in this town."
+
+"Yes," Watty quavers; "yes, I guess he be."
+
+"An' he's got no more business sense _into_ him than God give a
+goose."
+
+"No, I guess he ain't."
+
+"Why, look at the way things has run down at his store since Margaret
+died. She kept things a-runnin' while she was alive."
+ "Yes, she was a fine woman, Margaret Bohun
+was."
+
+"An' they ain't no doubt about it, Sam had money into the bank when she
+died. But ever sinst then it's been all go out and no come in with him.
+He keeps fussin' and fussin' with them inventions of his, but no one
+ever heard tell of his gettin' anything out of 'em."
+
+"And what'd he do with all the money he had when Margaret died?"
+
+"Spent it, what he didn't lend and give away and lose endorsin' notes
+for his friends and then havin' to pay 'em. An' speakin' of notes, I
+heard Roland Barnette say, t'other day, that old Sam had a note comin'
+due to the bank, an' Blinky wasn't goin' to renew it any more."
+
+"'Course Sam can't pay it."
+
+"Certainly he can't. I was in his store day before yestiddy an' they
+wasn't nobody come in for nothin' while I was there. He don't do no
+business to speak of."
+
+"How long was you there, Hi?"
+
+"From nine o'clock to noon."
+
+"What doin'?"
+
+"Nuthin'; jes' settin' round."
+
+"I seen him to-day goin' into the bank. Guess he must've gone to see
+Lockwood 'bout thet note."
+
+"Well, I don't envy him his call on Blinky Lockwood none."
+
+"Mebbe he went in to deposit his coupons," Watty chuckled.
+
+Hiram snorted and there was silence while he filled and lit his pipe.
+
+"I hearn tell this mornin'," he resumed, "that Josie Lockwood's goin'
+to give a party next week."
+
+"Yes, I hearn it too. Angie Tuthill was talkin' 'bout it to Mame
+Garrison up to Leonard and Call's. She said they was goin' to have the
+biggest time this town ever see. Goin' to decyrate the grounds with
+lanterns an' have ice cream sent from Phillydelphy, and cakes, too.
+Can't make out what's come into Blinky to let that gal of his waste
+money like that."
+
+"I figger," says Hiram after a sapient pause, "she must be gettin' it
+up for thet New York dood."
+
+"Duncan?"
+
+"Uh-huh."
+
+"I didn't know he was 'quainted with the Lockwoods."
+
+"I didn't know he was 'quainted with nobody."
+
+"Nobody 'ceptin' Homer Littlejohn an' Hetty Carpenter, an' they don't
+seem to know much about him. I call him darn cur'us. Hetty says he
+allus a-settin' in his room, a-studyin' an' a-studyin' an' a-studyin'."
+
+"He goes walkin' mornin's, Hetty told me."
+
+"Wal, he don't come downtown much. Nobody hardly ever sees him 'cept to
+church."
+
+Hiram ponders this profoundly, finally delivering himself of an opinion
+which he has never forsaken. "I claim he's a s'picious character."
+
+"Don't look to me as though he knew 'nough to be much of anythin'."
+
+"Wal, now, if he's a real student an' they ain't no outs 'bout him,
+what in tarnation's he doin' here? Thet's jest what I'd like to have
+somebody tell me, Watty."
+
+"Hetty sez he sez he wants a quiet place to study."
+
+Hiram snorts with scorn. "Oh, fid-del! You don't catch no Noo York
+young feller a-settlin' down in Radville unless he's crazy or somethin'
+worse."
+
+"'Tain't no use tellin' Hetty Carpenter thet." "No; if anybody sez a
+word agin him she shets 'em right up."
+
+"'Tain't only Hetty, but all the wimmin's on his side."
+
+"Thet's proof enough to me he ain't right." "Wimmin," says Watty, as
+the result of a period of philosophical consideration, "is all crazy
+about clothes. When a feller's got good clothes you can't make them see
+no harm into him, no matter what he is. I pressed some of Duncan's last
+Satiddy. I never see clothes--such goods and linin's. They was made for
+him, too--made by a tailor on Fifth Avenue, Noo York. I fergit the name
+now."
+
+"Wal, Roland Barnette sez they ain't stylish. He sez they're too much
+like an undertaker's gitup."
+
+"Wal, Roland oughter know. He's the fanciest dressed-up feller in the
+county."
+
+"Yes, I guess he be."
+
+The subject apparently languishes, but I know that it still occupies
+their sage meditations; and presently this is demonstrated by Hiram,
+who expectorates liberally by way of preface.
+
+"When this cuss Duncan fust come here," he says with a self-contained
+chuckle, "ev'rybody but me figgered he had stacks of money. Guess they
+be singin' a different tune, now, sinst he's been goin' round askin'
+for work."
+
+This is news to me, and I sit up, sharing Watty's astonishment.
+
+"Be he a-doin' thet, Hiram?"
+
+"That's what he's been a-doin'."
+
+"Funny I missed hearin' about it."
+
+"He only started this mornin'. He went to Sothern and Lee's and Leonard
+and Call's and Godfrey's--'nd then I guess he must 'ev quit
+discouraged. They wouldn't none of them give him nothin'. Leastways,
+thet's what they said after he'd gone out. He didn't give anybody a
+reel chance to say anythin'. I was in Leonard and Call's and he came in
+an' asked for a job, but the minute Len looked at him he turned right
+round and slunk out without a-waitin' for Len to say a word." Hiram
+smoked in huge enjoyment of the retrospect. "He's the curiousest
+critter we ever had in this town."
+
+"Yes," agrees Watty, "I guess he be."
+
+At this juncture comes an interruption; Tracey Tanner returns,
+hot-foot. Either he has been running, or his breathlessness is due to
+excitement. Before the two upon the bench he pauses in agitated glee, a
+bearer of tremendous tidings.
+
+"Hello," he pants.
+
+"Now, you Tracey Tanner," Hiram cuts in sharply, "you run 'long an'
+don't be a-botherin' round. Seems like a body never can git a chance to
+rest, with you children allus a-buttin' in--"
+
+"Aw, shet up," says Tracey dispassionately. "I only wanted to tell you
+the news."
+
+Watty quavers: "What news, Tracey?"
+
+"Well," says the boy, "I'll tell you, Watty, but I wouldn't 've told
+him after what he said."
+
+"But what's the news, Tracey?" There is suspense in the iteration.
+
+"Well, seein's it's you, Watty--"
+
+"You Tracey Tanner, you run 'long and stop your jokin'!" interrupts
+Hiram with authority.
+
+"'Tain't no joke; it's news, I'm tellin' you. Sa-ay, what d'ye think,
+Watty?"
+
+"Yes, Tracey, yes? What is it, boy?"
+
+"Thet--Noo--York--dood," drawls Tracey, "is a-workin' for Sam Graham!"
+
+A dramatic pause ensues. I rise and find my coat.
+
+"Tracey Tanner," shrills Hiram, "be you a-tellin' the truth?"
+
+"Kiss my hand and cross my heart and vow Honest Injun, I seen him up
+there just now in the store, Watty, tendin' the sody fountain."
+
+"Wal," says Hiram, rising, "I don't believe a word of it, but if it's
+true we better be goin' round to see, Watty, 'cause it ain't a-goin' to
+last long. He won't stay after he finds out Sam ain't got no money to
+pay his wages with."
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+THE MAN OF BUSINESS IN EMBRYO
+
+There's no questioning the fact that two weeks of Radville had driven
+Duncan to desperation; on the morning of the fifteenth day he wakened
+in his room at Miss Carpenter's and lay for a time abed staring
+vacantly at the gaudily papered ceiling, not through laziness remaining
+on his back, but through sheer inertia. The prospect of rising to
+ramble through another purposeless, empty day appalled his imagination;
+it had been all very well when the humour of his project intrigued him,
+when the village was a novelty and its inhabitants "types" to be
+studied, watched, analysed and classified with secret amusement; but
+now he felt that he had already exhausted its possibilities; he was a
+foreigner in thought and instinct, had as little in common with
+Radvillians as any newly imported Englishman would have had. In plain
+language, he was bored to the point of extinction.
+
+"Why," he reflected aloud, "it doesn't seem reasonable, but I'm
+actually looking forward to the delirious dissipation of church next
+Sunday!
+
+"Me?...
+
+"If Kellogg could only see me now!"
+
+He laughed mirthlessly.
+
+"I must have done something to deserve this in my misspent life...
+
+"Wonder if nothing ever happens here?.... I'd give a whole lot, if I
+had it, for a good rousing fire on Main Street--the Bigelow House, for
+choice....
+
+"And it's got me to the point of drooling to myself, like those fellows
+you read about who get lost in the desert....
+
+"Come! Get out of this! And, my boy, remember to 'count that day lost
+whose low descending sun sees nothing accomplished, nothing done.'...
+
+"Probably misquoted, at that."
+
+Sullenly he rose and dressed.
+
+He was late at the breakfast and silent and reserved throughout that
+meal. Poor Miss Carpenter thought him dissatisfied and hung round his
+chair, purring with a solicitude that almost maddened him. As soon as
+possible he made his escape from the house.
+
+The walk he indulged in that morning took him in a wide circle: south
+on the road to the Gap, then eastwards, crossing the railroad and the
+river, north through a smiling agricultural region, east to the Flats,
+and so across the stone bridge to the Old Town once more. He was
+trudging up Street toward Centre shortly after eleven--hot, a little
+tired, and utterly disgusted. The exercise, instead of exhilarating,
+had depressed him; the quickened flow of blood through his veins, the
+vigour of the clean air he inhaled, demanded of him action of some
+sort; and he had nothing whatever to do with himself all afternoon save
+drowse over "The Law of Torts."
+
+Recognition of Leonard and Call's familiar shop-front fired him with a
+spirit of adventure and enterprise. He stopped short, thoughtfully
+rubbing his small moustache the wrong way, his vision glued to the
+embarrassingly candid window displays.
+
+"It'd be an awful thing for me to do....
+
+"Think of yourself, man, jumping counters in and out amongst all
+hose--those _Things!_ like a lunatic monkey performing on a Monday
+morning's clothes line!..."
+
+He thought deeply, and sighed. "It ain't moral....
+
+"But it's one of the rules, it must be did. Henry said a ribbon clerk
+was a social equal....
+
+"Come, now! No more shennanigan! Brace up! Be a man!...
+
+"A man? That's the whole trouble: I am a man; I've got no business in a
+place like that."
+
+He turned and moved away slowly. But the idea had him by the heels. He
+struggled against a growing resolution to return. Then enlightenment
+came to him suddenly. He paused again, grappling with this amazing
+revelation of self.
+
+"Great Scott! Harry was right, damn him! He said this place would
+reconstruct me from the inside out and vice versa, and by jinks! it
+has. I actually _want_ to work!...
+
+"Can you beat that--_me_!"
+
+He swung back to Leonard and Call's, mentally reviewing his
+instructions.
+
+"Let's see. I was to wait at least a month, to let the shopkeepers get
+accustomed to the sight of me.... _Hmm_.... Harry certainly has a
+cute way of expressing his thought.... But it can't be helped; I can't
+wait. If I do, I'll throw up the job....
+
+"I'm to walk in and say, politely: '_I'm looking for employment. If
+at any time you should have an opening here that you can offer me, I
+shall endeavour to give satisfaction. Good-day_.'...
+
+"But be careful not to press it. Just say it and get right out...."
+
+With the air of a man who knows his own mind he pulled open the wire
+screen-door and strode in.
+
+Two minutes later he emerged, breathing hard, but with the glitter of
+determination in his eye.
+
+"I wouldn't 've believed I could get away with it. Here goes for the
+next promising opening."
+
+He headed for Sothern and Lee's drug-store.
+
+"Wonder what that fellow would have said if I'd had the nerve to wait
+and listen...."
+
+In the drug-store he experienced less difficulty in making his speech
+and exit; he flattered himself that he accomplished both gracefully,
+even impressively. And indeed you may believe he left a gaping audience
+behind him. So likewise at Godfrey's notions and stationery shop.
+
+As he emerged from the latter the resonant clamour of the Methodist
+Church clock drove him home for dinner, hungry and glowing with
+self-approbation. At all events, no one had refused him: he had not
+been set upon and incontinently kicked out. He felt that he was getting
+on.
+
+"Now this afternoon," he mused, "I'll wind up the job. By night
+everyone in town will know I want work."
+
+But if he had thought a moment he would have realised that he might
+have spared himself the trouble; the consummation he so earnestly
+desired was already being brought about by resident and recognised, if
+unofficial, agents for the dissemination of news.
+
+It was two o'clock or thereabouts, I gather, when, shaping his course
+toward Radville's commercial centre, Duncan hesitated on the corner of
+Beech Street, cocking an incredulous eye up at the weather-worn sign
+which has for years adorned the side of Tuthill's grocery: a hand
+indicating fixedly:
+
+THIS WAY TO GRAHAM'S DRUG STORE
+
+"Two druggists in Radville!" he mused. "Is it possible?... Then it's
+Harry's mistake if the scheme fails; he said this was a one-horse
+country town, but I'm blest if it isn't a thriving metropolis! Two!...
+Here, I'm going to have a look."
+
+He turned up Beech and presently discovered the object of his quest, a
+two-storey building of "frame," guiltless of the ardent caress of a
+paint-brush since time out of mind. On the ground floor the windows
+were made up of many small square panes, several of which had been
+rudely mended. Through them the interior glimmered darkly. In the
+foreground stood a broken bottle, shaped like a mortuary urn and half
+full of pink liquid. Beside it reposed a broken packing-box in which
+bleary camphor-balls nestled between torn sheets of faded blue paper.
+Of these a silent companion in misery stood on the far side of the
+window: a towering pagoda-like cage of wire in which (trapped,
+doubtless, by means of some mysterious bait known only to alchemists)
+three worn but brutal-looking sponges were apparently slumbering in
+exhaustion. Back of these a dusty plaster cast of a male figure lightly
+draped seemed to represent the survival of the fittest over some
+strange and deadly patent medicine. The recessed door bore an
+inscription in gold letters, tarnished and half obliterated:
+
+AM GRAHAM
+ RUGS & CHEM C LS
+
+ R SCRIPTION CAREF LY C POUNDED
+
+"Looks like the very place for one of my acknowledged abilities," said
+Duncan. He turned the knob and entered, advancing to the middle of the
+dingy room. There, standing beside a cold and rusty stove whose pipe
+wandered giddily to a hole in the farthest wall (reminding him of some
+uncouth cat with its tail over its back), he surveyed with the single
+requisite comprehensive glance the tiers of shelves tenanted by a
+beggarly array of dingy bottles; the soda fountain with its company of
+glasses and syrup jars; the flanking counters with their broken
+show-cases housing a heterogenous conglomeration of unsalable wares;
+the aged and tattered posters heralding the virtues of potent affronts
+to the human interior--to say naught of its intelligence; the drab
+walls and debris-littered flooring.
+
+A slight grating noise behind him brought Duncan round with a start. At
+a work-bench near the window sat a white-haired man garbed baggily in
+an old crash coat and trousers. His head was bowed over something
+clamped in a vise, at which he was tinkering busily with a file. He did
+not look up, but, as his caller moved, inquired amiably: "Well?"
+
+"Good-morning," stammered Duncan; "er--I should say afternoon."
+
+"So you should," Sam admitted, still fussing with his work. "Anything
+you want?"
+
+Duncan swallowed hard and mastered his confusion. "Would it be possible
+for me to speak to the proprietor a moment?"
+
+"I should jedge it would. Go right along." Sam filed vigorously.
+
+"Might I ask--are you Mr. Graham?"
+
+"Yes, sir; that's me."
+
+The filing continued stridently. Duncan moved closer. There was scant
+encouragement to be gathered from Graham's indifferent attitude; yet
+his voice had been pleasant, kindly.
+
+"I--I'm looking for employment," said Duncan hastily. "If--"
+
+"Employment!"
+
+Graham dropped his tools with a clatter and faced round. For a moment
+his eyes twinkled and a wintry smile lightened his fine old features.
+"Well, I declare!" he said, rising. "You must be the stranger the whole
+town's been talkin' about."
+
+"If at any time," Duncan pursued hastily, "you should have an opening
+here that you can offer me, I shall endeavour to give satisfaction.
+Good-day, sir." And he made for the door.
+
+"Eh, just a minute," said Graham. "Are you in a hurry?"
+
+Duncan paused, smiling nervously. "Oh, no--only I mustn't press it, you
+know--just say it and get right--I mean I don't want to take up your
+valuable time, sir."
+
+Graham chuckled. "Guess the folks haven't been talking much to you
+about me," he suggested. "You seem to have a higher opinion of the
+value of my time than anybody else in Radville."
+
+"Yes, but--that is to say--"
+
+"But if you're really looking for a job, I'd like to give you one first
+rate."
+
+Duncan started toward him in breathless haste. "You--you'd like
+to!--You don't mean it!"
+
+"Yes," Graham nodded, smiling with enjoyment of his little joke. It was
+harmless; he didn't for a moment believe that Duncan really needed
+employment; and on the other hand it tickled him immensely to think
+that anyone should apply to him for work.
+
+"Well," said Duncan, staring, "you're the first man I ever met that
+felt that way about it."
+
+Sam's amusement dwindled. "The trouble is," he confessed--"the trouble
+is, my boy, my business is so small I don't need any help. There isn't
+much of anything to do here."
+
+"That's just the sort of a place I'd like," said Duncan impulsively.
+Then he laughed a little, uneasily. "I mean, I'm willing to take any
+position, no matter how insignificant. I mean it, honestly."
+
+"This might suit you, then--"
+
+"I wish you'd let me try it, sir."
+
+"But you don't understand." Graham was serious enough now; there wasn't
+any joke in what he had to say. "To tell you the truth, I can't afford
+it. When your pay was due, I'm afraid I shouldn't have any money to
+give you."
+
+Duncan dismissed this paltry consideration with a princely gesture. "I
+don't mind that part," he insisted. "Mr. Graham, if you'll teach me the
+drug business I'll work for you for nothing."
+
+He said it earnestly, for he meant it just a bit more seriously than he
+himself realised at the moment; and I'm glad to think it was because
+Sam's serene and gentle, guileless nature had appealed to the young
+man. He had that in him, that instinct for decency and the right, that
+made him like this simple, sweet and almost childish old man at
+sight--like him and want to help him, though he was hardly conscious of
+this and believed his motive rather more than less selfish, that he was
+grasping at this opportunity for relief from the deadly ennui that
+oppressed him as madly as a famished man at a crust. Indeed, the boy
+was eager to deceive himself in this respect, with youth's wholesome
+horror of sentiment.
+
+"Between you and me," he hurried on, "it's this way: I've been here for
+two weeks with nothing to do but look at a book, and it's got me crazy
+enough to want to work!"
+
+But still I like to think it was for a better reason, that his conduct
+then bore out my theory that there are streaks of human kindliness and
+right-thinking in all of us--buried deep though they may be by many an
+acquired stratum of callousness and egoism: the sediment of life caking
+upon the soul....
+
+But as for Sam, as soon as he recovered he shook his head in thoughtful
+deprecation. "Well, I swan!" he said. "I guess you must find it pretty
+slow down here. But"--brightening--"if you feel that way about it, I'd
+better take you over to Sothern and Lee's. They'd be glad to get you at
+the price."
+
+"And in a week they'd think they were over-paying me," Duncan argued.
+"No--I've been there. Why not try me on here?"
+
+"Well, I'm just a little bit afraid you wouldn't learn much, my boy. I
+don't do business enough to give you a good idea of it. Sothern and Lee
+get all the trade nowadays."
+
+"But look here, sir: don't you think if I came in here perhaps we could
+build up the business?"
+
+"No, I'm afraid not," Graham deprecated, pursing his lips and rubbing
+the white stubble of his beard with a toil-worn thumb.
+
+Duncan eyed him in bitter humour. "No, of course not. You're right--but
+somebody must have tipped you off."
+
+Graham paid little heed, whose mind was bent upon his own parlous
+circumstances. "I haven't got capital enough to stock up the store," he
+explained; "that's the real trouble. Folks have got into the habit of
+going to the other store because I'm out of so many things."
+
+"Well, to be sure," said Duncan, a little dashed; "you can't expect to
+do business unless you've got things to sell...."
+
+"I don't expect it, my boy," Sam assented dolefully. "'Twouldn't be in
+reason.... You see," he added, hope lightening his gloom, "I'm working
+on an invention of mine, and if that should work out I'd get some money
+and be able to get a fresh stock. Then I'd be glad to have you."
+
+Duncan brushed this impatiently aside. "How much business are you doing
+here now?"
+
+"Some days"--Graham reckoned it on his fingers--"I take in a dollar or
+two, and some days... nothing.... There's my sody fountain," he said
+with a jerk of a thumb toward it: "got that fixed up a little while
+ago, and it's bringing in a little. Not much. You see, I need more
+syrups. I've only got vanilly now."
+
+"Soda water!" Duncan jumped at the idea. "Hold on! All the girls round
+here drink soda, don't they?"
+
+"Oh, yes," said Graham abstractedly.
+
+The thought infused new life into the younger man's waning purpose.
+"Mr. Graham, I wish you'd let me come in here for a while. I don't care
+about wages."
+
+Graham lifted his shoulders resignedly. "Well, my boy, it don't seem
+right, but if you really want to work here for nothing, I'll be glad to
+have you; and if things look up with me, I'll be glad to pay you."
+
+Abruptly he found his hand grasped and pumped gratefully.
+
+"That's mighty good of you, Mr. Graham. When can I start?"
+
+"Why... whenever you like."
+
+In a twinkling Duncan's hat and gloves were off. "I'd like to, now," he
+said. "Where can we get more syrups?"
+
+"Unfortunately... I'll have to buy them."
+
+"How much?" Duncan's hand was in his pocket in an instant.
+
+"Oh, no, you mustn't do that." Sam backed away in alarm. "I couldn't
+allow it, my boy. It's good of you, but..."
+
+"Either," Nat told himself, "I'm asleep or someone's refusing to take
+money from me." He grinned cheerfully. "Oh, that's all right," he
+contended aloud. "I'll draw it down as soon as we begin to sell soda."
+He selected a bill from his slender store. "Will five dollars be
+enough?"
+
+"Oh, yes, but it wouldn't be right for me to--"
+
+But by this time Duncan was pressing the bill into his hand.
+"Nonsense!" he insisted. "How can we build up trade without syrup?"
+
+"But--but--"
+
+"And how can I learn the business without trade?" He closed Graham's
+unwilling fingers over the money and skipped away.
+
+Sighing, Graham gave over the unequal argument. "Well, if you're
+satisfied, my boy.... But I'll have to write to Elmiry for it."
+
+"Telegraph."
+
+"Telegraph!" Graham laughed. "That'd kill Lew Parker, I guess."
+
+"Who's he?"
+
+"Telegraph operator and ticket agent."
+
+"Well, he won't be missed much. Telegraph and tell 'em to send the
+goods C.O.D. Please, Mr. Graham. We want to get things moving here, you
+know; we've got to build up the business. We'll put out some signs and
+... and ... well, we'll get the people in the habit of coming here
+somehow. You'll see!"
+
+He raked the poverty-stricken shelves with a calculating eye, all his
+energy fired by enthusiasm at the prospect of doing something. Graham
+watched him with kindling liking and admiration. His old lips quivered
+a little before he voiced his thought.
+
+"You--you know, my boy, you've got splendid business ability," he
+asserted with whole-souled conviction.
+
+Duncan almost reeled. "What?" he cried.
+
+"I was just saying, you have wonderful business ability."
+
+"You're the first man that ever said that. I wonder if it's so."
+
+"I'm sure of it."
+
+"Well," said Nat, chuckling, "I'll write that to my chum. He'll--"
+
+"Oh, I can tell," Graham interrupted. "Now, I ... Well, you see, I've
+been a failure in business. So far as that goes, I've been a failure in
+everything all my life."
+
+Duncan stared for a moment, then offered his hand. "For luck," he
+explained, meeting Graham's puzzled gaze as his hand was taken.
+
+Wondering, Graham shook his head; and gratitude made his old voice
+tremulous. He put a hand over Duncan's, patting it gently.
+
+"I want you to know, my boy, that I appreciate..." His voice broke.
+"It's mighty kind of you to buy the syrup--very kind--"
+
+"Nothing of the sort; it's just because I've got great business
+ability." Duncan laughed quietly and moved away. "We'll want to clean
+up a bit," said he; "got a broom? I'll raise the dust a bit while
+you're out sending that wire."
+
+"You'll find one in the cellar, I guess, but--your clothes--"
+
+"Oh, that's all right. Where's the cellar?"
+
+"Underneath," Graham told him simply, taking down a battered hat from a
+hook behind the counter.
+
+"I know; but how do I get there?"
+
+"By the steps; you go through that door there into the hall. The steps
+are under the stairs to our rooms. I live above the store, you see."
+
+"Yes.... Good-bye, Mr. Graham."
+
+"Good-bye, my boy."
+
+Duncan watched the old man move slowly out of sight, then with a groan
+sat down on the counter to think it over. "It wouldn't be me if I
+didn't make a mess of things somehow," he told himself bitterly. "Now
+you have gone and went and done it, Mr. Fortune Hunter. You stand a
+swell chance of getting away with the goods when you take a wageless
+job in a spavined country drug-store with no trade worth mentioning and
+nothing to draw it with... just because that old duffer's the only
+human being you've spotted in this burg!...
+
+"Wonder what Harry would say if he heard about that wonderful business
+ability thing...
+
+"But what in thunder can we do to bring business to this bum joint?"
+
+He raked his surroundings with a discouraged glance.
+
+"Oh," he said thoughtfully, "hell!"
+
+Five minutes later Ben Sperry found him in the same position, his head
+bent in perplexed reverie. Sperry had been travelling for Gresham and
+Jones, a wholesale drug-house in Elmira, more years than I can
+remember. His friendship for Sam Graham, contracted during the days
+when Graham's was the drug-store of Radville, has survived the decay of
+the business. He's a square, decent man, Sperry, and has wasted many an
+hour trying to persuade Sam to pay a little more attention to the
+business. I suspect he suffered the shock of his placid life when he
+found Sam absent and the shop in the care of this spruce, well set-up
+young man.
+
+"Anything I can do for you?" chirped Duncan cheerfully, dropping off
+the counter as Sperry entered.
+
+"No-o; I just wanted to see old Sam. Is he upstairs?"
+
+"No, Mr. Graham's not in at present," Duncan told him civilly.
+
+Sperry wrinkled his brows over this problem. "You working here?" he
+asked.
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Well, I'll be hanged!"
+
+"Let us hope not," said Duncan pleasantly. He waited a moment, a little
+irritated. "Sure there's nothing _I_ can do for you?"
+
+"No-o," said Sperry slowly, struggling to comprehend. "Thank you just
+the same."
+
+"Not at all." Duncan turned away.
+
+"You see," Sperry pursued, "I don't buy from drug-stores: I sell to
+'em."
+
+Duncan faced about with new interest in the man. "Yes?" he said
+encouragingly.
+
+"My card," volunteered Sperry, fishing the slip of pasteboard from his
+waistcoat pocket. He dropped his sample case beside the stove and
+plumped down in the chair, to the peril of its existence. "I don't make
+this town very often," he pursued, while Duncan studied his card.
+"Sothern and Lee are the only people I sell to here, but I never miss a
+chance to chin a while with old Sam. So, having half an hour before
+train time, I thought I'd drop in."
+
+"Mr. Graham doesn't order from your house, then?"
+
+"Doesn't order from anybody, does he?"
+
+"I don't know; I've just come here. He'll be sorry to have missed you,
+though. He's just stepped out to wire your house--I gather from the
+fact that it's in Elmira; he mentioned that town, not the firm
+name--for some syrups."
+
+"You don't mean it!" Sperry gasped. "What's struck him all of a sudden?
+He ain't put in any new stock for ten years, I reckon."
+
+"Well, you see," Duncan explained artfully, "I've persuaded him, in a
+way, to try to make something out of the business here. We're going to
+do what we can, of course, in a small way at first."
+
+Sperry wagged a dubious head. "I dunno," he considered. "Sam's a nice
+old duffer, but he ain't got no business sense and never had; you can
+see for yourself how he's let everything run to seed here. Sothern and
+Lee took all his trade years ago."
+
+"Yes, I know; that's why he needs me," said Duncan brazenly. In his
+soul he remarked "O Lord!" in a tone of awe; his colossal impudence
+dazed even himself. "But don't you think he could get back some of the
+trade if the store was stocked up?"
+
+"No doubt about that at all," Sperry averred; "he'd get the biggest
+part of it."
+
+"You think so?"
+
+"Sure of it. You see, everybody round here likes Sam, and Sothern and
+Lee have always been outsiders. They'd swing to this shop in a minute,
+just on account of that. Fact is, I wasted a lot of talk on our firm a
+couple of years ago, trying to make our people give him some credit,
+but they couldn't see it. He owed them a bill then that was so old it
+had grown whiskers."
+
+"And still owes it, I presume?"
+
+"You bet he still owes it. Always will. It's so small that it ain't
+worth while suing for----"
+
+"Look here, Mr. Sperry, how much is this bill with the whiskers?"
+
+"About fifty dollars, I think," said the travelling man, fumbling for
+his wallet. "I'm supposed to ask for payment every time I strike town,
+you know, so I always have it with me; but I haven't had the heart to
+say a word to Sam for a good long time.... Here it is."
+
+Duncan studied carefully the memorandum: "To Mdse, as per bill
+rendered, $47.85." "I wonder..." he murmured.
+
+"Eh?" said Sperry.
+
+"I was wondering:... Suppose you were to tell your people that there's
+a young fellow here who'd like to give this store a boom.... Say he
+wants a little credit because--because Mr. Graham won't let him put in
+any cash----"
+
+"Not a bit of use," Sperry negatived. "I would, myself, but the
+house--no."
+
+"But suppose I pay this bill----"
+
+"Pay it? You really mean that?"
+
+"Certainly I mean it." Duncan produced the wad of bills which Kellogg
+had furnished him the night before his departure from New York. Thus
+far he had broken only one of the five-hundred-dollar gold
+certificates, and of that one he had the greater part left; living is
+anything but expensive in Radville.
+
+"I'm beginning to understand that I was cut out for an actor," he told
+himself as he thumbed the roll with a serious air and an assumed
+indifference which permitted Sperry to estimate its size pretty
+accurately.
+
+"That's quite a stack of chips you're carrying," Sperry observed.
+
+Duncan's hand airily wafted the remark into the limbo of the
+negligible. "A trifle, a mere trifle," he said casually. "I don't
+generally carry much cash about me. Haven't for five years," he added
+irrepressibly. He extracted a fifty-dollar certificate from the sheaf,
+and handed it over.
+
+"I'll take a receipt, but you needn't mention this to Mr. Graham just
+now."
+
+"No, certainly not." Sperry scrawled his signature to the bill.
+
+"And about that line of credit?----"
+
+"Well, with this paid, I guess you could have what you needed, in
+moderation. Of course----"
+
+"My name is Duncan--Nathaniel Duncan." Sperry made a memorandum of it
+on the back of an envelope. "Any former business connections?"
+
+"None that I care to speak about," Duncan confessed glumly.
+
+Sperry's face lengthened. "No references?"
+
+It took thought, and after thought courage; but Duncan hit upon the
+solution at length. "Do you know L. J. Bartlett & Company, the
+brokers?"
+
+"Do I know J. Pierpont Morgan?"
+
+"Then that's all right. Tell your people to inquire of Harry Kellogg,
+the junior partner. He knows all about me."
+
+Noting the name, Sperry put away the envelope. "That's enough. If he
+says you're all right, you can have anything you want." He consulted
+his watch. "Hmm. Train to catch.... But let's see: what do you need
+here?"
+
+Duncan reviewed the empty shelves, his face glowing. "Pills," he said
+with a laugh: "all kinds of pills and... everything for a regular,
+sure-enough drug-store, Mr. Sperry: everything Sothern and Lee carries
+and a lot of attractive things they don't.... Small lots, you know,
+until I see what we can sell."
+
+"I see. You leave it to me; I probably know what you need better than
+you do. I'll make out a list this afternoon and mail it to-night with
+instructions to ship it at the earliest possible moment."
+
+"Splendid!" Duncan told him. "You do that, and don't worry about our
+making good. I'm going to put all my time and energy into this
+proposition and----"
+
+"Then you'll make good all right," Sperry assured him. "All anybody's
+got to do is look at you to see you're a good business man." He
+returned Duncan's pressure and picked up his sample-case. "S'long,"
+said he, and left briskly, leaving Duncan speechless.
+
+As if to assure himself of his sanity he put a hand to his brow and
+stroked it cautiously. "Heavens!" he said, and sought the support of
+the counter. "That's twice to-day I've been told that in the same
+place!"...
+
+"It's funny," he said, half dazed, "I never could have pulled that off
+for myself!"
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+
+SMALL BEGINNINGS
+
+Presently Duncan moved and came out of his abstraction. "I'd better get
+that broom," he said slowly. "The place certainly needs some expert
+manicuring before we get that new stock in.... By George, I really
+begin to believe we've got a chance to do something, after all!...
+
+"Or else I'm dreaming...."
+
+He opened the back door and entered a narrow and dark hallway, almost
+stumbling over the lowest step of a flight of stairs communicating with
+the upper storey. From above he could hear a clatter of crockery,
+sounds of footsteps, a woman singing softly.
+
+"Graham's wife, I presume. Never struck me he might be married....
+Well, I'll be quiet. If she catches me now, before we're introduced,
+she'll take me for a burglar."
+
+On tiptoes he found the descent to the cellar, where by the aid of a
+match he discovered a floorbrush whose reasons for retirement from
+active employment were most evident even to his inexpert eye. None the
+less nothing better offered, and he took it back with him to the shop.
+
+Graham's tinkering was never of a cleanly sort; the floor was thick
+with a litter of rubbish--shavings, old nuts and bolts, bits of scrap
+tin and metal, torn paper, charred ends of matches: an indescribable
+mess. Duncan surveyed it ruefully, but with the will to do strong in
+him, took off his coat, turned up his trousers, and fell to. The
+disposition of the sweepings troubled him far less than the dust he
+raised; obviously the only place to put it was behind the counters.
+
+"Nobody'll see it there," he said in a glow of satisfaction, pausing
+with the room half cleared. "I always wondered what they did with that
+sort of truck--under the beds, I suppose. Funny Graham never thought of
+this, himself--it's so blame' easy."
+
+He resumed his labours, thrilled with the sensation of accomplishment.
+"One thing at least that I can do," he mused; "never again shall I fear
+starvation... so long as there's a broom handy." Absorbed he brushed
+away, raising a prodigious amount of dust and utterly oblivious to the
+fact that he was observed.
+
+Two shadows moved slowly athwart the windows, to which his back was
+turned, paused, moved on out of sight, returned. It was only during a
+pause for breath that he became aware of the surveillance.
+
+Straightening up, he looked, gasped and fled for the back of the store.
+"Heavens!" he whispered, aghast to recognise Josie Lockwood and Angie
+Tuthill, of whose ubiquitous shadows in his way he had been conscious
+so frequently within the past several days. "I _thought_ I must
+have made an impression.... Don't tell me they're coming in!"
+
+Behind the counter he struggled furiously into his coat. "They are," he
+said with a sinking heart; "and I'll bet a dollar my face is dirty!"
+
+Notwithstanding these misgivings, it was a very self-possessed young
+man, to all appearances, who moved sedately round the end of the
+counter to greet these possible customers. His bow was a very passable
+imitation of the real thing, he flattered himself; and there's no
+manner of doubt but that it flattered the two prettiest and most
+forward young women in Radville of that day.
+
+"May I have the honour of waiting on you, ladies?" he inquired with all
+the suavity of an accomplished salesman.
+
+Josie and Angie sidled together, giggling and simpering, quite overcome
+by his manner. A muffled "How de do?" from Angie and a half-strangled
+echo of the salutation from the other were barely articulate. But
+hearing them he bowed again, separately to each.
+
+"Good-afternoon," said he, and waited in an inquiring pose.
+
+"This--'this is Mr. Duncan, isn't it?" inquired Josie, controlling
+herself.
+
+"Yes, and you are Miss Lockwood, if I'm not mistaken?"
+
+Renewed giggles prefaced her: "Oh, how _did_ you know?"
+
+"Could anyone remain two weeks in Radville and not hear of Miss
+Lockwood?"
+
+The shot told famously. "How nice of you! Mr. Duncan, I want you to
+meet my friend, Miss Tuthill."
+
+"I've had the honour of admiring Miss Tuthill from a distance," Duncan
+assured the younger woman. And, "She'll burn up!" he feared secretly,
+watching the conflagration of blushes that she displayed. "Just think
+of getting away with a line of mush like that! Harry was right after
+all: this is a country town, all right."
+
+"And--and are you working here, Mr. Duncan?" Josie pursued.
+
+"I'm supposed to be; I'm afraid I don't know the business very well, as
+yet."
+
+"Oh, that's awf'ly nice," Angle thought.
+
+He thanked her humbly.
+
+"We didn't expect to see you here," Josie assured him. "We just thought
+we'd like some soda."
+
+"Soda!" he parroted, horrified. He cast a glance askance at the tawdry
+fountain. "Let's see: how d'you work the infernal thing?" he asked
+himself, utterly bewildered.
+
+"Yes," Angie chimed in; "it's so warm this afternoon, we----"
+
+"I've got to put it through somehow," he thought savagely. And aloud,
+"Yes, certainly," he said, and smiled winningly. "Will you be pleased
+to step this way?"
+
+Out of the corners of his eyes he detected the amused look that passed
+between the girls. "Oh, very well!" he said beneath his breath. "You
+may laugh, but you asked for soda, and soda you shall have, my dears,
+if you die of it." He put himself behind the counter with an air of
+great determination, and leaned upon it with both hands outspread until
+he realised that this was the pose of a groceryman. "What'll you have?"
+he demanded genially. "Er--that is--I mean, would you prefer vanilla
+or--ah--soda?"
+
+A chant antiphonal answered him:
+
+"I hate vanilla."
+
+"And so do I."
+
+"Oh, don't say that!" he pleaded. "Of course you know there's--ah--
+vanilla and vanilla..., Ah... some vanilla I know is detestable, but
+when you get a really fine vintage--ah--imported vanilla, it's quite
+another matter--ah--particularly at his season of the year----"
+
+His confusion was becoming painful.
+
+"Oh, is it?" asked Josie helpfully. Her eyes dwelt upon his with a
+confiding expression which he later characterised as a baby stare; and
+he was promptly reduced to babbling idiocy.
+
+"Indeed it is; no doubt whatever, Miss Lockwood. Especially just now,
+you know--ah--after the bock season--ah--I mean, when the weather is--
+is--in a way--you might put it--vanilla weather."
+
+"But I like chocolate best," Angle pouted. And he hated her consumedly
+for the moment.
+
+"Very well," Josie told him sweetly, "I'll have the vanilla."
+
+He thanked her with unnecessary effusion and turned to inspect the
+glassware. There could be no mistake about the right jar, however;
+there was nothing but vanilla, and seizing it he removed the metal cap
+and placed it before the girls. With less ease he discovered a whiskey
+glass and put it beside the bottle, with a cordial wave of the hand.
+ A pause ensued. Duncan was smiling fatuously, serene in the belief that
+he had solved the problem: the way to serve soda was to make them help
+themselves. It was very simple. Only they didn't... With a start he
+became sensible that they were eyeing him strangely.
+
+"You--ah--wanted vanilla, did you not?"
+
+"Yes, thanks, vanilla," Josie agreed.
+
+"Well, that's it," he said firmly, indicating the jar and the glass.
+
+Josie giggled. "But I don't want to drink it clear. You put the syrup
+in the glass, you know, and then the soda."
+
+"Oh, I see! You want to make a high-ba--ah--a long drink of it. Ah,
+yes!" He procured a glass of the regulation size. "Now I understand." A
+pause. "If you'll be good enough to help yourself to the syrup."
+
+"No; you do it," Josie pleaded.
+
+"Certainly." He lifted the whiskey-glass and the jar and began to pour.
+"If you'll just say when."
+
+"What? Oh, that's enough, thank you."
+
+"If I ever get out of this fix, I'll blow the whole shooting match," he
+promised himself, holding the glass beneath the faucet and fiddling
+nervously with the valves. For a moment he fancied the tank must be
+empty, for nothing came of his efforts. Then abruptly the fixture
+seemed to explode. "A geyser!" he cried, blinded with the dash of
+carbonated water and syrup in his face, while he fumbled furiously with
+the valves.
+
+As unexpectedly as it had begun the flow ceased. He put down the glass,
+found his handkerchief and mopped his dripping face. When able to see
+again he discovered the young women leaning against one of the
+show-cases, weak with laughter but at a safe remove.
+
+"Our soda's so strong, you know," he apologised. "But if you'll stay
+where you are, I'll try again."
+
+Warned by experience, he worked at the machine gingerly, finally
+producing a thin, spluttering trickle. Beaming with triumph, he looked
+up. "I think it's safe now," he suggested; "I seem to have it under
+control."
+
+Angie and Josie returned, torn by distrust but unable to resist the
+fascination of the stranger in our village. And there's no denying the
+boy was good-looking and a gentleman by birth: a being alien to their
+experience of men.
+
+He had filled one glass and was tincturing it with syrup when he caught
+again that confiding smile of Josie's, full upon him as the beams of a
+noon-day sun.
+
+"Haven't we seen you at church, Mr. Duncan?" she said prettily.
+
+"I think, perhaps, you may have," he conceded. "I have seen you, both."
+The second glass (for he was determined that Angie should not escape)
+took up all his attention for an instant. "Do you have to go, too?" he
+inquired out of this deep preoccupation.
+
+"What?"
+
+"I mean, do you attend regularly?" he amended hastily.
+
+"Oh, yes, of course," Josie simpered, accepting the glass he offered
+her. "You make it a rule to go every Sunday, don't you, Mr. Duncan?"
+
+He permitted himself an indiscretion, secure in the belief it would
+pass unchallenged: "It's one of the rules, but I didn't make it."
+
+"Did you know there was a vacancy in the choir?" Angle asked, taking up
+her glass.
+
+"Choir?"
+
+"Yes," Josie chimed in; "we were hoping you'd join. I want you to,
+awfully."
+
+"We're both in the choir," Angie explained.
+
+"And all the girls want you to join. Don't they, Angie?"
+
+"Oh, yes, indeed; they're all just dying to meet you."
+
+"I'll have to write and ask," he said abstractedly.
+
+"Why, what do you mean by that?"
+
+Josie's question struck him dumb with consternation. He made curious
+noises in his throat, and fancied (as was quite possible) that they
+eyed him in a peculiar fashion. "It's--I mean--a little trouble with my
+throat," he managed to lie, at length. "I must ask my physician if I
+may, first."
+
+"Oh, I see," said Josie.
+
+"But," he hastened to change the subject, "you're not drinking, either
+of you. I sincerely hope it's not so very bad."
+
+Angie replaced her glass, barely tasted. "Do you like it, Josie?"
+
+To Josie's credit it must be admitted that she made a brave attempt to
+drink. But the mixture was undoubtedly flat, stale and unprofitable.
+She sighed, put it back on the counter, and rose to the emergency.
+
+"Mine's perfectly lovely"--with a ravishing smile--"but it's not very
+sweet."
+
+"I made them dry for you--thought you'd like 'em that way," he
+stammered. "Perhaps you'd like 'em better if I put a collar on 'em?"
+
+The chorus negatived this suggestion very promptly.
+
+"Why don't you try a glass, Mr. Duncan?" Angie added with malice.
+
+"I'm on the wagon--I mean, I don't drink at all," he said wretchedly;
+and was deeply grateful for the diversion afforded by the entrance of a
+third customer.
+
+It was Tracey Tanner, as usual swollen with important tidings, as usual
+propelling himself through the world at a heavy trot. It has always
+been a source of wonderment to me how Tracey manages to keep so stout
+with all the violent exercise he takes.
+
+"Say, Angle," he twanged at sight of her, "I've been lookin' for you
+everywhere. Did you hear that----"
+
+He stopped instantaneously with open mouth as he saw Duncan behind the
+counter; and openmouthed he remained while the young man came round and
+advanced toward him, with a bland smirk accompanied by a professional
+bow and rubbing of hands.
+
+"May I have the pleasure of serving you, Mr. Tanner?"
+
+"Huh?" bleated Tracey, dumbfounded.
+
+"Is there anything you wish to purchase?"
+
+A violent emotion stirred in Tracey. Sounds began to emanate from his
+heaving chest. "N-n-no, ma'am!" he breathed explosively.
+
+Duncan bowed again, his face expressionless. "Then will you be good
+enough to excuse me?" He turned precisely and made his way back to the
+counter.
+
+As if released from some spell of strong enchantment by the movement,
+Tracey swung on his heel and lunged for the door.
+
+"What was it you wanted to ask me, Tracey?" Angie called after him.
+
+As the boy disappeared at a hand-gallop his response floated back: "I
+fergit."
+
+"I'm afraid I must have frightened him?" Duncan said inquiringly.
+
+"Oh, no, not at all," Josie reassured him; "he's just gone to tell
+everybody you're here."
+
+"Come, Josie, we've been here ever so long." Angie moved slowly toward
+the door, but Josie inclined to linger.
+
+"Don't hurry, I beg of you," Duncan interposed.
+
+"Oh, we haven't hurried," she said with a gush of gratification that
+startled the man. "You'll remember what I said about the choir, won't
+you?"
+
+He braced himself to take advantage of the opening. "I shall never
+forget it," he said impressively.
+
+She gave him her hand. "Then good-bye."
+
+"Not good-bye, I trust?" He retained the hand, despising himself
+inexpressibly.
+
+"Oh, we'll be in again, won't we Angie?"
+
+"Oh, yes, indeed."
+
+"My land, Angie! What do you think? I'd almost forgotten to pay for the
+soda?"
+
+"Please don't speak of it, Miss Lockwood--the pleasure--."
+
+"But I must, Mr. Duncan. How much is it?"
+
+Josie fingered the contents of her purse expectantly, but Duncan hung
+in the wind. He had no least notion what might be the price of soda
+water. "Two for a quarter?" he hazarded with his disarming grin.
+
+Angle choked with appreciation of this exquisite sally. "Ain't you
+funny!"
+
+"I'm afraid you're right," he conceded; "still I'd rather you didn't
+think so."
+
+"It's ten cents, isn't it, Mr. Duncan?"
+
+Josie was offering him a dime; he accepted it without question.
+
+"Thank you, very much," said he. "Good afternoon, ladies."
+
+He was aware of Angle's fluttering farewells on the sidewalk. Josie was
+lingering on the doorstep in an agony of untrained coquetry. He lowered
+his tone for her benefit, thereby adding new weight to his bombardment
+of her amateur defences.
+
+"Remember you promised to call again."
+
+Her giggles tore his ear-drums. "Th-thank you, I'm sure," she
+stammered, and fled.
+
+They disappeared. He wandered to the chair and threw himself limply
+into it. "That voice!" he said stupidly. "That giggle! I've got to woo
+and win... _that!_...
+
+"It serves me right," he concluded.
+
+The most hopeless of humours assailed him, and he yielded to it without
+a struggle. His attitude expressed his mood with relentless verity.
+Chin sunken upon his breast, eyes fairly distilling gloom, legs
+stretched out carelessly before him, he sat motionless, suffocating at
+the bottom of a gulf of discontent. His lips moved, sometimes
+noiselessly, again in whispers barely audible.
+
+"Years of this!... A matter of human endurance--no, superhuman!... If
+it wasn't for the bargain, I'd chuck it all and...
+
+"Well, the only way to forget your misery is to work, I suppose."
+
+He pulled himself together and stood up, wondering where he had left
+his broom, and simultaneously stiffened with surprise, aware that he
+was not alone. A glance, however, established the connection between
+the rear door, which stood ajar, and the young woman who stood staring
+at him in utterest stupefaction. This, he thought, must be the woman of
+the voice, upstairs.
+
+But she couldn't be Graham's wife. She was too young. Even beneath the
+mask of care and weariness, the all too plain evidences of privation,
+spiritual and mental as well as physical, that Betty wore unceasingly
+in those days, he could discern youth and grace and gentleness, and the
+nascent promise of prettiness that longed to be, to have the chance to
+show itself and claim its meed of deference and love. He was quick to
+see the intelligence in her mutinous eyes, and the sweet lines of her
+mouth, too often shaped in sullen mould, and no less quick to recognise
+that she would carry herself well, with spirit and dignity, once she
+were relieved of household toil and moil, once given the chance to
+discard her shapeless, bedraggled and threadbare garments for those
+dainty and beautiful things for which her starved heart must be sick
+with longing....
+
+"Good Lord!" he thought, pitiful, "it's worse here than I dreamed. Old
+Graham must need a keeper--and this child has been trying to be that,
+with nothing to keep him on."
+
+"Who are you?" the girl demanded sullenly, in a voice a little harsh
+and toneless. "What are you doing here? Where's my father?"
+
+"Mr. Graham has stepped out on business," Duncan replied. "You are his
+daughter, I believe?"
+
+"Yes, I'm his daughter, but----"
+
+"My name is Nathaniel Duncan. Mr. Graham has been kind enough to take
+me on as apprentice, so to speak."
+
+Her stare continued, intense, resentful, undeviating.
+
+"You mean you're going to work here?"
+
+"That my intention, Miss Graham." He nodded gravely.
+
+"What for?"
+
+"To learn the drug business."
+
+"Oh-h!" She flung herself a pace away, impatiently. "I'm not a child,
+and I don't want to be talked to like one."
+
+"I didn't mean to annoy you----"
+
+[Illustration: "You mean you're going to work here?"]
+
+"Well, you do. You've got no business in a run-down place like this--
+you with your fine clothes and your fine airs. You didn't come here to
+learn the drug business; you know as well as I do you've got some other
+motive."
+
+There was a truth in that to sting him. He smarted under its lash, but
+held his temper in check because he was sorry for the girl. "Perhaps
+you're right," he conceded; "perhaps I have some other motive. But
+that's neither here nor there. I'm here, and it is my present intention
+to learn the drug business in your father's store."
+
+"I don't believe you, Mister Duncan--or whatever your name is."
+
+"I'm sorry," he said patiently.
+
+Betty's lips twitched, contemptuous. "Well, saying you do mean to work
+here----"
+
+"I do."
+
+"Where do you think your pay's going to come from?"
+
+"Heaven, perhaps."
+
+"I guess you think that's funny, don't you?"
+
+"I confess, at the moment I did. But now I realise it's probably a
+bitter truth."
+
+He was too much for her, she saw, and the knowledge only served to fan
+her indignation and suspicions.
+
+"You're making a mistake," she snapped. "Father can't pay you nothing."
+
+"He'll pay me all I'm worth," said Duncan meekly.
+
+She glared at him an instant longer, then mute for lack of a
+sufficiently scornful retort, turned and ran back up the steps,
+slamming the door behind her.
+
+Duncan drew a rueful face, contemplating the place where she had been.
+
+"I didn't think this was going to be a bed of roses--and it isn't," he
+concluded.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+
+ROLAND BARNETTE'S FRIEND
+
+Nat had a busy day or two after that, trying to set things to rights in
+the store for the better reception and display of the new stock. Sperry
+dropped him a line saying that the goods would arrive on the third day,
+and there was much to do to make way for it. He managed to get the shop
+cleaned up thoroughly with Betty's not unwilling but distinctly
+suspicious aid; the girl was apparently convinced that Duncan meant
+business, and that this would ostensibly work for her father's benefit,
+but she was distinctly dubious as to the _deus ex machina_. Duncan
+now and again would catch her watching him, her eyes dark with
+speculation; but when she detected his gaze her look would change
+instantly to one of hostility and defiance. He suspected that only her
+father's wishes prevented an open break with her; as it was he was
+conscious that there was no more than an armed truce between them. And
+he did not like it; it made him uncomfortable. He wasn't hardened
+enough to have an easy conscience, and Betty's open doubts as to the
+reason for his coming to Radville disturbed Duncan more than he would
+have cared to own.
+
+For all that, they worked together steadily, and accomplished a rather
+sensational transformation in the appearance of the place. The floor,
+counter and shelves were swept, washed, dusted and garnished with
+paint; that is, all but the floor received the attention of the
+paint-brush; Duncan managed to smuggle a quantity of oil-cloth into the
+shop and get it down before Graham could enter any protest: the effect
+approximated tiling nearly enough to brighten the room up wonderfully.
+Aside from this the old stock was routed out and, for the greater part,
+donated to the rubbish-heap. Teddy Smart, the glazier, was commissioned
+to repair the broken window-panes and show-cases. A can of metal polish
+freshened up the nickel and brass trimmings and rendered the single
+upright of the soda fountain almost attractive. The stove was uprooted
+and stored away, and its aspiring pipes dispensed with. Finally, after
+considerable argument, Graham consented to the removal of his
+work-bench to a shed in the back-yard. The model was suffered to
+remain, the tanks and burner being stored out of sight beneath one of
+the window-seats, more because Duncan considered it would be a good
+thing to have the light than because he understood or attached much
+importance to the contrivance. For that matter, he hadn't the time to
+listen to an exposition of its advantages, and Graham, recognising
+this, was content to abide his time, serene in the conviction that he
+would presently find in his assistant a willing and sympathetic
+listener.
+
+Between spasms of work Duncan had his hands full attending to the soda
+fountain. Soda water being practically the only salable thing in the
+store, it had to serve as an excuse for the inquisitiveness of many of
+my fellow-citizens, to say nothing of--I should put it, but
+especially--their wives and daughters. The consumption of vanilly sody
+in those two days broke all known Radville records, and stands a
+singular tribute to the Spartan fortitude of Radville womanhood,
+particularly the young strata thereof. Duncan, after he had succeeded
+in taming the fountain, seemed rather to enjoy than object to
+dispensing sody, standing inspection and receiving adulation and
+nickels in unequal proportions. By the end of the second day he could
+not truthfully have told his friend Willy Bartlett: "The list has
+shrunk." It had swollen enormously. There isn't any doubt but that he
+had a nodding acquaintance with every pretty girl in town, as well as
+with most not considered pretty.
+
+From my window in the _Citizen_ office I was able to keep a
+tolerably close account of events and obtain a consensus of public
+opinion. So far as the latter bore upon Duncan, it was divided into two
+rather distinct parties, one of course favouring him; and this was
+feminine almost exclusively. Tracey Tanner, to be sure, confessed
+within my hearing to a predilection for the Noo York dood, but was
+inclined to hedge and climb the fence when assailed by Roland's
+strictures. Roland, I suspect, was a wee mite jealous; he had been
+paying attention to--I mean, going with--Josie Lockwood for several
+months. Instinctively he must have divined his danger; and it's not in
+reason to exact admiration of the usurper from the usurped, even when
+the act of usurpation has not yet been definitely consummated. Roland
+went to the length of labelling Duncan "sissy," and professed to
+believe that Hiram Nutt was justified in calling him a "s'picious
+character"; Roland hinted darkly that Duncan knew New York no better
+than Will Bigelow.
+
+"And if he did come from there," he asseverated, "I betcher he didn't
+leave for no good purpose."
+
+His temper inspired me with the sapient reflection that it's a terrible
+thing to be in love, even if only with an old man's millions.
+
+"There's goin' to be a real Noo Yorker here before long," Roland
+boasted; "he's comin' to see me on some 'special private bus'ness of
+ourn."
+
+"Huh," commented Tracey, the sceptical. "What kind of a Noo Yorker'd
+come all the way here to see you?"
+
+"That's all right. You'll see when he gets here. He's a pro-motor."
+
+"A what?"
+
+"A pro-motor, a financier." Roland pronounced it "finnan seer," thus
+betraying symptoms of culture and bewildering Tracey beyond expression.
+
+"What's that?" he demanded aggressively.
+
+"That's a feller 't can take nothing at all and incorporate it and make
+money out of it," Roland defined with some hesitancy.
+
+"And that's why he's coming down here to take a look at you?" inquired
+Tracey, skipping nimbly round the corner.
+
+Curiously enough in my understanding (for I own to no great faith in
+Roland's statements, taking them by and large) his friend from New York
+put in an unheralded appearance in Radville that same night, on the
+evening train. The Bigelow House received him to its figurative bosom
+under the name of W.H. Burnham. He sent for Roland promptly and treated
+him to a dinner at the hotel; something which I have always regarded as
+a punishment several sizes too large for the crime. Later, having
+displayed him on the streets in witness to his good faith, Roland spent
+the evening with Mr. Burnham mysteriously confabulating behind closed
+doors in the hotel. Speculation ran rife through the town until nine
+o'clock, and land for several days basked in the heat of public
+interest.
+
+I happened accidentally to get a glimpse of Mr. Burnham after supper,
+although I had to miss my baked apple in order to get down town in
+time. He was a disappointment to some extent, although his mode of
+dress attracted much comment as being far more sprightly than Duncan's
+and less startling than Roland's. He had a self-confident air and a bit
+of swagger that filled the eye, but a face and a voice that detracted,
+the one too boldly good-looking, with eyes roving and predaceous, the
+other a suggestion too loud and domineering. ... I fear association
+with Duncan had vitiated my taste.
+
+However that may be, Roland got an hour off at the bank the following
+morning, and the pair of them, after wandering with evident aimlessness
+round the town, drifted as it were on the tide of hap-chance into
+Graham's drug-store.
+
+Duncan was at the station, superintending the transportation of the new
+stock, which had come by the early local; Betty was busy with her
+housework upstairs; and only old Sam kept the shop.
+
+Sam wasn't in the best of spirits. His evergreen optimism seldom
+withered, but in spite of all that had already been accomplished in
+behalf of the store, in spite of the rosier aspect of his declining
+fortunes and his confidence in and affection for Duncan, Sam was
+worried. He had been over to the bank once, even at that early hour,
+but Blinky Lockwood had driven out of town to see about foreclosing one
+of his numerous mortgages in the neighbourhood, and his note, which
+fell due at the bank that day, was still a weight upon Sam's mind.
+
+Roland and Burnham found him wandering nervously round the store,
+alternately taking his hat down from the peg, as if minded to make a
+second trip to the bank, and replacing it as he realised that patience
+was his part. He looked older and more worn than ordinarily, and seemed
+distinctly pleased to be distracted by his callers.
+
+"Why, hello, Roland!" he cried cheerfully, hanging up his hat for
+perhaps the twentieth time. And, "How de doo, sir?" he greeted the
+stranger.
+
+"Good-morning, sir," said Burnham pleasantly.
+
+"Say, Sam," Roland blundered with his usual adroitness, "this
+gentleman------"
+
+Burnham's hand fell heavily on his forearm and he checked as if
+throttled.
+
+"What's that, Roland?" Sam turned curiously to them.
+
+"Oh, nothin'; I was--er--just going to say that this gentleman's my
+friend from Noo York, Mr. Burnham. I was showin' him round the town and
+we just happened to look in."
+
+"The friend you were going to write to about my burner?" inquired Sam.
+"Well, I'm right glad to meet you, sir."
+
+It was here that Roland got a look from Mr. Burnham that withered him
+completely. His further contributions to the conversation were somewhat
+spasmodic and ineffectual.
+
+"Why, no, Mr. Graham," Burnham interposed deftly. "Mr. Barnette must've
+been talking of someone else he knew in New York. I----"
+
+"Didn't know he knew more'n one there," Sam observed mildly.
+
+Burnham's glance jumped warily to Sam's face, but withdrew reassured,
+having detected therein nothing but the old man's kindly and simple
+nature. "At all events," he continued, "I don't remember hearing
+anything about the matter (what did you call it? A burner, eh?) from
+Mr. Barnette."
+
+"I s'pose Roland forgot," Sam allowed. "He's so busy courtin' our
+pretty girls, Mr. Burnham----"
+
+"Yes, that was it," Roland put in hastily, seeing his chance to mend
+matters. "I did intend to write you about it, Mr. Burnham, but it kind
+of slipped my mind. We've had a lot of important business over to the
+bank recently."
+
+"By the way, Roland, did you just come from the bank? Is Mr. Lockwood
+back yet?"
+
+"No; I got off this morning. I don't think he is, Sam. Did you want to
+see him?"
+
+"Well, yes," Sam admitted. "I guess you know about that, Roland."
+
+"Mean business, sometimes, asking favours of these bankers, eh, Mr.
+Graham?" Burnham remarked, much too casually to have deceived anybody
+but old Sam.
+
+Graham nodded, dolefully. "Yes, it is unpleasant," he admitted
+confidingly. "You see, there's a note of mine come due to-day, and I'm
+not able to take care of it or pay the interest just now...." He
+thought it over gravely for a moment, then brightened. "But I guess
+it'll be all right. Mr. Lockwood's kind, very kind."
+
+"I'm afraid you're a little too sure, Sam," Roland contributed
+tactfully. "When there's money due Lockwood, he wants it, and most
+times he gets it or its equivalent."
+
+"Yes," Sam assented sadly, "I guess he does, mostly."
+
+"But," Burnham changed the subject adroitly, "what was this--burner,
+did you say?--that Mr. Barnette forgot to tell me about?"
+
+"Oh, just one of my inventions, sir."
+
+"I understand you're quite an inventor?"
+
+Sam's smile lightened his face like sunlight striking a snow-bound
+field. He nodded slowly, thinking of his past enthusiasms, his hopes
+and discouragements. "I've spent most of my life at it, sir, but
+somehow nothing has ever turned out well... not so far, I mean. But I
+mean to hit it yet."
+
+"That's the way to talk," Burnham cried heartily; "never give up, I
+say!... But tell me about some of these inventions, won't you?"
+
+"Wel-l"--Sam knitted his fingers and pursed his lips reflectively--"I
+patented a new type threshing machine, once, but I couldn't get anybody
+to take hold of it. You see, I haven't any money, Mr. Burnham."
+
+"How would you like to talk it over with me, some time? I'm interested
+in such things--as a sort of side issue."
+
+"Will you?" Sam's eagerness was not to be disguised.
+
+"Be glad to. Tell me, how did you get your power?"
+
+"From gas, sir--though coal will do 'most as well. You see, I've got
+this burner patented, that makes gas from crude oil--no waste, no odour
+nor trouble, and little expense. It'd be cheaper than coal, I thought;
+that's why I invented it. I could get steam up mighty quick with that
+gas arrangement. I use it for lighting here in the store, now."
+
+"Do you, indeed?" Burnham's tone indicated failing interest, but such
+diplomacy was lost on Sam.
+
+"If you've got time, I could show you; it's right over here."
+
+A glance at his watch accompanied Burnham's consent to spare a few
+minutes. "There's a telegram I must send presently," he said. "But I'd
+like to see this burner, if it won't take long."
+
+"No, not long; just a minute or two." Sam was already dragging the
+affair out from under the window box. "You see..."
+
+He went on to expound its virtues with all the fond enthusiasm of a
+father showing off his firstborn, and wound up with a demonstration of
+the illuminating appliance. I'm afraid, though, he got little
+encouragement from Mr. Burnham. He considered the machine with a
+dispassionate air, it's true, and admitted its practical advantages,
+but wasn't at all disposed to take a roseate view of its future.
+
+"Yes," he grudged, when Sam put a match to the jet, "that's certainly a
+very good light."
+
+"All right, ain't it?" chimed Roland, enthusiastic.
+
+"Oh, it may amount to something. It's hard to tell. Of course you know,
+sir," he continued, addressing Graham directly, "you've got competition
+to overcome."
+
+Sam's old fingers trembled to his chin. "No-o," he said, "I didn't know
+that. I've got the patent----"
+
+"Of course that's something. But the Consolidated Petroleum crowd has
+another machine, slightly different, which does the same work, and, I
+should say, does it better."
+
+"Is--is that so?" quavered Sam. "My patent----."
+
+"Now see here, Mr. Graham," Burnham argued, "we're practical men, both
+of us----"
+
+"No; I shouldn't say that about myself," Sam interrupted. "Now you,
+sir----I can see you're a man who understands such things. But I----"
+
+"Nevertheless, you must know that a patent isn't everything. You said a
+moment ago a man had to have money to make anything out of his
+inventions."
+
+"Did I?" Sam interjected, surprised.
+
+"Certainly you did; and dead right you are. A patent's all very well,
+but supposing you're up against a powerful competitor like the
+Consolidated Petroleum Company. They've got a patent, too. Granted it
+may be an infringement of yours even--what can you do against them."
+
+"Why, if it's an infringement----"
+
+"Sue, of course. But do you suppose they're going to lie down just
+because an unknown and penniless inventor sues them? Bless you, no!
+They'll fight to the last ditch, they'll engage the best legal talent
+in the country. You'll have to carry the case to the Supreme Court of
+the United States if you want a winning decision. And that's going to
+cost you thousands--hundreds of thou-sands--a million----"
+
+"Never mind; a thousand's enough," said Sam gently. "I see what you
+mean, sir. It's just another case where I've got no chance."
+
+"Oh, I wouldn't put it as strong as that------"
+
+"But I have no money."
+
+"Still, you never can tell. I'll think it over, if I get time."
+
+"Why, that's kind of you, sir, very kind."
+
+It was at this point that Roland rose to the occasion like the noble
+ass he is. Roland never could see more than an inch beyond the end of
+his nose.
+
+"Say, Mr. Burnham," he floundered, "don't you think you could help Sam
+to----"
+
+"I think," said Mr. Burnham, with additional business of looking at his
+watch, "I'd like to send that wire I spoke of."
+
+"Yes, Roland," Sam agreed meekly; "you mustn't keep your friend from
+his business. I'm glad you looked in, sir. You'll call again, I hope."
+
+"Thank you," said Burnham, moving toward the door.
+
+It was too much for Roland's sense of opportunity. He rolled in
+Burnham's wake, sullenly reluctant. "Say, Mr. Burnham," he exploded as
+they got to the door, "if you'll just offer Sam five----"
+
+_"That will do!"_ Roland collapsed as if punctured. Burnham turned
+to Graham with a wave of his hand. "I'm leaving on the afternoon train,
+but if I get time I may drop in again and talk things over with you.
+There might be something in that threshing machine you mentioned."
+
+"I'll be glad to show you anything I've got here..."
+
+"All right. Good-day. I'll see you again, perhaps."
+
+This cavalier snub was lost on Sam, an essential of whose serene soul
+is the quality of humility. He followed them to the door, as grateful
+as a lost dog for a stray pat instead of a kick. "Good-day, sir.
+Good-day, Roland," he sped their parting cheerfully.
+
+But it was a broken man who shut the door behind them and turned back,
+fingering his grey chin. There must have been a dimness in his eyes and
+a quiver to his wide-lipped, generous mouth.
+
+"Perhaps Mr. Burnham was right. Only I was kind of hopin'... Now Mr.
+Lockwood over there..."
+
+He shook himself to throw off the spell of depression and somehow
+managed to quicken again his abiding faith in the essential goodness of
+the world.
+
+"Well, well! He's kind, very kind."
+
+He began to restore his model to its hiding place, musing upon the
+ebb-tide in his affairs in his muddle-headed way, and in the process
+managed to convince himself that "it 'ud all come right."
+
+"With this young man in here, and everythin' gettin' fixed up, and new
+stock comin' in ... I'm sure Mr. Lockwood'll see it the right way ...
+for us.... He's kind, very kind."
+
+Thus it was that he presently called up the stairs in a very cheerful
+voice: "Betty, are you pretty near through up there?"
+
+The girl's weary voice came down to him without accent: "Yes, father,
+almost."
+
+"Well, then, you keep an eye on the store, please. I'm goin' to step
+out for a minute."
+
+"Yes, father."
+
+"And if--if anybody asks for me, I'll most likely be down to the depot,
+with Mr. Duncan."
+
+He didn't mention that he contemplated calling on Lockwood, because he
+feared it might worry Betty. ... As if a woman doesn't always
+understand when things are going wrong!
+
+Betty knew, or rather divined. And she had no hope, no faith such as
+made Sam what he was. She came down the steps listlessly, overborne by
+her knowledge of the world's wrongness. The glance with which she
+comprehended the renovated shop was bitter with contempt. What was the
+worth of all this? Nothing good would come of it; nothing good came of
+anything. Life was drab and dreary, made up of weary, profitless years
+and months and weeks and days, to each its appointed disappointment.
+
+Only her sense of duty sustained her. She owed something to old Sam for
+the gift of life, dismal though she found it. He needed her; what she
+could do for him she would. I have always thought that her affection
+for her father was less filial than maternal. He seemed such a child,
+she--so very old! She mothered him; it was her only joy to care for
+him. Her care was constant, unfailing, omniscient. In return she got
+only his love. But it was almost enough--almost, not quite, dearly as
+she prized it. There were other things a girl should have--indeed, must
+have, if her life were to be rounded out in fulness. And these, she
+understood, were forever denied her: apples of Paradise growing in her
+sight, heartrending in their loveliness so far beyond her reach....
+
+Sighing, she went to work. In work only could she forget.... The soda
+glasses needed cleaning, and the syrup jars replenishing (for the new
+order of syrups had come in the previous evening).
+
+After a time, to a tune of pounding feet, Tracey Tanner pranced into
+the shop with all the graceful abandon of a young elephant feeling its
+oats. His face was fairly scarlet from exertion and his eyes bulging
+with a sense of importance. The girl looked up without interest,
+nodding slightly in response to his breathless: "'Lo, Betty."
+
+"Father's gone out," she said, holding a glass to the light, suspicious
+of the lint from her dish towel.
+
+"I know--seen him down the street." The boy halted at the counter,
+producing a handful of square envelopes. "Note for you from the
+Lockwoods, Betty," he panted. "Josie ast me to bring it round."
+
+Betty put down her glass in consternation. From the Lockwoods?"
+
+"Uh-huh." Tracey offered it, but she withheld her hand, dubious.
+
+"For me, Tracey?"
+
+"Uh-huh. It's a ninvitation. I got four more to take." He thrust it
+into her reluctant fingers. "Got five, really, but one of 'em's for
+me."
+
+"An invitation, Tracey!"
+
+"Yeh. Hope you have a good time when it comes off." Already he was
+bouncing toward the door. "Goo'-bye."
+
+"But what is it, Tracey?"
+
+"Aw, it tells in the ninvitation. S'long."
+
+"From the Lockwoods!" she whispered.
+
+Suddenly she tore it open, her hands unsteady with nervousness.
+
+The envelope contained a square of heavy cardboard of a creamy tint
+with scalloped edges touched with gold. On the face of the card a round
+and formless hand had traced with evident pains the information:
+
+Miss Josephine Mae Lockwood
+
+Requests the Pleasure of your Company at a Lawn Fête and Dance to be
+held at the residence of her Parents, Mr. & Mrs. Geo. Lockwood,
+Saturday July 15, at 8 p. m. R.S.V.P.
+
+The envelope fluttered to the floor while the card was crushed between
+the girl's hands. For a moment her face was transfigured with delight,
+her eyes blank with rapturous visions of the joys of that promised
+night.
+
+"Oh!... it 'ud be grand!..."
+
+Then suddenly the light faded. Her eyes clouded, her face settled into
+its discontented lines. She stuffed the card heedlessly into the pocket
+of her dingy apron, and took up another glass.
+
+"But I can't go; I've got nothin' to wear...."
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+
+BLINKY LOCKWOOD
+
+She was scrubbing blindly at the same glass when, a quarter of an hour
+later, Blinky Lockwood strode into the store, his right eye twitching
+more violently than usual, as it always does in his phases of mental
+disturbance--as when, for instance, he fears he's going to lose a
+dollar.
+
+Lockwood is that type of man who was born to grow rich. He inherited a
+farm or two in the vicinity of Radville and the one over Westerly way,
+to which I have referred, and ... well, we've a homely paraphrase of a
+noted aphorism in Radville: "Them as has, gits." Lockwood had, to begin
+with, and he made it his business to get; and, as is generally the case
+in this unbalanced world of ours, things came to him to which he had
+never aspired. Fortune favoured him because he had no need of her
+favours; the discovery of coal under his Westerly acres was wholly
+adventitious, but it made him far and away the richest man in
+Radville--with the possible exception of old Colonel Bohun's
+traditional millions.
+
+In person he is as beautiful as a snake-fence, as alluring as a stone
+wall. Something over six feet in height, he walks with a stoop (one
+hand always in a trouser-pocket jingling silver) that materially
+detracts from his stature. His face, like his figure, is gaunt and
+lanky, his nose an emaciated beak; his mouth illustrates his attitude
+toward property--is a trap from which nothing of value ever escapes;
+his eyes are small and hard and set close together under lowering
+brows. He's grizzled, with hair not actually white, but grey as the iron
+from which his heart was fashioned. Aside from these characteristics his
+principal peculiarity is a nervous twitching of the right eye which has
+earned him his sobriquet of Blinky. Legrand Gunn said he contracted the
+affliction through squinting at the silver dollar to make sure none of
+its milling had been worn off. ... I have never known the man to wear
+anything but a rusty old frock coat, black, of course, and black and
+shiny broadcloth trousers, with a hat that has always a coating of dust
+so thick that it seems a mottled grey.
+
+He grunts his words, a grunt to each. He grunted at Betty when he saw
+her.
+
+"Where's your father?"
+
+She put down her glass and dish-rag. "I don't know, sir."
+
+"Don't know, eh?" he asked in an indescribably offensive tone.
+
+"I think he went to the bank to see you."
+
+"Oh, he did, eh? Did he have anything for me."
+
+The girl took up another glass. "I don't know, sir," she said wearily.
+"I'm afraid not."
+
+"Well, if he didn't there's no use see in' me. It won't do him any
+good."
+
+"I guess he knows that," she returned with a little flash of spirit.
+
+Lockwood looked her up and down as if he had never seen her before,
+then summarised his resentful impression of her attitude in an open
+sneer. "Does, eh? Well, that's a good thing; saves talk."
+
+She contained herself, saying nothing. He glared round the place,
+remarking the improvements.
+
+"You don't do no business here, not to speak of, do ye?"
+
+"No," she admitted without interest, "not to speak of."
+
+"Then what's the good of all this foolishness, fixing up?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"Costs money, don't it?"
+
+"I guess so."
+
+"And that money belongs to me."
+
+"It's Mr. Duncan's doing. Father ain't paying for it. He can't."
+
+"What's he doin', then? Sittin' round foolin' with his inventions,
+ain't he?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What's he inventin' now?"
+"I don't know much about it." She pointed to the model beneath the
+window. "That's the last thing, I guess."
+
+Blinky snorted and stamped over to the window, stooping to peer at the
+machine. "What's the good of that?" he demanded, disdainful; and
+without waiting for her response went on nagging. "Foolishness! That's
+what it is. Why don't you tell him not to waste his time this way?"
+
+"Because he likes it," said Betty hopelessly. "It's the only thing that
+makes life worth while to him. So I let him alone."
+
+"What difference does that make? It don't bring him in nothin', does
+it?"
+
+"No ..."
+
+"Nor do any good?"
+
+"No."
+
+"No, siree, it don't. He'd oughter stop it. What does he do with them
+things when he gets 'em finished?"
+
+"Patents them."
+
+"And then what?"
+
+"Nothin' that I know of."
+
+"That's it; nothing--nor ever will. Well, he's been getting money from
+me for those patents--I thought at fust there might be somethin' in
+'em--but he won't any more. I'd oughter had more sense."
+
+A little colour spotted the girl's sallow cheeks. "He'd never ha' got
+money from you if he hadn't thought he could pay it back," she told
+Blinky hotly.
+
+"No, nor if I hadn't thought he could----"
+
+She interjected a significant "Huh!" He broke off abruptly, pale with
+anger.
+
+"Well, I want to see him, and I want to see him before noon," he
+snapped. "I'm goin' over to the bank, an' if he knows what's good for
+him he'll come there pretty darn quick."
+
+"I'll try to find him for you; he must be somewhere round," she
+offered.
+
+"Well, you better. I ain't got much patience to-day."
+
+He swung on one heel and slouched out, as Betty turned to go upstairs.
+Presently she reappeared pinning on her sad little hat, and left the
+store.
+
+It was upwards of an hour before she returned, walking quickly and very
+erect, with her head up and shoulders back, her eyes suspiciously
+bright, the spots of colour in her cheeks blazing scarlet, her mouth
+set and hard, the little work-worn hands at her sides clenched tightly
+as if for self-control. Even old Sam, who had returned from the depôt
+after missing Blinky at the bank--even he, blind as he ordinarily was,
+saw instantly that something was wrong with the child.
+
+"Why, Betty!" he cried in solicitude as she flung into the
+store--"Betty, dear, what's the matter?"
+
+For an instant she seemed speechless. Then she tore the hat from her
+head and cast it regardlessly upon the counter. "Father!" she cried.
+"Father!"--and gulped to down her emotion. "Can you get me some money?"
+
+"Money? Why, Betty, what--?"
+
+Her foot came down on the floor impatiently. "Can you get me some
+money?" she repeated in a breath.
+
+"Well--er--how much, Betty?" He tried to touch her, to take her to his
+arms, but she moved away, her sorry little figure quivering from head
+to feet.
+
+"Enough," she said, half sobbing--"enough to buy a dress--a nice
+dress--a dress that will surprise folks--"
+
+"But tell me what the matter is, Betty. Wanting a dress would never
+upset you like this."
+
+She whipped the cracked and crumpled card from her pocket and pushed it
+into his hand. "Look at that!" she bade him, and turned away,
+struggling with all her might to keep back the tears.
+
+He read, his old face softening. "Josie Lockwood's party, eh? And she's
+sent you an invitation. Well, that was kind of her, very kind."
+
+She swung upon him in a fury. "No, it was not kind. It was mean... It
+was mean!"
+
+"Oh, Betty," he begged in consternation, "don't say that. I'm sure--"
+
+"Oh, you don't know... I heard the girls talking in the post-office--
+Angle Tuthill and Mame Garrison and Bessie Gabriel... I was round by
+the boxes where they couldn't see me, but I could hear them, and they
+were laughing because I was invited. They said the reason Josie did it
+was because she knew I didn't have anything to wear, and she wanted to
+hear what excuse I'd make for not going. Ah, I heard them!"
+
+"Oh, but Betty, Betty," he pleaded; "don't you mind what they say.
+Don't--"
+
+"But I do mind; I can't help mindin'. They're mean." She paused, her
+features hardening. "I'm going to that party," she declared tensely:
+"I'm goin' to that party and--and I'm goin' to have a dress to go in,
+too! I don't care what I do--I'm goin' to have that dress!"
+
+Sam would have soothed her as best he might, but she would neither look
+at nor come near him.
+
+"We'll see," he said gently. "We'll see. I'll try--"
+
+She turned on him, exasperated beyond thought. "That only means you
+can't help me!"
+
+"Oh, no, it doesn't. I'll do what I can--"
+
+"Have you got any money now?"
+
+He hung his head to avoid her blazing eyes. "Well, no--not at present,
+but here's this new stock and--."
+
+"That doesn't mean anything, and you know it. You owe that note to Mr.
+Lockwood, don't you? And you can't pay it?"
+
+"Not to-day, Betty, but he'll give me a little more time, I'm sure.
+He's kind, very kind."
+
+"You don't know him. He's as mean--as mean as dirt--as mean as Josie."
+
+"Betty!"
+
+"Then if you did get any money you'd have to give it to him, wouldn't
+you?"
+
+"Yes, but--I'm sure--I think it'll come all right."
+
+"Ah, what's the use of talkin' that way? What's the use of talkin' at
+all? I know you can't do anything for me, and so do you!"
+
+Sam had dropped into his chair, unable to stand before this storm; he
+stared now, mute with amazement, at this child who had so long, so
+uncomplainingly, shared his poverty and privations, grown suddenly to
+the stature of a woman--and a tormented, passionate woman, stung to the
+quick by the injustice of her lot. He put out a hand in a feeble
+gesture of placation, but she brushed it away as she bent toward him,
+speaking so quickly that her words stumbled and ran into one another.
+
+"I can't understand it!" she raged. "Why is it that I have to be more
+shabby than any other girl in town? Why is it that the others have all
+the fun and I all the drudgery? Why is it that I can't ever go anywhere
+with the boys and girls and laugh and--and have a good time like the
+rest do?..."
+
+Sam bent his head to the blast. In his lap his hands worked nervously.
+But he could not answer her.
+
+"It ain't that I mind the cookin' and doin' the housework and--all the
+rest--but--why is it you can never give me anything at all? Why must it
+be that everyone looks down on us and sneers and laughs at us? Why is
+it that half the time we haven't got enough to eat?... Other men manage
+to take care of their families and give their children things to wear.
+You've got only us two to look after, and you can't even do that. It
+isn't right, it isn't decent, and if I were you I'd be ashamed of
+myself--!"
+
+Her temper had spent itself, and with this final cry she checked
+abruptly, with a catch at her breath for shame of what she had let
+herself say. But, childlike, she was not ready to own her sorrow; and
+she turned her back, trembling.
+
+Sam, too, was shaken. In his heart he knew there was justification for
+her indictment, truth in what she had said. And he was heartbroken for
+her. He got up unsteadily and put a gentle hand upon her shoulder.
+
+"Why, Betty--I--I--"
+
+A dry sob interrupted him. He pulled himself together and forced his
+voice to a tone of confidence. "Just be a little patient, dear. I'm
+sure things will be better with us, soon. Just a little more patience--
+that's all... Why, there was a gentleman here this morning, from Noo
+York City, talkin' about an invention of mine."
+
+The girl moved restlessly, shaking off his hand. "Invention!" she
+echoed bitterly. "Oh, father! Everybody knows they're no good. You've
+been wastin' time on 'em ever since I can remember, and you've never
+made a dollar out of one yet."
+
+He bowed to the truth of this, then again braced up bravely. "But this
+gentleman seemed quite interested. He's over to the Bigelow House now.
+I think I'll step over and have a talk with him--"
+
+"You'd much better go and have a talk with Blinky Lockwood," she told
+him brutally. "He's waitin' for you at the bank, and said he wasn't
+goin' to wait after twelve o'clock, neither!"
+
+"Wel-l, perhaps you're right. I'll go there. It's after twelve, but..."
+He started to get his hat and stopped with an exclamation: "Why, Nat!
+I didn't know you'd got back!"
+
+Duncan was at the back of the store, clearing the last remnants of the
+old stock from the shelves. "Yes," he said pleasantly, without turning,
+"I've been here some time, cleaning up the cellar, to make room for the
+stuff that's coming in. I came upstairs just a moment ago, but you were
+so busy talking you didn't notice me."
+
+He paused, swept the empty shelves with a calculating glance, and came
+out around the end of the counter. "Everything's in tip-top shape," he
+said. "I checked up the bill of lading myself, and there's not a thing
+missing, not a bit of breakage. Mr. Graham," he continued, dropping a
+gentle hand on the old man's shoulder, "you're going to have the finest
+drug-store in the State within six months. With the stuff that Sperry
+has sent us we can make Sothern and Lee look like sixty-five cents on
+the dollar.... We're going to make things hum in this old shop, and
+don't you forget it." He laughed lightly, with a note of encouragement.
+But he avoided Graham's eyes even as he did Betty's. He could not meet
+the pitiful look of the former, any more than that stare of hostility
+and defiance in the latter.
+
+"It's good of you, my boy," Graham quavered. "I--but I'm afraid it
+won't----"
+
+"Now don't say that!" Duncan interposed firmly. "And don't let me
+keep you. I think you said you were going out on business? And I'll be
+busy enough right here."
+
+And without exactly knowing how it had come about, Graham found himself
+in the street, stumbling downtown, toward the bank.
+
+When he had gone, Duncan would have returned to the shelves for a final
+redding-up. He desired least of all things an encounter with Betty in
+her present frame of mind, and he tried his level best to seem as one
+who had heard nothing, who was only concerned with his occupation of
+the moment. But from the instant that she had been made aware of his
+presence Betty had been watching him with smouldering eyes, wondering
+how much he had heard and what he was thinking of her. The keen
+repentance that gnawed at her heart, allied with shame that an alien
+should have been private to her exhibition, half maddened the child.
+With a sudden movement she threw herself in front of Duncan, thrusting
+her white, drawn face before his, her gaze searching his half in anger,
+half in morose distrust.
+
+"So you were listening!"
+
+"I'm sorry," he said uncomfortably.
+
+She drew a pace away, holding herself very straight while she threw him
+a level glance of unqualified contempt.
+
+"I didn't mean to hear anything," he argued plaintively. "I was in
+the room before I understood, and by the time I did, it was too late--
+you had finished."
+
+"Oh, don't try to explain. I--I hate you!"
+
+He held her eyes inquiringly. "Yes," he said in the tone of one who
+solves a puzzling problem, "I believe you do."
+
+She looked away, shaking with passion. "You just better believe it."
+
+"But," he went on quietly, "you don't hate your father, too, do you,
+Miss Graham?"
+
+She swung back to meet his stare with one that flamed with indignation.
+
+"What do you mean by that, Mr. Duncan?"
+
+"I mean," he said, faltering in where one wiser would have feared to
+venture--"I'm going to give you a bit of advice. Don't you talk to your
+father again the way you did just now."
+
+"What business is that of yours?"
+
+"None," he admitted fairly. "But just the same I wouldn't, if I were
+you."
+
+"Well, you ain't me!" she cried savagely. "You ain't me! Understand
+that? When I want advice from you, I'll ask for it. Until I do, you
+let me alone."
+
+"Very well," he replied, so calmly that she lost her bearings for a
+moment. And inevitably this, emphasising as it did all that she
+resented most in him--his education, wit, address, his advantages of
+every sort--only served further to infuriate the child.
+
+"Oh, I know why you talk that way," she said, rubbing her poor little
+hands together.
+
+"Do you?" he asked in wonder.
+
+"Yes, I do--you!..."
+
+Suddenly she found words--poverty-stricken words, it's true, but the
+best she had wherewith to express herself. And for a little they flowed
+from her lips, a scalding, scathing torrent. "It's because you go to
+church all the time and try to look like a saint and--and try to make
+out you're too religious for anything, and like to hear yourself givin'
+Christian advice to poor miserable sinners--like me. You think that's
+just too lovely of you. That's why you said it, if you want to know.
+... Folks wonder what you're doing here, don't they? Guess you know
+that--and like it, too. It makes 'em look at you and talk about you,
+and that's what you like. _I_ could tell 'em. You're only here to
+show off your good clothes and your finger-nails and the way you part
+your hair and--and all the other things you do that nobody in Noo York
+would pay any attention to!"
+
+He faced her soberly, attentively. She was a little fool, he knew, and
+making a ridiculous figure of herself. But--his innate honesty told him
+--she was right, in a way; she had hit upon his weakest point. He was
+in Radville to "show off," as she would have said, to make an
+impression and ... to reap the reward thereof. The way she spoke was
+ludicrous, but what she said was mostly plain truth. He nodded
+submissively.
+
+"A pretty good guess at that," he acknowledged candidly.
+
+"Yes, it is, and I know it, and you know it. ... Oh, it's easy enough
+to give advice when you've got plenty of money and fine clothes and ...
+but..."
+
+"I understand," he said when she paused to get a grip upon herself and
+find again the words she needed. "You needn't say any more. The only
+reason I said what I did was because I'm strong for your father and ...
+well, I wanted to do you a good turn, too."
+
+"I don't want any of your good turns!"
+
+"Then I apologise."
+
+"And I don't want your apologies, neither!"
+
+"All right, only ... think over what I said, some time."
+
+"I had a good reason for saying what I did."
+
+"I know you had."
+
+"You know I had!" She looked at him askance. She had been on the point
+of relenting a little, of calming, of being a bit ashamed of herself.
+But his quiet acquiescence rekindled her resentment. "How do you know?
+You!" she said bitterly.
+
+
+"Because I'm not what you think I am, altogether."
+
+"I guess you're not," she observed acidly.
+
+"But I don't mean what you mean. I mean you think I'm conceited and
+rich and don't know what trouble is. Well, you're mistaken. I've been
+up against it the worst way for five years, and I know just how it
+feels to see other people getting up in the world when you're at the
+bottom of the heap with no chance of squirming out--to know that they
+have things you haven't got any chance of getting. I've been through
+the mill myself. Why, I've kept out of the way for days and days rather
+than let my prosperous friends see how shabby I was. Many's the time
+I've dodged round corners to avoid meeting men I knew would invite me
+to have dinner or luncheon or a drink--of soda--or something, for fear
+they'd find out that I couldn't treat in return. Many a time I've gone
+hungry for days and weeks and slept on park benches ... until an old
+friend found me and took me home with him."
+
+The ring of sincerity in his manner and tone silenced the girl,
+impressed her with the conviction of his absolute sincerity. The tumult
+in her mind quieted. She eyed him with attention, even with interest
+temporarily untinged with resentment. And seeing that he had succeeded
+in gaining this much ground in her regard, Duncan dared further,
+pushing his advantage to its limits.
+
+"But it's your father I wanted to talk about," he hurried on. "I'd bet
+a lot he knows more than any other man in this town; and besides, he's
+a fine, square, good-hearted old gentleman. Anybody can see that.
+Only, he's got one terrible fault: he doesn't know how to make money.
+And that's mighty tough on you--though it's just as tough on him. But
+when you roast him for it, like you did just now ... you only make him
+feel as miserable as a yellow dog ... and that doesn't help matters a
+little bit. He can't change into a sharp business crook now; ... he's
+too old a man. ... Before long he ... he won't be with you at all and
+... when he's gone you'll be sore on yourself ... sure! ... if you keep
+on throwing it into him the way I heard you. ... And that's on the
+level."
+
+He paused in confusion; the role of preacher sat upon him awkwardly, a
+sadly misfit garment. He felt self-conscious and ill at ease, yet with
+a trace of gratulation through it all. For he felt he'd carried his
+point. He could see no longer any animus in the pale, wistful little
+face that looked up into his--only sympathy, understanding, repentance
+and (this troubled him a bit) a faint flush of dawning admiration.
+Presently she grew conscious of herself again, and looked aside, humbled
+and distressed.
+
+"I--I won't do it again," she faltered, twisting her hands together.
+
+"Bully for you!" he cried, and with an abrupt if artificial resumption
+of his business-like air turned away to a show-case--to spare her the
+embarrassment of his regard.
+
+"I didn't think," said the voice behind him; "I didn't mean to--
+something happened that almost drove me wild and..."
+
+"I know," he said gently.
+
+After a bit she spoke again: "I'll go up and get dinner ready now."
+
+"That's all right," he returned absently. "I'll tend the store."
+
+He heard her footsteps as she crossed to the door and opened it. There
+followed a pause. Then she came hurriedly back. He faced about to meet
+her eyes shining with wonder.
+
+"I wanted to ask you," she said hastily, "if--was it this friend you
+spoke about--that found you in the park--who set you on the road to
+fortune?"
+
+"That's what he said," Duncan answered, twisting his brows whimsically.
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+
+DUNCAN'S GRUBSTAKE
+
+Like almost all business Radville, Duncan went home for his midday
+meal. It wasn't much of a walk from Sam Graham's store to Miss
+Carpenter's, and he didn't mind in the least.
+
+On this particular day he was sincerely hungry, but he had much to
+think about besides, and between the two he just bolted his food and
+made off, hot-foot for the store, greatly to the distress of his
+landlady.
+
+Naturally, knowing nothing about Sam's note, although he knew Pete
+Willing by sight as the sheriff and town drunkard in one, it didn't
+worry him at all to discover that gentleman tacking toward the store as
+he hurried up Beech Street, eager to get back to his job. The first
+intimation that he had of anything seriously amiss was when he entered,
+practically on Pete's heels.
+
+Pete Willing is the best-natured man in the world, as a general rule;
+drunk or sober, Radville tolerates him for just that quality. On only
+two occasions is he irritable and unmanageable: when his wife gets
+after him about the drink (Mrs. Willing is an able-bodied lady of Irish
+descent, with a will and a tongue of her own, to say nothing of
+an arm a blacksmith might envy) and when he has a duty to perform in
+his official capacity. It is in the latter instance that he rises
+magnificently to the dignity of his position. The majesty of the law in
+his hands becomes at once a bludgeon and a pandemonium. No one has ever
+been arrested in Radville, since Pete became sheriff, without the
+entire community becoming aware of it simultaneously. Pete's voice in
+moments of excitement carries like a cannonade. Legrand Gunn said that
+Pete had only to get into an argument in front of the Bigelow House to
+make the entire disorderly population of the Flats, across the river,
+break for the hills. (This is probably an exaggeration.)
+
+Tall, gaunt, gangling and loose-jointed, Duncan found Pete standing in
+the middle of the floor, hands in pockets and a noisome stogie thrust
+into a corner of his mouth, swaying a little (he was almost sober at
+the moment) and explaining his mission to old Sam in a voice of
+thunder.
+
+"I'm sorry about this, Sam," he bellowed, "but there ain't no use
+wastin' words 'bout it. I'm here on business."
+
+"But what's the matter, Sheriff?" Graham asked, his voice breaking.
+
+"Ah, you know you got a note due at the bank, don't you?"
+
+"Yes, but----"
+
+"Well, it's protested. Y'un'erstand that, don't you?"
+
+"Why, Pete!" Graham swayed, half-dazed.
+
+"An' I'm here to serve the papers onto you."
+
+"But--but there must be some mistake." Sam clutched blindly for his
+hat. "I'll step over and see Mr. Lockwood. He'll arrange to give me a
+little more time, I'm sure. He's always been kind, very kind."
+
+"Naw!" Pete bawled, "Mr. Lockwood don't want to see you unless you can
+settle. Y'can save yourself the trouble. Y'gottuh put up or git out!"
+
+"But, Pete--Mr. Lockwood said he didn't want to see me?"
+
+"Yah, that's what he said, and I got orders from him, soon's I got
+judgment to close y'up. And that goes, see!"
+
+"To--to turn me out of the store, Pete?" Graham's world had slipped
+from beneath his feet. He was overwhelmed, witless, as helpless as a
+child. And it was with a child's look of pitiful dismay and perplexity
+that he faced the sheriff.
+
+The father who has fallen short of his child's trust and confidence
+knows that look. To Duncan its appeal was irresistible. He had his
+hand in his pocket, clutching the still considerable remains of what
+Kellogg had termed his grubstake, before he knew it.
+
+"But--there must be some mistake," Graham repeated pleadingly. "It
+can't be--Mr. Lockwood surely wouldn't----"
+
+"Now there ain't no use whinin' about it!" Willing roared him into
+silence. "Law is Law, and----" He ceased quickly, surprised to find
+Duncan standing between him and his prey. "What----!" he began.
+
+"Wait!" Duncan touched him gently on the chest with a forefinger, at
+the same time catching and holding the sheriff's eye. "Are you," he
+inquired quietly, "labouring under the impression that Mr. Graham is
+deaf?"
+
+"What----!"
+
+Duncan turned to Sam, apologetically. "He said 'what.' Did you hear it,
+sir?"
+
+But by this time Pete was recovering to some degree. "What've you got
+to say about this?" he demanded, crescendo.
+
+"I'll show you," Duncan told him in the same quiet voice, "what I've
+got to say if you'll just put the soft pedal on and tell me the amount
+of that note."
+
+Pete struggled mightily to regain his vanished advantage, but try as he
+would he could not escape Duncan's cool, inquisitive eye. Visibly he
+lost importance as he yielded and dived into his pocket. "With interest
+and costs," he said less stridently, "it figgers up three hundred 'n'
+eighty dollars 'n' eighty-two cents."
+
+There's no use denying that Duncan was staggered. For the moment his
+poise deserted him utterly. He could only repeat, as one who dreams:
+_"Three hundred and eighty dollars!..."_
+
+His momentary consternation afforded Pete the opening he needed. The
+room shook with his regained sense of prestige.
+
+"Yes, three hundred 'n' eighty dollars 'n'--say, you look a-here!----"
+
+Again the calm forefinger touched him, and like a hypnotist's pass
+checked the rolling volume of noise. "Listen," begged Duncan: "if
+you've got anything else to tell me, please retire to the opposite side
+of the street and whisper it. Meanwhile, _be quiet!"_
+
+Pete's jaw dropped. In all his experience no one had ever succeeded in
+taming him so completely--and in so brief a time. He experienced a
+sensation of having been robbed of his spinal column, and before he
+could pull himself together was staring in awe, while with one final
+admonitory poke of his finger Duncan turned and made for the soda
+counter, beneath which was the till. His scanty roll of bills was in
+his right hand, and there concealed. He stepped behind the counter (old
+Sam watching him with an amazement no less absolute than Pete's),
+pulled out the till, bent over it with an assured air, and pushed back
+the coin slide. Then quite naturally, he produced--with his right
+hand--his four-hundred-and-odd dollars from the bill drawer, stood up
+and counted them with great deliberation.
+
+"One ... two ... three ... four."
+He smiled winningly at Pete. "Four hundred dollars, Mr. Sheriff. Now
+will you be good enough to hand over that note and the change and then
+put yourself, and that pickle you're wearing in your face, on the other
+side of the door?"
+
+Pete struggled tremendously and finally succeeded in producing from
+his system a still, small voice:
+
+"I ain't got the note with me, Mr. Duncan."
+
+"Then perhaps you won't mind going to the bank for it?"
+
+Half suffocated, Pete assented. "Aw'right, I'll go and git it. Kin I
+have the money?"
+
+"Certainly." Duncan extended the bills, then on second thought withheld
+them. "I presume you're a regular sheriff?" he inquired.
+
+Very proudly Pete turned back the lapel of his coat and distended the
+chest on which shone his nickel-plated badge of office. Duncan examined
+it with grave admiration.
+
+"It's beautiful," he said with a sigh. "Here."
+
+Gingerly, Pete grasped the bills, thumbed them over to make sure they
+were real, and bolted as for his life, his coat-tails level on the
+breeze.
+
+[Illustration: "Four hundred dollars, Mr. Sheriff"]
+
+There floated back to Duncan and old Sam his valedictory: "Wal, I'll be
+damned!"
+
+With a short, quiet laugh Duncan made as though to go out to the
+back-yard, where the new stock was being delivered, having been carted
+up from the station through the alley--thereby doing away with the
+necessity of cluttering up the store with a débris of packing. His
+primal instinct of the moment was to get right out of that with all the
+expedition practicable. He didn't want to be alone with old Sam another
+second. The essential insanity of which he had just done was patent;
+there was no excuse for it, and he was like to suffer severely as a
+consequence. But he wasn't sorry, and he did not want to be thanked.
+
+"I'm going," he said hurriedly, "to find me a hatchet and knock the
+stuffing out of some of those packing-cases. Want to get all that truck
+indoors before nightfall, you know----"
+
+But old Sam wasn't to be put off by any such obvious subterfuge as
+that. He put himself in front of Duncan.
+
+"Nat, my boy," he said, tremulous, "I can't let this go through--I
+can't allow you----"
+
+"There, now!" Duncan told him, unconcernedly yet kindly, "don't say
+anything more. It's over and done with."
+
+"But you mustn't--I'll turn over the store to you, if----"
+
+"O Lord!" Duncan's dismay was as genuine as his desire to escape
+Graham's gratitude. "No--don't! Please don't do that!"
+
+"But I must do something, my boy. I can't accept so great a kindness--
+unless," said Graham with a timid flash of hope--"you'll consider a
+partnership----"
+
+"That's it!" cried Duncan, glad of any way out of the situation.
+"That's the way to do it--a partnership. No, please don't say any more
+about it, just now. We can settle details later. ... We've got to get
+busy. Tell you what I wish you'd do while I'm busting open those boxes:
+if you don't mind going down to the station to make sure that
+everything's----"
+
+"Yes, I'll go; I'll go at once." Sam groped for Duncan's hand, caught
+and held it between both his own. "If--if fate--or something hadn't
+brought you here to-day--I don't know what would've happened to Betty
+and me. ..."
+
+"Never mind," Duncan tried to soothe him. "Just don't you think about
+it."
+
+Graham shook his head, still bewildered. "Perhaps," he stumbled on, "to
+a gentleman of your wealth four hundred dollars isn't much----"
+
+"No," said Duncan gravely, without the flicker of an eyelash:
+"nothing." Then he smiled cheerfully. "There, that's all right."
+
+"To me it's meant everything. I--I only hope I'll be able to repay
+you some day. God bless you, my boy, God bless you!"
+
+He managed to jam his hat awry on his white old head and found his way
+out, his hands fumbling with one another, his lips moving inaudibly--
+perhaps in a prayer of thanksgiving.
+
+Motionless, Duncan watched him go, and for several minutes thereafter
+stood without stirring, lost in thought. Then his quaint, deprecatory
+grin dawned. He found a handkerchief and mopped his forehead.
+
+"Whew!" he whistled. "I wouldn't go through that again for a million
+dollars."
+
+Gradually the smile faded. He puckered his brows and drew down the
+corners of his mouth. Thoughtfully he ran a hand into his pocket and
+produced the little crumpled wad of bills of small denominations,
+representing all he had left in the world. Smoothing them out on the
+counter, he arranged them carefully, summing up; then returned them to
+his pocket.
+
+"Harry," he observed--"Harry said I couldn't get rid of that stake in a
+year!...
+
+"He doesn't know what a fast town this is!"
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+
+THE BUSINESS MAN AND MR. BURNHAM
+
+It was, perhaps, within the next thirty minutes that Betty (who had
+been left in charge of the store while Duncan, with coat and collar off
+and sleeves rolled above his elbows, hacked and pounded and pried and
+banged at the packing-cases in the backyard) sought him on the scene of
+his labours.
+
+She waited quietly, a little to one side, watching him, until he should
+become aware of her presence. What she was thinking would have been
+hard to define, from the inscrutable eyes in her set, tired face of a
+child. There was no longer any trace of envy, suspicion or resentment
+in her attitude toward the young man. You might have guessed that she
+was trying to analyse him, weighing him in the scales of her
+impoverished and lopsided knowledge of human nature, and wondering if
+such conclusions as she was able to arrive at were dependable.
+
+In the course of time he caught sight of that patient, sad little
+figure, and, pausing, panting and perspiring under the July sun,
+cheerfully brandished his weapon from the centre of a widespread
+area of wreckage and destruction.
+
+"Pretty good work for a York dude--not?" he laughed.
+
+There was a shadowy smile in her grave eyes. "It's an improvement," she
+said evenly.
+
+He shot her a curious glance. "_Ouch!_" he said thoughtfully.
+
+"I just came to tell you," she went on, again immobile, "you're wanted
+inside."
+
+"Somebody wants to see _me?_" he demanded of her retreating back.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"But who--?"
+
+"Blinky Lockwood," she replied over her shoulder, as she went into the
+house.
+
+"Lockwood?" He speculated, for an instant puzzled. Then suddenly:
+"Father-in-law!" he cried. "Shivering snakes! he mustn't catch me like
+this! I, a business man!"
+
+Hastily rolling down his shirt-sleeves and shrugging himself into his
+coat, he made for the store, buttoning his collar and knotting his tie
+on the way.
+
+He found Blinky nosing round the room, quite alone. Betty had
+disappeared, and the old scoundrel was having quite an enjoyable time
+poking into matters that did not concern him and disapproving of them
+on general principles. So far as the improvements concerned old Sam
+Graham's fortunes, Blinky would concede no health in them. But with
+regard to Duncan there was another story to tell: Duncan apparently
+controlled money, to some vague extent.
+
+"You're Mr. Duncan, ain't you?" he asked with his leer, moving down to
+meet Nat.
+
+"Yes, sir. Mr. Lockwood, I believe?"
+
+"That's me." Blinky clutched his hand in a genial claw. "I'm glad to
+meet you."
+
+"Thank you," said Duncan. "Something I can do for you, sir?"
+
+"Wal, Pete Willin' was tellin' me you'd just took up this note of
+Graham's?"
+
+"Not exactly; the firm took it up."
+
+Blinky winked savagely at this. "The firm? What firm?"
+
+"Graham and Duncan, sir. I've been taken into partnership."
+
+"Have, eh?" Blinky grunted mysteriously and fished in his pocket for
+some bills and silver. "Wal, here's some change comin' to the firm,
+then; and here," he added, producing the document in question, "is
+Sam's note."
+
+"Thank you." Duncan ceremoniously deposited both in the till, going
+behind the soda fountain to do so, and then waited, expectant. Blinky
+was grunting busily in the key of one about to make an important
+communication.
+
+"I'm glad you're a-comin' in here with Sam," he said at length, with an
+acid grimace that was meant to be a smile.
+
+"Oh, it may be only temporary." Nat endeavoured to assume a seraphic
+expression, and partially succeeded. "I'm devoting much of my time to
+my studies," he pursued primly; "but nevertheless feel I should be
+earning something, too."
+
+"That's right; that's the kind of spirit I like to see in a young
+man.... You always go to church, don't you?"
+
+"No, sir--Sundays only."
+
+"That's what I mean. D'you drink?"
+
+"Oh, no, sir," Duncan parroted glibly: "don't smoke, drink, swear, and
+on Sundays I go to church."
+
+The bland smile with which he faced Lockwood's keen scrutiny disarmed
+suspicion.
+
+"I'm glad to hear that," Blinky told him. "I'm at the head of the
+temp'rance movement here, and I hope you'll join us, and set an example
+to our fast young men."
+
+"I feel sure I could do that," said Duncan meekly.
+
+Lockwood removed his hat, exposing the cranium of a bald-headed eagle,
+and fanned himself. "Warm to-day," he observed in an endeavour to be
+genial that all but sprained his temperament.
+
+Indeed, so great was the strain that he winked violently.
+
+Duncan observed this phenomenon with natural astonishment not unmixed
+with awe. "Yes, sir, very," he agreed, wondering what it might portend.
+
+"I believe I'll have a glass of sody."
+
+"Certainly." Duncan, by now habituated to the formulae of soda
+dispensing, promptly produced a bright and shining glass.
+
+"I see you've been fixin' this place up some."
+
+"Oh, yes," said Nat loftily. "We expect to have the best drugstore in
+the State. We're getting in new stock to-day, and naturally things are
+a little out of order, but we'll straighten up without delay. We'll try
+to deserve your esteemed patronage," he concluded doubtfully, with a
+hazy impression that such a speech would be considered appropriate
+under the circumstances.
+
+"You shall have it, Mr. Duncan, you shall have it!"
+
+"Thank you, I'm sure.... What syrup would you prefer?"
+
+"Just sody," stipulated Lockwood.
+
+His spasmodic wink again smote Duncan's understanding a mighty blow.
+Unable to believe his eyes, he hedged and stammered. Could it be--?
+This from the leader of the temperance movement in Radville?
+
+
+"I beg pardon----?"
+
+His denseness irritated Blinky slightly, with the result that the right
+side of his face again underwent an alarming convulsion. "I say," he
+explained carefully, "just--_plain_--sody."
+
+"On the level?"
+
+"What?" grunted Blinky; and blinked again.
+
+A smile of comprehension irradiated Nat's features. "Pardon," he said,
+"I'm a little new to the business."
+
+Blinky, fanning himself industriously, glared round the store while
+Duncan, turning his back, discreetly found and uncorked the whiskey
+bottle. He was still a trifle dubious about the transaction, but on the
+sound principles of doing all things thoroughly, poured out a liberal
+dose of raw, red liquor. Then, with his fingers clamped tightly about
+the bottom of the glass, the better to conceal its contents from any
+casual but inquisitive passer-by, he quickly filled it with soda and
+placed it before Blinky, accompanying the action with the sweetest of
+childlike smiles.
+
+Lockwood, nodding his acknowledgments, lifted the glass to his lips.
+Duncan awaited developments with some apprehension. To his relief,
+however, Blinky, after an experimental swallow, emptied the mixture
+expeditiously into his system; and smacked his thin lips resoundingly.
+
+"How," he demanded, "can anyone want intoxicatin' likers when
+they can get such a bracin' drink as that?"
+
+"I pass," Nat breathed, limp with admiration of such astounding
+hypocrisy.
+
+Blinky reluctantly pried a nickel loose from his finances and placed it
+on the counter. Duncan regarded it with disdain.
+
+"Ten cents more, please," he suggested tactfully.
+
+"What for?"
+
+"Plain sody." The explanation was accompanied by a very passable
+imitation of Blinky's blink.
+
+Happily for Duncan, Blinky has no sense of humour: if he had he would
+explode the very first time he indulged in introspection.
+
+"Not much," said he with his sour smile. "I guess you're jokin'....
+Well, good luck to you, Mr. Duncan. I'd like to have you come round and
+see us some evenin'."
+
+"Thank you very much, sir." Duncan accompanied Blinky to the door.
+"I've already had the pleasure of meeting your daughter, sir. She's a
+charming girl."
+
+"I'm real glad you think so," said Blinky, intensely gratified. "She
+seems to've taken a great shine to you, too. Come round and get
+'quainted with the hull family. You're the sort of young feller I'd
+like her to know." He paused and looked Nat up and down captiously,
+as one might appraise the points of a horse of quality put up for sale.
+"Good-day," said he, with the most significant of winks.
+
+"Oh, that's all right," Nat hastened to reassure him. "I won't say a
+word about it."
+
+Blinky, on the point of leaving, started to question this (to him)
+cryptic utterance, but luckily had the current of his thoughts diverted
+by the entrance of Roland Barnette, in company with his friend Mr.
+Burnham.
+
+Roland's consternation at this unexpected encounter was, in the mildest
+term, extreme. At sight of his employer he pulled up as if slapped.
+"Oh!" he faltered, "I didn't know you was here, sir."
+
+"No," said Blinky with keen relish, "I guess you didn't."
+
+"I--ah--come over to see Sam about that note," stammered Roland.
+
+"Wal, don't you bother your head 'bout what ain't your business, Roly.
+Come on back to the bank."
+
+"All right, sir." Roland grasped frantically at the opportunity to
+emphasise his importance. "Excuse me, Mr. Lockwood, but I'd like to
+interdoos you to a friend of mine, Mr. Burnham from Noo York."
+
+Amused, Burnham stepped into the breach. "How are you?" he said with
+the proper nuance of cordiality, offering his hand.
+
+Lockwood shook it unemotionally. "How de do?" he said, perfunctory.
+
+"I brought Mr. Burnham in to see Sam----"
+
+"Yes," Burnham interrupted Roland quickly; "Barnette's been kind enough
+to show me round town a bit."
+
+"Here on business?" inquired Lockwood pointedly.
+
+"No, not exactly," returned Burnham with practised ease, "just looking
+round."
+
+"Only lookin', eh?" Blinky's countenance underwent one of its erratic
+quakes as he examined Burnham with his habitual intentness.
+
+The New Yorker caught the wink and lost breath. "Ah--yes--that's all,"
+he assented uneasily. And as he spoke another wink dumbfounded him.
+"Why?" he asked, with a distinct loss of assurance. "Don't you believe
+it."
+
+"Don't see no reason why I shouldn't," grunted Blinky. "Hope you'll
+like what you see. Good day."
+
+"So long ... Mr. Lockwood," returned Burnham uncertainly.
+
+Lockwood paused outside the door. "Come 'long, Roland."
+
+"Yes, sir; right away; just a minute." Roland was lingering
+unwillingly, detained by Burnham's imperative hand. "What d'you want? I
+got to hurry."
+
+"What was he winking at me for?" demanded Burnham heatedly. "Have
+you----?"
+
+"Oh!" Roland laughed. "He wasn't winking. He can't help doing that.
+It's a twitchin' he's got in his eye. That's why they call him Blinky."
+
+"Oh, that was it!" Burnham accepted the explanation with distinct
+relief, while Duncan, who had been an unregarded spectator, suddenly
+found cause to retire behind one of the show-cases on important
+business.
+
+So that was the explanation!...
+
+After his paroxysm had subsided and he felt able to control his facial
+muscles, Duncan emerged, suave and solemn. Roland had disappeared with
+Blinky, and Burnham was alone.
+
+"Anything you wish, sir?" asked Nat.
+
+"Only to see Mr. Graham."
+
+"He's out just at present, but I think he'll be back in a moment or so.
+Will you wait? You'll find that chair comfortable, I think."
+
+"Believe I will," said Burnham with an air. He seated himself. "I can't
+wait long, though," he amended.
+
+"Yes, sir. And if you'll excuse me----?"
+
+Burnham's hand dismissed him with a tolerant wave. "Go right on about
+your business," he said with supreme condescension.
+
+And Duncan returned to his work in the backyard. It wasn't long before
+he found occasion to go back to the store, and by that time old Sam was
+there in conversation with Burnham. Neither noticed Nat as he entered,
+and to begin with he paid them little heed, being occupied with his
+task of depositing an armful of bottles without mishap and then placing
+them on the shelves. The hum of their voices from the other side of the
+counter struck an indifferent ear while he busied himself, but
+presently a word or phrase caught his interest, and he found himself
+listening, at first casually, then with waxing attention.
+
+"That's part of my business," he heard Burnham say in his sleek,
+oleaginous accents. "Sometimes I pick up an odd no-'count contraption
+that makes me a bit of money, and more times I'm stung and lose on it.
+It's all a gamble, of course, and I'm that way--like to take a gambling
+chance on anything that strikes my fancy--like that burner of yours."
+
+"Yes," Graham returned: "the gas arrangement."
+
+"It's a curious idea--quite different from the one I told you about;
+but I kinda took to it. There might be something to it, and again there
+mightn't. I've been thinking I might be willing to risk a few dollars
+on it, if we could come to terms."
+
+"Do you mean it, really?" said old Sam eagerly.
+
+"Not to invest in it, so to speak; I don't think it's chances are
+strong enough for that. But if you'd care to sell the patent outright
+and aren't too ambitious, we might make a dicker. What d'you say?"
+
+"Why, yes," said Graham, quivering with anticipation. "Yes, indeed,
+if--"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"If you really think it's worth anything, sir."
+
+"Well, as I say, there's no telling; but I was thinking about it at
+dinner, and I sort of concluded I'd like to own that burner, so I made
+out a little bill of sale, and I says to myself, says I: 'If Graham
+will take five hundred dollars for that patent, I'll give him spot
+cash, right in his hand,' says I."
+
+With this Burnham tipped back in his chair, and brought forth a wallet
+from which he drew a sheet of paper and several bills.
+
+"Five hundred dollars!" repeated Graham, thunderstruck by this
+munificence.
+
+"Yes, sir: five hundred, cash! To tell you the truth--guess you don't
+know it--I heard at the bank that they didn't intend to extend the time
+on that note of yours, and I thought this five hundred would come in
+handy, and kind of wanted to help you out. Now what do you say?"
+
+He flourished the bills under Graham's nose and waited, entirely at
+ease as to his answer.
+
+"Well," said the old man, "it is kind of you, sir--very kind. Everybody's
+been good to me recently--or else I'm dreamin'."
+
+"Then it's a bargain?"
+
+"Why, I hope it won't lose any money for you, Mr. Burnham," Sam
+hesitated, with his ineradicable sense of fairness and square-dealing.
+"Making gas from crude oil ought to--"
+
+Duncan never heard the end of that speech. For some moments he had been
+listening intently, trying to recollect something. The name of Burnham
+plucked a string on the instrument of his memory; he knew he had heard
+it, some place, some time in the past; but how, or when, or in respect
+to what he could not make up his mind. It had required Sam's reference
+to gas and crude oil to close the circuit. Then he remembered: Kellogg
+had mentioned a man by the name of Burnham who was "on the track of" an
+important invention for making gas from crude oil. This must be the
+man, Burnham, the tracker; and poor old Graham must be the tracked....
+
+Without warning Duncan ran round and made himself an uninvited third to
+the conference.
+
+"Mr. Graham, one moment!" he begged, excited. "Is this patent of yours
+on a process of making gas from crude oil?"
+
+Burnham looked up impatiently, frowning at the interruption, but Graham
+was all good humour.
+
+"Why, yes," he started to explain; "it's that burner over there that--"
+
+"But I wouldn't sell it just yet if I were you," said Nat. "It may be
+worth a good deal--"
+
+"Now look here!" Burnham got to his feet in anger. "What business 've
+you got butting into this?" he demanded, putting himself between Duncan
+and the inventor.
+
+"Me?" Duncan queried simply. "Only just because I'm a business man. If
+you don't believe it, ask Mr. Graham."
+
+"He's got a perfect right to advise me, Mr. Burnham," interposed
+Graham, rising.
+
+"Well, but--but what objection 've you got to his making a little money
+out of this patent?" Burnham blustered.
+
+"None; only I want to look into the matter first. I think it might be--
+ah--advisable."
+
+"What makes you think so?" demanded Burnham, his tone withering.
+
+"Well," said Nat, with an effort summoning his faculties to cope with a
+matter of strict business, "it's this way: I've got an _idea_," he
+said, poking at Burnham with the forefinger which had proven so
+effective with Pete Willing, "that you wouldn't offer five hundred iron
+men for this burner unless you expected to make something big out of
+it, and... it ought to be worth just as much to Mr. Graham as to you."
+
+"Ah, you don't know what you're talking about."
+
+"I know that," Nat admitted simply, "but I do happen to know you're
+promoting a scheme for making gas from crude oil, and if Mr. Graham
+will listen to me you won't get his patent until I've consulted my
+friend, Henry Kellogg."
+
+"_Kellogg!_"
+
+"Yes. You know--of L.J. Bartlett & Company." Nat's forefinger continued
+to do deadly work. Burnham backed away from it as from a fiery brand.
+
+"Oh, well!" he said, dashed, "if you're representing Kellogg"--and Nat
+took care not to refute the implication--"I--I don't want to interfere.
+Only," he pursued at random, in his discomfiture, "I can't see why he
+sent you here."
+
+"I'd be ashamed to tell you," Nat returned with an open smile. "Better
+ask him."
+
+Burnham gathered his wits together for a final threat. "That's what I
+will do!" he threatened. "And I'll do it the minute I can see him. You
+can bet on that, Mister What's-Your-Name!"
+
+"No, I can't," said Nat naïvely. "I'm not allowed to gamble."
+
+His ingenuous expression exasperated Burnham. The man lost control of
+his temper at the same moment that he acknowledged to himself his
+defeat. In disgust he turned away.
+
+"Oh, there's no use talking to you--"
+
+"That's right," Nat agreed fairly.
+
+"But I'll see you again, Mr. Graham--"
+
+"Not alone, if I can help it, Mr. Burnham," Duncan amended sweetly.
+
+"But," Burnham continued, severely ignoring Nat and addressing himself
+squarely to Graham, "you take my tip and don't do any business with
+this fellow until you find out who he is." He flung himself out of the
+shop with a barked: "Good-day!"
+
+"Well, Mr. Graham?" Duncan turned a little apprehensively to the
+inventor. But Sam's expression was almost one of beatific content. His
+weak old lips were pursed, his eyes half-closed, his finger tips
+joined, and he was rocking back and forth on his heels.
+
+"Margaret used to talk that way, sometimes," he remarked. "She was the
+best woman in the world--and the wisest. She used to take care of me
+and protect me from my foolish impulses, just as you do, my boy...."
+
+For a space Duncan kept silent, respecting the old man's memories, and
+a great deal humbled in spirit by the parallel Sam had drawn. Then: "I
+was afraid what I said would sound queer to you, sir," he ventured--
+"that you mightn't understand that I'm not here to do you out of your
+invention..."
+
+"There's nothing on earth, my boy,"--Graham's hand fell on Nat's arm--
+"could make me think that. But five hundred dollars, you see, would
+have repaid you for taking up that note, and--and I could have bought
+Betty a new dress for the party. But I'm sure you've done what's best.
+You're a business man--"
+
+"Don't!" Nat pleaded wildly. "I've been called that so much of late
+that it's beginning to hurt!"
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+
+MOSTLY ABOUT BETTY
+
+Sam Graham said to me, that night: "I don't know when so many things
+have happened to me in so short a time. It don't seem hardly possible
+it's only four days since that boy came in here asking for a job. It's
+wonderful, simply wonderful, the change he's made."
+
+He waved a comprehensive hand, and I, glancing round the transformed
+store, agreed with him. Everything was spick and span and mighty
+attractive--clean and neat-looking--with the new stock in the shining
+cases and arranged on the glistening white shelves: not all of it set
+out by any means, of course, but no unplaced goods in sight, cluttering
+up the counters or kicking round the floor.
+
+"The way he's worked----! You'd hardly believe it, Homer. He said he
+wanted to get home early so's to write a letter to a friend of his in
+New York, a Mr. Kellogg, junior member of L. J. Bartlett & Company,
+about my invention. But he insisted on leaving everything to rights for
+business to-morrow. And just look!"
+
+"But I thought Roland Barnette----?" I suggested with guile. Of
+course I'd heard a rumour of what had happened--'most everyone in town
+had--and how Roland and his friend, Mr. Burnham, had sort of fallen out
+on the way from the Bigelow House to the train; but no one knew
+anything definite, and I wanted to get "the rights of it," as Radville
+says.
+
+So I had dropped in at Graham's, on my way home from the office, as I
+often do, for an evening smoke and a bit of gossip: something I rarely
+indulge in, but which I've found has a curious psychological effect on
+the circulation of the _Citizen_--like a tonic. Sam was just at
+the point of closing up. He was alone, Duncan having gone home about an
+hour earlier, and Betty being upstairs, while (since it was quite
+half-past nine) all the rest of Radville, with few exceptions (chiefly
+to be noted at Schwartz's and round the Bigelow House bar) was making
+its final rounds of the day: locking the front door, putting out the
+lamp in its living-room, banking the fire in the range, ejecting the
+cat from the kitchen and wiping out the sink, and finally, odoriferous
+kerosene lamp in hand, climbing slowly to the stuffy upstairs
+bed-chamber. Indeed, the lights of Radville begin to go out about
+half-past eight; by ten, as a rule, the town is as lively as a
+cemetery.
+
+But I am by nature inexorable and merciless, a masterful man with such
+as old Sam; and it was an hour later before I left him, drained of
+the last detail of the day. He was a weary man, but a happy one, when
+he bade me good-night, and I myself felt a little warmed by his
+cheerfulness as I plodded up Main Street through the thick oppression
+of darkness beneath the elms.
+
+After a time I became aware that someone was overtaking me, and waited,
+thinking at first it would be one of my people. But it wasn't long
+before I recognised from the quick tempo of the approaching footfalls
+that this was no Radvillian. There was just light enough--starlight
+striking down through the thinner spaces in the interlacing foliage--to
+make visible a moving shadow, and when it drew nearer I saluted it with
+confidence.
+
+"Good-evening, Mr. Duncan."
+
+He stopped short, peering through the gloom. "Good-evening, but--Mr.
+Littlejohn? Glad to see you." He joined me and we proceeded homeward,
+he moderating his stride a trifle in deference to my age. "Aren't you
+late?"
+
+"A bit," I admitted. "I've been gossiping with Sam Graham."
+
+"Oh...?"
+
+"You're out late yourself, Mr. Duncan, for one of such regular, not to
+say abnormal, habits."
+
+He laughed lightly. "Had a letter I wanted to catch the first morning
+train."
+
+"Then you're interested in Sam's burner?"
+
+"No, I'm not, but I hope to interest others....Oh, yes: Mr. Graham
+told you about it, of course.... It just struck me that if a man of
+Burnham's stamp was willing to risk five hundred dollars on the
+proposition, he very likely foresaw a profit in it that might as well
+be Mr. Graham's. So I've sent a detailed description of the thing to a
+friend in New York, who'll look into it for me."
+
+He was silent for a little.
+
+"Who's Colonel Bohun?" he asked suddenly.
+
+"Why do you ask?"
+
+"I saw him this evening. He was passing the store and stopped to glare
+in as if he hated it--stopped so long that I got nervous and asked Miss
+Lockwood (she'd just happened in for a parting glass--of soda) whether
+he was an anarchist or a retired burglar. She told me his name, but was
+otherwise inhumanly reticent."
+
+"For Josie?" I chuckled; but he didn't respond. So I took up the tale
+of the first family of Radville.
+
+"The story runs," said I, "that the Bohuns were one of the F.F.V.'s;
+that they sickened of slavery, freed their slaves and moved North, to
+settle in Radville. I _believe_ they came from somewhere round
+Lynchburg; but that was a couple of generations ago. When the Civil War
+broke out the old Colonel up there"--I gestured vaguely in the general
+direction of the Bohun mansion--"couldn't keep out of it, and
+naturally he couldn't fight with the North. He won his spurs under
+Lee.... After the war had blown over he came home, to find that his
+only son had enlisted with the Radville company and disappeared at
+Gettysburg. It pretty nearly killed the old man--though he wasn't so
+old then; but there's fire in the Bohun blood, and his boy's action
+seemed to him nothing less than treason."
+
+"And that's what soured him on the world?"
+
+"Not altogether. He had a daughter--Margaret. She was the most
+beautiful woman in the world...." I suspect my voice broke a little
+just there, for there was a shade of respectful sympathy in the
+monosyllable with which he filled the pause. "He swore she should never
+marry a Northerner, but she did; I guess, being a Bohun, she had to,
+after hearing she must not. There were two of us that loved her, but
+she chose Sam Graham...."
+
+"Why," he said awkwardly--"I'm sorry."
+
+"I'm not: she was right, if I couldn't see it that way. They ran away--
+and so did I. I went East, but they came back to Radville. Colonel
+Bohun never forgave them, but they were very happy till she died.
+Betty's their daughter, of course: Sam's not the kind that marries more
+than once."
+
+Duncan thought this over without comment until we reached our gate.
+There he paused for a moment.
+
+"He's got plenty of money, I presume--old Bohun?"
+
+"So they say. Probably not much now, but a great deal more than he
+needs."
+
+"Then why doesn't somebody get after the old scoundrel and make him do
+something for that poor--for Miss Graham?" he asked indignantly.
+
+"He tried it once, but they wouldn't listen. His conditions were
+impossible," I explained. "She was to renounce her father and take the
+name of Bohun------."
+
+"What rot!" Duncan growled. "What an old fiend he must be! Of course he
+knew she'd refuse."
+
+"I suspect he did."
+
+Duncan hesitated a bit longer. "Anyhow," he said suddenly, "somebody
+ought to get after him and make him see the thing the right way."
+
+"S'pose you try it, Mr. Duncan?" I suggested maliciously, as we went up
+the walk.
+
+He stopped at the door. "Perhaps I shall," he said slowly.
+
+"I'd advise you not to. The last man that tried it has no desire to
+repeat the experiment."
+
+"Who was he?"
+
+"An old fool named Homer Littlejohn."
+
+Duncan put out his hand. "Shake!" he insisted. "We'll talk this over
+another time."
+
+We went in very quietly, lit our candles, and with elaborate care
+avoided the home-made burglar-alarm (a complicated arrangement of
+strings and tinpans on the staircase, which Miss Carpenter insists on
+maintaining ever since Roland Barnette missed a dollar bill and
+insisted his pocket had been picked on Main Street) and so mounted to
+our rooms. As we were entering (our doors adjoin) a thought delayed my
+good-night.
+
+"By the way, did you get your invitation to Josie Lockwood's party, Mr.
+Duncan? I happened to see it on the hall table this evening."
+
+"Yes," he assented quietly.
+
+"It's to be the social event of the year. I hope you'll enjoy it."
+
+"I'm not going."
+
+"Not going!... Why not?"
+
+"It's against the rules at first--I mean, business rules. I'll be so
+busy at the store, you know."
+
+"Josie'll be disappointed."
+
+"Thank you," said he gratefully. "Good-night."
+
+Alone, I was fain to confess he baffled my understanding.
+
+The rush of business to Graham's began the following morning: Duncan's
+hands were full almost from the first, and he had to relegate such
+matters as making final disposition of his stock and getting acquainted
+with it to the intervals between waiting upon customers. Old Sam must
+have put up more prescriptions in the next few days than he had within
+the last five years. Everybody wanted to take a look at the renovated
+store, shake Sam's hand, and see what the new partner was really like.
+Sothern and Lee's was for some days quite deserted, especially after
+Duncan took a leaf out of their book, bought an ice-cream freezer and
+began to serve dabs of cream in the sody. I've always maintained that
+our Radville folks are pretty thoroughly sot in their ways (the phrase
+is local), but the way they flocked to Graham's forced me to amend the
+aphorism with the clause: "except when their curiosity is aroused."
+Every woman in town wanted to know what Graham and Duncan carried that
+Sothern and Lee didn't, and how much cheaper they were than the more
+established concern; also they wanted to know Mr. Duncan. I suspect no
+drug-store ever had so many inquiries for articles that it didn't
+carry, but might possibly, or ought to, in the estimation of the
+prospective purchasers, as well as that at no time had Radvillians
+happened to think of so many things that they could get at a
+druggist's. People drove in from as far as twenty miles away, as soon
+as the news reached them, to buy notepaper and stamps--people who
+didn't write or receive a letter a month. Will Bigelow, even, dropped
+round and bought samples of the tobacco stock, from two-fors up to
+ten-centers--and smoked them with expressive snorts. Tracey Tanner's
+soda and cigarette trade was transferred bodily to Graham's from the
+first, and Roland Barnette gave it his patronage, albeit grudgingly, as
+soon as he found it impossible to shake Josie Lockwood's allegiance. I
+say grudgingly, because Roland didn't like the new partner, and had
+said so from the first. But everyone else did like him, almost without
+exception. His attentiveness and courtesy were not ungrateful after the
+way things were thrown at you at Sothern and Lee's, we declared.
+
+Duncan certainly did strive to please. No man ever worked harder in a
+Radville store than he did. And from the time that he began to believe
+there would be some reward for his exertions, that the business was
+susceptible to being built up by the employment of progressive methods,
+he grew astonishingly prolific of ideas, from our sleepy point of view.
+The window displays were changed almost daily, to begin with, and were
+made as interesting as possible; we learned to go blocks out of our way
+to find out what Graham and Duncan were exploiting to-day. And daily
+bargain sales were instituted--low-priced articles of everyday use,
+such as shaving soap, tooth brushes, and the like, being sold at a
+few cents above cost on certain days which were announced in advance by
+means of hand-lettered cards in the show-windows; whereas formerly we
+had always been obliged to pay full list-prices. An axiom of his creed
+as it developed was to the effect that stock must not be allowed to
+stand idle upon the shelves; if there were no call for a certain line
+of articles, it must be stimulated. I remember that, some time along in
+August, he began to worry about the inactivity in cough-syrups.
+
+"No one wants cough-syrups in summer," he told Graham; "that stuff's
+been here six weeks and more. It's getting out of training. Needs
+exercise. Look at this bottle: it says: 'Shake well.' Now it hasn't
+been shaken at all since it was put on the shelves, and I haven't got
+time to shake it every morning. We must either hire a boy to give it
+regular exercise, or sell it off and get in a fresh supply for the
+winter. I'll have to think up some scheme to make 'em take it off our
+hands."
+
+He did. Somehow or other he managed to convince us that forewarned was
+forearmed, that it was better to have a bottle or two of cough-syrup in
+our medicine chests at home than on the shelves of the drug-store, when
+the chill autumnal winds began to blow, especially when you could buy
+it now for thirty-nine cents, whereas it would be fifty-four in
+October.
+
+Still earlier in his career as a business man he noticed that the local
+practitioners wrote their prescriptions on odd scraps of paper.
+
+"That's all wrong," he declared. "We'll have to fix it." And by next
+morning the job-printing press back of the Court House was groaning
+under an order from Graham and Duncan's, and a few days later every
+physician within several miles of Radville received half a dozen neat
+pads of blanks with his name and address printed at the top and the
+advice across the bottom: "Go to Graham's for the best and purest drugs
+and chemicals." The backs of the blanks were utilised to request people
+living out of reach, but on rural free delivery routes, either to mail
+their prescriptions and other orders in, or have the physicians
+telephone them, promising to fill and despatch them by the first post.
+
+For he had a telephone installed within the first fortnight, and the
+next day advertised in the _Gazette_ that orders by telephone
+would receive prompt attention and be delivered without delay. Tracey
+Tanner became his delivery-boy, deserting his father's stables for the
+obvious advantages of three dollars a week with a chance to learn the
+business.... Sothern and Lee were quick to recognise the advantage the
+telephone gave Graham and Duncan, and promptly had one put in their
+store; but the delay had proven almost fatal: Radville had already
+got into the habit of telephoning to Graham's for a cake of soap, or
+whatnot, and it's hard to break a Radville habit.
+
+As business increased and the stock turned itself over at a profit,
+Duncan began to branch out, to make improvements and introduce new
+lines of goods. He it was who inoculated Radville with the habit of
+buying manufactured candies. Up to the time of his advent, we had been
+accustomed to and content with home-made taffies and fudges--and were,
+I've no doubt, vastly better off on that account. But Duncan, starting
+with a line of five- and ten-cent packages of indigestible sweets, in
+time made arrangements with a big Pittsburgh confectionery concern to
+ship him a small consignment of pound and half-pound "fancy" boxes of
+chocolates and bonbons twice a week. And taffy-pulls and fudge parties
+lapsed into desuetude.
+
+Later, Sperry introduced him to an association of druggists, of which
+he became a member, for the maintenance and exploitation of the cigar
+and tobacco trade in connection with the drug business. They installed
+at Graham's a handsome show-case and fixtures especially for the sale
+and display of cigars, and thereafter it was possible to purchase
+smokable tobacco in our town.
+
+Again, he treated Radville to its first circulating library,
+establishing a branch in the store. One could buy a book at a moderate
+price, and either keep it or exchange it for a fee of a few cents. I
+disputed the wisdom of this move, alleging, and with reason, that
+Radville didn't read modern fiction to any extent. But Duncan argued
+that it didn't matter. "They're going to try it on as a novelty, to
+begin with," he said, "and it'll bring 'em into the store for a few
+exchanges, at least. That's all I want. Once we get 'em in here, it'll
+be hard if we can't sell them something else. You'll see."
+
+He was right.
+
+Undoubtedly he made the business hum during those first few months; and
+after that it settled down to a steady forward movement. The store
+became a social centre, a place for people to meet. In time Tracey was
+promoted to be assistant and another boy engaged to make deliveries.
+... And Duncan had never been happier; he had found something he could
+understand and, understanding, accomplish; there was work for his hands
+to do, and they had discovered they could do it successfully. I don't
+believe he stopped to think about it very much, but he was conscious of
+that glow of achievement, that heightening of the spirits, that comes
+with the knowledge of success, be that success however insignificant,
+and it benefited him enormously....
+
+But this chronicle of progress has run away altogether with a desultory
+pen, which started to tell why Duncan didn't want to go to Josie
+Lockwood's party. I was long in finding out, but not so long as Duncan
+himself, perhaps; by which I mean to say that he was conscious of the
+desire not to go, and determined not to, without stopping to analyse
+the cause of that desire more than very superficially.
+
+It happened, toward the close of the eventful day already detailed at
+such length, that as Duncan was entering the house with a load of boxed
+goods, he heard voices in the store--young voices, of which one was
+already too familiar to his ears. He paused, waiting for them to get
+through with their business and go; for he had no time to waste just
+then, even upon the heiress of his manufactured destiny. Betty was
+keeping shop at the time (old Sam having gone upstairs for a little
+rest, who was overwrought and weary with the excitement of that day)
+and it was Duncan's hope that she would be able to serve the customers
+without his assistance.
+
+There were two of them, you see--Josie and Angle Tuthill--hunting as
+usual in couples; and while he waited, not meaning to eavesdrop but
+unwilling to betray his whereabouts by moving, he heard very clearly
+their passage with Betty.
+
+He overheard first, distinctly, Betty responding in expressionless
+voice: "Hello, Angie.... Hello, Josie."
+
+There ensued what seemed a slightly awkward pause. Then Josie,
+painfully sweet: "Did you get the invitation, Betty?"
+
+Betty moved into Duncan's range of vision, apparently intending to come
+and call him. She turned at the question, and he saw her small, thin
+little body and pinched face _en silhouette_ against the fading
+light beyond. He saw, too, that she was stiffening herself as if for
+some unequal contest.
+
+"The invitation?" she questioned dully, but with her head up and
+steady.
+
+"Why," said Josie, "I sent you one. To the party, you know--my lawn
+feet next week."
+
+I give the local pronunciation as it is.
+
+"Did you?"
+
+"I gave it to Tracey for you," persisted the tormentor. "Didn't you get
+it?"
+
+Betty caught at her breath, inaudibly; only Duncan could see the little
+spasm of mortification and anger that shook her.
+
+"Oh, perhaps I did," she said shortly. "I--I'll ask Mr. Duncan to wait
+on you."
+
+She swung quickly out into the hallway, slamming the door behind her
+and so darkening it that she didn't detect Duncan's shadowed figure.
+And if she had meant to call him, she must have forgotten it; for an
+instant later he heard her stumbling up the stairs, and as she
+disappeared he caught the echo of a smothered sob.
+
+He waited, motionless, too disturbed at the time to care to enter the
+store and endure Josie's vapid advances; and through the thin partition
+there came to him their comments on Betty's ungracious behaviour.
+
+"Well!... _did_ you ever!"
+
+That was Angle; Josie chimed in the same key: "Oh, what did you expect
+from that kind of a girl?"
+
+"_Ssh!_ maybe he's coming!"
+
+After a moment's silence, Josie: "Oh, come on. Don't let's wait any
+longer. I don't think it's healthy to drink sody so soon before dinner,
+anyway."
+
+"And, besides, we only wanted to hear--"
+
+Their voices with their footsteps diminished. Duncan allowed a prudent
+interval to elapse, entered the store and began to bestow the goods he
+had brought in.
+
+While he was at work the light failed. He stopped for lack of it just
+as Betty came downstairs.
+
+"Hello!" he said cheerfully. "Know where the matches are?"
+
+"Yes." She moved behind a counter and fetched him a few. "Are you 'most
+done?" she inquired, not unfriendly, as he took down from its bracket
+one of the oil lamps.
+
+"Hardly," he responded, touching a light to the wick and replacing the
+chimney. "It's a good deal of a job."
+
+"Yes..."
+
+He replaced the lamp, and in the act of turning toward another caught a
+glimpse of the girl's face, pale and drawn, her eyes a trifle reddened.
+And with that commonsense departed from him, leaving him wholly a prey
+to his impulse of pity. "Oh, thunder!" he told himself, thrusting a
+hand into his pocket. "I might as well be broke as the way I am now."
+He produced the scanty remains of his "grubstake."
+
+"Miss Graham..."
+
+"Yes?" she asked, wondering.
+
+"Could you get a party dress for thirty-four dollars?"
+
+"Thirty-four dollars!" she faltered.
+
+He discovered what small change he had in his pocket: it was like him
+to be extravagant, even extreme. "And fifty-three cents?" he pursued,
+with a nervous laugh.
+
+"Heavens!" the girl gasped. "I should think so!"
+
+"Then go ahead!" He offered her the money, but she could only stare,
+incredulous. "I'll stake you."
+
+"Oh..._no_, Mr. Duncan," she managed to say.
+
+"Oh, yes!" He tried to catch one of the hands that involuntarily had
+risen toward her face in a gesture of wonder. "Please do," he begged,
+his tone persuasive, "as a favour to me."
+
+But she evaded him, stepping back. "I couldn't take it; I couldn't
+really."
+
+"Yes, you can. Just try it once, and see how easy it is," he persisted,
+pursuing.
+
+"No, I can't." She looked up shyly and shook her head, that smile of
+her mother's for the moment illuminating her face almost with the
+radiance of beauty. "But I--I thank you very much--just the same."
+
+"But I want you to go to that party..."
+
+"You're awful' kind," she said softly, still smiling, "but I don't care
+to go, now. I--"
+
+"Don't care to! Why, you were insisting on going, a little while ago."
+
+"Yes," she admitted simply, "I know I was. But ... I've been thinking
+over what you said, since then, and I ... I've made up my mind I'd be
+out of place there."
+
+"Out of place!" he echoed, thunderstruck.
+
+"Yes. I've concluded I belong here in the store with father." She half
+turned away. "And I guess folks is better off if they stay where they
+belong...."
+
+
+She went slowly from the room, and he remained staring, stupefied.
+
+"You never can tell about a woman," he concluded with all the gravity
+of an original philosopher.
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+
+MANOEUVRES OF JOSIE
+
+Nat didn't go to the Lockwood lawn fête, and did excuse himself on the
+plea of being unable to leave the store. I'm afraid the young man had a
+faint, fond hope that Josie would be offended; but his excuse was
+accepted without remonstrance. And, indeed, it was at that time quite a
+reasonable one. Tracey had not been added to the staff, although
+business was booming, and Saturday night is, as everyone who has lived
+in a Radville knows, the busiest of the week; all the stores keep open
+late on Saturday--some as late as eleven--and frequently take in half
+the week's income between noon and the closing hour. Duncan really
+couldn't be spared; so it's probable that Josie cloaked her
+disappointment and comforted herself with the assurance that her
+selection of the day had been an error in judgment, of which she would
+not again be guilty.
+
+But the party came off, without fail, and that on a wonderful, still,
+moonlit night; and everybody voted it a splendid success. The
+_Citizen_ in its next issue recorded the event to the extent of a
+column and a half of reading matter, called it a social function, and
+described the gowns of the leading ladies of society present in
+bewildering phrases. I was not invited, but the owner of the paper was,
+and his wife wrote the description with the assistance of the entire
+editorial and reportorial force, a dictionary and some evil if
+suppressed language from the foreman of the composing-room. I read
+the proofs with an admiration strongly tinctured with awe, and found
+it lacking in one particular only: no mention was made of Roland
+Barnette's first open-faced suit.
+
+Roland had ordered it from a clothing-house in Chicago, and it arrived
+just in time. Having heard all about it from Roland's own lips (they
+dilated upon the matter to Watty the tailor, just beneath my window), I
+sort of hung round downtown Saturday evening in the hope of catching
+a glimpse of it, and was not disappointed. I was loitering in Graham's
+when Roland sauntered nonchalantly in at about a quarter to eight and
+called for a pack of "Sweets." Sam served him, and Duncan, happily for
+him disengaged at the moment, after one look at Roland retired
+precipitately behind the prescription counter--overcome, I judged from
+Roland's triumphant smirk, by deepest chagrin. Well, thought I, might
+he have been: he could never, by whatever wildest endeavour, have
+approximated Roland's splendour.
+
+The coat was bob-tailed (at least, so Watty described it within my
+hearing) and curiously double-breasted, caught together at the waist
+with a single button, thus revealing a shining expanse of very stiff
+shirt-bosom; which creaked, for some reason. With this Roland wore a
+ribbed white-silk waistcoat, very brilliant low-cut patent leather
+shoes, and white-silk socks. The trousers were strikingly cut, as to
+each leg, after the physical configuration of the domestic pear, and
+the effect of the whole was measurably enhanced by an opera-hat--one
+of those tall and striking contraptions that you can shut up by
+pressing gently but firmly upon the human midriff and looking
+unconscious, but which is apt to open with a resounding report if
+you're not careful... I am glad to be able to report that Roland failed
+to commit the solecism of wearing a red string tie; his tie was a
+sober black, firmly knotted at the factory. I'm glad too, for the
+sartorial honour of Radville, that Roland knew how to wear such
+fixin's: that is to say, with an expression of proud defiance.
+
+After he had departed, stepping high, Sam called me behind the counter
+to assist in reviving Duncan. We found him leaning upon the counter,
+his forehead resting upon a mortar, very red in the face and breathing
+stertorously; and when Sam addressed him, to learn what was the matter,
+he seemed unable to speak, but choked and beat the air feebly with his
+hands. Sam concluded he had swallowed something, and was, I think,
+right; he was plainly half strangled, and only recovered after we had
+beaten his back severely. Then he refused any explanation, beyond
+saying that he was subject to such seizures.
+
+After the party the town's excitement simmered down and subsided; we
+had become moderately accustomed to the presence of Duncan in our midst
+(strange as this may sound), and for some time nothing happened germane
+to the fate of the Fortune Hunter.
+
+On his part, he fell into a routine without the least evidence of
+discontent. He was early to rise and early to work, and rarely left the
+store save at meal hours and closing-up time. And in the course of our
+serene days, I began to notice in him an increasing interest in the
+affairs of the church; he seemed to look forward with a not uneager
+anticipation to the fixtures of its calendar. He attended with
+admirable regularity both morning and evening services, on Sunday, the
+mid-weekly prayer-meeting, and Friday evening choir practice. For in
+the course of time he had been won over to join the choir, and modestly
+discovered to our edification a barytone voice, wholly untrained but
+not unpleasing. Mrs. Rogers, our organist, averred his superiority to
+Packy Soule, whom he superseded, and was supported in this estimate by
+the remainder of the choir, with the exception of Roland Barnette,
+who helped with his reedy tenor. Josie Lockwood sang contralto and Bess
+Gabriel what we were informed was soprano--only Radville called it a
+treble. Tracey Tanner pumped the organ and puffed audibly in the
+pauses--a singular testimony to his devotion to Angie Tuthill, who
+"just sang" with the others, chiefly because she was Josie's nearest
+friend.
+
+I remember that, one Sunday night after evening service, Duncan
+confided to me, quite seriously, "that the church thing was getting to
+him." He seemed somewhat surprised, to a degree indignant, as if he
+suspected religion of having taken an advantage of him in some
+roundabout, underhand way.... He wondered audibly what Harry would
+think if he could see him now.
+
+He had settled down to a pretty steady correspondence with Kellogg,
+chiefly on business matters. Kellogg was investigating old Sam's
+burner, and seemed quite impressed with its possibilities. He had
+quarrelled with Roland's friend, Burnham, on Duncan's representations,
+and ordered him out of the offices of L. J. Bartlett & Company, it
+seemed. Later he opened up negotiations with a corporation known as the
+Modern Gas Company, I believe, a competitor of Consolidated Petroleum,
+and in due course representatives of both concerns came to Radville,
+examined the burner, and retired, non-committal. Then Bartlett sent
+a requisition for a model, and supplied the funds for making it--thus
+demonstrating his confidence. Sam never had such a good time in his
+life as when occupied with that model, and in his elation was inspired
+to invent two notable improvements on the machine--which were promptly
+patented. Then the model was despatched, receipt acknowledged, and
+nothing ensued for three or four months. Radville, which had been
+watching and wondering with open incredulity and dissatisfaction (this
+latter because neither Graham nor Duncan would talk about the matter),
+concluded that the whole business had gone up in smoke, said "I told ye
+so," and forgot it completely. Roland Barnette, I believe, drove the
+last nail in the coffin of our expectations that anything would ever
+come of it, by writing to Burnham that Duncan's negotiations had
+failed, and inviting him to renew his offer if he thought it worth
+while. Presumably he didn't, for Roland received no reply, and told the
+town so....
+
+I don't remember just how soon it was, but it was shortly after the
+formation of the firm of Graham and Duncan that the young man received
+his first invitation to dinner at the Lockwoods'. He accepted, of
+course, whether he wanted to or not, for there could be no excuse for
+his refusing a Sunday bid, and the Lockwoods made quite an event of
+it. The Soules were invited, because they were Araminta Lockwood's
+brother and sister-in-law, and the Godfreys came over from Westerly to
+grace the board as representatives of the Lockwood strain. Also Ben
+Lockwood attended--Blinky's first cousin and senior.
+
+Duncan described the function in a letter to Kellogg as the time of his
+young life. Undoubtedly it was in certain respects singular in his
+experience. The entire party walked home from church through a hot
+August noon, with that air of chastened joy common to a gathering of
+relations--an atmosphere of festive gloom and funeral baked meats
+painfully enlivened by exhilarating jests from old Ben, who was a
+connoisseur of vintages when it came to jokes. Duncan wished
+fervently, first that he might expire; secondly, and with greater
+intensity of feeling, that they all might die. Minta Lockwood, he felt,
+was slowly but expertly greasing him with adulation--as a python
+prepares its prey before dining (or is it a python?)--and he knew he
+was presently to be swallowed alive.
+
+They dined protractedly. The meal, consisting of baked chicken, mashed
+potatoes, boiled onions with cream sauce, boiled beets and green corn,
+followed by rhubarb pie and ice cream, was served by an independent,
+bony and red-faced specimen of the "help" genus. The atmosphere was
+stifling, with the heat of the day thickened by the steam and odour of
+cooked food. Duncan was seated consciously beside Josie--a circumstance
+of which, in fact, everyone else seemed tolerantly aware. He writhed in
+impotent agony, confronted alone by the consciousness he had brought
+this thing upon himself: it was a part of his punishment.
+
+At the conclusion of the meal, which endured throughout two
+interminable hours, the elder menfolk withdrew to the garden and the
+lawn, where they strolled about, sleepy eyes glistening with repletion,
+until finally they disappeared, to each his doze. The ladies
+foregathered in the parlour, conversing in undertones, with significant
+glances and liftings of their eyebrows. Nat was left to Josie, who
+conducted him to the side porch, out of sight of everybody, and planted
+herself in the baggy hammock there. She was gay, even brilliant within
+her limitations, arch, naïve, coquettish, shy, petulant, by turns:
+animated by a sense of conquest. She supplied the major part of the
+conversation, chatting volubly on the thousand subjects she didn't
+understand, the dozen she did. In the most ingenuous manner imaginable
+she laid herself open to advances, not once, but a score of times; and
+when he failed to respond according to the code of Radville, had the
+wit to mask her chagrin, did she feel any: very probably she laid his
+lack of responsiveness at the door of his shyness (a quality he was
+wholly without) and liked him the better for it.
+
+It was on this day that she extracted from him his promise to join the
+choir; he acceded through apathy alone.
+
+"I don't care whether you can sing or not," she confessed, with a look.
+"But I do want somebody to walk home with me that ... I like."
+
+"That's a nice way of putting it," Duncan considered without emphasis.
+
+"Roland Barnette's always walked home with me, but I think he's just
+tiresome."
+
+"Why?" inquired the young man, with some interest.
+
+She averted her head, plucking at the strands of the hammock. "Oh,
+_you_ know," she said diffidently.
+
+"Oh?" Nat was enlightened. "Then I'm sorry for Roland."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"I can't blame him, you know." He couldn't help this: the time, the
+place, the girl inspired, indeed incited, one to banality.
+
+"Why?" she persisted.
+
+"Oh, _you_ know." He caught the intonation of her previous words
+precisely.
+
+She had the grace to blush and hang her head; but he received a
+thrilling sidelong glance.
+
+"Ah... aren't you awful to talk that way, Mr. Duncan?"
+
+"Yes," he admitted meekly.
+
+"Then you will join the choir?" she pursued, failing to fathom the
+meaning of that humble acquiescence. Any other boy or man of her
+acquaintance would have taken her remark as openly provocative.
+
+"Oh, yes," he agreed listlessly.
+
+"I'm so glad..."
+
+He thanked her, but avoided her eye.
+
+"We might's well begin to-night," she suggested presently, with
+diffident, downcast eyes.
+
+"What--the choir?" He was startled. "Oh, I couldn't without a
+rehearsal--"
+
+"No, I didn't mean that..."
+
+"No?"
+
+"I mean about Roland." She was paying minute attention to the lace
+insertion of her skirt. From this circumstance he divined that he was
+on dangerous ground, but could not, in his stupidity, understand just
+what made it dangerous.
+
+"About Roland--?"
+
+"Yes; I mean... You know what I mean, Mr. Duncan?"
+
+"I assure you I do not, Miss Lockwood."
+
+"About not walking home with him any more. I don't want to. I wish
+you'd commence to-night, instead of choir practice night. I'd much
+rather walk home with you."
+
+"After evening service, you mean?" She nodded. "It'll be a great
+pleasure."
+
+"Really?" She gave him her eyes now.
+
+"Really," he assured her.
+
+"Ah, I don't believe you mean that!"
+
+"But indeed I do...."
+
+It was not until nearly five o'clock that he was given a chance to
+escape. He had, even then, to refuse inflexibly an invitation to stay
+to supper.
+
+Minta Lockwood--an expansive woman, generously convex--almost
+smothered him with appreciation of his thanks. She held his hand in a
+large, moist palm and beamed upon him, saying: "Now't you know the way,
+Mr. Duncan...."
+
+"Yes," Blinky insisted, blinking roguishly, "drop in any time. Take pot
+luck. We're plain people, Mr. Duncan, but allus glad to see our
+friends. Drop in any time."
+
+Josie accompanied him to the front gate, where etiquette required him
+to linger for a parting chat....
+
+"Good-bye." The girl gave him her hand. "I'm real glad you came--at
+last."
+
+"The pleasure has been all mine," insisted the gallant bromide, fishing
+the trite phrase desperately from the grey vacuity of his thoughts.
+"You won't forget?"
+
+"Forget what?"
+
+"About to-night?"
+
+"Do you imagine I could?..."
+
+Josie returned to the family conclave, to interrupt a symposium on
+Duncan's qualities. He was unanimously approved, on every point. She
+took no part in the conversation, but listened, aglow with the pride of
+triumph, until old Ben chose to observe:
+
+"He seems to've taken a right smart set for Josie."
+
+Then she rose, blushing, and tossed her pretty, pert head. "How you all
+do talk!" she cried. "I'm not thinking about Mr. Duncan that way." And
+she left the gathering.
+
+"You might's well begin now as later," pursued her, accompanied by
+chucklings; and she tossed her head, but wasn't at all displeased, be
+sure.
+
+Duncan wrote to Kellogg in his room that night after church: "I don't
+want to sound immodest, but it looks as if you were right, old man:
+apparently there's nothing to it...
+
+"Probably I should have stayed on for supper, but I couldn't; I should
+have choked. As it was, my soul was curdling. Another ten minutes and I
+should have jumped down on the lawn and run round the house on all
+fours, yapping and foaming at the mouth, and have wound up by
+biting old Blinky..
+
+"The worst of it all is, I know I'm ungrateful: I know they mean well.
+But why is it that people who mean well almost invariably grate upon
+your sensibilities like the screeching of a slate-pencil?
+
+"In this case, I suspect it's a case of when Snob meets Snob. A snob, I
+take it, is a fellow who holds himself your superior because he looks
+at things in a different way. That counts me a snob in my mental
+attitude toward the Lockwoods. I don't understand their conception of
+life--wasn't brought up to understand it. And yet I know they're not a
+bad sort, though they bore me to death what time I'm not laughing in my
+sleeve at them. Blinky, for instance, is an old screw, but he can't
+help that; he was born that way; and aside from the fact that money has
+made him snobbish toward his neighbours, he's a simple, honest,
+square-dealing (according to his lights) old Jasper. He's not snobbish
+toward me, because I've got something he admires but can't understand
+and never can acquire; but he's a snob of the first water when it comes
+to somebody like this old prince I'm working for--Graham--and his
+daughter. And so is Josie....
+
+"But I mustn't say mean things about my future spouse, I presume....
+That is the great trouble with your infernal scheme, Harry: it seems
+to be working like a charm, and now that I've got something to do I'm
+not so strong for it as I was. But I gave you my word. ... Only, mind
+this: if the rules prescribe a perpetual course of Sunday dinners,
+_en famille_, it's going to break down and turn out a natural-born
+flivver. There are limits to human endurance, and I'm human, whatever
+else I am not...."
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+
+WHERE RADVILLE FEARED TO TREAD
+
+Summer slumbered to its close, a drowsy autumn settled upon our valley,
+in which its traditional peace seemed but the more profound. The skies
+darkened to an ineffable intensity of blue; the livery of the fields
+was changed, green giving place to gold; the woodlands and lower slopes
+of our hills flamed with the scarlet of dying sumach, with the russet
+and orange and crimson of a foliage making merry against its moribund
+to-morrows; a drought parched the land, and our little river lessened
+to a mere trickle of water. The daylight hours became sensibly
+abbreviated; while they endured they were golden and warm and hazy:
+faint veils of purple shrouded the distances. Twilight fell early, its
+air sweet with the tang of dead leaves raked into heaping bonfires by
+the children of the town. The nights were long and cool, with a hint of
+frosts to come. Day dissolved into day almost imperceptibly. ...
+
+Josie Lockwood announced that she was going away to school in New York
+for the winter. Pete Willing took the pledge and kept it almost a
+month. Will Bigelow secured time-tables and laboriously mapped out his
+semi-annually contemplated trip to the East: like the others
+destined never to come off. Tracey Tanner went to work for Graham and
+Duncan. The _Citizen_ gained eighteen subscribers; four old ones
+paid up their accounts. Babies were born, people married and died,
+loved and hated, lived in striving or sloth, accomplished or failed.
+Roland Barnette paid ostentatious attentions to Bess Gabriel, who
+tolerated him simply because she didn't much like Josie; but, blighted
+by Josie's supreme indifference, this budding passion drooped and
+failed by mutual consent of both parties concerned. Angie Tuthill
+became more conspicuously than ever the orb of Tracey's universe.
+Duncan walked home with Josie on two weekday evenings and twice on
+Sundays, and learned how to play Halma and Parcheesi, as well as how
+long to linger at the front gate in the gloaming, saying good-night.
+Eight young women of the town set their caps for him, at one time or
+another and... set them back again, because he was too blind to see. As
+a body they united with the female element in Radville in condemning
+Josie for a heartless flirt, and sympathising with Nat, behind his
+back, for being so nice and at the same time so easily taken in. Mrs.
+Lockwood gave a Bridge party which failed as such because Radville knew
+not Bridge; but everybody went and played progressive euchre, instead.
+The drug-store prospered in moderation, Sothern and Lee vainly
+contesting its conquering campaign. And Duncan grew thoughtful.
+
+One has more time to think unselfishly in Radville than in a great
+city, where there's rarely more time than enough to think of one's own
+concerns. And Duncan was making time to think about others--notably,
+Betty Graham. The girl was, as usual, shy, reticent, reserved; she kept
+her thoughts to herself, sharing the most intimate not even with old
+Sam, who _would_ talk; but Duncan divined that she was unhappy.
+The easier circumstances of the family had provided her with a few
+simple frocks, adequate clothing which she had gone without for years,
+and with a sufficiency of wholesome and appetising food: with these,
+peace of mind should likewise have come to her, and content. But Duncan
+thought they hadn't. Relieved, on Tracey's engagement, of any share in
+the store service, she had only the housework for herself and father to
+occupy her; her associations with the girls of her age were distant and
+constrained. Usage wears into tradition in the Radvilles of our land;
+even with the young folks this is so; and in Betty's case, the girl had
+for so long been "out of it," debarred by her unfortunate circumstances
+from participation in the pastimes, pleasures and duties of her
+generation, that by common consent, unspoken but none the less
+absolute, she remained an outsider. You might say that she relied on
+her father alone for companionship. Duncan she avoided, unobtrusively
+but with pains; he consorted with those with whom she had nothing in
+common, and she would not thrust herself upon him or seem to seek his
+notice. Her early suspicion and sullen resentment of his intrusion into
+their affairs had vanished; there remained only a gnawing consciousness
+that to him she was little or nothing, that his vision ranged above her
+humble head. She was not the sort to take this ill; she was reasonable
+enough to believe it natural. But she would not willingly intrude upon
+his thoughts--who little knew how much she did occupy his leisure
+moments.
+
+He saw her go and come, a wistful shadow on the borders of his
+occupations, self-contained, a little timid, but at the same time brave
+in her own quiet, uncomplaining fashion. And the distant look in those
+soft eyes he divined to be one of longing for that which she might not
+possess--the advantages that other girls had, socially and
+educationally, the pleasures they contrived, the attentions they
+received, the thousand and one slight things that make existence life
+for a woman. He saw her drooping insensibly day by day, growing a
+little paler, a shade more aloof and listless. And he became infinitely
+concerned for her.
+
+He told himself he had solved the problem of her disease, but its
+remedy remained beyond his reach. The business was doing very well
+indeed, but it was still young and must be subjected to as few
+financial drains as possible; as it ran, there was an income sufficient
+to board, lodge and clothe the three of them, maintain the credit of
+the partnership, and now and again admit of a slight but advantageous
+addition to the stock or fixtures. Things would certainly be better in
+the course of time, but... Kellogg he would not beg another dollar of,
+the bank was an equally impossible resource; there wasn't a chance in a
+hundred that Lockwood would refuse to accommodate the growing concern
+with money in reason, but the concern, individually and collectively,
+would never ask it of him. There remained--?
+
+It came to pass that he left the store early one evening, excusing
+himself on the plea of some slight indisposition, and lost himself for
+the space of two hours. I mean to say, that no one knew where he went
+until long after. When he came home some time after ten he told me he
+had been for a walk....
+
+He found himself shortly after eight at pause by the gate to the Bohun
+place. The night was dark and murmurous with a sibilant wind that sent
+the leaves drifting, softly clashing one with another. At the far end
+of the straight brick walk, up through the formal grounds, he could
+just see the glimmer of the stately columns, and, between them, to one
+side, a little twinkling light. The gate was closed, but he tried it
+and found it on the latch. He entered and scuffled up the walk, ankle
+deep in fallen leaves. His footfalls as he crossed the porch sounded
+startlingly loud by contrast; he even fancied a note of indignation in
+the cavernous echoes of the knocker on the front door. He waited with a
+thumping heart, aware that he was venturing where even fools would fear
+to tread.
+
+An aged negro butler, one of the freed slaves brought from Virginia by
+the Bohuns, admitted him to the hall and took his card, smothering his
+own wonderment. For in those days nobody disturbed the silence and the
+peace of decay of the Bohun mansion save its master. And Duncan had
+long to wait in the wide, gloomy, musty hall before the servant
+returned.
+
+"Cunnul Bohun will see yo', suh," he said, and ushered him into the
+library--a great, high-ceiled, shadowy room illuminated by a single
+lamp, tenanted by the old colonel alone.
+
+Bohun received the young man standing: he was as courteous beneath his
+own roof as he was impossible away from it. A quaint old figure, with
+his grey hair tousled and his dressing-gown draped grotesquely from his
+shoulders, he stood by the fireplace, Duncan's card between his
+fingers, and bowed ceremoniously.
+
+"Mr. Duncan, I believe?"
+
+Nat returned the bow. "Yes, sir," he said. "Will you be good enough to
+pardon this intrusion, Colonel Bohun, and spare me five minutes of your
+time?"
+
+The colonel nodded. "At your service, sir," he replied, and waited
+grimly--perhaps not unsuspicious of the nature of his visitor's errand,
+since he could not have been ignorant of his place in Radville.
+
+Duncan had his own way of getting at things--generally more circuitous
+than now, though he struck on a tangent sufficiently acute momentarily
+to puzzle Bohun.
+
+"May I inquire, sir, if you are acquainted with the firm of L.J.
+Bartlett & Company of New York?"
+
+"I have heard of it, Mr. Duncan, through the newspapers."
+
+"You know that it ranks pretty high, then, I presume?"
+
+"I understand that such is the case."
+
+"Then would you mind doing me the favour of writing to Mr. Henry
+Kellogg, the junior partner, and asking him about me?"
+
+The colonel stiffened. "May I ask why I should do anything so
+uncalled-for?"
+
+"Because it isn't uncalled-for, sir. I mean, you won't think so after
+I've explained."
+
+Bohun inclined his head, searching Nat's face with his keen, bright
+eyes.
+
+"You see, sir, it's this way: I want you to entrust me with a
+considerable sum of money, and naturally you wouldn't do that without
+knowing something about me."
+
+"I incline very much to doubt that I should do it in any event, Mr.
+Duncan."
+
+"Oh, don't say that. You don't know the circumstances, as yet." Nat
+jerked his head earnestly at the colonel. "You see, you're said to be
+one of the richest men in town, and I'm certainly one of the poorest,
+so of course I turn to you in a case like this."
+
+"In a case like what, Mr. Duncan?" Something in the young man's manner
+seemed to tickle the colonel; Duncan could have sworn that the eyes
+were twinkling beneath the savagely knitted brows.
+
+"Well, you must understand I'm in business here in Radville--a partner
+in a growing and prospering concern--ah--doing--very well, in point of
+fact."
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"But we haven't any spare capital; in fact, we haven't got any capital
+worth mentioning. But the business is entirely sound and solvent."
+
+"I congratulate you, sir."
+
+"Thank you very much.... Now I'm interested in a rather singular
+case: that of a young woman--a girl, I should say--daughter of my
+partner. She's a good girl and wonderfully sweet and fine, sir. She
+comes of one of the best families in these parts--"
+
+"On her mother's side," suggested the colonel drily.
+
+"So I'm told, sir. But she's been neglected. Circumstances have been
+against her. She hasn't had a real chance in life, but she ought to
+have it, and I'm going to see that she gets it, one way or another."
+
+"You haven't finished?" said the colonel coldly, as he paused for
+breath and thought.
+
+"Not quite, sir," said Duncan. "Good sign!" he told himself: "he hasn't
+ordered me thrown out yet." And he hurried on, speaking quickly in the
+semi-humorous style he had, more arresting to the attention than
+absolute gravity would have been.
+
+"To come down to cases, sir, she ought to be sent to a good
+boarding-school for a few years. It'll make a new woman of her--a woman
+to be proud of. She's got that in her--it only needs to be brought
+out."
+
+"And before you leave, sir," said the colonel with significant
+precision, "will you be so kind as to inform me why you think this
+should interest me?"
+
+"No," said Duncan candidly; "I haven't got the nerve to. But what I
+wanted to propose was this: that you lend me five hundred dollars to
+cover the expense of the first year, on condition that I represent the
+money as coming from the profits of the business and, in short, keep
+the transaction between ourselves absolutely quiet. If you'll inquire
+of Mr. Kellogg he'll tell you I can be trusted to keep my word.
+Furthermore"--he galloped, suspecting that his time was perilously
+short and desiring to get it all out of his system--"I'll guarantee you
+repayment within a year, and that you shan't be annoyed this way a
+second time."
+
+Bohun looked him over from head to foot, bowed in silence, and
+turning--both had stood throughout this passage--grasped a bell-rope by
+the chimney, and pulled it violently.
+
+Duncan turned to the door, hat in hand, realising that he had his
+answer and was lucky to get away with one so mild. Only the emergency
+could have spurred him to the point of so outrageous an impertinence.
+
+In the desolate fastnesses of that dreary house somewhere a bell
+tinkled discordantly. A moment later the white-headed darky butler
+opened the door.
+
+"Suh?" he said.
+
+Colonel Bohun essayed to speak, cleared his throat angrily, and
+indicated Duncan with a courteous gesture.
+
+"Scipio," said he, "this gentleman will have a glass of wine with me."
+
+"Yassuh!" stammered the negro, overcome with astonishment.
+
+Bohun turned to his guest. "Won't you be seated, Mr. Duncan?" he said.
+"You have interested me considerably, sir, and I should be glad to
+discuss the matter with you."
+
+Speechless, Duncan gasped incoherently and moved toward a chair as the
+servant reappeared with a tray on which was a decanter of sherry and
+two old-fashioned, thin-stemmed crystal glasses. He placed this on the
+library table, filled the glasses, and at a sign from Bohun retired.
+
+"Sir," said the colonel, indicating the tray, "to you."
+
+"I--I thank you, sir." Duncan lifted one of the glasses. Bohun took up
+the one remaining, and held it toward his guest with the gracious
+gesture of a bygone day.
+
+"I hold it a privilege, sir," he said, "to drink to the only gentleman
+of spirit it's been my good fortune to meet this many a year."
+
+By way of an aside, it should be mentioned that this was the first and
+only drink Duncan took while he lived in Radville.
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+
+TRACEY'S TROUBLES
+
+Probably nothing ever gave rise to more comment in Radville than Betty
+Graham's departure to spend the winter at a boarding-school near
+Philadelphia. Hardly anyone knew anything about it--in fact, the rumour
+of it was just being noised about and contemptuously discredited on all
+hands--when Tracey galloped down Main Street Monday morning with the
+news that she had left on the early train. He himself had remained in
+ignorance of the impending event until requested to carry Betty's bag
+down to the station....
+
+She left under convoy of a certain Mrs. Hamilton, who lived in
+Philadelphia and had been visiting her cousin, Mrs. Will Bigelow.
+Duncan had met this lady at a church sociable and, apparently, taken a
+liking to her; for he prevailed upon her, via Sam Graham and Will
+Bigelow, to see the girl safely to her school, after superintending the
+purchase of a suitable wardrobe in Philadelphia.
+
+So Betty was gone--herself, I believe, no less surprised and
+incredulous than the rest of us.
+
+Radville was at first stupefied, then clamorous; but there was little
+information to be got out of old Sam. I found him busy working on his
+new model and much preoccupied with that. When interrogated and given
+to understand that I would not be put off, he roused a bit, but beyond
+being unquestionably a very happy man, seemed himself slightly dazed by
+the amazing circumstances. I learned from him that Nat had evidently
+made all his plans in advance, but had withheld his announcement of
+them until the Saturday prior to that Monday; and then he had fairly
+whirled Betty and her father off their feet and left them no time to
+think or to raise objections.
+
+"There's no use at all arguing with that boy," Sam told me, with the
+fond smile that I was beginning to recognise as the invariable
+accompaniment of his thoughts about Nat; "when he says a thing must
+be, it must. When he first came here I told him he was a wonderful
+business man, and he laughed at me, but now I know he is. Why, he gave
+Betty a hundred dollars to buy clothes with in Philadelphia, and said
+he'd have more for her by Christmas, besides paying all the expenses of
+that school--which must be considerable. I don't see how the store's
+going to stand the strain--though it's doing splendidly since he came
+in, splendidly!--but he says it's all right, and so it must be...."
+
+Duncan himself refused to be interviewed. He told everybody who had
+the impudence to mention the matter to him, that it was Mr. Graham's
+affair: Mr. Graham was a substantial business man, he said, and if he
+chose to send his daughter away to school he had a perfect right to do
+so. I don't believe even Josie Lockwood got more than that out of him,
+for if she had we would have heard of it; and Josie was unmistakably a
+little jealous, and undoubtedly questioned Nat.
+
+One direct result of it all was to hasten Josie's own leave-taking. It
+would never do to let the Grahams eclipse the Lockwoods, you see. Josie
+had been talking of going to a school in Maryland, but Betty's move to
+a fashionable centre like Philadelphia made her change her mind; and
+arrangements were made by which Josie was able to go Betty one better:
+a young ladies' seminary in New York City itself received Josie. She
+left us bereaved about a week after Betty vanished from our ken, but
+promised to be back for the Christmas holidays--an announcement which
+Duncan received with expressions of chastened joy, as he did her
+promise to write to him regularly, in return for his covenant to
+respond promptly.... Betty, by the way, had made no such arrangement;
+but she wrote twice a week to old Sam, and I understand she never
+failed to include a message to Nat.
+
+Betty was happy, she protested in every communication, and wholly
+content. She was getting along. The other girls liked her and she liked
+them (these statements being made in the order of their relative
+importance). Lots of them, of course, were frightfully swell (Betty
+annexed "frightfully" at school, by the by) and had all sorts of
+clothes; but Betty was perfectly content with her modest outfit, and
+none of the other girls seemed to mind how she dressed. They were all
+kind and nice, and she'd never had such a good time.... I quote these
+expressions from memory of Sam's digest of her letters.
+
+Of Josie I heard less; I know that Graham and Duncan's mail seldom
+lacked a personal communication to Duncan, postmarked at New York; our
+postmaster told me so. But Duncan was reticent, and the Lockwoods said
+little. I gathered an impression that Josie was not altogether happy
+in her new surroundings.... One inferred there was a difference between
+New York and Philadelphia, that one was less friendly and sociable
+than the other.
+
+Josie kept her promise and came home for Christmas. She was reticent as
+to her impressions of the New York seminary, but seemed extremely glad
+to be home, notwithstanding the fact that Nat had apparently contracted
+no disturbing alliances with the other belles of our village. And
+Roland remained true--a reliable second string to Josie's bow. Roland
+was working hard at the bank, with an application that earned Blinky
+Lockwood's regard and outspoken approbation; and his Christmas raiment
+proved the sensation of the season. But none of us believed he had any
+chance against Duncan: Josie's attitude toward the latter was such
+that we confidently anticipated the announcement of their engagement
+before she went away again. But it didn't come, for some reason. We
+bore up under the disappointment bravely, all things considered,
+sustained by a very secure feeling that the proclamation couldn't be
+long deferred.
+
+In passing, I should mention that Betty didn't come home once
+throughout the entire school term. The Christmas and Easter holidays
+she spent with a girl friend at her Philadelphia home.
+
+Meanwhile, life in our town simmered gently. Things went on much as
+they might have been expected to. I don't recall much essential to this
+narrative, in the way of events; and part of the ground I've covered on
+earlier pages. Duncan continued to make progress: for one thing, I
+recall that he put in hot soda with whipped cream, which helped a lot
+to hold the trade regained in the summer from Sothern and Lee. And he
+bought a new soda fountain, a very magnificent affair, installing it in
+the early spring. Graham and Duncan's, in short, became a town
+institution: to it Radville pointed with pride....
+
+He remained reserved, retiring, inconspicuous, and puzzling to our
+understanding. In his effort (never very successful) to strike off the
+shackles of modern slang, he fell into a way of speech that bewildered
+those unable to realise what an abiding sense of humour underlay it--as
+water runs beneath ice--more, I think, a matter of intonation and
+significant silences, than a mere play upon words and phrases; which,
+coupled with an unshakable sobriety of demeanour, furnished us with
+wonder and some admiration, but no resentment. We liked him pretty
+well and mostly unanimously: he was a good fellow, if queer; entitled
+to his idiosyncrasy, if he chose to keep one....
+
+There was a certain night, by way of illustration--a bitter night,
+along toward the first of January--when trade was dull, as it always is
+after Christmas, and there was nobody in the store save Nat and Tracey.
+Each had their task, whatever it may have been, and each was busied
+with it, but of the two Tracey seemed the more restless. His ample, if
+low, forehead was decidedly corrugated; his always rosy face owned an
+added trace of scarlet--a flush of perturbation; his chubby hands were
+inexpert, clumsy. He stumbled, fumbled, forgot and (in our homely
+phrase) flummoxed generally; his mind was elsewhere, and his hands and
+feet went anywhere but where they should have gone: a condition which
+eventually excited Duncan's attention.
+
+He broke a long silence in the store. "What's the trouble, Tracey?"
+
+Tracey pulled up with a stare of confusion. "I--I dunno, Mr. Duncan; I
+was thinkin', I guess."
+
+"Anything gone wrong?"
+
+"Not yet." Niobe would have made the response with a greater show of
+cheer.
+
+Duncan looked up curiously, struck by the boy's tone. "Somebody been
+demonstrating that your doll's stuffed with sawdust, Tracey?"
+
+"No-o, but..."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Say, Mr. Duncan--" Tracey's confusion became terrific.
+
+"Say on, Mr. Tanner."
+
+The interjection diverted Tracey's train of thought to an
+inconsiderable siding. "I only called you Mr. Duncan," he said,
+aggrieved, "'cause you're my boss."
+
+"That's a poor excuse, Tracey. You call Mr. Graham 'Sam,' and he's
+likewise your boss."
+
+"I know. But it's diff'runt."
+
+"I don't see it. Even Nats have their place in the cosmic system,
+Tracey."
+
+"I dunno what that is, but you ain't like Sam."
+
+"The loss is mine, Tracey. Proceed."
+
+"But, Mr. Duncan..."
+
+"I beg of you, speak to me as to a friend."
+
+Tracey struggled perceptibly. The words, when they came, were blurted.
+"Ah... I was only thinkin' 'bout Angie."
+
+"Do you ever think about anything else?"
+
+"No," Tracey admitted honestly, "not much. But I was wonderin'--"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Are you stuck on Angie, Mr. Duncan?" demanded Tracey desperately.
+
+"Great snakes! I hope not!" Duncan cast an anxious glance about him,
+and discovered the poster depicting the gentleman in strange attire
+vainly endeavouring to free his overcoat (I believe it's his overcoat)
+from the bench upon which a pot of glue has been spilled. He lifted a
+reverent hand to the card. "Tracey," he said solemnly, "I swear to you
+that not even that indispensable article of commerce could stick me on
+Angie."
+
+The boy sighed. "Thank you, Mr. Duncan. I was only worryin' because you
+and Angie is singin' together in the choir, now Josie Lockwood's gone
+to school, an'--an' Angie's the purtiest girl in town--and I was 'fraid
+'t you might like her best, when Josie's away. An' I wanted to ask you
+to pick out s'mother girl."
+
+Duncan chuckled silently. "Tracey," he said presently, "it strikes me
+you must be in love with Angie."
+
+The boy gulped. "I--I am."
+
+"And I think she's rather partial to you."
+
+"Do you, really, Mr. Duncan?"
+
+"I do. Do you want to marry her?"
+
+"Gee! I can't hardly wait!... Only," Tracey continued, disconsolate,
+"it ain't no use, really. She's so purty and swell and old man
+Tuthill's so rich--not like the Lockwoods, but rich, all the same--an'
+I'm only the son of the livery-stable man, an' fat an'--all that--an'--"
+
+"Nonsense, Tracey!" Nat interrupted firmly. "If you really want her and
+will follow the rules I give you, it's a cinch."
+
+"Honest, Mr. Duncan?"
+
+"I guarantee it, Tracey. Listen to me...." And Duncan expounded
+Kellogg's rules at length, adapting them to Tracey's circumstances, of
+course; and throughout maintained the gravity of a graven image. "You
+try, and you'll see if I'm not right," he concluded.
+
+"Gosh! I b'lieve you are!" Tracey cried admiringly. "I'm just going to
+see how it works."
+
+"Do, if you'd favour me, Tracey."
+
+Tracey was quiet for a time, working with the regularity of a mind
+relieved. But presently he felt unable to contain himself. Gratitude
+surged in his bosom, and he had to speak.
+
+"Sa-y, lis'en...."
+
+"Proceed, Tracey."
+
+"Say, Mist--Nat, you've treated me somethin' immense."
+
+"Your mistake, Tracey. I haven't treated anybody since I've been here:
+I'm on the wagon."
+
+"I mean just now, when we was talkin' 'bout me an' Angie. I'd--I'd like
+to help you the same way, if I could."
+
+"You would?" Duncan eyed the boy apprehensively, wondering what was
+coming.
+
+"Yes, indeedy, I would. An' p'rhaps I kin tell you somethin' that
+will."
+ "Speak, I beg."
+
+"You--er--you're tryin' to court Josie Lockwood, ain't you?"
+
+"Oh!" said Nat. "So that was it! That's a secret, Tracey," he averred.
+
+"All right. Only, if you are, she's your'n."
+
+"Just how do you figure that out?"
+
+"Oh, I kin tell. She was in here to-night with Roland."
+
+"To-night?"
+
+"Yes, just afore you come home from prayer-meetin'. She was lookin'
+for you, and when she seen you wasn't here, she wouldn't wait for no
+soda nor nothin'. Said she had a headache an' was goin' home. Roland
+went with her, but she didn't want him to. You just missed seein'
+her."
+
+"Heavens, what a blow!"
+
+"But Roland's takin' her home needn't upset you none."
+
+"Thank you for those kind words, Tracey." Nat sighed and passed a
+troubled hand across his brow. "You're a true friend."
+
+"I'm tryin' to be, Nat, same's you are to me." Tracey thought this
+over. "But you ain't foolin' me, are you?" he asked presently. "I mean
+'bout bein' a true friend?"
+
+"Why should I?"
+
+"Ah, I dunno. You're so cur'us, sometimes. I ain't never sure whether
+you mean what you're sayin' or not."
+
+"Oh, don't say that."
+
+"Well, I ain't the only one. Everybody in town says they don't
+understand you, half the time."
+
+Duncan left his counter and moved over to that at which Tracey was
+occupied. His face was entirely serious, his manner deeply
+sympathetic. "Tracey," he said, dropping a hand on the boy's shoulder,
+"do you know, nothing in life is harder to bear than not to be
+understood?"
+
+Tracey wrestled with this for a moment, but it was beyond him.
+
+"Then why the hell don't you talk so's folks'll know what it's about?"
+he demanded heatedly.
+
+"Because... _Hm_." Duncan hesitated, with his enigmatic smile.
+"Well, because the rules don't require it."
+
+"What d'you mean by _that_?" Tracey exploded.
+
+Nat couldn't explain, so he countered neatly. "This is one of your
+Angie... evenings, isn't it, Tracey?"
+
+"Yep, but--"
+
+"Well, you hurry along. I'll close up the shop."
+
+Tracey had slammed on his hat and was struggling into his overcoat
+almost as soon as the words were out of Nat's mouth.
+
+"Kin I?" he cried excitedly.
+
+"Yes," said Nat, watching the boy turn up his collar and button his
+overcoat to the throat, "I haven't got the heart to keep you."
+
+"Ah, thanks, Mr. Duncan."
+
+"But, Tracey..."
+
+The boy paused at the door. "What?"
+
+"Remember what I told you. Don't you make too much love. Let Angie do
+that."
+
+"Gosh, that'll be the hardest rule of all for me!" A shadow clouded
+Tracey's honest eyes. "But I got to do it that way, anyway. I can't
+ask her to marry me yit. I can't afford to get married."
+
+"It's a contrary world, Tracey, a contrary world!" sighed Nat in a tone
+of deepest melancholy.
+
+"What makes you say that? You kin git married's soon's you want to."
+
+"You think so, Tracey?"
+
+"All you got to do's ask Josie--"
+
+"I'm almost afraid you're right."
+
+"Why? Don't you want to git married?"
+
+"Well"--Nat smiled--"no. Don't believe I do. Not just now, at any
+rate."
+
+"Well, you don't have to if you don't want to.... G'd-night."
+
+"Yes, I do," Nat told Tracey's back. "The rules say so. If the girl
+asks me, I must."
+
+He grimaced ruefully beneath his wisp of a moustache. "Anyhow, I've got
+a few months left...."
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+
+A BARGAIN IS A BARGAIN
+
+So the winter wore away.... And as spring drew nigh upon our valley,
+Duncan seemed to grow perturbed, even as he had been in the autumn
+before Betty went away. He was pondering another scheme for the
+betterment of the condition of those he cared for, and gave it ample
+consideration before he broached it to old Sam, after swearing him to
+secrecy.
+
+He had to propose nothing more or less than an abandonment of the old
+Graham housekeeping quarters above the store and a removal of the
+_ménage_ bodily to a vacant house on Beech Street, near the store,
+which could be rented, partly furnished, at a moderate rate.
+
+To begin with (thus ran his argument) the store itself was growing too
+small for the volume of business it commanded. More room was needed,
+both for storage and laboratory purposes, to say nothing of
+accommodation for Sam's models and work-bench. The latter had already
+been moved upstairs for the winter, the shed in the backyard being too
+cold to work in; and the laboratory end of the business was growing at
+such a rate that it was crowding the prescription counter to the
+wall--so to speak. You see, there really wasn't a more clever
+analytical chemist in the northern part of the State than Sam Graham,
+and now that the drug-store was becoming an influence in the
+neighbourhood he was receiving commissions from physicians operating in
+districts as far as fifty miles away. So a room was needed for that
+branch of the business alone.
+
+Moreover, a separate residence distinctly befitted the dignity of a
+man who was at once a prominent inventor and one of Radville's leading
+merchants (vide a "Personal" in the late issue of the Radville
+_Citizen_), to say nothing of the social position of his
+daughter--meaning Betty. And the house Duncan had his metaphorical eye
+upon was large enough to shelter Nat himself in addition to the Graham
+family. Thus they might pool their living expenses to the economical
+advantage of each.
+
+Finally, it would be a great and glad surprise for Betty on her
+homecoming.
+
+Graham fell in with the scheme without a murmur of dubiety or dissent.
+Whatever Nat proposed in Sam's understanding was right and feasible;
+and even if it wasn't really so, Nat would make it so.... They engaged
+the house and moved. Miss Ann Sophronsiba Whitmarsh, a maiden lady of
+forty-five or thereabouts, popularly known as "Phrony," had been coming
+in by the day to "do for" old Sam in the rooms above the shop. She was
+engaged as resident housekeeper for the new establishment, and entered
+upon her duties with all the discreet joy of one whose maternal
+instincts have been suppressed throughout her life. She mothered Sam
+and she mothered Nat and she panted in expectation of the day when she
+would have Betty to mother. Incidentally, she was one of the best
+housekeepers in Radville, and cooperated with all her heart with Nat
+in the task of making a home out of the new house. They arranged and
+disarranged and rearranged and discarded old furniture and bought new
+with almost the abandon of a newly married couple fitting out their
+first home.... It was surprising what they managed to accomplish with
+it; when they were finished, there wasn't a prettier nor a more
+home-like residence in all Radville--and Phrony Whitmarsh was Nat's
+slave, even as Miss Carpenter had been. She gave him all the credit for
+everything praiseworthy about the place: and with some reason; for, as
+a matter of fact, he had spared himself not at all in the business of
+scheming and contriving to make the new home suitable for the
+reception of Betty Graham....
+
+It's interesting when one has come to my time of life, to sit and
+speculate on the singular mental blindness of mortal man, such as that
+which kept Nat unaware of the real, rock-bottom reason why he was
+working so hard on the Beech Street house. I daresay the young idiot
+thought his motives as much selfish as anything else--told himself that
+he wanted a comfortable home--and this was his way of securing one--and
+all that rot. At all events, he told me as much, quite seriously--
+seemed to believe it himself; and this, in spite of the fact that Miss
+Carpenter had done everything imaginable to make him comfortable....
+
+Josie Lockwood came home again for the Easter holidays, but didn't
+return to finish her term in the New York school. Just why, we never
+discovered: the Lockwoods furnished us with no really satisfying
+explanation; they said that Josie didn't like New York, but I've always
+doubted that, especially since Josie married and insisted on moving
+straightway to that metropolis. I suspect she didn't get along with
+the class of young women with whom she was thrown at school, and I'm
+pretty certain she was uneasy about Nat all the time she was so far
+away from him. Anyway, she elected to remain in Radville and keep the
+young man dancing attendance on her day in and out. Which he did, as in
+duty bound; he liked the game less and less all the time, but Kellogg
+held his promise....
+
+It was during this period, between the Easter vacation and the end of
+the spring school term, that Roland Barnette's animosity toward Duncan
+became virulent. Looking back, I can recall the symptoms of his waxing
+hostility--as, for instance, the evening he spent in the
+_Citizen_ office, poring over back files of our exchanges. That
+seemed innocent enough at the time, a harmless freak on the part of the
+young man, and no one paid much attention to it; but it led to great
+things, in the end, and incidentally did Duncan a service which
+probably could have been accomplished through no other agency. This,
+however, is something that Roland doesn't realise to this day; and I'm
+inclined to doubt if you could ever make him understand it.
+
+Josie, of course, was prompt to oust Angie Tuthill from her place in
+the choir. After that she sang with Nat on Friday nights as well as
+Wednesdays and twice per Sunday. Between whiles she was a pretty
+constant patron of the store. There was no longer the least doubt in
+the collective mind of the town as to the inclination of Josie's
+affections. Nat himself gave evidence of his appreciation of the
+gravity of the situation, managing by some admirable diplomacy to evade
+the issue until the very last moment. But with the three--Roland, Nat,
+and Josie--so involved, we sensed a storm below the horizon, and
+awaited its breaking, if not with avidity, at least with quickened
+apprehension.
+
+The culmination came the day before Betty was to return--a day late in
+May, I remember, and a Friday at that.
+
+It began along toward evening. Duncan, alone in the store, was busy
+behind the prescription counter. The day had been humid, warm and
+sultry, and the doors and windows were open. The air was bland and
+still, and sound travelled easily. He could hear the musical clanking
+of hammers in Badger's smithy, on the next block, the deep-throated
+_hoot-toot_ of the late afternoon train as it rushed down the
+valley, sounds of fierce altercation from the home of Pete Willing near
+by, a boy rattling a stick along palings down on Main Street.... But he
+did not hear anybody enter the store: absorbed with his task, he
+thought himself quite alone until a well-kenned voice reached his ear.
+
+"Well!" it said, unctuous with appreciation of the sight of him.
+"_Old_ Doctor Duncan!"
+
+He let the pestle fall from his hand and jumped as if he had been stuck
+with a pin. His jaw dropped and his eyes bulged. "Great Scott!" he
+cried; and in a twinkling was round the counter, throwing himself into
+the arms of a man whom he hailed ecstatically: "Harry, by all that's
+wonderful!" He fairly danced with delight. "Henry Kellogg, Esquire!"
+he cried, holding him at arms' length and looking him over. "What in
+thunderation are you doing here?"
+
+Kellogg freed himself, only to seize both Nat's hands and squeeze them
+violently. "Wanted to see you," he replied, beaming. "On my way to
+Cincinnati on business--thought I'd drop off for a night and size you
+up. My, but it's good to get a look at you! How are you?"
+
+"Me? Look at me--picture of health. Harry, you've made a new man of
+me." Duncan pranced round his friend in a mild frenzy. "No booze--no
+smokes--no swears--work! I feel like a two-year-old: I could do a
+Marathon without turning a hair. Watch me kick up my heels and neigh!"
+He paused for breath. "And you?"
+
+"Fine as silk--but you've got it on me, Nat, physically. You're a sight
+to heal the blind."
+
+"And listen!" Nat crowed: "I'm a business man. Didn't you believe it?
+Pipe my shop!"
+
+Kellogg checked to obey the admonition of Duncan's gesticulations, and
+took a long look round the store. "Gad!" said he. "I'm blowed if it
+isn't true! It _was_ hard to credit your letters. But it's great,
+old man. I congratulate you, with all my heart."
+
+"Just wait and I'll tell you all about it. But first tell me how long
+you're going to be here."
+
+"Well, I plan to hang around with you a couple of days. My business in
+the West isn't pressing."
+
+"Good!"
+
+"Which is the least worst hotel?"
+
+"There ain't no such thing in the whole giddy town.... No, none of that
+hotel stuff, now I I'm going to put you up--and I'll do it in style,
+too. I wrote you about taking a new place for the Grahams?"
+
+"Yes, and I'm mighty keen to meet 'em. The girl here?"
+
+"Betty? No; she's coming home to-morrow. But Graham himself is upstairs
+in the laboratory. Take you up in a minute, but not before I've had a
+good look at you."
+
+Kellogg found himself a chair. "Well," he inquired, twinkling, "how's
+the scheme working out? Are you really living up to all the rules?"
+
+"Every singletary one."
+
+"You have got a strong constitution.... Even prayer-meetings?"
+
+"The church thing? Honest, Harry, I _own_
+it."
+
+"Bully for you, Nat. But how does it work? Was I right?"
+
+"I should say you were. It's so easy it's a shame to do it. If this
+thing ever should get into the papers there'd be a swarm of city men
+lighting out for the Rube centres so thick you wouldn't be able to see
+the sky."
+
+"I knew it! Trust your Uncle Harry." Kellogg waited a time for further
+particulars, but Duncan seemed stuck; his transports of the few
+minutes just gone were sensibly abated; and the sidelong look he gave
+Kellogg was both uneasy and rueful--apprehensive, indeed. So Kellogg
+had to pump for news. "And you've made a strong play for the fond
+affections of Lockwood's daughter?"
+
+"Certainly not!"
+
+"Not--?"
+
+"You forget your rules." Nat grinned, whimsical. "I let her to make a
+play for me."
+
+"Of course. My mistake.... But how has it worked?"
+
+"Oh! immense." Duncan's tone, however, was wholly destitute of
+enthusiasm. He stuck his hands in his trousers' pockets and half turned
+away from his friend, looking out of the window.
+
+Kellogg smiled secretly. "You mean you've won her already?"
+
+"Oh, there's nothing to it," said Duncan, shaking his head and meaning
+just the exact opposite of what his words conveyed, for of such is our
+modern slang.
+
+"Then you're engaged?" Kellogg had understood perfectly, you see.
+
+"No, not _yet_. I've got two months left--almost."
+
+"So you have. And since she's so strong for you, there's no hurry: let
+her take her time."
+
+"I only wish she would." Duncan removed one hand from the pocket the
+better to tug at his moustache. "It's got beyond that--to the point
+where I have to keep dodging her."
+
+"You don't mean it! That's splendid." Kellogg got up and slapped Nat's
+shoulder heartily. "But don't overdo the dodging. She might get her
+back up."
+
+"Not she. She'd eat out of my hand, if I'd let her. You don't
+understand."
+
+"What's the matter, then? Aren't you strong for her?"
+
+"I wish I were."
+
+"But why? Is there another----?"
+
+"No." Nat shook his head, honestly believing he was telling the truth.
+"Only ... I don't look at things the way I did once."
+
+"Just what do you mean by that?"
+
+Nat, squaring himself to face Kellogg, was very serious, now, and
+troubled. "See here, Harry," he said: "do you really want me to carry
+out the rest of the agreement?"
+
+"Most certainly I do. Why not?"
+
+"Because I'm pretty well fixed here. The business is making good--and
+so am I. It won't be long before I can pay you back, with interest, as
+we agreed, without having to marry that poor girl and ... and draw on
+her money to make good to you."
+
+"You want to go back on our agreement?" demanded Kellogg, with a show
+of disappointment and disgust.
+
+"Yes and no. I won't break faith with you, if you insist, but I'd give
+a lot if you'd let me off--let me pay back what you advanced and cry
+quits.... When you outlined this scheme I was down and three times
+out--willing to take a chance at anything, no matter how contemptible.
+Now... well, it's different."
+
+"Good heavens! You don't mean you'd be willing to _live_ here?"
+
+Nat smiled, but not mirthfully. "I don't know," he hesitated; "I'm
+afraid I'm beginning to like it."
+
+"You, Nat?" Kellogg's amazement was unfeigned. "You, ready to spend
+your life here slaving away in this measly store?"
+
+Duncan grunted indignantly. "Hold on, now. Don't you call this a measly
+store. There isn't a more complete drug-store in the State!"
+
+"Do you hear that?" Kellogg appealed vehemently to the universe at
+large. "Is it possible that this is Nat Duncan, the fellow who hated
+work so hard he couldn't earn a living?... Gad, I believe I've arrived
+just in time!"
+
+"In time for what?"
+
+"To save you from yourself, old man. Here's the heiress you came here
+to cop out, ready and anxious, everything else coming your way and ...
+and you're more than half inclined to back out.... You make me tired."
+
+"I suppose I must. But I can't help it. I can't make you see how the
+thing looks to me. You know--I've written you all about everything--
+what this place has meant to me. Until I came here I never realised it
+was in me to make good at anything. But here I have; I'm doing so well
+that I'd actually have some self-respect if I wasn't bound to play this
+low-down trick on Josie Lockwood. I've worked and succeeded and been
+of some service to people who were worth it----"
+
+"Who? Sam Graham?"
+
+"He and his daughter----"
+
+"Oh, his daughter!"
+
+"Now get that foolish idea out of your head; there's nothing in it.
+Betty's just a simple, sweet little girl, who's had a pretty hard time
+and never a real chance in life--until I managed to give it to her. And
+I'd feel pretty good about that if ... Oh, there's no use talking to
+you!"
+
+"No; go on; you're very entertaining." Kellogg laughed mockingly.
+
+"Well, I have tried to keep to the terms of our understanding; I
+singled out this Lockwood girl and worked all the degrees--didn't say
+much, you know--no love-making--just let her catch me looking sadly
+at her once in a while..."
+
+"That's the way to work it."
+
+"Yes, that's the way," Nat assented gloomily. "But the longer I keep it
+up the meaner I feel and... I wish you'd agree to call it off. ...
+These Rubes at first struck me as being nothing but a lot of jay
+freaks, but when I got to know them I realised they were just as human
+as we are. I like them now and... on the level, I'm getting kind of
+stuck on church.... As for work, why, I eat it up!"
+
+Kellogg laughed with delight "Nat," he cried, "my poor crazy friend,
+listen to me: This working and church-going and helping old Graham is
+all very noble and fine, and I'm glad you've done it. This drug-store
+is a monument to the business ability that I always knew was latent in
+you. And clean living hasn't done you any harm.... But now you're due
+to come down to earth. This place pays you a neat profit. Well and
+good! That's all it'll ever do. It's new to you now and you like the
+novelty and you're having the time of your life finding out you're good
+for something. But pretty soon it'll begin to stale on you, and before
+long you'll find yourself hating it and the town--and then you'll be
+back where you started. Now, I'm going to hold you to our bargain for
+your own sake. If you're stuck on the town and the work you can keep
+right on just as well after you're married; but when you do begin to
+tire of it, you'll want that fortune to fall back on and do what you
+like with. Don't let this chance slip--not on your life!"
+
+"But," Nat argued feebly, "think of the injustice to the girl. From
+the way I've behaved since I struck this burg she thinks I'm closely
+related to the saints."
+
+"Very well, then; I'll concede a point. If you really think you're
+taking a mean advantage of her, when she proposes to you tell her all
+about yourself--just the sort of a chap you've been. You needn't
+mention our agreement, however. Then if she wants to drop you, I'll
+have nothing to say."
+
+"Thank you for nothing," said Duncan bitterly. "A bargain's a bargain.
+I gave you my word of honour I'd go through with this thing, and I'll
+stick to it. But I tell you now, I don't like it."
+
+"Oh, I know how you feel, Nat. But I _know_ that some day you'll
+come to me and say: 'Harry, if you had let me back out, I'd never have
+forgiven you.'"
+
+"All right," said Nat impatiently. "I presume you know best."
+
+"You can bet I do. And now I'd like to meet old Graham."
+
+"I'll take you right up--no, I can't. Here comes a customer. But you
+just go through that door and upstairs; he'll be in the laboratory--the
+front room--and he knows all about you. I'll join you just as soon as
+Tracey gets back."
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+
+PROVING THE PERSPICUITY OF MR. KELLOGG
+
+A customer came and went, and then Nat noticed that twilight was
+beginning to darken the store. Though the hour wasn't late and the
+evenings were long at that season, the windows faced the east, and
+there were huge, overshadowing elms outside--just then heavy with
+luxuriant foliage; so dusk was always early in the room.
+
+It was one of Nat's axioms that a store, to be successful, should be
+always brilliantly lighted. It was a bit expensive, perhaps, but in the
+long run it paid. For that reason he installed electric light as soon
+as he felt the business could afford it.
+
+Now he moved to the windows and switched on the bulbs behind the huge
+glass jars filled with tinted water. Returning, he was about to connect
+up the remainder of the illuminating system, when Josie, entering,
+stayed him. Later he was glad of this.
+
+"Nat..."
+
+He knew that voice. "Why, Josie!" he exclaimed in surprise, swinging
+about to discover her standing on the threshold--very dainty and
+fetching, indeed, in one of the summery frocks she had brought back
+from New York.
+
+She moved over to him, holding out her hand. He took it with disguised
+reluctance. "Where's Tracey?" she asked with a look that first held his
+eyes, then reviewed the store.
+
+"This is his afternoon off," Nat reminded her.
+
+"Then you're all alone?" she deduced archly.
+
+"Oh, quite...."
+
+"I'm so glad." She sighed and dropped into a chair by the soda-water
+counter. "I wanted to see you--to talk to you alone."
+
+He bit his lip in his annoyance, shivering with a presentiment. "What
+about, Josie?"
+
+"About Wednesday night--after prayer meeting. Why didn't you wait for
+me?"
+
+"Why--ah--I had to get back to the store, you know--there were some
+cheques to be made out and sent off, and I'd forgotten them. Besides,"
+he added on inspiration, "you were talking with Roland and I didn't
+want to interrupt you."
+
+"So you left me to go home with him?"
+
+"Why, what else--"
+
+"You're making me awful' unhappy." Her voice trembled.
+
+"_I_, Josie?"
+
+"Yes. You knew I didn't want to walk home with Roland."
+
+"How could I know that?"
+
+"I should think you ought to know it, Nat, unless you're blind.
+Besides, I told you once."
+
+"True," he fenced desperately, "but that was a long time ago; and how
+could I be sure you hadn't changed your mind? Besides, you know, I
+mustn't monopolise you. If I do...."
+
+"Well?" she inquired sweetly as he paused on the lip of a break.
+
+"Why, if I do--ah--"
+
+"If you're afraid people will talk about us, seeing us so much
+together, you needn't worry. They're doing that now."
+
+"Why, Josie!"
+
+"Yes, they are. We've been going together so long, and then suddenly
+you don't seem to care about--care to be alone with me at all. This
+is the first chance I've had to talk to you, when there wasn't somebody
+else round, for I don't know how long. And even now you don't seem glad
+to see me."
+
+"You should _know_ I am...."
+
+"You don't act like it."
+
+"It's so unexpected," he muttered wretchedly.
+
+"You didn't really think I wanted Roland Barnette to go home with me
+Wednesday night, did you, Nat?"
+
+"It seemed so, but ... that's all right. Why shouldn't you?"
+
+She turned to him, trembling a little. "Must I tell you, Nat?"
+
+"O, no!" he cried in dismay. "Please don't----!"
+
+"I see I must," she persisted. "You're so blind. It----"
+
+"Josie, don't say anything you'll be sorry for," he entreated wildly.
+
+"I can't help it: I've got to. It was--it was because I wanted to be
+with you.... There!" she gasped, frightened by her own forwardness.
+
+"Now I've said it!"
+
+Duncan grasped frantically at straws. "But you don't really mean it,
+Josie: you know you don't," he floundered. "You're just saying that
+because you--you have such a kind heart and--ah--don't want to hurt
+me--ah--because----"
+
+She stemmed the flood of his protestations with a hand on his arm.
+"Nat," she said gently, looking up into his face, "would it make you
+happy to know I really meant it?"
+
+"Why--ah--why shouldn't it, Josie?"
+
+"Then please believe me, when I say it."
+
+"But I do believe it. I..." He stammered and fell still.
+
+"Because I do like you, Nat, very much, and--and it's very hard for me
+to know that folks think I'm pursuing you and that you're trying to
+avoid me."
+
+"Josie!" he exclaimed reproachfully.
+
+"Well, that's the way it looks," she affirmed plaintively. "You don't
+want it to, do you?"
+
+"Why, no; of course I don't."
+
+"Then why don't you stop it?" She watched his face, her manner coy and
+yielding. "Nat," she said in a softer voice, "if you like me as well as
+I like you----"
+
+He moved away a pace or two. "Ah, child!" he said, with a feeling that
+the term was not misapplied, somehow, "you don't know what you're
+saying."
+
+"Yes, I do." She pouted. "I don't believe you... care anything about
+me."
+
+"Oh, Josie, please----"
+
+"Well, anyway, you've never told me so." She turned an indignant
+shoulder to him.
+
+"How could I?"
+
+"Why couldn't you?"
+
+"But don't you see that I shouldn't, Josie?" He turned back to her
+side, looked down at her, pleaded his defence with the fire of
+desperation.
+
+"Just think: you are an only daughter." Just what this had to do with
+the case was not plain even to him. "An only daughter," he repeated--
+"ah--not only your father's only daughter, but your mother's only
+daughter. Your father--ah--is my friend. How unfair it would be to him."
+
+But the girl interrupted with decision. "But papa wants you to... He
+told me so."
+
+He could only pretend not to understand. "But consider, Josie: you are
+rich, an heiress: I'm a poor man. Would you like it to be said I was
+after your money?"
+
+"No one would dare say such a thing," she asserted with profound
+conviction.
+
+"Oh, yes, they would. You don't know the world as I do. And for all you
+know, they might be right. How do you know that------"
+
+"Nat!" A catch in her voice stopped him. "Don't say such horrid things!
+I could tell: a woman always can. I know you would be incapable of such
+a thing. Papa knows it, too. No one has ever got ahead of papa, and
+_he_ says you are a fine, steady, Christian man, and he would
+rather see me your wife than any------"'
+
+"Josie!"
+
+The interjection was so imperative that she was silenced. "Why, what,
+Nat?" she asked, rising.
+
+"The time has come," he declared; "you must know the truth."
+
+"Oh, Nat!"
+
+"I'm _not_ what you think me," he continued, dramatic.
+
+_"Oh, Nat!"_
+
+"Nor what your father thinks me, nor what anybody else in this town
+thinks me. I'm not a regular Christian--it's all a bluff: I didn't
+know anything about a church till I came here. I smoke and I drink and
+I swear and I gamble, and I only cut them all out in order to trick you
+into caring for me!"
+
+"Oh, Nat, I don't believe it."
+
+"Alas, Josie!" he protested violently, "it's true, only too true!"
+
+"But you did it to win my love, Nat?"
+
+"Ye-es." He saw suddenly that he had made a fatal mistake.
+
+"Then, Nat, I will be your wife in spite of all!"
+
+He found himself suddenly caught about the neck by the girl's arms. His
+head was drawn down until her cheek caressed his and he felt her lips
+warm upon his own.
+
+"Josie!" he gasped.
+
+"Nat, my darling!"
+
+With a supreme effort he pulled himself together and embraced the girl.
+"Josie," he said earnestly, "I--I'm going to try to be a good husband
+to you.... And that," he concluded, _sotto voce_, "wasn't in the
+agreement!"
+
+She held him to her passionately. "Dearest, I'm so glad!"
+
+"It makes me very happy to know you are, Josie," he murmured miserably.
+And to himself, while still she trembled in his embrace: "What a cur
+you are!... But I won't renege now; I'll play my hand out on the
+square, with her...."
+
+Upon this tableau there came a sudden intrusion. The back door opened
+and Graham came in, Kellogg at his heels. It was the voice of the
+latter that told the two they were discovered: a hearty "Hello! What's
+this?" that rang in Nat's ears like the trump of doom.
+
+In a flash the girl disengaged herself, and they were a yard apart by
+the time that Graham, blundering in his surprise, managed to turn on
+the lights at the switchboard. But even in the full glare of them he
+seemed unable to credit his sight.
+
+"Why, Nat!" he quavered, coming out toward the guilty pair. "Why,
+Nat...!"
+
+Duncan took a long breath and Josie's hand at one and the same time.
+"Mr. Graham," he said coolly, "I'm glad you're the first to know it.
+Josie has just ask--agreed to be my wife."
+
+Old Sam recovered sufficiently to take the girl's hand and pat it. "I'm
+mighty glad, my dear," he told her. "I congratulate you both with all
+my heart."
+
+"And so will I, when I have the right," Kellogg added, smiling.
+
+"Oh, I forgot." Nat hastened to remedy his oversight. "Josie, this is
+my dearest friend, Mr. Kellogg; Harry, this is Miss Lockwood."
+
+
+Josie gave Kellogg her hand. "I--I," she giggled--"I'm pleased to meet
+you, I'm sure."
+
+"I'm charmed. I've heard a great deal of you, Miss Lockwood, from Nat's
+letters, and I shall hope to know you much better before
+long."
+
+"It's awful' nice of you to say so, Mr. Kellogg."
+
+"And, Nat, old man!" Kellogg threw an arm round Duncan's shoulder. "I
+congratulate you! You're a lucky dog!"
+
+"I'm a dog, all right," said Nat glumly.
+
+"But we mustn't disturb these young people, Mr. Kellogg," Graham broke
+in nervously.
+
+"They'll--they'll have a lot to say to one another, I'm sure; so we'll
+just run along. I'm taking Mr. Kellogg up to the house, Nat. You'll
+follow us as soon as you can, won't you?"
+
+"Yes--sure."
+
+"I've got some news for you, too, that'll make you happy."
+
+"Never mind about that; it'll keep till supper, Mr. Graham." Kellogg
+laughed, taking the old man's arm. "Good-bye, both of you--good-bye for
+a little while."
+
+"Good-bye..."
+
+"Wasn't that terrible!" Josie turned back to Nat when they were alone.
+"I think it was real mean of Mr. Graham to turn on all the lights
+that way," she simpered. "Somebody else might've seen."
+
+"Yes," agreed the young man, half distracted; "but of course I daren't
+turn them off again."
+
+"Never mind. We can wait." Josie blushed.
+
+"I'll just sit here and wait--we can talk till Tracey comes, and then
+you can walk home with me."
+
+"Yes, that'll be nice," he agreed, but without absolute ecstasy.
+
+Fortunately for him, in his temper of that moment, Pete Willing reeled
+into the shop, two-thirds drunk, with his face smeared with blood from
+a cut on his forehead.
+
+"'Scuse me," he muttered huskily. "Kin I see you a minute, Doc?"
+
+He reeled and almost fell--would have fallen had not Duncan caught his
+arm and guided him to a chair. "Great Scott, Pete!" he cried. "What's
+happened to you?"
+
+"M' wife..." Pete explained thickly.
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+
+ROLAND SHOWS HIS HAND
+
+"Perhaps I'd better go." Josie, fluttering with alarm and a little
+pale, went quickly to the door.
+
+Duncan followed her a pace or two. "I can't leave just now," he
+stammered.
+
+"I don't mind one bit. I don't want to be in the way. I'll telephone
+from home.... Good-night, dearest!" On tiptoes she drew his face down
+to hers and kissed him. "I'm so happy..."
+
+Half dazed, Nat stared after her until her lightly moving figure merged
+with the shadows beneath the trees and was lost. Then, with a sigh, he
+turned back to Pete.
+
+The sheriff had undoubtedly suffered at the hands of that militant
+person, Mrs. Willing. "Great Scott!" Duncan exclaimed as he examined
+the two-inch gash in his head. "That's a bird, Pete."
+
+"M' wife done it," Willing muttered huskily. "Sh' threw side 'r th'
+house at me, I think."
+
+"Wife, eh?" The coincidence smote Duncan with redoubled force. He
+shivered "Well, she certainly gave it to you good." He went behind the
+counter to prepare a dressing for the wound, which, if wide, was
+neither deep nor serious and gave him little concern for Pete.
+
+The latter ruminated on the event, breathing stertorously, while Duncan
+was fixing up a wash of peroxide. "She'll kill me some day," he
+announced suddenly, with intense conviction in his tone.
+
+"Oh, don't say that...."
+
+Opposition roused Pete to a fury of assertion. "Yes, she will, sure!"
+he bawled. Then his emotion quieted. "But I'd 'bout as soon be dead's
+live with her, anyway."
+
+"_Um_." Nat got some absorbent cotton and adhesive plaster. "Been
+drinking again, hadn't you?"
+
+"Yesh," Pete admitted with a leer of drunken cunning. "But she druv me
+to it." He was quiet for a moment. "Mish'r Duncan," he volunteered
+cheerfully, "you ain't got _no_ idee how lucky y'are y'aint married."
+
+"Is that so?" Nat returned with the dressings.
+
+"No idee'tall." Pete surrendered his head to Nat's ministrations. "'Nd
+I hope y' won't never have."
+
+"But I'm going to be married, Pete."
+
+The sheriff assimilated this information and became abruptly
+intractable. He jerked his head away and swung round in his chair to
+argue the matter.
+
+"Oh, no!" he expostulated. "Don't, Mish'r Duncan. Don't never do it.
+Take warnin' from me."
+
+"But I'm engaged, Pete."
+
+"Maksh no diff'runsh--break it off." His voice rose to a howl of alarm.
+"F'r Gaw's sake, break it off!--now, before it's too late! Do anythin'
+rather'n that: drink--lie--steal--murder--c'mit suicide--don't care
+what--only _keep single!_" "Here," said Duncan, laughing, "sit back
+there and let me'tend to your head." He began to wash the wound with
+the peroxide. "There: that'll sting a bit, but not long.... But
+suppose, Pete, I'd get a lot of money by marrying?"
+
+"No matter how mush y'get, 'tain't enough!"
+
+"I'm inclined to think you're about right, Pete."
+
+"You bet I'm right. I'm married 'nd _I know_."
+
+Nat finished dressing the cut, smoothed down the ends of the adhesive
+tape, and stood back. "That's all right, now. Go home, wash your face,
+and sleep it off. Let me see you sober in the morning."
+
+"Huh!" Pete chuckled derisively. "Ain't goin' home t'night."
+
+"You've got to get some sleep: that's the only way for you to
+straighten up."
+
+"Well," agreed Pete, rising, "then I'll go over to the barn 'nd sleep
+with the horse."
+
+"Aren't you afraid he'll step on you?" asked Nat, amused.
+
+"Maybe he will," Pete replied fairly, "but I'd ruther risk that 'n m'
+wife."
+
+He swerved and lurched toward the door. "Thanks, doc, 'nd g'night," he
+mumbled, and incontinently collided with Roland Barnette.
+
+Roland was working under a full head of steam, apparently; his
+naturally sanguine complexion was several shades darker than the
+normal, and he was seething with repressed emotion--excitement,
+anticipated triumph, jealousy, envy and hatred: all centring upon the
+hapless head of Nat Duncan. Plunging along with his head down, his
+thoughts wholly preoccupied with his grievance and its remedy, he
+bumped into Willing and cannoned off, recognising him with an angry
+growl. The result of this was to stay Pete's departure; he grasped
+the frame of the door and steadied himself, glaring round at the
+aggressor.
+
+"'Lo, Roland," he said, focussing his vision. "Whash masser?"
+
+Roland disregarded him entirely. "Say, you!" he snorted, catching sight
+of Nat. "I want to see you."
+
+"Oh?" Nat drawled exasperatingly. He had never had much use for Roland,
+and now with hidden joy he read the signs of passion on the boy's
+inflamed countenance. Happy he would be, thought Nat, if Roland were to
+be delivered into his hands that night. He owed the world a grudge,
+just then, and needed nothing more than an object to wreak his
+vengeance upon. "Well, I'll stake you to a good long look," he added
+sweetly.
+
+"Ah-h! don't you try to be so funny; you might get hurt."
+
+Pete seemed to be suddenly electrified by Ro-land's matter. "Here!" he
+interposed. "Whajuh mean by that?" And relinquishing his grasp on the
+door, he reeled between the two and thrust his face close to Roland's.
+"Who're you talkin' to, an'way?" he demanded, truculent.
+
+Nat stepped forward quickly and grabbed Pete's arm. "That's all right,
+Pete," he soothed him. "Don't get nervous. Roly won't hurt anybody."
+
+The diminutive stung Roland to exasperation. "Why, damn you----!" he
+screamed, and promptly became inarticulate with rage.
+
+"Ah! ah! ah!" Nat wagged a reproving forefinger. "Naughty word, Roly!
+Careful, or you'll sour your chewing gum."
+
+"Now, say! Do you think----"
+
+At this juncture Pete drowned his words with an incoherent roar, having
+apparently reached the conclusion that the time had now arrived when it
+would be his duty and pleasure to eat Roland alive. Nat saved the young
+man by the barest inch; he grappled with Pete and drew himself aside
+just in time.
+
+"Steady, Pete!" he said quietly. "Steady, old man. Let Roland alone."
+
+"Awrh, I ain't 'fraid of him!" spluttered Pete.
+
+"Neither am I. Get out, won't you, and leave him to me."
+
+"Aw'right." Pete became more calm. "I'll leave him 'lone, but all the
+same I wan' it 'stinctly un'erstood I kin lick any man in town 'ceptin'
+m' wife. G'night, everybody."
+
+He gathered himself together and by a supreme effort lunged through the
+door and into the deepening dusk.
+
+"Well, Roly?" Nat asked, turning back.
+
+His ironic calm gave Roland pause. For a moment he lost his bearings
+and stammered in confusion. "I come in to tell you that me and you's
+apt to have trouble," he concluded.
+
+"Oh? And are you thinking of starting it?"
+
+"You bet I'll start it, and I'll start it damn' quick if you don't
+leave Josie Lockwood alone."
+
+"So that's the trouble, is it?" commented Nat thoughtfully.
+
+"Yes, that's the trouble. From now on I want you to let her alone, and
+you'll do it, too, if you know what's best for you."
+
+A suggestion of menace in his manner, unconnected with any hint of
+physical correction, caught Nat's attention. He frowned over it.
+
+"Just what do you mean by this line of talk?" he inquired blandly,
+stepping nearer.
+
+"I'll tell you what I mean." Roland clenched both fists and thrust his
+chin out pugnaciously. "I'd been a-goin' steady with Josie Lockwood for
+more'n a year before you come here and thought that, on account of her
+money, you could sneak in and cut me out...."
+
+"Was her money the reason you were after her, Roly?"
+
+"What----?" The question brought Roland momentarily up in the wind.
+"'Tain't none of your business if it was!" he snapped, recovering. "But
+here's what I'm gettin' at." He tapped his breast-pocket with a sneer
+of bucolic triumph. "Just about ten months ago," he continued
+meaningly, "they was a cashier skipped out of the Longacre National
+Bank in Noo Yawk, and they ain't got no track of him yet."
+
+So this was why Roland had been so assiduous a student of the back
+files in the Citizen office!
+
+"Indeed?"
+
+"Yes, indeed. I had my suspicions all along, but didn't say nothin',
+but just to-day I got a description of him, and the description just
+fits, Mr. Mortimer Henry."
+
+"Just fits Mr. Mortimer Henry? But what has that----?"
+
+"Ah, don't you try to seem too darn' innocent," Roland snarled. "You
+can't fool me!"
+
+A light dawned upon Nat, and laughter flooded his being, although
+outwardly he remained imperturbable--merely mildly curious. But his
+fingers were itching.
+
+"So you think I'm the absconding cashier, eh, Roly?"
+
+"You keep away from Josie 'r you'll find out what I think." Nat's
+placidity deceived Roland, who drew the wholly erroneous conclusion
+that he had succeeded in frightening his rival, and consequently dared
+a few lengths further in his tirade. "Why, if I was to go to Mr.
+Lockwood and tell him you're Mortimer Henry, alias Nat Duncan----"
+
+Duncan's temper suddenly snapped like a taut violin string.
+
+"That will do," he said icily. "That will be all for this evening,
+thanks."
+
+"Ah... Are you going to quit chasin' after Josie?"
+
+"I'll begin chasing after you if you don't clear out of here."
+
+"You better agree----"
+
+[Illustration: "Betty!"]
+
+Just there the storm burst. Ten seconds later Roland, with a confused
+impression of having been kicked by a mule, picked himself up out of
+the dust in the middle of the street and stared stupidly back at the
+store. Nat was waiting in the doorway for a renewal of hostilities, if
+any such there were to be. Seeing, however, that Roland had apparently
+sated his appetite for personal conflict, he picked up a dark object at
+his feet and held it out.
+
+"Here's your hat, Roly," he called.
+
+Roland spat out a mouthful of dust and swore beneath his breath. "Throw
+it out here," he replied prudently.
+
+Tossing him the hat, Nat turned contemptuously. "Come in again, any
+time you want to apologise," he shouted over his shoulder, as an
+afterthought.
+
+He paused in the middle of the store and felt of his necktie. It proved
+to be a little out of place, but otherwise he was as immaculate as was
+his wont. He reviewed the encounter and laughed quietly.
+
+"There's no cure for a fool," he mused....
+
+The telephone bell roused him from his reverie. He went over to the
+instrument, sat down, and put the receiver to his ear.
+
+"Hello?" he said.... "Oh, hello, Josie! ... What's that?... That's
+right, but I'm not used to it yet, you know.... Well, I'll try again.
+Now--ready?"
+
+He schooled his voice to a key of heartrending sentiment: "Hello,
+darling.... How's that? ... Told your father? Told him what?... Oh,
+about the engagement! Was he angry? ... Oh, he wasn't, eh? What did he
+say? ... Wasn't that nice of him!..."
+
+Conscious of a slight noise in the store he looked up. A young woman
+had just entered. She paused just inside the door, smiling at him a
+little timidly.
+
+Without another word to his fiancee Nat put down the telephone and
+hooked up the receiver.
+
+"Betty!" he cried wonderingly.
+
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+
+AS OTHERS SAW HIM
+
+If Nat's cry of recognition had been wondering, it was no less one of
+delight. The surprise he felt was perfectly natural; Betty wasn't to
+have returned until the morrow, and was therefore the last person he
+had expected to see when he looked up from the telephone desk. But it
+was the change in the girl that most stirred him: the change he had
+prophesied, planned for, anticipated eagerly throughout the long seven
+months of her absence; to have his expectations so wonderfully
+fulfilled, and more than fulfilled, pleased him beyond expression. And
+it's curious to speculate upon the fact that he fancied his greatest
+pleasure came from the knowledge that old Sam would be so overjoyed....
+
+It was really only a paraphrase of the old story of the grub and the
+butterfly. The little, starveling drudge who had found him in the
+store, that first day, had completely vanished; it was as if she had
+never been. In her place he discovered a girl all grace and loveliness,
+her slender figure ripening into gracious womanhood; a girl of mind and
+heart and understanding, all fire and tenderness; demure, intelligent,
+with a pretty pose of independence and sureness of herself moderated by
+modesty and reserve. Her travelling dress of sober colouring and severe
+lines became her bewitchingly. Beneath the brim of her dainty hat, with
+veil thrown back, her dark hair waved back, glossy with the sheen of
+perfect well-being, from a face serenely charming--the more so for her
+slightly deepened flush; and the eyes that shone into Nat's danced with
+the light of enjoyment, bred of his supreme astonishment....
+
+"Nat, I'm so glad to see you again!"
+
+He was speechless.
+
+She laughed, put down her suit-case, and moved toward him, offering him
+both her hands. He took them, stammering.
+
+"It's such a surprise, Betty----!"
+
+"I knew it would be. I just couldn't wait, Nat, when I found I could
+get here by the night train instead of tomorrow morning. I haven't been
+home, you know, but I couldn't resist the temptation to stop in here
+and see--what the store looked like after all these months. Besides, I
+thought that you or father----" Her eyes fell and she faltered,
+withdrawing her hands.
+
+By now he had himself in hand. "Why," he laughed, "you nearly took my
+breath away. Even now I can hardly believe it..."
+
+"Believe what, Nat?" she asked quickly.
+
+"That you're the same little Betty Graham. I never saw such a change."
+
+"It's a change for the better, isn't it, Nat?" she asked with a smile
+half wistful.
+
+"I should think it was. It's just marvellous!"
+
+"Did I seem so very awful, then?"
+
+"Nonsense. You know you didn't, only, now..."
+
+"Then you think father will be pleased?"
+
+"If he isn't, I'm blind!"
+
+She looked away, embarrassed, and touched by his interest and his
+feeling. "And does it make you a little proud, Nat?"
+
+"Proud!" he exclaimed blankly.
+
+"Because you know you've done it all. If there's any improvement in
+Betty Graham to-day, it's because of you. If it hadn't been for
+you----"
+
+"Never in the world; you don't know what you're talking about, Betty.
+Nobody but yourself could have brought about this change. It had to be
+in you before it could come out. You know that."
+
+She shook her head very decidedly, seating herself on one of the chairs
+by the soda-fountain. "Oh, no," she contradicted calmly and sincerely.
+"Why, Nat, don't you suppose I have any memory? You began making me a
+better girl the very first day we met here in the store, by the things
+you said to me. And ever since I've been watching you, while you were
+making life a Heaven for father and me, and thinking that if I were a
+man I'd try to be as near like you as I could."
+
+"Oh, don't say that," he pleaded wretchedly.
+
+"It's true.... And when you sent me away to school I promised myself
+I'd try to repay you for the sacrifice you must be making for me; that
+I'd follow your example as nearly as ever I could; that I'd work hard
+and try to treat people the way you do--kindly, Nat, and considerately,
+and bravely and tenderly and honestly----"
+
+He dropped into a chair near her and buried his head in his hands.
+"Don't!" he begged huskily. "Please, Betty, don't!"
+
+But she wouldn't stop, little guessing how she was racking his heart in
+her innocent desire to make him understand how deeply she appreciated
+all he had done for her. "And, O Nat, it's worked so wonderfully! It's
+made all the girls at school like me, and it's made me understand and
+like everybody else better; and now, what's ten thousand times the best
+of all, you notice an improvement the minute you see me! And I--I never
+was so happy in all my life." She bent forward and took one of his
+hands, patting it softly. "Nat, I think you're the very best man in the
+whole world!"
+
+"Don't!" he groaned. "Don't, for Heaven's sake!"
+
+"Oh, I know, Nat--I know you don't like me to say this, but I must,
+just the same, tell you the truth about yourself. It's so splendid to
+live the life you do. You're all unconscious of it, but I want you to
+realise it and know that I do, too. You've made everybody love you
+and..."
+
+But confusion silenced her, and she gently replaced his hand. For
+several moments neither spoke. Then Nat broke the tension with a short,
+hard laugh.
+
+"That's right," he said inscrutably; "that was the idea...."
+
+"Nat, what do you mean?"
+
+He turned to her. "Betty, does it make you--feel that way toward me?"
+
+She coloured divinely. "Why, Nat, of course ... Why, everyone..."
+
+"That's why I came here, Betty," he pursued, blind to her
+embarrassment. "I came here with the idea... of getting married...."
+
+He was staring gloomily at the floor and could not see the light that
+dawned upon the girl's face. Absorbed in the struggle with his
+conscience he had no least suspicion of how his words were affecting
+her. He knew only that he must somehow make a confession to her, that
+to own her regard and gratitude on the terms that then existed between
+them was utterly intolerable.
+
+"You never guessed that, did you?"
+
+"No," she breathed brokenly. "No, Nat, I--"
+
+"Well, it's the truth and...." He rose and moved away. "But I can't
+tell you just now--not now...."
+
+"No, not now, Nat." Betty, too, got up. "I think I'd better go home and
+see father--I mustn't forget--" she faltered, half blinded by the mist
+of the happiness before her eyes.
+
+"No--wait." She stopped to find his gaze full upon her; for the first
+time he comprehended that she had not understood, that, worst of all,
+she had misunderstood. "I must tell you," he blurted desperately, "I
+must."
+
+Instinctively she moved a step toward him. He hung his head.
+
+"To-night, Betty--this evening, just a little while ago, I became
+engaged to Josie Lockwood."
+
+She stood as if petrified throughout a wait that seemed to both
+interminable. Then he heard her catch her breath sharply. He looked up,
+frightened, but she was smiling steadily into his face. Somehow he
+found her hand in his.
+
+"Oh, Nat dear," she said, "I'm so glad for you.... I wish you all the
+happiness in the world. I ... Good-night."
+
+
+The hand slipped out of Nat's. He did not move, but waited there with
+his empty palm outstretched, despair in his eyes and hell in his heart,
+while she walked quietly from the store.
+
+After some time he awoke to the knowledge that she was gone.
+
+"Blithering fool!" he growled. "Why didn't I know I loved her like
+this?" He took a turn to and fro, distracted. "And now I've made a mess
+of everything! Good Lord! what can I do? I must do something or go
+mad!" He swung round behind the soda-fountain counter and seized a
+bottle. "I know what! The rules are off! I can have a drink! I can have
+two drinks! I can have a million drinks if I want 'em!"
+
+Pouring a generous dose of raw whiskey into the glass he lifted it to
+his lips and threw back his head. But the heavy bouquet of the liquor
+was stifling in his nostrils, and the first mouthful of it almost
+choked him. In a fury he flung the glass from him, so that it crashed
+and splintered upon the floor. "Great Heavens!" he cried. "I don't like
+the stuff any more.... But"--his gaze fell upon the cigar case--"I can
+have a smoke. That'll help some!"
+
+With feverish haste he snatched a cigar from the nearest box, gnawed
+off one end, and thrusting the other into the alcohol lighter, puffed
+vigorously. But to his renovated palate the potent fumes of the tobacco
+were no less repugnant than the whiskey had been. Half strangled, he
+plucked the cigar from his mouth and stamped on it.
+
+"Oh," he cried wildly, "I'll be--I'll be damned!"
+
+He paused, staring vacantly at nothing. "And even that doesn't do any
+good! God help me, I've forgotten how to swear!"
+
+To him, in this overwrought state, came Tracey, lumbering cheerfully
+in, his mouth shaped for a whistle. At sight of Nat he pulled up as if
+hit by a club.
+
+"'Evenin', Mister Duncan. What's the matter?"
+
+By an effort Nat brought his gaze to bear upon the boy and comprehended
+his existence.
+
+"Ain't you feeling well, Mr. Duncan?"
+
+"No--rotten!"
+
+"What's the matter?"
+
+"_Nothing_!" Nat shouted ferociously.
+
+"Anything I kin----"
+
+"_No_!"
+
+At that instant Kellogg appeared. "Hello, Nat! What's been keeping you?
+I came down to bring you home to supper."
+
+"Go to blazes with your supper! Keep away from me! Don't talk to me! I
+don't want anything to do with you, d'you understand? You and your
+confounded systems have got me into all this----"
+
+He caught sight of his hat abruptly, ceased talking, grabbed the hat
+and jammed it on his head, muttering; then started on a run for the
+door.
+
+"But what's the matter?" demanded Kellogg, thunderstruck. "Here! Hold
+on! Where are you going?"
+
+"To the only place I can get any consolation--church!"
+
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+
+ROLAND'S TRIUMPH
+
+But at the doorstep of the Methodist Church Nat hesitated. The building
+was dimly lighted, for it was choir practise night, and the door was
+ajar; but he couldn't bring himself to enter. He would not long have
+peace and quiet in which to think, there; presently would come Angle
+and Josie and Roland and...
+
+"I couldn't stand it; I'd probably murder Roland....
+
+"Besides, I've no right there--an impostor--a contemptible low-lived
+pup like me!...
+
+"Why the thunderation did I ever allow myself to be persuaded to come
+here? Why was I ever such a fool?...
+
+"How _could_ I be such a fool?..."
+
+He was walking, now, striding swiftly through the silent village
+streets, meeting few wayfarers and paying them no heed, whether they
+knew and greeted him or not. His entire consciousness was obsessed by
+regret, repentance and remorse. He had ruined everything, deceived
+everybody--even himself for a time--played the cad and the bounder with
+consummate address. There were no bounds to the contempt he felt for
+the man who had tricked these simple, kindly folk into believing him
+immaculate, impeccable; who had hoodwinked "that old prince, Graham,"
+and under false pretences gained his confidence and affection; who had
+deliberately set out to snare an innocent and trusting girl for the
+sake of the filthy money her father owned; who had made another and a
+better girl love him, though that he had done so unconsciously, only to
+break her heart; who had sacrificed everything, honour and decency and
+self-respect, to his greed for money.
+
+But it should go no further. He'd given what he called his word of
+honour to a despicable compact; there could be no dishonour so great as
+holding by that word, sticking to his bargain, maintaining the
+deception and--ruining the life of one woman--perhaps two: Josie
+Lockwood's, for he could never love her; and possibly Betty Graham's,
+for she was of that sort that loves once and once only. If she truly
+loved him...
+
+But by his own act he had placed himself forever beyond the joy of her
+love. He could never accept it, desire it as passionately as he
+might--and did. He could never consent to drag her down to his base
+level...
+
+To-morrow--no, to-night, that very night, he would unmask himself,
+declare his character to them all, pillory himself that all might see
+how low a man could fall. And to-morrow he would go, leave Radville,
+lose himself to all that had come to be so dear to him, forever....
+
+So, raving and ranting with the extravagance of youth, he passed
+through the village, out into the open country, and in the course of an
+hour and a half, back--all blindly: circling back to the store, in the
+course of his wanderings, as instinctly as a carrier pigeon shapes its
+course for home.
+
+It was with incredulity that he found himself again in that cheerful,
+cherished, homely place. But there he was when he came out of his
+abstraction: there in those familiar surroundings, with Tracey's round
+red face beaming at him over the cigar-stand like a lively counterfeit
+of the round red moon he had watched lift up into the skies, back there
+in the still countryside, just as he paused to turn back to town.
+
+He recollected his faculties and resumed command of himself
+sufficiently to acknowledge Tracey's greeting with a moody word.
+
+"All right, Tracey," he said abruptly. "You may go, now. I'll shut up
+the store."
+
+He looked at his watch, and was surprised to discover that it was no
+later than half-past eight. He seemed to have lived a lifetime in the
+last few hours.
+
+
+"Thank you, sir," said Tracey with a gush of gratitude. "I'll be glad
+to get off. Angle's waiting."
+
+"Angle----?"
+
+"Good-evening, Mr. Duncan."
+
+"Oh, Miss Tuthill!" Nat discovered that little rogue, all smiles and
+dimples and blushes, not distant from his elbow. "I didn't see you--I
+was thinking."
+
+"Guess we know what you was thinkin' about," observed Tracey, bringing
+his hat round the counter. "Everybody in town's talkin' about it."
+
+"About what?"
+
+"Ah, you know about what, and we're mighty glad of it, and we want to
+congratulate you, don't we, Angie."
+
+"Oh, yes, indeed, Mr. Duncan. It's just too sweet for anything."
+
+"O Lord!" groaned Nat.
+
+"I'm awful glad you done it when you did," pursued Tracey, oblivious to
+Nat in his own ecstatic temper. "I guess I wouldn't never 've got up
+the spunk to--to tell Angie what I did to-night, 'f it hadn't been we
+was talkin' 'bout your engagement to Josie. Then, somehow, it just
+seemed to bust right out of me, like I couldn't hold it no longer.
+Didn't it, Angie?"
+
+"Oh, Tracey, how can you talk so!"
+
+"Then you're engaged, too?" Nat inquired, rousing himself a little and
+smiling feebly upon them.
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"I'm glad to hear it. It's great news. Now run along, both of you, and
+don't forget you'll never be so happy again." With what he thought an
+expiring flash of humour he raised his hands above their heads. "Bless
+you, my children!" he said solemnly. "Now, for Heaven's sake, beat it!"
+
+Alone he went to the prescription desk and opening one of the drawers
+took out the firm's books. After that for some fifteen minutes there
+was nothing to be heard in the store save Nat's breathing and the
+scratching of his pen as he figured out a trial balance....
+
+Brisk footfalls disturbed him. He sighed and moved out into the store
+to find Kellogg there, suave and easy as always, yet with that in his
+manner, perceptible perhaps only to a friend of long-standing like Nat,
+to betray a mind far from complacent.
+
+"Oh, you're here!" he cried, with a distinct start of relief. "I've
+been looking all over for you."
+
+"I just got in." Nat brushed aside explanations curtly, intent upon his
+purpose. "Harry, I've got something to say to you: I'm not going
+through with this thing."
+
+"You're not?"
+
+"No; and that's final. I was just on the point of drawing you a cheque
+for three-hundred; that's all my share of the profits of this concern,
+so far; and my note for the balance. I'll pay that up as soon as I'm
+able--and I'll work like a terrier until I do. But as for the rest of
+it, I'm through."
+
+"Oh, you are?" Kellogg took a chair and tipped back, frowning gravely.
+"But what about your word to me?"
+
+"Damn that," said Duncan without heat. "The word of honour of a man
+who'd stoop to a trick as vile as I have doesn't amount to a
+continental shinplaster. I'll rather be dishonoured by breaking it than
+by ruining a woman's life."
+
+"Very well, if you feel that way about it," said Kellogg as coolly.
+"And you may keep your cheque and note: I wouldn't take them. You can
+pay me back when it's convenient--I don't care when. But what I want to
+know is what you mean to do?"
+
+"I mean to do the only thing left to do. I'm going to shut up here and
+then see Lockwood and Josie and tell them the whole story."
+
+"Hm," Kellogg reflected, quizzical. "You've got a pleasant little job
+ahead of you."
+
+"I don't care about that: I deserve all that's coming to me. I owe
+Josie a duty. Why, it's awful, Harry, to trick a girl into caring for
+you and then to--to----"
+
+"Break her heart?" Kellogg's tone was sardonic.
+
+"That's what I meant."
+
+"Don't flatter yourself, my boy. Josie Lockwood doesn't love you; she
+just set herself to win you because you're the best chance she's seen."
+Kellogg laughed quietly. "The system would have worked just as well if
+anyone else had tried it."
+
+"Do you think so--honest?" Nat's eagerness to believe him was
+undisguised.
+
+"I'm sure of it. The trouble is that people will say you've thrown her
+over--there isn't anyone in Radville who hasn't heard the news by this
+time; and that's going to make the girl feel pretty cheap. But only for
+a while: she'll get over it and solace herself with the next best
+thing.... And don't forget; you lose a fortune."
+
+"No, I don't," Duncan disclaimed. "I never had it and now I don't want
+it."
+
+"That's true enough," Kellogg admitted evenly. "And I hope you'll
+always feel that way about it; but, believe me, you'll find plenty of
+money a great help if you want to live a happy life."
+
+"There are better things than money to make a man happy; I'll pass up
+the money and try for the others."
+
+"That's true, too; but when did you find it out?"
+
+"Here--this last year.... You know I had everything my heart desired
+until the governor cashed in; and I used to think I was a pretty happy
+kid in those days. But now I've learned that you can beat that kind of
+happiness to death. Harry"--Duncan was growing almost sententious--"the
+real way to be happy is to work and have your work amount to something
+and--and to have someone who believes in you to work for."
+
+"Is this a sermon, Nat?"
+
+"Call it what you like: it goes, just the same. ... That's what I've
+found out this year."
+
+Kellogg let his chair fall forward and rose, imprisoning Nat's
+shoulders with two heavy but kindly hands. "And you're right!" he cried
+heartily. "I'm glad you had the backbone to back out, Nat. It was a
+low-down trick and I'm ashamed of myself for proposing it. I did it, I
+presume, simply because I'm a schemer at heart, and I knew it would
+work. It did work, but it's worked a finer way than I dreamed of: it's
+made a man of you, Nat, and I'm mightly glad and proud of you!"
+
+Nat swayed with amazement. "What's changed you all of a sudden?" he
+demanded blankly.
+
+Releasing him, Kellogg resumed his seat, laughing. "Well, a number of
+things. Among others, I've talked with Graham and I've met his
+daughter."
+
+"Oh-h!"
+
+"And that reminds me," Kellogg changed the subject briskly; "I
+understood from you that Graham was sole owner of that patent burner."
+
+"So he is."
+
+"He says not. I had a proposition to make him from the Mutual people,
+and he referred me to you, saying that you controlled the matter."
+
+"I've not the slightest interest in it!" Nat protested.
+
+"I know you haven't, but Graham insisted you owned the whole thing. I
+pressed him for an explanation, and he finally furnished one in his
+rambling, inconsequent, fine old way. He admitted that there wasn't any
+sort of an existing contract or agreement of any sort, even oral,
+between you, but just the same you'd been so good to him and his girl
+that he'd made up his mind--some time ago, I gather--to make you a
+present of the burner; but naturally he forgot to tell you about an
+insignificant detail like that."
+
+"Of course that's nonsense; I wouldn't and shant accept."
+
+"Of course you won't. I did you the honour to discount that. But he
+wouldn't say a word about the offer--yes or no--just left it all up to
+you. He says you're a business man, and that he's often thought what a
+help you must have been to me before you left New York."
+
+Nat laughed outright. "Can you beat that? ... But what is the offer?"
+
+"Fifty thousand cash and ten thousand shares of preferred
+stock--hundred dollars par."
+
+"What's that worth?"
+
+"At the market rate when I left town, seventy-eight." Kellogg waited a
+moment. "Well, what do you say?"
+
+"Say? Great Caesar's Ghost! What is there to say? Wire 'em an
+acceptance before they get their second wind.... You don't know how
+good this makes me feel, Harry; I can't thank you enough for what
+you've done. This'll square me with Graham to some extent, and I can
+clear out----"
+
+"No, you can't, Mr. Smarty! You ain't been 'cute enough."
+
+Both men, startled by the interruption, wheeled round to discover
+Roland Barnette dancing with excitement in the doorway, the while he
+beckoned frantically to an invisible party without. "Come on!" he
+shouted. "Here he is!"
+
+"What's eating you, Roly-Poly?" inquired
+
+Nat, too happy for the money to cherish animosity even toward his
+one-time rival.
+
+"You'll find out soon enough," snarled Roland. "Mr. Lockwood's got
+something to say to you, I guess."
+
+And on the heels of this announcement Lockwood strode into the store,
+Josie clinging to his arm, Pete Willing--a trifle more sanely drunk
+than he had been some hours previous--bringing up the rear.
+
+"So!" snarled Blinky, halting and transfixing Nat with the stare of his
+cold blue eyes. "So we've found you, eh?"
+
+"Oh? I didn't know I was lost."
+
+"No nonsense, young man. I ain't in the humour for foolin'." Blinky was
+unquestionably in no sort of a humour at all beyond an evil one. "I
+come here to have a word with you."
+
+"Well, sir?" Nat's tone and attitude were perfectly pacific.
+
+"Ah, there ain't no use beatin' 'round the bush. You've behaved
+yourself ever since you come to Radville, and insinooated yourself into
+our confidence, 'spite of the fact that nobody in town knows who you
+were before you came. But now Roland's laid a charge again' you, and I
+want to know the rights to it."
+
+"Well," Roland interposed cockily, "I accused him of it to-night and he
+didn't deny it."
+
+[Illustration: "You're a thief with a reward out for you!"]
+
+"What's more," Lockwood continued with rising colour, "Roland says he
+can prove it?"
+
+"Prove what?" Nat insisted. "Get down to facts, can't you?"
+
+"That you're a thief with a reward out for you," said Roland. "You're
+that Mortimer Henry what absconded from the Longacre National Bank in
+Noo York."
+
+There fell a brief pause. Nat bowed his head and tugged at his
+moustache, his shoulders shaking with emotion variously construed by
+those who watched him. Presently he looked up again, his features
+gravely composed.
+
+"Roly," said he, "Balaam must miss you terribly."
+
+"That ain't no answer." Lockwood put himself solidly between Nat and
+the object of his obscure remark--who was painfully digesting it. "I
+want to know about this. You got my daughter to say she'd marry you
+this evenin', and you've got to explain to me about this bank business
+before it goes any further."
+
+"Yes?" commented Nat civilly.
+
+"Yes!" thundered Blinky. "Do you deny it? ... Answer me."
+
+To Kellogg's huge diversion, Nat struck an attitude, "I refuse to
+answer," said he.
+
+"Aha! What'd I tell you?" This was Roland's triumphant crow.
+
+"Nat!" Josie advanced, trembling with excitement. "Tell me, what does
+this mean?"
+
+Duncan perforce avoided her gaze. "Don't ask," he said sadly.
+
+"Is it true?" she insisted.
+
+"You heard what Roly said," he replied, with a chastened expression.
+
+"Then you admit it?"
+
+"I admit nothing."
+
+"Oh-h!" The girl drew away from him as from defilement. "I--I hate
+you!" she cried in a voice of loathing
+
+"That's all right," he told her serenely; "I've despised myself all
+evening."
+
+The girl showed him a scornful back. "Papa----" she began.
+
+"Don't thank me, Josie. Roland done it all: he got onto him." Lockwood
+continued to watch Duncan with the air of a cat eyeing a mouse.
+
+Impulsively Josie moved to Roland's side and caught his arm. He drew
+himself up proudly.
+
+"I do thank you, Roland; I can never be grateful enough. I've been so
+foolish.
+
+"That's all right." Roland tucked the girl's hand beneath his arm and
+patted it down. "You wasn't to blame. I never seen anyone from Noo York
+yet that wasn't a crook."
+
+"Won't you please take me away from this--place, Roland?" she appealed.
+
+"I'll be mighty glad to see you home, Josie," he assured her
+generously, turning.
+
+In the act of leaving, Josie caught Nat's eye. She hung back for an
+instant, withering him with a glare. "Oh-h!" she cried. "How did you
+dare pretend to care for me?"
+
+He bowed politely. "It was one of the rules, Josie."
+
+"There's no need to tell you, I guess, that the engagement is broken."
+
+"None whatever, Miss Lockwood. Good-evening."
+
+"Come, Roland!"
+
+Arm in arm they left, with the haughty tread of the elect, while Pete
+Willing lurched to Duncan's side and caught his arm.
+
+"Come 'long to jail, Mish'r Duncan," he said with sympathy. "Mush
+bessher."
+
+"You look after him, Pete." Lockwood turned to leave with a final shot
+for Duncan. "I'll 'tend to your case in the mornin', young man, and
+I'll make you wish you never came to this town."
+
+"You needn't trouble. I feel that way about it already. _Good_-night."
+
+Lockwood left them, snarling. Nat caught Kellogg's eye and began to
+giggle. But Pete was still holding him fast, partially, beyond doubt,
+for support.
+
+"You've been saved just in time, Mish'r Duncan," he commented; "y'are
+mighty lucky man. Now lissen: you better make tracks. I ain't got no
+warrant to hold you, 'nd I wouldn't if I had."
+
+"You're a good fellow, Pete; but you needn't worry. I'm not the man
+they think me, and it'll be easy to prove."
+
+"Wal," said Pete, "jus' the same, you better git out, 'r you may have
+to marry her aft'all."
+
+"No, I won't."
+
+"Thank Gawd f'r that!" Pete exclaimed in maudlin gratitude. He swung
+widely toward the door, and by a miracle found it. "G'night, Mish'r
+Duncan. I feel s' good 'bout thish I'm goin' try goin' home 'nd face m'
+wife. G'night."
+
+"Good-night, Pete."
+
+"Well!" said Kellogg after a pause, "that was a bit of luck!"
+
+"Luck!" Nat seized his hat and began to turn off the lights. "It's more
+luck than I thought there was in the whole world. Come along."
+
+"Where are you going?"
+
+"First, to see Lockwood and have it out with him."
+
+"No, you aren't," Kellogg laughed as Nat locked the door. "You're going
+to leave Lockwood to me; I'll manage to ease his mind. You've got
+infinitely more important matters to attend to--and the sooner you find
+her, the better, Nat!"
+
+
+
+
+XXIII
+
+
+THE RAINBOW'S END
+
+The air was heavy with moisture and very still and warm; a heady
+fragrance of precocious blooms flavoured the air, vying with the scent
+of rain. The silence was profound, but shaken now and then by a grumble
+of distant thunder. The world hung breathless on the issue of the night.
+
+Since evenfall a wall of cloud, massive and portentous, had been
+climbing up over the western hills, slowly but with ominous steadiness
+obscuring the moon-swept sky with its far, pale wreaths of stars,
+blotting it out with monstrous folds and convolutions of impenetrable
+purple-black. Along its crest fire played like swords in the sunlight,
+and now and again sheeted flame lightened the monstrous expanse so that
+it glowed with the pale phosphorescence of a summer sea.
+
+As Duncan hurried homeward over sidewalks chequered in silver and ink,
+the advance of the cloud army seemed to become accelerated. With
+increasing frequency gusts of air set the trees a-shiver until their
+sibilant whispers of warning filled the valley. The rolling of the
+thunder grew more sharp, more instant upon the flashes.... When there
+was no wind the air seemed to quiver with terror--as a dog cringes to
+the whip....
+
+But of this Duncan was barely conscious.
+
+He gained the gate in the fence of wood paling, opened it, and entered.
+The lawn and house were lit with the unearthly radiance of moonlight
+threatened by eclipse. He could see the light in Graham's study and,
+through the open doors, the faint glow of the hall-lamp. But there was
+no one visible.
+
+He hurried up the path, tortured by impatience, fear, longing,
+despair....
+
+Then he saw what seemed at first a pale shadow detach itself from
+darker shades in the shrubbery and move toward him.
+
+"Nat, is it you?"
+
+"Betty!"
+
+His whole heart was in that cry; the girl thrilled to its timbre as
+though a master hand had struck a chord upon her heart-strings.
+
+"Nat, what--what is it?"
+
+"Betty, I want to tell you something."
+
+She came very slowly toward him, torn alternately by fear and hope.
+What did he mean?
+
+"Do you happen to remember that I told you a while ago I was engaged to
+Josie Lockwood?"
+
+[Illustration: "Forever and ever and a day"]
+
+"Nat! Could I forget? ... Why?"
+
+"Because ... it's broken off, Betty."
+
+"Broken off! ... How? Why?"
+
+"Because it had to be, sweetheart: because I love you."
+
+She was very close to him then. Her uplifted face shone like marble in
+the fading light. "Nat, I ... I don't understand."
+
+"Then, listen--I must tell you. It was all a plan, a scheme, my coming
+here, Betty. Everything I did, said, thought, was part of a
+contemptible trick.... I meant to marry Josie Lockwood, whom I'd never
+seen, for her money. ... Now you know what I was, dear.... But it's
+different, now. I'm not the same man who came to Radville ten months
+ago. I've learned a little to understand the right, I hope: I've
+learned to love and reverence goodness and purity and unselfishness and
+... And I want to be a man, the kind of a man you thought me: a man
+worthy of you and your love, Betty.... Because I love you. I want you
+to be my wife. ... And, O Betty, Betty, I need you to help me!"
+
+His voice broke. He waited, every nerve and fibre of him tense for her
+answer. While he had been speaking, the onrush of the storm had blotted
+out the moon. There was only darkness there in the garden--deep, dense
+darkness, so thick he could not even see the shimmer of her dress....
+
+Then suddenly she was in his arms, shaking and sobbing, straining him
+to her.
+
+"Oh, Nat, my Nat! I've loved you from the first day I ever saw you! You
+know I have."
+ "Betty! ... sweetheart..."
+
+There came an abrupt, furious patter of heavy drops of water, beating
+upon the foliage, splashing and rebounding from the house.
+
+"Forever and ever, Nat?"
+
+"Forever and ever and a day, my dear ... my dear!"
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Fortune Hunter, by Louis Joseph Vance
+
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+Title: The Fortune Hunter
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+Author: Louis Joseph Vance
+
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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FORTUNE HUNTER ***
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+Produced by Suzanne Shell, Anuradha Valsa Raj, Tonya Allen
+and PG Distributed Proofreaders
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+</pre>
+
+
+
+<p class="ctr">
+<a href="frontis.jpg"><img src="frontis_th.jpg" width="150"
+alt="'You Can Be Worth a Million ... Within a Year'"></a>
+</p>
+
+<h1>THE FORTUNE HUNTER</h1>
+
+<h2>By Louis Joseph Vance</h2>
+
+<h3>Author Of "The Brass Bowl,"
+"The Bronze Bell," Etc.
+</h3>
+
+<h3>
+<i>With illustrations by</i>
+Arthur William Brown
+</h3>
+
+<h3>
+1910
+</h3>
+
+<h3>
+To
+George Spellvin, Esq.,
+</h3>
+<h3>
+<i>This book is cheerfully dedicated</i>
+</h3>
+
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+
+<h2>
+	CONTENTS
+</h2>
+
+<p class="ctr">
+<a href="#i">I.       FROM HIM THAT HATH NOT
+</a></p>
+<p class="ctr">
+<a href="#ii">II.      TO HIM THAT HATH
+</a></p>
+<p class="ctr">
+<a href="#iii">III.     INSPIRATION
+</a></p>
+<p class="ctr">
+<a href="#iv">IV.      TRIUMPH OF MR. HOMER LITTLE JOHN
+</a></p>
+<p class="ctr">
+<a href="#v">
+V.       MARGARET'S DAUGHTER
+</a></p>
+<p class="ctr">
+<a href="#vi">
+VI.      INTRODUCTION TO MISS CARPENTER
+</a></p>
+<p class="ctr">
+<a href="#vii">
+VII.     A WINDOW IN RADVILLE
+</a></p>
+<p class="ctr">
+<a href="#viii">
+VIII.    THE MAN OF BUSINESS IN EMBRYO
+</a></p>
+<p class="ctr">
+<a href="#ix">
+IX.      SMALL BEGINNINGS
+</a></p>
+<p class="ctr">
+<a href="#x">
+X.       ROLAND BARNETTE'S FRIEND
+</a></p>
+<p class="ctr">
+<a href="#xi">
+XI.      BLINKY LOCKWOOD
+</a></p>
+<p class="ctr">
+<a href="#xii">
+XII.     DUNCAN'S GRUBSTAKE
+</a></p>
+<p class="ctr">
+<a href="#xiii">
+XIII.    THE BUSINESS MAN AND MR. BURNHAM</a></p>
+<p class="ctr">
+<a href="#xiv">
+ XIV.     MOSTLY ABOUT BETTY
+</a></p>
+<p class="ctr">
+<a href="#xv">
+XV.      MANOEUVRES OF JOSIE
+</a></p>
+<p class="ctr">
+<a href="#xvi">
+XVI.     WHERE RADVILLE FEARED TO TREAD
+</a></p>
+<p class="ctr">
+<a href="#xvii">
+XVII.    TRACEY'S TROUBLES
+</a></p>
+<p class="ctr">
+<a href="#xviii">
+XVIII.   A BARGAIN IS A BARGAIN
+</a></p>
+<p class="ctr">
+<a href="#xix">
+XIX.     PROVING THE PERSIPICUITY OF MR. KELLOGG
+</a></p>
+<p class="ctr">
+<a href="#xx">
+XX.      ROLAND SHOWS HIS HAND
+</a></p>
+<p class="ctr">
+<a href="#xxi">
+XXI.     AS OTHERS SAW HIM
+</a></p>
+<p class="ctr">
+<a href="#xxii">
+XXII.    ROLAND'S TRIUMPH
+</a></p>
+<p class="ctr">
+<a href="#xxiii">
+XXIII.   THE RAINBOW'S END
+</a></p>
+
+<br>
+<br>
+
+<h3>ILLUSTRATIONS</h3>
+
+
+<p class="ctr"><a href="frontis.jpg">
+'You can be worth a million ... within a year'
+</a></p>
+<p class="ctr"><a href="illp154.jpg">
+'You mean you're going to work here?'
+</a></p>
+<p class="ctr"><a href="illp198.jpg">
+'Four hundred dollars, mr. sheriff'
+</a></p>
+<p class="ctr"><a href="illp308.jpg">
+'Betty!'
+</a></p>
+<p class="ctr"><a href="illp330.jpg">
+'You're a thief with a reward out for you!'
+</a></p>
+<p class="ctr"><a href="illp336.jpg">
+'Forever and ever and a day'
+</a></p>
+
+
+
+
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+
+
+
+<h3><a name="i">
+	I
+</a></h3>
+<p class="ctr">
+FROM HIM THAT HATH NOT
+</p>
+<p>
+Receiver at ear, Spaulding, of Messrs. Atwater &amp; Spaulding, importers
+of motoring garments and accessories, listened to the switchboard
+operator's announcement with grave attention, acknowledging it with a
+toneless: "All right. Send him in." Then hooking up the desk telephone
+he swung round in his chair to face the door of his private office, and
+in a brief ensuing interval painstakingly ironed out of his face and
+attitude every indication of the frame of mind in which he awaited his
+caller. It was, as a matter of fact, anything but a pleasant one: he
+had a distasteful duty to perform; but that was the last thing he
+designed to become evident. Like most good business men he nursed a pet
+superstition or two, and of the number of these the first was that he
+must in all his dealings present an inscrutable front, like a
+poker-player's: captains of industry were uniformly like that,
+Spaulding understood; if they entertained emotions it was strictly in
+private. Accordingly he armoured himself with a magnificent
+imperturbability which at times almost deceived its wearer.
+</p>
+<p>
+Occasionally it deceived others: notably now it bewildered Duncan as he
+entered on the echo of Spaulding's "Come!" He had apprehended the
+visage of a thunderstorm, with a rattle of brusque complaints: he
+encountered Spaulding as he had always seemed: a little, urbane figure
+with a blank face, the blanker for glasses whose lenses seemed always
+to catch the light and, glaring, mask the eyes behind them; a
+prosperous man of affairs, well groomed both as to body and as to mind;
+a machine for the transaction of business, with all a machine's
+vivacity and temperamental responsiveness. It was just that quality in
+him that Duncan envied, who was vaguely impressed that, if he himself
+could only imitate, however minutely, the phlegm of a machine, he might
+learn to ape something of its efficiency and so, ultimately, prove
+himself of some worth to the world&mdash;and, incidentally, to Nathaniel
+Duncan. Thus far his spasmodic attempts to adapt to the requirements
+and limitations of the world of business his own equipment of misfit
+inclinations and ill-assorted abilities, had unanimously turned out
+signal failures. So he envied Spaulding without particularly admiring
+him.
+</p>
+<p>
+Now the sight of his employer, professionally bland and capable, and
+with no animus to be discerned in his attitude, provided Duncan with
+one brief, evanescent flash of hope, one last expiring instant of
+dignity (tempered by his unquenchable humour) in which to face his
+fate. Something of the hang-dog vanished from his habit and for a
+little time he carried himself again with all his one-time grace and
+confidence.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Good-afternoon, Mr. Spaulding," he said, replying to a nod as he
+dropped into the chair that nod had indicated. A faint smile lightened
+his expression and made it quite engaging.
+</p>
+<p>
+"G'dafternoon." Spaulding surveyed him swiftly, then laced his fat
+little fingers and contemplated them with detached intentness. "Just
+get in, Duncan?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"On the three-thirty from Chicago...."
+</p>
+<p>
+There was a pause, during which Spaulding reviewed his fingernails with
+impartial interest; in that pause Duncan's poor little hope died a
+natural death. "I got your wire," he resumed; "I mean, it got
+me&mdash;overtook me at Minneapolis.... So here I am."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You haven't wasted time."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I fancied the matter might be urgent, sir."
+</p>
+<p>
+Spaulding lifted his brows ever so slightly. "Why?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, I gathered from the fact that you wired
+me to come home that you wanted my advice."
+</p>
+<p>
+A second time Spaulding gestured with his eyebrows, for once fairly
+surprised out of his pose. "<i>Your</i> advice!..."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes," said Duncan evenly: "as to whether you ought to give up your
+customers on my route or send them a man who could sell goods."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well...." Spaulding admitted.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, don't think I'm boasting of my acuteness: anybody could have
+guessed as much from the great number of heavy orders I have not been
+sending you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You've had bad luck...."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You mean you have, Mr. Spaulding. It was good luck for me to be
+drawing down my weekly cheques, bad luck to you not to have a man who
+could earn them."
+</p>
+<p>
+His desperate honesty touched Spaulding a trifle; at the risk of not
+seeming a business man to himself he inclined dubiously to relent, to
+give Duncan another chance. The fellow was likeable enough, his
+employer considered; he had good humour and even in dejection,
+distinction; whatever he was not, he was a man of birth and breeding.
+His face might be rusty with a day-old stubble, as it was; his
+shirt-cuffs frayed, his shoes down at the heel, his baggy clothing
+weirdly ready-made, as they were: there remained his air. You'd think
+he might amount to something, to somewhat more than a mere something,
+given half a chance in the right direction. Then what?... Spaulding
+sought from Duncan elucidation of this riddle.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Duncan," he said, "what's the trouble?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I thought you knew that; I thought that was
+why you called me in with my route half-covered."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You mean&mdash;?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I mean I can't sell your line."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"God only knows. I want to, badly enough. It's just general
+incompetence, I presume."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What makes you think that?"
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan smiled bitterly. "Experience," he said.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You've tried&mdash;what else?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"A little of everything&mdash;all the jobs open to a man with a knowledge of
+Latin and Greek and the higher mathematics: shipping clerk,
+time-keeper, cashier&mdash;all of 'em."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And yet Kellogg believes in you."
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan nodded dolefully. "Harry's a good friend. We roomed together at
+college. That's why he stands for me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He says you only need the right opening&mdash;."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And nobody knows where that is, except my unfortunate employers: it's
+the back door going out, for mine every time.... Oh, Harry's been a
+prince to me. He's found me four or five jobs with friends of his&mdash;like
+yourself. But I don't seem to last. You see I was brought up to be
+ornamental and irregular rather than useful; to blow about in motor
+cars and keep a valet busy sixteen hours a day&mdash;and all that sort of
+thing. My father's failure&mdash;you know about that?"
+</p>
+<p>
+Spaulding nodded. Duncan went on gloomily, talking a great deal more
+freely than he would at any other time&mdash;suffering, in fact, from that
+species of auto hypnosis induced by the sound of his own voice
+recounting his misfortunes, which seems especially to affect a man down
+on his luck.
+</p>
+<p>
+"That smash came when I was five years out of college&mdash;I'd never
+thought of turning my hand to anything in all that time. I'd always had
+more coin than I could spend&mdash;never had to consider the worth of money
+or how hard it is to earn: my father saw to all that. He seemed not to
+want me to work: not that I hold that against him; he'd an idea I'd
+turn out a genius of some sort or other, I believe.... Well, he failed
+and died all in a week, and I found myself left with an extensive
+wardrobe, expensive tastes, an impractical education&mdash;and not so much
+of that that you'd notice it&mdash;and not a cent.... I was too proud to
+look to my friends for help in those days&mdash;and perhaps that was as
+well; I sought jobs on my own.... Did you ever keep books in a
+fish-market?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"No." Spaulding's eyes twinkled behind his large, shiny glasses.
+</p>
+<p>
+"But what's the use of my boring you?" Duncan made as if to rise,
+suddenly remembering himself.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You're not. Go on."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I didn't mean to; mostly, I presume, I've been blundering round an
+explanation of Kellogg's kindness to me, in my usual ineffectual
+way&mdash;felt somehow an explanation was due you, as the latest to suffer
+through his misplaced interest in me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Perhaps," said Spaulding, "I am beginning to understand. Go on: I'm
+interested. About the fish-market?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, I just happened to think of it as a sample experience&mdash;and the
+last of that particular brand. I got nine dollars a week and earned
+every cent of it inhaling the atmosphere. My board cost me six and the
+other three afforded me a chance to demonstrate myself a captain of
+finance&mdash;paying laundry bills and clothing myself, besides buying
+lunches and such-like small matters. I did the whole thing, you
+know&mdash;one schooner of beer a day and made my own cigarettes: never
+could make up my mind which was the worst. The hours were easy, too:
+didn't have to get to work until five in the morning.... I lasted five
+weeks at that job, before I was taken sick: shows what a great
+constitution I've got."
+</p>
+<p>
+He laughed uncertainly and paused, thoughtful, his eyes vacant, fixed
+upon the retrospect that was a grim prospect of the imminent future.
+</p>
+<p>
+"And then&mdash;?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh&mdash;?" Duncan roused. "Why, then I fell in with Kellogg again; he
+found me trying the open-air cure on a bench in Washington Square.
+Since then he's been finding me one berth after another. He's a
+sure-enough optimist."
+</p>
+<p>
+Spaulding shifted uneasily in his chair, stirred by an impulse whose
+unwisdom he could not doubt. Duncan had assuredly done his case no good
+by painting his shortcomings in colours so vivid; yet, somehow
+strangely, Spaulding liked him the better for his open-hearted
+confession.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well...." Spaulding stumbled awkwardly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes; of course," said Duncan promptly, rising. "Sorry if I tired you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What do you mean by: 'Yes, of course'?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"That you called me in to fire me&mdash;and so that's over with. Only I'd be
+sorry to have you sore on Kellogg for saddling me on you. You see, he
+believed I'd make good, and so did I in a way: at least, I hoped to."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, that's all right," said Spaulding uncomfortably. "The trouble is,
+you see, we've nothing else open just now. But if you'd really like
+another chance on the road, I&mdash;I'll be glad to speak to Mr. Atwater
+about it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Don't you do it!" Duncan counselled him sharply, aghast. "He might say
+yes. And I simply couldn't accept; it wouldn't be fair to you, Kellogg,
+or myself. It'd be charity&mdash;for I've proved I can't earn my wages; and
+I haven't come to that yet. No!" he concluded with determination, and
+picked up his hat.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Just a minute." Spaulding held him with a gesture. "You're forgetting
+something: at least I am. There's a month's pay coming to you; the
+cashier will hand you the cheque as you go out."
+</p>
+<p>
+"A month's pay?" Duncan said blankly. "How's that? I've drawn up to the
+end of this week already, if you didn't know it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Of course I knew it. But we never let our men go without a month's
+notice or its equivalent, and&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"No," Duncan interrupted firmly. "No; but thank you just the same. I
+couldn't. I really couldn't. It's good of you, but ... Now," he broke
+off abruptly, "I've left my accounts&mdash;what there is of them&mdash;with the
+book-keeping department, and the checks for my sample trunks. There'll
+be a few dollars coming to me on my expense account, and I'll send you
+my address as soon as I get one."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But look here&mdash;" Spaulding got to his feet, frowning.
+</p>
+<p>
+"No," reiterated Duncan positively. "There's no use. I'm grateful to
+you for your toleration of me&mdash;and all that. But we can't do anything
+better now than call it all off. Good-bye, Mr. Spaulding."
+</p>
+<p>
+Spaulding nodded, accepting defeat with the better grace because of an
+innate conviction that it was just as well, after all. And,
+furthermore, he admired Duncan's stand. So he offered his hand: an
+unusual condescension. "You'll make good somewhere yet," he asserted.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I wish I could believe it." Duncan's grasp was firm since he felt more
+assured of some humanity latent in his late employer. "However ...
+Good-bye."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Good luck to you," rang in his ears as the door put a period to the
+interview. He stopped and took up the battered suitcase and rusty
+overcoat which he had left outside the junior partner's office, then
+went on, shaking his head. "Much obliged," he said huskily to himself.
+"But what's the good of that. There's no room anywhere for a
+professional failure. And that's what I am; just a ne'er-do-well. I
+never realised what that meant, really, before, and it's certainly
+taken me a damn' long time to find out. But I know now, all right...."
+</p>
+<p>
+Outside, on the steps of the building, he paused a moment, fascinated
+by the brisk spectacle afforded by lower Broadway at the hour when the
+cave-like offices in its cliff-like walls begin to empty themselves,
+when the overlords and their lieutenants close their desks and turn
+their faces homewards, leaving the details of the day's routine to be
+wound up by underlings. In the clear light of the late spring afternoon
+a stream of humanity was high and fluent upon the sidewalks. Duncan had
+glimpses of keen-faced men, bright-faced women, eager boys, quickened
+all by that manner of efficiency and intelligence which seems so
+integrally American. A well-dressed throng, well-fed, amiable and
+animated, looking ever forward, the resistless tide of affairs that
+gave it being bore it onward; it passed the onlooker as a strong
+current passes flotsam in a back-eddy, with no pause, no turning aside.
+Acutely he felt his aloofness from it, who had no part in its interests
+and scarcely any comprehension of them. The sunken look, the leanness
+of his young face, seemed suddenly accentuated; the gloom in his
+discontented eyes deepened; his slight habitual stoop became more
+noticeable. And a second time he nodded acquiescence to his unspoken
+thought.
+</p>
+<p>
+"There," said he, singling out a passer-by upon whose complacent
+features prosperity had set its smug hall-mark&mdash;"there, but for the
+grace of God, goes Nat Duncan!" He rolled the paraphrase upon his
+tongue and found it bitter&mdash;not, however, with a tonic bitterness.
+"Lord, what a worthless critter I am! No good to myself&mdash;nor to anybody
+else. Even on Harry I'm a drag&mdash;a regular old man of the mountains!"
+</p>
+<p>
+Despondently he went down to the sidewalk and merged himself with the
+crowd, moving with it though a thousand miles apart from it, and
+presently diverging, struck across-town toward the Worth Street subway
+station.
+</p>
+<p>
+"And the worst of it is, he's too sharp not to find it out&mdash;if he
+hasn't by this time&mdash;and too damn' decent by far to let me know if he
+has! ... It can't go on this way with us: I can't let him ... Got to
+break with him somehow&mdash;now&mdash;to-day. I won't let him think me ... what
+I've been all along to him.... Bless his foolish heart!..."
+</p>
+<p>
+This resolution coloured his reverie throughout the uptown journey. And
+he strengthened himself with it, deriving a sort of acrid comfort from
+the knowledge that henceforth none should know the burden of his
+misfortunes save himself. There was no deprecation of Kellogg's
+goodness in his mood, simply determination no longer to be a charge
+upon it. To contemplate the sum total of the benefits he had received
+at Kellogg's hands, since the day when the latter had found him ill and
+half-starved, friendless as a stray pup, on the bench in Washington
+Square, staggered his imagination. He could never repay it, he told
+himself, save inadequately, little by little&mdash;mostly by gratitude and
+such consideration as he purposed now to exhibit by removing himself
+and his distresses from the other's ken. Here was an end to comfort for
+him, an end to living in Kellogg's rooms, eating his food, busying his
+servants, spending his money&mdash;not so much borrowed as pressed upon him.
+He stood at the cross-roads, but in no doubt as to which way he should
+most honourably take, though it took him straight back to that from
+which Kellogg had rescued him.
+</p>
+<p>
+There crawled in his mind a clammy memory of the sort of housing he had
+known in those evil days, and he shuddered inwardly, smelling again the
+effluvia of dank oilcloth and musty carpets, of fish-balls and fried
+ham, of old-style plumbing and of nine-dollar-a-week humanity in the
+unwashen raw&mdash;the odour of misery that permeated the lodgings to which
+his lack of means had introduced him. He could see again, and with a
+painful vividness of mental vision, the degenerate "brownstone fronts"
+that mask those haunts of wretchedness, with their flights of crumbling
+brownstone steps leading up to oaken portals haggard with flaking
+paint, flanked by squares of soiled note-paper upon which inexpert
+hands had traced the warning, not: "Abandon hope all ye who enter
+here," but: "Furnished rooms to let with board." And pursuing this grim
+trail of memory, whether he would or no&mdash;again he climbed, wearily at
+the end of a wearing day, a darksome well of a staircase up and up to
+an eyrie under the eaves, denominated in the terminology of landladies
+a "top hall back"&mdash;a cramped refuge haunted by pitiful ghosts of the
+hopes and despairs of its former tenants. And he remembered with
+reminiscently aching muscles the comfort of such a "single bed" as is
+peculiar (one hopes) to top hall backs, and with a qualm what it was to
+cook a surreptitious meal on a metal heater clamped to the gas-bracket
+(with ears keen to catch the scuffle of the landlady's feet as she
+skulked in the hall, jealous of her gas bill).
+</p>
+<p>
+And to this he must return, to that treadmill round of blighted days
+and joyless nights must set his face....
+</p>
+<p>
+Alighting at the Grand Central Station he packed the double weight of
+his luggage and his cares a few blocks northward on Madison Avenue ere
+turning west toward the bachelor rooms which Kellogg had established in
+the roaring Forties, just the other side of <i>the</i> Avenue&mdash;Fifth
+Avenue, on a corner of which Duncan presently was held up for a time by
+a press of traffic. He lingered indifferently, waiting for the mounted
+policeman to clear a way across, watching the while with lack-lustre
+eyes the interminable procession of cabs and landaus, taxis and
+town-cars that romped by hazardously, crowding the street from curb to
+curb.
+</p>
+<p>
+The day was of young June, though grey and a little chill with the
+discouraged spirit of a retarded season. Though the hegira of the
+well-to-do to their summer homes had long since set in, still there
+remained in the city sufficient of their class to keep the Avenue
+populous from Twenty-third Street north to the Plaza in the evening
+hours. The suggestion of wealth, or luxury, of money's illimitable
+power, pervaded the atmosphere intensely, an ineluctable influence, to
+an independent man heady, to Duncan maddening. He surveyed the parade
+with mutiny in his heart. All this he had known, a part of it had
+been&mdash;upon a time. Now ... the shafts of his roving eyes here and there
+detected faces recognisable, of men and women whose acquaintance he had
+once owned. None recognised him who stood there worn, shabby and tired.
+He even caught the direct glance of a girl who once had thought him
+worth winning, who had set herself to stir his heart and&mdash;had been
+successful. To-day she looked him straight in the eyes, apparently,
+with undisturbed serenity, then as calmly looked over and through and
+beyond him. Her limousine hurried her on, enthroned impregnably above
+the envious herd.
+</p>
+<p>
+He sped her transit with a mirthless chuckle. "You're right," he said,
+"dead right. You simply don't know me any more, my dear&mdash;you musn't;
+you can't afford to any more than I could afford to know you."
+</p>
+<p>
+None the less the fugitive incident seemed to brim his disconsolate
+cup. In complete dejection of mind and spirit he pushed on to Kellogg's
+quarters, buoyed by a single hope&mdash;that Kellogg might be out of town or
+delayed at his office.
+</p>
+<p>
+In that event Duncan might have a chance to gather up his belongings
+and escape unhandicapped by the immediate necessity of justifying his
+course. At another time, surely, the explanation was inevitable; say
+to-morrow; he was not cur enough to leave his friend without a word.
+But to-night he would willingly be spared. He apprehended unhappily the
+interview with Kellogg; he was in no temper for argumentation, felt
+scarcely strong enough to hold his own against the fire of objections
+with which Kellogg would undoubtedly seek to shake his stand. Kellogg
+could talk, Heaven alone knew how winningly he could talk! with all the
+sound logic of a close reasoner, all the enthusiasm of youth and
+self-confidence, all the persuasiveness of profound conviction singular
+to successful men. Duncan had been wont to say of him that Kellogg
+could talk the hind-leg off of a mule. He recalled this now with a sour
+grin: "That means me..."
+</p>
+<p>
+The elevator boy, knowing him of old, neglected to announce his
+arrival, and Duncan had his own key to the door of Kellogg's apartment.
+He let himself in with futile stealth: as was quite right and proper,
+Kellogg's man Robbins was in attendance&mdash;a stupefied Robbins,
+thunderstruck by the unexpected return of his master's friend and
+guest. "Good Lord!" he cried at sight of Duncan. "Beg your pardon, sir,
+but&mdash;but it can't be you!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Your mistake, Robbins. Unfortunately it is." Duncan surrendered his
+luggage. "Mr. Kellogg in?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, sir. But I'm expecting him any minute. He'll be surprised to see
+you back."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Think so?" said Duncan dully. "He doesn't know me, if he is."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You see, sir, we thought you was out West."
+</p>
+<p>
+"So you did." Duncan moved toward the door of his own bedroom, Robbins
+following.
+</p>
+<p>
+"It was only yesterday I posted a letter to you for Mr. Kellogg, sir,
+and the address was Omaha."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I didn't get that far. Fetch along that suitcase, will you please? I
+want to put some clean things in it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then you're not staying in town over night, Mr. Duncan?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't know. I'm not staying here, anyway." Duncan switched on the
+lights in his room. "Put it on the bed, Robbins. I'll pack as quickly
+as I can. I'm in a hurry."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, sir, but&mdash;I hope there's nothing wrong?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then you lose," returned Duncan grimly: "everything's wrong." He
+jerked viciously at an obstinate bureau drawer, and when it yielded
+unexpectedly with the well-known impishness of the inanimate, dumped
+upon the floor a tangled miscellany of shirts, socks, gloves, collars
+and ties.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Didn't you like the business, sir?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, I didn't like the business&mdash;and it didn't like me. It's the same
+old story, Robbins. I've lost my job again&mdash;that's all."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm very sorry, sir."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Thank you&mdash;but that's all right. I'm used to it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And you're going to leave, sir?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I am, Robbins."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I&mdash;may I take the liberty of hoping it's to take another position?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"You may, but you lose a second time. I've just made up my mind I'm not
+going to hang round here any longer. That's all."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But," Robbins ventured, hovering about with exasperating
+solicitude&mdash;"but Mr. Kellogg'd never permit you to leave in this way,
+sir."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Wrong again, Robbins," said Duncan curtly, annoyed.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, sir. Very good, sir." With the instinct of the well-trained
+servant, Robbins started to leave, but hesitated. He was really very
+much disturbed by Duncan's manner, which showed a phase of his
+character new in Robbins' experience of him. Ordinarily reverses such
+as this had seemed merely to serve to put Duncan on his mettle, to
+infuse him with a determination to try again and win out, whatever the
+odds; and at such times he was accustomed to exhibit a mad
+irresponsibility of wit and a gaiety of spirit (whether it were a mask
+or no) that only outrivalled his high good humour when things
+ostensibly were going well with him.
+</p>
+<p>
+Intermittently, between his spasms of employment, he had been Kellogg's
+guest for several years, not infrequently for months at a time; and so
+Robbins had come to feel a sort of proprietary interest in the young
+man, second only to the regard which he had for his employer. Like most
+people with whom Duncan came in contact, Robbins admired him from a
+respectful distance, and liked him very well withal. He would have been
+much distressed to have harm happen to him, and he was very much
+concerned and alarmed to see him so candidly discouraged and sick at
+heart. Perhaps too quick to draw an inference, Robbins mistrusted his
+intentions; his dour habit boded ill in the servant's understanding:
+men in such moods were apt to act unwisely. But if only he might
+contrive to delay Duncan until Kellogg's return, he thought the former
+might yet be saved from the consequences of folly of some insensate
+sort. And casting about for an excuse, he grasped at the most sovereign
+solace he knew of.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Beg pardon, sir," he advanced, hesitant, "but perhaps you're just
+feeling a bit blue. Won't you let me bring you a drop of something?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Of course I will," said Duncan emphatically over his shoulder. "And
+get it now, will you, while I'm packing.... And, Robbins!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Sir?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Only put a little in it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"A little what, sir?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Seltzer, of course."
+</p>
+<br><br><br>
+<h3><a name="ii">
+	II
+</a></h3>
+<p class="ctr">
+TO HIM THAT HATH
+</p>
+<p>
+It had been a forlorn hope at best, this attempt of his to escape
+Kellogg: Duncan acknowledged it when, his packing rudely finished, he
+started for the door, Robbins reluctantly surrendering the suit-case
+after exhausting his repertoire of devices to delay the young man. But
+at that instant the elevator gate clashed in the outer corridor and
+Kellogg's key rattled in the lock, to an accompanying confusion of
+voices, all masculine and all very cheerful.
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan sighed and motioned Robbins away with his luggage. "No hope
+now," he told himself. "But&mdash;O Lord!"
+</p>
+<p>
+Incontinently there burst into the room four men: Jim Long, Larry
+Miller, another whom Duncan did not immediately recognise, and Kellogg
+himself, bringing with them an atmosphere breezy with jubilation.
+Before he knew it Duncan was boisterously overwhelmed. He got his
+breath to find Kellogg pumping his hand.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Nat," he was saying, "you're the only other man on earth I was wishing
+could be with me tonight! Now my happiness is complete. Gad, this is
+lucky!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"You think so?" countered Duncan, forcing a smile. "Hello, you boys!"
+He gave a hand to Long and Miller. "How're you all?" He warmed to their
+friendly faces and unfeigned welcome. "My, but it's good to see you!"
+There was relief in the fact that Kellogg, after a single glance,
+forbore to question his return; he was to be counted upon for tact, was
+Kellogg. Now he strangled surprise by turning to the fourth member of
+the party.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Nat," he said, "I want you to meet Mr. Bartlett. Mr. Bartlett, Mr.
+Duncan."
+</p>
+<p>
+A wholesome smile dawned on Duncan's face as he encountered the blank
+blue stare of a young man whose very smooth and very bright red face
+was admirably set off by semi-evening dress. "Great Scott!" he cried,
+warmly pressing the lackadaisical hand that drifted into his. "Willy
+Bartlett&mdash;after all these years!"
+</p>
+<p>
+A sudden animation replaced the vacuous stare of the blue eyes.
+"Duncan!" he stammered. "I say, this is rippin'!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"As bad as that?" Duncan essayed an accent almost English and nodded
+his appreciation of it: something which Bartlett missed completely.
+</p>
+<p>
+He was very young&mdash;a very great deal younger, Duncan thought, than when
+they had been classmates, what time Duncan shared his rooms with
+Kellogg: very much younger and suffering exquisitely from
+over-sophistication. His drawl barely escaped being inimitable; his air
+did not escape it. "Smitten with my old trouble," Duncan appraised him:
+"too much money... Heaven knows I hope he never recovers!"
+</p>
+<p>
+As for Willy, he was momentarily more nearly human than he had seemed
+from the moment of his first appearance. "You know," he blurted, "this
+is simply extraordinary. I say, you chaps, Duncan and I haven't met for
+years&mdash;not since he graduated. We belonged to the same frat, y'know,
+and had a jolly time of it, if he was an upper-class man. No side about
+him at all, y'know&mdash;absolutely none whatever. Whenever I had to go out
+on a spree, I'd always get Nat to show me round."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I was pretty good at that," Duncan admitted a trifle ruefully.
+</p>
+<p>
+But Willy rattled on, heedless. "He knew more pretty gels, y'know... I
+say, old chap, d'you know as many now?"
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan shook his head. "The list has shrunk. I'm a changed man, Willy."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Ow, I say, you're chawfin'," Willy argued incredulously. "I don't
+believe that, y'know&mdash;hardly. I say, you remember the night you showed
+me how to play faro bank?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'll never forget it," Duncan told him gravely. "And I remember what a
+plug we thought my room-mate was because he wouldn't come with us." He
+nodded significantly toward the amused Kellogg.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not him!" cried Willy, expostulant. "Not really? Why it cawn't be!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Fact," Duncan assured him. "He was working his way through college,
+you see, whereas I was working my way through my allowance&mdash;and then
+some. That's why you never met him, Willy: he worked&mdash;and got the
+habit. We loafed&mdash;with the same result. That's why he's useful and
+you're ornamental, and I'm&mdash;" He broke off in surprise. "Hello!" he
+said as Robbins offered a tray to the three on which were slim-stemmed
+glasses filled with a pale yellow, effervescent liquid. "Why the blond
+waters of excitement, please?" he inquired, accepting a glass.
+</p>
+<p>
+From across the room Larry Miller's voice sounded. "Are you ready,
+gentlemen? We'll drink to him first and then he can drink to his royal
+little self. To the boy who's getting on in the world! To the junior
+member of L.J. Bartlett and Company!"
+</p>
+<p>
+Long applauded loudly: "Hear! Hear!" And even Willy Bartlett chimed in
+with an unemotional: "Good work!" Mechanically Duncan downed the toast;
+Kellogg was the only man not drinking it, and from that the meaning was
+easily to be inferred. With a stride Duncan caught his hand and crushed
+it in his own.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Harry," he said a little huskily, "I can't tell you how glad I am!
+It's the best news I've had in years!"
+</p>
+<p>
+Kellogg's responsive pressure was answer enough. "It makes it doubly
+worth while, to win out and have you all so glad!" he said.
+</p>
+<p>
+"So you've taken him into the firm, eh?" Duncan inquired of Bartlett.
+</p>
+<p>
+The blue eyes widened stonily. "The governor has. I'm not in the
+business, y'know. Never had the slightest turn for it, what?" Willy set
+aside his glass. "I say, I must be moving. No, I cawn't stop, Kellogg,
+really. I was dressin' at the club and Larry told me about it, so I
+just dropped round to tell you how jolly glad I am."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Your father hadn't told you, then?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Who, the governor?" Willy looked unutterably bored. "Why, he gave up
+tryin' to talk business with me long ago. I can't get interested in it,
+'pon my word. Of course I knew he thought the deuce and all of you, but
+I hadn't an idea they were goin' to take you into the firm. What?"
+</p>
+<p>
+Long and Miller interrupted, proposing adieus which Kellogg vainly
+contended.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why, you're only just here&mdash;" he expostulated.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Cawn't help it, old chap," Willy assured him earnestly. "I must go,
+anyway. I've a dinner engagement."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You'll be late, won't you?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Doesn't matter in the least; I'm always late. 'Night, Kellogg.
+Congratulations again."
+</p>
+<p>
+"We just dropped round to take off our hats to you," Long continued,
+pumping Kellogg's hand.
+</p>
+<p>
+"And tell you what a good fellow we think you are," added Miller,
+following suit.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You don't know how good you make me feel," Kellogg told them.
+</p>
+<p>
+Under cover of this diversion Duncan was making one last effort to slip
+away; but before he could gather together his impedimenta and get to
+the door Willy Bartlett intercepted him.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I say, Duncan&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, hell!" said Duncan beneath his breath. He paused ungraciously
+enough.
+</p>
+<p>
+"We've got to see a bit of one another, now we've met again, y'know.
+Wish you'd look me up&mdash;Half Moon Club'll get me 'most any time. We'll
+have to arrange to make a regular old-fashioned night of it, just for
+memory's sake."
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan nodded, edging past him. "I've memories enough," he said.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Right-oh! Any reason at all, y'know, just so we have the night."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Good enough," assented Duncan vaguely. He suffered his hand to be
+wrung with warmth. "I'll not forget&mdash;good-night." Then he pulled up and
+groaned, for Willy's insistence had frustrated his design: Kellogg had
+suddenly become alive to his attitude and hailed him over the heads of
+Long and Miller.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Nat, I say! Where the devil are you going?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Over to the hotel," said Duncan.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The deuce you are! What hotel?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"The one I'm stopping at."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not on your life. You're not going just yet&mdash;I haven't had half a
+chance to talk to you. Robbins, take Mr. Duncan's things."
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan, set upon by Robbins, who had been hovering round for just that
+purpose, lifted his shoulders in resignation, turning back into the
+room as Miller and Long said good-night to him and left at Bartlett's
+heels, and smiled awry in semi-humorous deprecation of the way in which
+he let Kellogg out-manoeuvre him. When it came to that, it was hard to
+refuse Kellogg anything; he had that way with him. Especially if one
+liked him... And how could anyone help liking him?
+</p>
+<p>
+Kellogg had him now, holding him fast by either shoulder, at arm's
+length, and shaking a reproving head at his friend. "You big duffer!"
+he said. "Did you think for a minute I'd let you throw me down like
+that?"
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan stood passive, faintly amused and touched by the other's show of
+affection. "No," he said, "I didn't really think so. But it was worth
+trying on, of course."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Look here, have you dined?"
+</p>
+<p>
+'At this suggestion Duncan stiffened and fell back. "No, but&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+Kellogg swept the ground from under his feet. "Robbins," he told the
+man, "order in dinner for two from the club, and tell 'em to hurry it
+up."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, sir," said Robbins, and flew to obey before Duncan could get a
+chance to countermand his part in the order.
+</p>
+<p>
+"And now," continued Kellogg, "we've got the whole evening before us in
+which to chin. Sit down." He led Duncan to an arm-chair and gently but
+firmly plumped him into its capacious depths. "We'll have a snug little
+dinner here and&mdash;what do you say to taking in a show afterwards?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I say no."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You dassent, my boy. This is the night we celebrate. I'm feeling
+pretty good to-night."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You ought to, Harry." Duncan struggled to rouse himself to share in
+the spirit of gratulation with which Kellogg was bubbling. "I'm mighty
+glad, old man. It's a great step up for you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It's all of that. You could have knocked me over with a feather when
+Bartlett sprang it on me this morning. Of course, I was expecting
+something&mdash;a boost in salary, or something like that. Bartlett knew
+that other houses in the Street had made me offers&mdash;I've been pretty
+lucky of late and pulled off one or two rather big deals&mdash;but a
+partnership with L.J. Bartlett&mdash;! Think of it, Nat!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm thinking of it&mdash;and it's great."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It'll keep me mighty busy," Kellogg blundered blindly on; "it means a
+lot of extra work&mdash;but you know I like to work...."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's right, you do," agreed Duncan drearily. "It's queer to me&mdash;it
+must be a great thing to like to work."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You bet it's a great thing; why, I couldn't exist if I couldn't work.
+You remember that time I laid off for a month in the country&mdash;for my
+health's sake? I'll never forget it: hanging round all the time with my
+hands empty&mdash;everyone else with something to do. I wouldn't go through
+with it again for a fortune. Never felt so useless and in the way&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"But," interrupted Duncan, knitting his brows as he grappled with this
+problem, "you were independent, weren't you? You had money&mdash;could pay
+your board?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Of course; nevertheless, I felt in the way."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's funny...."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It's straight."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I know it is; it wouldn't be you if you didn't love work. It wouldn't
+be me if I did.... Look here, Harry; suppose you didn't have any money
+and couldn't pay your board&mdash;and had nothing to do. How'd you feel in
+that case?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't know. Anyhow, that's rot&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, it isn't rot. I'm trying to make you understand how I feel
+when&mdash;when it's that way with me.... As it generally is." He raised one
+hand and let it fall with a gesture of despondency so eloquent that it
+roused Kellogg out of his own preoccupation.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why, Nat!" he cried, genuinely sympathetic. "I've been so taken up
+with myself that I forgot.... I hadn't looked for you till to-morrow."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You knew, then?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I met Atwater at lunch to-day. He told me; said he was sorry, but&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes. Everybody is always sorry, <i>but</i>&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+Kellogg let his hand fall on Duncan's shoulder. "I'm sorry, too, old
+man. But don't lose heart. I know it's pretty tough on a fellow&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"The toughest part of it is that you got the job for me&mdash;and I
+<i>had</i> to fall down."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Don't think of that. It's not your fault&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"You're the only man who believes that, Harry."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Buck up. I'll stumble across some better opening for you before long,
+and&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Stop right there. I'm through&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Don't talk that way, Nat. I'll get you in right somewhere."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You're the best-hearted man alive, Harry&mdash;but I'll see you damned
+first."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Wait." Kellogg demanded his attention. "Here's this man Burnham&mdash;you
+don't know him, but he's as keen as they make 'em. He's on the track of
+some wonderful scheme for making illuminating gas from crude oil; if it
+goes through&mdash;if the invention's really practicable&mdash;it's bound to work
+a revolution. He's down in Washington now&mdash;left this afternoon to look
+up the patents. Now he needs me, to get the ear of the Standard Oil
+people, and I'll get you in there."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What right've you got to do that?" demanded Duncan. "What the dickens
+do I know about illuminating gas or crude oil? Burnham'd never thank
+you for the likes o' me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But&mdash;thunder!&mdash;you can learn. All you need&mdash;."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Now see here, Harry!" Duncan gave him pause with a manner not to be
+denied. "Once and for all time understand I'm through having you
+recommend an incompetent&mdash;just because we're friends."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But, Harry&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"And I'm through living on you while I'm out of a job. That's final."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But, man&mdash;listen to me!&mdash;when we were at college&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"That was another matter."
+</p>
+<p>
+"How many times did you pay the room-rent when I was strapped? How many
+times did your money pull me through when I'd have had to quit and
+forfeit my degree because I couldn't earn enough to keep on?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's different. You earned enough finally to square up. You don't
+owe me anything."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I owe you the gratitude for the friendly hand that put me in the way
+of earning&mdash;that kept me going when the going was rank. Besides, the
+conditions are just reversed now; you'll do just as I did&mdash;make good in
+the world and, when it's convenient, to me. As for living here, you're
+perfectly welcome."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I know it&mdash;and more," Duncan assented a little wearily. "Don't think I
+don't appreciate all you've done for me. But I know and you must
+understand that I can't keep on living on you,&mdash;and I won't."
+</p>
+<p>
+For once baffled, Kellogg stared at him in consternation. Duncan met
+his gaze steadily, strong in the sincerity of his attitude. At length
+Kellogg surrendered, accepting defeat. "Well...." He shrugged
+uncomfortably. "If you insist ..."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I do."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then that's settled."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, that's settled."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Dinner," said Robbins from the doorway, "is
+served."
+</p>
+<br><br><br>
+<h3><a name="iii">
+	III
+</a></h3>
+<p class="ctr">
+INSPIRATION
+</p>
+<p>
+"Look here, Nat," demanded Kellogg, when they were half way through the
+meal, "do you mind telling me what you're going to do?"
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan pondered this soberly. "No," he replied in the end.
+</p>
+<p>
+Kellogg waited a moment, but his guest did not continue. "What does
+that kind of a 'No' mean, Nat?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"It means I don't mind telling you."
+</p>
+<p>
+Again an appreciable pause elapsed.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, then, what do you mean to do?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm sure I don't know."
+</p>
+<p>
+Kellogg regarded him sombrely for a moment, then in silence returned
+his attention to his plate; and in silence, for the most part, the
+remainder of the dinner was served and eaten. Duncan himself had
+certainly enough to occupy his mind, while Kellogg had altogether
+forgotten his own cause for rejoicing in his concern for the fortunes
+of his friend. He was entirely of the opinion that something would have
+to be done for Nat, with or without his consent; and he sounded the
+profoundest depths of romantic impossibilities in his attempts to
+discover some employment suited to Duncan's interesting but
+impracticable assortment of faculties and qualifications, natural and
+acquired. But nothing presented itself as feasible in view of the fact
+that employment which would prove immediately remunerative was
+required. And by the time that Robbins, clearing the board, left them
+alone with coffee and cigars and cigarettes, Kellogg was fain to
+confess failure&mdash;though the confession was a very private one, confined
+to himself only.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Nat," he said suddenly, rousing that young man out of the dreariest of
+meditations, "what under the sun <i>can</i> you do?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Me? I don't know. Why bother your silly old head about that? I'll make
+out somehow."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But surely there's something you'd rather do than anything else."
+</p>
+<p>
+"My dear sir," Duncan told him impressively, "the only walk of life in
+which I am fitted to shine is that of the idle son of a rich and
+foolish father. Since I lost that job I've not been worth my salt."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's piffle. There isn't a man living who hasn't some talent or
+other, some sort of an ability concealed about his person."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You can search me," Duncan volunteered gloomily.
+</p>
+<p>
+His unresponsiveness irritated Kellogg; he thought a while, then
+delivered himself of a didactic conclusion:
+</p>
+<p>
+"The trouble with you is you were brought up all wrong."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, I've been brought down all right. Besides, that's a platitude in
+my case."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Let's see: I've know you&mdash;er&mdash;nine years."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Is it that long?" Duncan looked up from a gloomy inspection of the
+interior of his demitasse, displaying his first gleam of interest in
+this analysis of his character. "You are a long-suffering old duffer.
+Any man who'd stand for me for nine years&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"That'll be all of that," Kellogg cut in sharply. "I was going on to
+say that you can't room with a man for four terms at college and then
+know him, off and on, for five years more, pretty intimately, without
+forming a pretty clear estimate of what he's worth in your own mind."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And I don't mind telling you, Harry, I think you're the best little
+business man as well as the finest sort of an all-round good-fellow on
+this continent."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Thanks awfully. I presume that's why you're determined to throw me
+down just at the time you need me most.... What I was trying to get at
+is the fact that I've never doubted your ultimate success for an
+instant."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You'd be a mighty lonesome minority in a congress of my employers,
+Harry."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Given the proper opportunity&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Hold on," Duncan interrupted. "I know just what you're going to say,
+and it's all very fine, and I'm proud that you want to say it of me.
+But you're dead wrong, Harry. The truth is I haven't got it in me&mdash;the
+capacity to succeed. Just as much as you love work, I hate it. I ought
+to know, for I've had a good, hard try at it&mdash;several tries, in fact.
+And you know what they came to."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But if you persist in this way, Nat,&mdash;don't you know what it means?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"None better. It means going back to what you helped me out of&mdash;the
+life that nearly killed me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And you'd rather&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'd rather that a thousand years before I'd sponge on you another
+day.... But, on the level, I'd as lieve try the East River or turn on
+the gas.... What's the use? That's the way I feel."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's fool talk. Brace up and be a man. All you need is a way to earn
+money."
+</p>
+<p>
+"No," Duncan insisted firmly: "get it. I'll never be able to earn
+it&mdash;that's a cinch."
+</p>
+<p>
+Kellogg laughed a little mirthlessly, absorbed in revolving something
+which had popped into his head within the last few moments. "There are
+ways to get it," he admitted abstractedly, "if you're not too
+particular."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm not. I only wish I understood the burglar business."
+</p>
+<p>
+This time Kellogg laughed outright. He sat up with a new spirit in his
+manner. "You mean you'd steal to get money?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, well ..." Duncan smiled a trace sheepishly. "I can't think of
+anything hardly I wouldn't do to get it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Very well, my son. Now attend to uncle." Kellogg leaned across the
+table, fixing him with an enthusiastic eye. "Here, have a smoke. I'm
+going to demonstrate high finance to your debased intelligence." He
+thrust the cigarette case over to Duncan, who helped himself
+mechanically, his gaze held in wonder to Kellogg's face.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Fire when ready," he assented.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I know a way," said Kellogg slowly, "by which, if you'll discard a
+scruple or two, you can be worth a million dollars&mdash;or
+thereabouts&mdash;within a year."
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan held a lighted match until it singed his fingertips, the while
+he stared agape. "Say that again," he requested mildly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You can be worth a million in a year."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Ah!" Duncan nodded slowly and comprehendingly. He turned aside in his
+chair and raked a second match across the sole of his shoe. "Let him
+rave," he observed enigmatically, and began to smoke.
+ "No, I'm not dippy; and I'm perfectly serious."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Of course. But what'd they do to me if I were caught?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"This is not a joke; the proposition's perfectly legal; it's being done
+right along."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And I could do it, Harry?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"A man of your calibre couldn't fail."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Would you mind ringing for Robbins?" Duncan asked abruptly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Certainly." Kellogg pressed a button at his elbow. "What d'you want?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"A straight-jacket and a doctor to tell which one of us needs it."
+</p>
+<p>
+Kellogg, chagrined as he always was if joked with when expounding one
+of his schemes, broke into a laugh that lasted until Robbins appeared.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You rang, sir?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes. Put those decanters over here, and some glasses, please."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, sir."
+</p>
+<p>
+The man obeyed and withdrew. Kellogg filled two glasses, handing one to
+Duncan.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Now be decent and listen to me, Nat. I've thought this thing over
+for&mdash;oh, any amount of time. I'll bet anything it will work. What d'you
+say? Would you like to try it?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Would I like to try it?" A conviction of Kellogg's earnestness forced
+itself upon Duncan's understanding. "Would I&mdash;!" He lifted his glass
+and drained it at a gulp. "Why, that's the first laugh I've had for a
+month!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then I'll tell you&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan placed a pleading hand on his forearm. "Don't kid me, Harry," he
+entreated.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not a bit of it. This is straight goods. If you want to try it and
+will follow the rules I lay down, I'll guarantee you'll be a rich man
+inside of twelve months."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Rules! Man, I'll follow all the rules in the world! Come on&mdash;I'm
+getting palpitation of the heart, waiting. Tell it to me: what've I got
+to do?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Marry," said Kellogg serenely.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Marry!" Duncan echoed, aghast.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Marry," reaffirmed the other with unbroken gravity.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Marry&mdash;who?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"A girl with a fortune.... You see, I can't guarantee the precise size
+of her pile. That all depends on luck and the locality. But it'll run
+anywhere from several hundred thousand up to a million&mdash;perhaps more."
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan sank back despondently. "You ought to be ashamed of yourself,
+Harry," he said dully; "you had me all excited, for a minute."
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, but honestly, I mean what I say."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Now look here: do you really think any girl with a million would take
+a chance on me?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"She'll jump at it."
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan thought this over for a while. Then his lips twitched. "What's
+the matter with her?" he inquired. "I'm willing to play the game as it
+lies, but I bar lunatics and cripples."
+</p>
+<p>
+"There's no particular her&mdash;yet. You can take your pick. I've no more
+idea where she is than you have."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Now I know you're stark, staring, gibbering&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not a bit of it. I'm inspired&mdash;that's all. I've solved your
+problem&mdash;you only can't believe it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"How could I? What the devil are you getting at, anyhow?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"This pet scheme of mine. Lend me your ears. Have you ever lived in a
+one-horse country town&mdash;a place with one unspeakable hotel and about
+twenty stores and five churches?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"No ..."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I have; I was born in one of 'em.... Have you any idea what becomes of
+the young people of such towns?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not a glimmering."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then I'll enlighten your egregious density. ...The boys&mdash;those who've
+got the stuff in them&mdash;strike out for the cities to make their
+everlasting fortunes. Generally they do it, too."
+</p>
+<p>
+"The same as you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"The same as me," assented Kellogg, unperturbed. "But the yaps, the
+Jaspers, stay there and clerk in father's store. After office-hours
+they put on their very best mail-order clothes and parade up and down
+Main Street, talking loud and flirting obviously with the girls. The
+girls haven't much else to do; they don't find it so easy to get away.
+A few of 'em escape to boarding-schools and colleges, where they meet
+and marry young men from the cities, but the majority of them have to
+stay at home and help mother&mdash;that's a tradition. If there are two
+children or more, the boys get the chance every time; the girls stay
+home to comfort the old folks in their old age. Why, by the time
+they're old enough to think of marrying&mdash;and they begin young, for
+that's about the only excitement they find available&mdash;you won't find a
+small country town between here and the Mississippi where there aren't
+about four girls to every boy."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It's a horrible thought ..."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You'd think so if you knew what the boys were like. There isn't one in
+ten that a girl with any sense or self-respect could force herself to
+marry if she ever saw anything better. Do you begin to see my drift?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I do not. But go on drifting."
+</p>
+<p>
+"No? Why, the demand for eligible males is three hundred per cent. in
+excess of the supply. Don't you know&mdash;no, you don't: I got to that
+first&mdash;that there are twenty times as many old maids in small country
+towns as there are in the cities? It's a fact, and the reason for it is
+because when they were young they couldn't lower themselves to accept
+the pick of the local matrimonial market. Now, do you see&mdash;?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"You're as interesting as a magazine serial. Please continue in your
+next. I pant with anticipation."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You're an ass.... Now take a young chap from a city, with a good
+appearance, more or less a gentleman, who doesn't talk like a yap or
+walk like a yap or dress like a yap or act like a yap, and throw him
+into such a town long enough for the girls to get acquainted with him.
+He simply can't lose, can't fail to cop out the best-looking girl with
+the biggest bank-roll in town. I tell you, there's nothing to it!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"It's wonderful to listen to you, Harry."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm talking horse sense, my son. Now consider yourself: down on your
+luck, don't know how to earn a decent living, refusing to accept
+anything from your friends, ready (you say) to do almost anything to
+get some money.... And think of the country heiresses, with plenty of
+money for two, pining away in&mdash;in innocuous desuetude&mdash;hundreds of
+them, fine, straight, good girls, girls you could easily fall in love
+with, sighing their lives away for the lack of the likes of you....
+Now, why not take one, Nat&mdash;when you come to consider it, it's your
+duty&mdash;marry her and her bank-roll, make her happy, make yourself happy,
+and live a contented life on the sunny side of Easy Street for the rest
+of your natural born days? Can't you see it now?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes," Duncan admitted, half-persuaded of the plausibility of the
+scheme. "I see&mdash;and I admire immensely the intellect that conceived the
+notion, Harry. But ... I can't help thinking there must be a catch in
+it somewhere."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not if you follow my instructions. You see, having come from just such
+a hole-in-the-ground, I know just what I'm talking about. Believe me,
+everything depends on the way you go about it. There are a lot of
+things to contend with at first; you won't enjoy it at all, to begin
+with. But I can demonstrate how it can be managed so that you'll win
+out to a moral certainty."
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan drew a deep breath, sat back and looked Kellogg over very
+critically. There was not a suspicion of a gleam of humour in his face;
+to the contrary, it blazed with the ardour of the instinctive schemer,
+the man who, with the ability to originate, throws himself heart and
+soul into the promotion of the product of his imagination. Kellogg was
+not sketching the outlines of a gigantic practical joke; he believed
+implicitly in the feasibility of his project; and so strongly that he
+could infuse even the less susceptible fancy of Duncan with some of his
+faith.
+</p>
+<p>
+"If I didn't know you so well, Harry," said Duncan slowly, "I'd be
+certain you were mad. I'm not at all sure that I'm sane. It's raving
+idiocy&mdash;and it's a pretty damned rank thing to do, to start
+deliberately out to marry a woman for her money. But I've been through
+a little hell of my own in my time, and&mdash;it's not alluring to
+contemplate a return to it. There's nothing mad enough nor bad enough
+to stop me. What've I got to do?"
+</p>
+<p>
+Kellogg beamed his triumph. "You'll try it on, then?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'll try anything on. It's a contemptible, low-lived piece of
+business&mdash;but good may come of it; you can't tell. What've I got to
+do?"
+</p>
+<p>
+Slipping back, Kellogg knitted his fingers and stared at the ceiling,
+smiling faintly to himself as he enumerated the conditions that first
+appealed to his understanding as essentials toward success.
+</p>
+<p>
+"First, pick out your town: one of two or three thousand
+inhabitants&mdash;no larger. I'd suggest, at a hazard guess, some place in
+the interior of Pennsylvania. Most of such towns have at least one rich
+man with a marriageable daughter&mdash;but we'll make sure of that before we
+settle on one. Of course any suburban town is barred."
+</p>
+<p>
+"How so?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, they don't count. The girls always know people in the city&mdash;can
+get there easily. That spoils the game."
+</p>
+<p>
+"How about the game laws?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm coming to them. Of course there isn't an open or close season, and
+the hunting's always good, but there are a few precautionary measures
+to be taken if you want to be sure of bagging an heiress. You won't
+like most of 'em."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Like 'em! I'll live by them!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, here come the things you mustn't do. You mustn't swear or use
+slang; you mustn't smoke and you mustn't drink&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Heavens! are these people as inhuman as all that?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Worse than that. It might be fatal if you were ever seen in the hotel
+bar. And to begin with, you must refuse all invitations, of any sort,
+whether to dances, parties, church sociables, or even Sunday dinners."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why <i>Sunday</i> dinners?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Because Sunday's the only day you'll be invited. Dinner on week-days
+is from twelve to twelve-thirty, and it's strictly a business
+matter&mdash;no time for guests. But you needn't fret; they won't ask you
+till they've sized you up pretty carefully."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh!..."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Moreover, you must be very particular about your dress; it must be
+absolutely faultless, but very quiet: clothing sober&mdash;dark greys and
+blacks&mdash;and plain, but the very last word as to cut and fit. And
+everything must be in keeping&mdash;the very best of shirts, collars, ties,
+hats, socks, shoes, underwear&mdash;." Kellogg caught Duncan's look and
+laughed. "Your laundress will report on everything, you know; so you
+must be impeccable."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'll be even that&mdash;whatever it is."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Be very particular about having your shoes polished, shave daily and
+manicure yourself religiously&mdash;but don't let 'em catch you at it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Would they raid me if they did?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"And then, my son, you must work."
+</p>
+<p>
+Kellogg paused to let his lesson sink in. After a time Duncan observed
+plaintively: "I knew there was a catch in it somewhere. What kind of
+work?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"It doesn't make any difference, so long as you get and hold some job
+in the town."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, that lets me out. You'll have to sic some other poor devil on
+this glittering proposition of yours. I couldn't hold a job in&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Wait! I'll tell you how to do it in just a minute."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't mind listening, but&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"You'll cinch the whole business by going to church without a break.
+Don't ever fail&mdash;morning and evening every Sunday. Don't forget that."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"It's the most important thing of all."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Does going to church make such a hit with the young female
+Jasper&mdash;the Jasperette, as it were?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"It'll make you more solid than anything else with her popper and
+mommer, and that's very necessary when you're a candidate for their
+ducats as well as their daughter. You must work and you must go to
+church."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That can't be all. Surely you can think of something else?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Those are the cardinal rules&mdash;church and work until you've landed your
+heiress. After that you can move back to civilisation.... Now as soon
+as you strike your town you want to make arrangements for board and
+lodging in some old woman's house&mdash;preferably an old maid. You'll be
+sure to find at least half a dozen of 'em, willing to take boarders,
+but you want to be equally sure to pick out the one that talks the
+most, so that she'll tell the neighbours all about you. Don't worry
+about that, though, they all talk. When you've moved In, stock up your
+room with about twenty of the driest-looking books in the world&mdash;law
+books look most imposing; fix up a table with lots of stationery&mdash;pens
+and pencils, red and black ink and all that sort of thing; make the
+room look as if you were the most sincere student ever. And by no means
+neglect to have a well-worn Bible prominently in evidence: you can buy
+one second-hand at some book-store before you start out."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'd have to, of course. I thank you for the flattery. Proceed with the
+programme of the gay, mad life I must lead. I'm going to have a swell
+time: that's perfectly plain."
+</p>
+<p>
+"As soon as you're shaken down in your room, make the rounds of the
+stores and ask for work. Try and get into the dry-goods emporium if you
+can: the girls all shop there. But anything will do, except a grocery
+or a hardware store and places like that. You mustn't consider any
+employment that would soil your clothes or roughen your lily-white
+hands."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You expect me to believe I'd have any chance of winning a
+millionaire's daughter if I were a ribbon-clerk in a dry-goods store?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"The best in the world. The ribbon-clerk is her social equal; he calls
+her Mary and she calls him Joe."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Done with you: me for the ribbon counter. Anything else?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"The storekeepers aren't apt to employ you at first; they'll be
+suspicious of you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"They will be afterwards, all right. However&mdash;?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"So you must simply call on them&mdash;walk in, locate the boss and tell
+him: 'I'm looking for employment.' Don't press it; just say it and get
+out."
+</p>
+<p>
+"No trouble whatever about that; it's always that way when I ask for
+work."
+</p>
+<p>
+"They'll send for you before long, when they make up their minds that
+you're a decent, moral young man; for they know you'll draw trade. And
+every Sunday&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I know: church!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Absolutely.... Pick out the one the rich folks go to. Go in quietly
+and do just as they do: stand up and kneel, look up the hymns and sing,
+just when they do. Be careful not to sing too loud, or anything like
+that: just do it all modestly, as if you were used to it. Better go to
+church here two or three times and get the hang of it...."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Here, now&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Nearly all the wealthy codgers in such towns are deacons, you see, and
+though they may not speak to you for months on the street, it's their
+business to waylay you after the service is over and shake hands with
+you and tell you they hope you enjoyed the sermon and ask you to come
+again. And you can bank on it, they'll all take notice from the first."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It's no wonder Bartlett made you a partner, Harry."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Now behave. I want you to get in right. ... If you follow the rules
+I've outlined, not only will all the girls in town be falling over
+themselves to get to you first, but their fond parents will be egging
+them on. Then all you've got to do is to pick out the one with the
+biggest bundle and&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Make a play for her?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not on your life. That would be fatal. Your part is to put yourself in
+her way. She'll do all the courting, and when she scents the
+psychological moment she'll do the proposing."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It doesn't sound natural, but you certainly seem to know what you're
+drooling about."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You can anchor to that, Nat."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And are you finished?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I am. Of course I'll probably think of more things to wise you to,
+before you go."
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan laughed shortly and tilted back in his chair, selecting another
+cigarette. "And you're the chap who wanted me to go to some bromidic
+old show to-night! Harry, you're immense. Why didn't you ever let me
+suspect you had all this romantic imagination in your system?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Imagination be blowed, son. This is business." Kellogg removed the
+stopper from the decanter and filled both glasses again. "Well, what do
+you say?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I've just said my say, Harry. It's amazing; I'm proud of you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But will you do it?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Everything else aside, how can I? I've got to live, you know."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But I propose to stake you."
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan came down to earth. "No, you won't; not a cent. I'm in earnest
+about this thing: no more sponging on you, Harry. Besides&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, seriously, Nat: I mean this, every word of it. I want you to do
+it&mdash;to please me, if you like; I've a notion something will come of it.
+And I believe from the bottom of my heart there's not the slightest
+risk if you'll play the cards as they fall, according to Hoyle."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Harry, I believe you do."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I do, firmly. And I'll put the proposition on a business basis, if you
+like."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Go on; there's no holding you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You start out to-morrow and order your war kit. Get everything you
+need, and plenty of it, and have the bills sent to me. You can be ready
+inside a fortnight. The day you start I'll advance you five hundred
+dollars. When you're married you can repay me the amount of the
+advances with interest at ten per cent, and I'll consider it a mighty
+good deal for myself. Now, will you?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"You mean it?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Every word of it. Well?"
+</p>
+<p>
+For a moment longer Duncan hesitated; then the vision of what he must
+return to, otherwise, decided him. In desperation he accepted. "It's a
+drowning man's straw," he said, a little breathlessly. "I'm sure I
+shouldn't. But I will."
+</p>
+<p>
+Kellogg flung a hand across the table, palm uppermost.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Word of honour, Nat?"
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan let his hand fall into it. "Word of honour! I'll see it
+through."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Good! It's a bargain." Kellogg lifted his glass high in air. "To the
+fortune hunter!" he cried, half laughing.
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan nervously fingered the stem of his glass. "God help the future
+Mrs. Duncan!" he said, and drank.
+</p>
+<br><br><br>
+<h3><a name="iv">
+	IV
+</a></h3>
+<p class="ctr">
+TRIUMPH OF MR. HOMER LITTLEJOHN
+</p>
+<p>
+The twenty-first of June was a day of memorable triumph to me, a day of
+memorable events for Radville.
+</p>
+<p>
+Only the evening previous Will Bigelow and I had indulged in
+acrimonious argument in the office of the Bigelow House, the subject of
+contention being the importance of the work to which I am devoting my
+declining years, to wit, the recording of <i>The History of Radville
+Township, Westerly County, Pennsylvania</i>; Will maintaining with that
+obstinacy for which he is famous, that nothing ever had happened, does
+happen, can or will happen in our community, I insisting gently but
+firmly that it knows no day unmarked by important occurrence (for it
+would ill become me, as the only literary man in Radville, to yield a
+point in dispute with the proprietor of the town tavern). Besides, he
+was wrong, even as I was indisputably right&mdash;only he had not the grace
+to admit it. We ended vulgarly with a bet, Will wagering me the best
+five-cent Clear Havana in the Bigelow House sample-room that nothing
+worth mentioning would take place in Radville before sundown of the
+following day.
+</p>
+<p>
+I left him, returning to my room at Miss Carpenter's (Will and I are
+old friends, but I refuse to eat the food he serves his guests), warmed
+by the prospect of certain triumph if a little appalled by the prospect
+of winning the stake; and sympathising a little with Will, who, for all
+his egregious stubborness, has some excuse for upholding his
+unreasonable and ridiculous views. He knows no better, having never had
+the opportunity to find out for himself how utterly absurd are his
+claims for the outside world. Whereas I have.
+</p>
+<p>
+He's an adventurer at heart, Will Bigelow, a romantic soul crusted
+heavily with character&mdash;like a volcano smouldering beneath its lava.
+For many years he has managed the Bigelow House, with his thoughts
+apart from it, his eyes ever seeking the horizon that recedes beyond
+the soaring rim of our encircling cup of hills, his heart forever
+yearning forth to the outer world; which he erroneously conceives to be
+a theatre of events&mdash;as if outside of Radville only could there be
+things worth seeing, considering, or doing, or matters of any sort that
+move momentously! As long as I've known the man (and we played truant
+together fifty years ago&mdash;hookey, we called it then) he's had his heart
+set on going forth from Radville, "for to admire and for to see, for to
+view this wide world o'er"; always he has presented himself to me as
+one poised on the pinnacle of purpose, ready the next instant to dive
+and strike out into the teeming unknown beyond the barrier hills. But
+this promise he has never fulfilled. He still maintains that he will
+surely go&mdash;next week&mdash;after the hayin's over&mdash;as soon as the ice is
+in&mdash;the minute Mary graduates from High School. ... But I know he never
+will.
+</p>
+<p>
+So to Will Radville is as dull as ditchwater to a teamster; to me it's
+as fascinating as that same ditchwater to a biologist with a
+microscope. I see nothing going on in the world outside of Radville
+more important than our daily life. Too long I have lived away from it,
+a stranger in strange lands, not to appreciate its relative
+significance in the scheme of things. It makes all the difference&mdash;the
+view-point: Will sees Radville from its homely heart outwards, I stand
+on its boundaries, a native but yet, somehow in the local esteem (by
+reason of my long residence in the East) an outlander. Thus I get a
+perspective upon the place, to Will and his ilk denied.
+</p>
+<p>
+It seems curious that things should have fallen out thus for the two of
+us: that Will Bigelow, all afire with the lust for travel, should never
+have mustered up enterprise enough to break his home ties, whilst I
+whose dearest desire had always been to live no day of my alloted span
+away from Radville, should have been, in a manner which I'm bound
+presently to betray, forced out into the world; that he, the rebellious
+stay-at-home, cursing the destiny which chained him, should have
+prospered and become the man of substance he is, while I, mutinously
+venturing, should have returned only to watch my sands run out in
+poverty&mdash;what's little better.
+</p>
+<p>
+Not that I would have you think me whining: I have enough, little but
+ample for my simple needs, if inadequate for my ambitions or my
+neighbours' necessities. My editorial work for the <i>Radville
+Citizen</i> is quite remunerative, while my weekly column of local
+gossip for the <i>Westerly Gazette</i> brings me in a little, and I've
+one or two other modest sources of still more modest income. But
+Radville folks are poor, many of them, many who are very dear to me for
+old sake's sake. There's Sam Graham.... Though I wouldn't have you
+understand that as a community we are not moderately prosperous and
+contented, comfortable if not energetic and advanced. This is not a
+pushing town: it has never known a boom. That I'm sure will some day
+come, but I hope not in my time. I have faith in the mountains that
+fold us roundabout; they are rich with the possibilities of coal and
+iron, and year by year are being more and more widely opened up and
+developed; year by year the ranks of flaming, reeking coke ovens push
+farther on beside the railway that penetrates our valley. But as yet
+their smoke does not foul our skies, nor does their refuse pollute our
+river, nor their soot tarnish our vegetation. And as I say, I hope this
+is not to be while I live, though sometimes I have fears: Blinky
+Lockwood made a fortune selling the coal that was discovered beneath
+his father's old farm over Westerly way, and ever since that there's
+been more or less quiet prospecting going on in our vicinity. I shall
+be sorry to see the day when Radville is other than as it is: the
+quiet, peaceful, sleepy little town, nestling in the bosom of the
+hills, clean, sweet and wholesome....
+</p>
+<p>
+But this is rambling far from the momentous twenty-first of June, my
+day of triumph.
+</p>
+<p>
+I shall try to set down connectedly and coherently the events which
+culminated in the humbling of Will Bigelow to the dust.
+</p>
+<p>
+To begin with, we were early startled by the rumour that Hiram Nutt,
+theretofore deemed unconquerable, had been disastrously defeated at
+checkers in Willoughby's grocery&mdash;and that by Watty the tailor, of all
+men in Radville. The rumour was confirmed by eleven in the forenoon,
+and in itself should have provided us with a nine days' wonder.
+</p>
+<p>
+As it happened, an event happening almost simultaneously confused our
+minds. At eleven-fifteen Miss Carpenter's household was thrown into
+consternation by the scandalous behaviour of her black cat, Caesar, who
+chose suddenly to terminate a long and outwardly respectable career as
+Miss Carpenter's familiar by having kittens under the horse-hair sofa
+in the parlour. Incidentally this indelicate and ungentlemanly
+behaviour temporarily unloosed the hinges of Miss Carpenter's reason,
+so that my supper suffered that evening, and for several days she
+wandered round the house with blank and witless eyes. Perhaps I should
+have warned her, for I had latterly come to suspect Caesar of leading a
+double life; but for reasons which seemed sufficient I had refrained.
+</p>
+<p>
+By the noon train Roland Barnette received his new summer suit from
+Chicago. I did not see it till evening, but heard of it before one,
+since Roland donned it immediately and wore it to the bank that very
+afternoon. I understand it caused something very near a run on the
+bank; people came in to draw a dollar or so or get change and lingered
+to feast their outraged visions, so that Blinky Lockwood, the
+president, had to send Roland home to change before closing-time. He
+changed back, however, as soon as off duty, and spent the rest of the
+afternoon and evening hours in Sothern and Lee's, at the soda-fountain;
+which Sothern and Lee did not object to, since it drew trade.
+</p>
+<p>
+Pete Willing established a record by getting drunk at Schwartz's bar by
+three in the afternoon, his best previous time being four-thirty; and
+Mrs. Willing chased him up Centre Street until, at the corner of Main,
+he blundered into the arms of Judge Scott; who ordered him to arrest
+and lock himself up; which Pete, being the sheriff, solemnly did,
+saying that it was preferable to a return to home and wife.
+</p>
+<p>
+At five o'clock there was a dog-fight in front of Graham's drug-store.
+</p>
+<p>
+At five-forty-five the evening train lurched in, bearing The Mysterious
+Stranger.
+</p>
+<p>
+Tracey Tanner saw him first, having driven down to the station with his
+father's surrey on the off-chance of picking up a quarter or so from
+some drummer wishing to be conveyed to the Bigelow House. Only
+outlanders pay money for hacks in Radville; everybody else walks, of
+course. Naturally Tracey took The Mysterious Stranger for a drummer; he
+had three trunks and a heavy packing-box, so Tracey's misapprehension
+was pardonable. Instinctively he drove him to the Bigelow House; Will
+now and again makes Tracey a present of a bottle of sarsaparilla or
+lemon-pop, with the result that Tracey calls Tannehill, who runs the
+opposition hotel, a skinflint and never takes strangers there except on
+their express desire. The Mysterious Stranger merely asked to be driven
+to the best hotel. This is not like most commercial travellers, who as
+a rule know where they want to go, even in a strange town, having made
+inquiry in advance from their brothers of the road. Tracey made a note
+of this, and is further on record as having observed that this stranger
+was rather better dressed than the run of drummers, if not so nobbily.
+Moreover, he was reticent under the cross-fire of Tracey's
+irrepressible conversation, and failed to ask the name of the first
+pretty girl they passed; who happened to be Angle Tuthill. Finally The
+Mysterious Stranger actually tipped Tracey a whole quarter for carrying
+his suit-case into the hotel office.
+</p>
+<p>
+With these incitements it would have been unreasonable to expect Tracey
+to do otherwise than linger around for the good health of his sense of
+inquisitiveness, which would else have been severely sprained.
+</p>
+<p>
+Will Bigelow was dozing behind the desk, lulled by the sound of Hi
+Nutt's voice in the barroom, as he explained to all and sundry just how
+he had inadvertently permitted Watty the tailor to best him at checkers
+that morning. Otherwise the office was deserted. Tracey wakened Will by
+stamping heavily across the floor, and Will mechanically pushed down
+his spectacles and dipped a pen in ink, slewing the register round for
+the guest's signature. He says he knew at a glance that The Mysterious
+Stranger was no travelling man, but this is a moot point, Tracey's
+memory being minutely accurate and at variance with Will's assertion.
+</p>
+<p>
+The Mysterious Stranger was a young man, rather severely clothed in a
+dark suit which excited no interest in Bigelow's understanding,
+although I, when I saw him later, had no difficulty in realising that
+it had never been made by a tailor whose place of business was more
+than five doors removed from Fifth Avenue. He was tallish, but not
+really tall, and carried himself with a slight stoop which took way
+from his real height. Tracey says he had a way of looking at you as if
+he was smiling inside at some joke he'd heard a long time ago; and I
+don't know but that's a fairly apt description of his ordinary
+expression. He had a way, too, of nodding jerkily at you&mdash;just once&mdash;to
+show he recognised you or understood what you were driving at; at other
+times he carried his head a trifle to one side and slightly forward. He
+was a man you wouldn't forget, somehow, though what there was about him
+that was remarkable nobody seemed to know.
+</p>
+<p>
+He nodded that jerky way in answer to Will Bigelow's "G'devenin'," and
+without saying anything took the pen and started to register. He had to
+stop, however, for Tracey was pressing him so close upon the right that
+he couldn't get any play for his elbow, and after a minute or two he
+asked Tracey politely would he mind stepping round to the left, where
+he could see just as well. So Tracey did. Then he wrote his name in a
+good round hand: "Nathaniel Duncan, N.Y."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'd like a room with a bath," he told Will: "something simple and
+chaste, within the means of a man in moderate circumstances."
+</p>
+<p>
+Will thought he was joking at first, but he didn't smile, so Will
+explained that there was a bathroom on the third floor at the end of
+the hall, though there wasn't much call for it. "I could give you a
+room next to that," he said, "but you wouldn't want it, I guess."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why not?" asked The Mysterious Stranger.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Because," said Will, "'taint near the sample-room."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That doesn't make any difference; I'm on the wagon."
+</p>
+<p>
+The only sense Will could get out of that was that the young man was
+travelling for a buggy house and hadn't brought any samples with him.
+"I thought," he allowed, "as how you'd be wantin' a place to display
+your samples, but of course if you're in the wagon business&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh," said Mr. Duncan, "I thought you meant the 'sample-room' over
+there." He nodded toward the bar. "That's what you call the
+dispensaries of intoxicating liquors in this part of the country, is it
+not?"
+</p>
+<p>
+Will made a noise resembling an affirmative, and as soon as he got his
+breath explained that travelling men generally wanted a sort of a
+showroom next to theirs and that that was called a sample-room, too.
+</p>
+<p>
+"But I'm not a travelling man," said The Mysterious Stranger. "So I
+shall have as little use for the one as the other."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then the room on the third floor'll do for you," said Will. "How long
+do you calculate on stayin'?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"That will depend," said Mr. Duncan: "a day or so&mdash;perhaps longer;
+until I can find comfortable and more permanent quarters."
+</p>
+<p>
+In his amazement Will jabbed the pen so hard into the potato beside the
+ink-well that he never could get the nib out and had to buy a new one.
+"You don't mean to say you're thinkin' of coming here to live?" he
+gasped.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, I do," said the young man apologetically. "I don't think you'll
+find me in the way. I shall be very quiet and unobtrusive. I'm a
+student, looking for a quiet place in which to pursue my studies."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well," said Will, "you've found it all right. There ain't no quieter
+place in Pennsylvany than Radville, Mr. Duncan. I hope you'll like it,"
+he said, sarcastic.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I shall endeavour to," said the young man.
+</p>
+<p>
+"And now may I go to my room, please? I should like to renovate my
+travel-stained person to some extent before dinner."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You'll have time," said Will; "dinner's at noon to-morrow. I guess
+you're thinkin' about supper. That's ready now. Here, Tracey, you carry
+this gentleman's things up to number forty-three."
+</p>
+<p>
+But Tracey had already gone, and such was his haste to spread the news
+that he forgot to take the horse and surrey back to the stable, but
+left it standing in front of the hotel till eight o'clock; for which
+oversight, I am credibly informed, his father justly dealt with him
+before sending him to bed.
+</p>
+<p>
+I have never been able to understand how we failed to hear of it at
+Miss Carpenter's before seven o'clock. That was the hour when, having
+finished supper and my first evening pipe, I started down-town to the
+<i>Citizen</i> office, intending to stop in at the Bigelow House on the
+way and confound Will with the list of the day's happenings. Main
+Street was pretty well crowded for that hour, I remember noticing, and
+most of the townsfolk were grouped together on the corners, underneath
+the lamps, discussing something rather excitedly. I paid no particular
+attention, realising that between Caesar, Pete Willing, Roland
+Burnette's suit and the checker game, they had enough to talk about. So
+it wasn't until I walked into the Bigelow House office that I either
+heard or saw anything of The Mysterious Stranger.
+</p>
+<p>
+Will Bigelow was in his usual place behind the desk, and looked, I
+thought, rather disgruntled. His reply to my "Howdy, Will?" sounded
+somewhat snappish. But he got out of his chair and moved round the end
+of the desk just as the young man came out of the dining-room door.
+Then Will pulled up and I realised that he was calling my attention to
+the stranger.
+</p>
+<p>
+So far as I could see, he seemed an ordinary, everyday, good-looking,
+good-natured young man, whose naturally sunny disposition had been
+insulted by the food recently set before him. He wandered listlessly
+out upon the porch and stood there, with his hands in his pockets,
+looking up and down Centre Street, just then being shadowed into the
+warm, purple June dusk, beneath its double row of elms. We've always
+thought it a rather attractive street, and that night it seemed
+especially lively with its trickle of girls and boys strolling up and
+down, and the groups of grown folks on the corners, and Roland
+Burnette's summer suit conspicuous through Sothern and Lee's
+plate-glass windows; and I supposed the young man was admiring it all.
+But now I know him better. He felt just the same about Main Street,
+corner of Centre, Radville, as I should have about Broadway and
+Forty-second Street, New York, if you had set me down there and told me
+I'd got to get accustomed to the idea that I must live there. He was
+saying, deep down in his heart: "O <i>Lord</i>!"&mdash;with the rising
+inflection.
+</p>
+<p>
+Will grabbed my arm, without saying anything, and pulled me into the
+bar.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Hello!" I said, as he went round behind and opened the cigar-case,
+"what's up?"
+</p>
+<p>
+He took out two boxes of the finest five-centers in town and placed
+them before me. "Them's up," he said. "You win. Have one."
+</p>
+<p>
+It staggered me to have him give in that way; I had been looking
+forward to a long and diverting dispute. "I guess you've heard
+everything worth hearing about to-day's history," I said, disappointed,
+as I selected the least unpleasant looking of the cigars.
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, I haven't," he said. "I didn't have to hear anything. What earned
+you that smoke took place right here in this office.... Here," he said,
+striking a match for me.
+</p>
+<p>
+I had been trying to put the cigar away so that I might dispose of it
+without hurting Will's feelings, but he had me, so I recklessly poked
+the thing into the automatic clipper and then into my mouth. "What do
+you mean?" I asked, puffing.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Come 'long outside," said Will; and we went out on the porch just in
+time to see Mr. Duncan going wearily upstairs to his room. "I mean,"
+said Will, <i>"him"</i>. And then he told me all about it.
+</p>
+<p>
+"But things like that don't happen every day," he wound up defensively.
+"I'll go you another cigar on to-morrow."
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, you won't," I said indignantly; and furtively dropped the infamous
+thing over the railing.
+</p>
+<p>
+I am never successful in my little attempts at deception, even in
+self-defence. In all candour I believe my disposition of that cigar
+would have gone undetected but for my notorious bad luck. Of course
+Bigelow's setter, Pompey, had to be asleep right under the spot where I
+dropped the cigar, and equally of course the burning end had to make
+instantaneous connection with his nerve centres, via his hide, with such
+effect that he arose in agony and subsequently used coarse language.
+Investigation naturally discovered my empty-handed perfidy. To no one
+else in Radville would this have happened.
+</p>
+<p>
+On the other hand, no one else in Radville would have thrown away the
+cigar.
+</p>
+<br><br><br>
+<h3><a name="v">
+	V
+</a></h3>
+<p class="ctr">
+MARGARET'S DAUGHTER
+</p>
+<p>
+Discomfort roused Duncan from his rest at an early hour, the morning
+following his arrival in Radville. I must confess that the beds in the
+Bigelow House are no better than they should be; in fact, according to
+Duncan, not so good. Duncan ought to know; he has slept in one of them,
+or tried to; a trial thus far to me denied. From what he has said,
+however, I shudder to think what will become of me should I ever lose
+the shelter of Miss Carpenter's second-story front and be thrown out
+into a heartless world to choose between the Bigelow House and Frank
+Tannehill's Radville Inn....
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan arose and consulted the two-dollar watch which he had left on
+the pine washstand by the window. It was half-past seven o'clock, and
+that seemed early to him. He was tired and would willingly have turned
+in again, but a rueful glance at the couch of his night-long vigil
+sufficed him. He lifted a hand to Heaven and vowed solemnly: "Never
+again!"
+</p>
+<p>
+As he bent over the washstand and poured a cupful of water into the
+china basin, thus emptying the pitcher, he was conscious of a pain in
+his back; but a thought cheered him. "They must have decent stables in
+this town," he considered, brightening. "The haymows for mine, after
+this."
+</p>
+<p>
+He dressed with scrupulous care, mindful of Kellogg's parting words,
+the sense of which was that first impressions were most important. "All
+the same," Duncan thought, "I don't believe they count in a dead-and-
+alive place like this. There's no one here with sufficient animation to
+realise I'm in town." This shows how little he understood our little
+community. A day of enlightenment was in store for him.
+</p>
+<p>
+Pansy Murphy was scrubbing out the office when he came down for
+breakfast. She is large, of what is known as a full complexion,
+good-hearted and energetic. His pause at the foot of the stairs, as he
+surveyed in dismay the seven seas of soapy water that occupied the
+floor, aroused her. She sat back suddenly on her heels and looked her
+fill of him, with her blue Irish eyes very wide, and her mouth a trap.
+He bowed politely. Pansy saved herself from falling over backwards by a
+supreme effort, scrubbed her hair out of her eyes with a very wet hand,
+and gave him "Good-marrin', Misther Dooncan," in a brogue as rich as
+you could wish for.
+</p>
+<p>
+He started violently. "Heavens!" he said. "I am discovered!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Make yer moind aisy about thot," Pansy assured him. "'Tis known all
+over town who ye arre, what's yer name, how manny troonks ye've brought
+wid ye, and th' rayson f'r yer comin' here."
+</p>
+<p>
+"A comforting thought, thank you," he commented: "to awake to find
+one's self grown famous over-night!..."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Now ye know," she returned, emboldened, "what it is to be a big toad
+in a small puddle."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I thank you." He nodded again, with a comprehensive survey of the
+reeking floor. "I'm afraid I do." With which he slipped and slid over
+to and through the swinging wicker doors of the dining-room.
+</p>
+<p>
+It was deserted. From the negligée of the tables, littered with the
+plates and dishes, dreary survivors of a dozen breakfasts, he divined
+that he was the tardiest guest in the household. A slatternly young
+woman in a soiled shirt-waist&mdash;the waitress&mdash;received him with great
+calm and waved him toward a table by the window, where an unused cover
+was laid. He went meekly, dogged by her formidable presence. She stood
+over him and glared down.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Haman neggs," she said defiantly, "steakan nomlette."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'll be a martyr," he told her civilly. "Me for the steak."
+</p>
+<p>
+She frowned gloomily and tramped away. He folded his hands and, cheered
+by an appetising aroma of warm water and yellow soap from the office,
+considered the prospect from the window by his side. Three children and
+a yellow dog came along and watched him do it, dispassionately
+reviewing his points in clear young voices. Tracey Tanner ambled into
+view on the other side of the street and beamed at him generously, his
+round red face resembling, Duncan thought, more than anything else a
+summer sun rising through mist. Josie Lockwood (he was to discover her
+name later) passed with her pert little nose ostentatiously pointed
+away from him; none the less he detected a gleam in the corner of her
+eye.... Others went by, singly or in groups, all more or less openly
+interested in him.
+</p>
+<p>
+He tried to look unconscious, but with ill success. There was nothing
+particularly engaging in the view: the broad, dusty street lined with
+commonplace structures of "frame" and brick, glowing in the morning
+sunshine. There were, to be sure, cool shadows beneath the trees, but
+the suggestion was all of summer heat. There was a watering-trough and
+hitching-rail directly opposite, a little to one side of Hemmenway's
+feed-store, and there a well-fed mare stood, drooping dejectedly
+between the shafts of a dilapidated buggy. On the corner was a
+two-storey brick building with large plate-glass windows on the ground
+floor for the display of intimate articles of feminine apparel. The
+black and gold sign above proclaimed it: "The Fair. Dry Goods &amp;
+Notions. Leonard &amp; Call." Duncan considered it with grave respect. "The
+scene of my future activities," he observed.
+</p>
+<p>
+By this time his audience had become too large and friendly for his
+endurance. He rose and retired to a less public table.
+</p>
+<p>
+In her own good time the waitress returned with a plate, and a small
+oval platter in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. She placed
+them before him with a manner that told him plainly he could never make
+himself the master of her affections. The small oval platter was
+discovered to contain a small segment of dark-brown ham and two fried
+eggs swimming in grease.
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan questioned the woman with mute, appealing eyes.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Steak's run out," she told him curtly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Leaving no address?" he inquired with forced gaiety.
+</p>
+<p>
+A suppressed smile softened her austerity, and she turned away to hide
+it. "To think," he wondered, "that a sense of humour should inhabit
+that!" He broke a roll and munched it gloomily, pondering this
+revelation. "And such humour !" he added, with justice.
+</p>
+<p>
+After an interval the woman returned. He had refrained from the staple
+dish. She indicated it with a grimy forefinger.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Please!" he begged plaintively. "I'm never very hungry in the
+morning."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I guess you don't like the table here," she observed icily, clearing
+away.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Do you?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't have to; I live home."
+</p>
+<p>
+He stared. Could it be possible...?
+</p>
+<p>
+"I know a good old one, too," he ventured hopefully. "Now here." He
+drew his coffee cup toward him and began to stir with energy. "You say:
+'It looks like rain'; and I'll say: 'Yes, but it tastes a little like
+coffee.'"
+</p>
+<p>
+She clattered away indignantly. He rose, depressed, and sighing sought
+the outer air.
+</p>
+<p>
+In the course of a forenoon's stroll Radville discovered itself to him
+in all its squalor and its loveliness. It sits in the centre of a broad
+valley of rolling meadow-land, studded with infrequent homesteads,
+broken into rather extensive farms, threaded by a shallow silver stream
+that gives its all in tribute to the Susquehanna far in the south. The
+barrier mountains rise about it like the sides of a bowl, with a great
+V-shaped piece chipped out of the southern wall. This break we call the
+Gap; through it the railroad comes to us, through it the river escapes.
+The hills rear high and steep, their swelling flanks cloaked in sombre
+green and grey, with here and there a bald spot like a splash of ochre
+where there's been a landslide, climbing directly from the plain, with
+no foothills. A recluse, I have thought, must have chosen this spot for
+a town site; sickened of the world, he sought seclusion&mdash;and found it
+here to his heart's content. Until the coke-ovens come, following the
+miners, with their attendant hordes of Slovaks, Poles and Hungarians,
+we shall be near to God, for we shall know peace....
+</p>
+<p>
+The town has been laid out with great rectangularity; the river divides
+it unequally. On the western bank is the larger community&mdash;locally, the
+Old Town, retaining its characteristics of sobriety, quiet and comfort;
+here, also, is the business centre&mdash;such business as there is. Here
+Duncan found homely residences sitting back from the street in ample
+grounds&mdash;grounds, perhaps, not very carefully groomed, but in spite of
+that attractive and pleasant to the eye. With one or two exceptions,
+none were strongly suggestive of wealth. He detected a trace of
+ostentation, and no taste whatever, in Lockwood's new villa (I'm told
+that's the polite designation for the edifice he caused to be erected
+what time the plague of riches smote him and the old home on Cherry
+Street became too small for the collective family chest), and there was
+quiet dignity in the quaintly columned façade of the Bohun mansion, now
+occupied solely by old Colonel Bohun, lonely and testy, reputed the
+richest as well as the most miserable man in the county. But as to his
+wealth, I doubt if rumour runs by more than tradition; Blinky
+Lockwood's new-found hundred-thousands are growing rapidly toward the
+million mark, unless Blinky's a worse business man than the town takes
+him to be.
+</p>
+<p>
+An old stone arch (whereon lovers linger in the moonlight) spans the
+stream and links the Old Town with the new, which we sometimes term the
+Flats, but more often simply Over There. It is a sordid huddle of dingy
+and down-at-the-heel tenements, housing the poorer working classes and
+the frankly worthless and ruffianly riff-raff of the neighbourhood.
+There are eight gin-mills Over There as against two sample-rooms in the
+Old Town, and of the local constabulary two-thirds lead exciting lives
+patrolling the Flats; the remaining third is ordinarily to be found
+dozing in the backroom of Schwartz's, and if roused will answer to the
+name and title of Pete Willing, Sheriff and Chief of Police.
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan reviewed both sides of the municipal face with fine
+impartiality&mdash;the Flats last; and turned back to the Old Town. "There's
+one thing," he communed as he reached the bridge: "If these people ever
+find me out they'll run me across the river&mdash;sure."
+</p>
+<p>
+He paused there, looking up and down the valley with contemplative
+gaze; and it was there I found him.
+</p>
+<p>
+As is my custom, I had devoted the earlier morning hours to the
+compilation of that work which is to gain for the name of Littlejohn a
+trifle more respect than, I fear, it owns in Radville nowadays; and
+afterwards, again in accordance with habit, had started out for my
+morning constitutional. As I was about to leave the house Miss
+Carpenter waylaid me and, in a voice still tremulous from the shock of
+yesterday, asked me to hunt up Jake Sawyer in the Flats and tell him to
+come and cut the grass.
+</p>
+<p>
+I was not in the least unwilling, for the walk was not long, and the
+morning very pleasant&mdash;not too warm, and bright with the smiling spirit
+of June. I don't remember feeling more cheerful and at peace with the
+world than when I marched off on my mission. The cloud I might, of
+course, have anticipated: clouds always come, and a lifetime has taught
+me to be sceptical of that tale about the silver lining. And even when
+it came it seemed no more depressing, of no more significant moment,
+than the cloud shadow that scurries across a wheat-field with no effect
+other than to enhance the beauty of the sunshine that pursues it.
+</p>
+<p>
+Old Colonel Bohun was the cloud-shadow of that morning. I met him
+turning into Main Street from Mortimer&mdash;at the head of which his
+mansion stands. He came down the sidewalk, but with a hint of haste in
+his manner: a tall old man, bending beneath the burden of his years,
+his fierce old face and iron-grey hair shaded as always by the black
+slouch hat with the flapping brim, his rounded shoulders cloaked with
+the black Inverness cape he wore summer and winter. In spite of his age
+and evident decrepitude, he bodied forth the spirit of what he had
+been, and none could pass him without knowledge of his presence; he
+drew eyes as a magnet draws filings, and drawing, held them in respect.
+I doubted if there were a man in Radville who could meet the old
+colonel with anything but a mingling of fear and deference&mdash;with one or
+two exceptions. For myself I hated him heartily, and he, looking down
+at me from the peak of pride whereon his iron soul perched, despised me
+with equal intensity. So we got along famously at our infrequent
+encounters.
+</p>
+<p>
+This morning I caught a flash of fire from his red-rimmed old eyes, and
+told myself I was sorry for whoever crossed his path before he returned
+to his lonely castle. It was his habit at odd intervals to foray down
+the village streets with one grievance or another rankling in his
+bosom, seeking some unlucky one upon whose head to wreak his
+resentment. We had come to recognise the heavy, slow tapping of his
+thick cane as a harbinger of trouble, even as you might prognosticate a
+thunderstorm from the rumbling beneath the horizon.
+</p>
+<p>
+I saw he recognised me and gave him a civil salute, which he returned
+with a brusque nod and a sharper, "Good-morning, Littlejohn," as he
+passed. Then he swung into Main Street, paralleling my course on the
+opposite sidewalk, and went <i>thump-thumping</i> along, darting quick
+glances hither and yon beneath his heavy brows, like some dark
+incarnation of perverse pride and passion.
+</p>
+<p>
+Partly because the sight of him sensibly influenced my mood, and partly
+because inevitably he made me think of Sam Graham, I turned off at
+Beech Street, leaving him to pursue his way toward the centre of town.
+Graham's one-horse drug-store stood on Beech, a block south of Main.
+That being the least promising location in town for a business of any
+sort, Sam had naturally selected it when he concluded to set up shop.
+If Sam had ever in his life displayed any symptoms of business
+sagacity, Radville would never have recovered from the shock. I believe
+it was Legrand Gunn, our only really certificated village wit, who
+coined the epigram: "As useless as to take a prescription to Graham's."
+The implication being that Graham didn't carry sufficient stock to
+fill any prescription; which was largely true; he couldn't; he hadn't
+the money to stock up with. What little he took in from time to time
+went in part to the support of Betty and himself, but mainly to pay
+interest on his debts and buy raw materials for models of his
+thousand-and-one inventions. Most Radvillians firmly believed that Sam
+has at some time or other in his busy, worthless career invented
+everything under the sun, practicable or impracticable&mdash;the former
+always a few days after somebody else had taken out patents for the
+identical device. But at that time no one believed he would ever make a
+cent out of any one of the children of his ingenious brain; nor was I,
+in this respect, more credulous than any of my fellow-townsmen.
+</p>
+<p>
+I lingered a moment outside the shop, thinking of the change that had
+come over it since the death of Margaret Graham, Betty's mother. For,
+despite its out-of-the-way location, the shop had not always been
+unprofitable; while Margaret lived (my heart still ached with the
+memory of her name) Sam's business had prospered. She had been one of
+those woman who can rise to any emergency in the interest of her loved
+ones; the first to realise Sam's improvidence and lack of executive
+ability, she had taken hold of the business with a firm hand and made
+it pay&mdash;while she lived. It has never ceased to be a source of
+wondering speculation to me, that she, with her gentle training, so
+wholly aloof from every thought of commerce or economy, should have
+proven herself so thorough and level-headed a business woman. There's
+no accounting for it, indeed, save on the theory that she conceived it
+a woman's function to make up for man's deficiencies; Sam needed her,
+so she become his wife; he needed a manager, so she had became that
+also....
+</p>
+<p>
+During Margaret's régime, as I say, the shop had thrived. Sam had few
+ill-wishers in Radville; the trade came his way. Then Betty was born
+and Margaret died....
+</p>
+<p>
+Most of this I have on hearsay. I left Radville shortly after their
+marriage and did not return until some months after Margaret's burial.
+By that time the shop had begun to show signs of neglect; its stock was
+decimated, its trade likewise. Sam was struggling with his inventions
+more fiercely than ever&mdash;seeking forgetfulness, I always thought. The
+business was allowed to take care of itself. He had always a serene
+faith in his tomorrows.
+</p>
+<p>
+Now the little shop had been far distanced by the competition of
+Sothern and Lee. It was twenty years behind the times, as the saying
+is. Small, darksome, dreary and dingy, it served chiefly as a
+living-room for Sam, his daughter, and his cronies, as well as for his
+workshop. He had a bench and a ramshackle lathe in one corner, where
+you might be sure to find him futilely pottering at almost any hour. He
+owned the little building&mdash;or that portion in it which it were a farce
+to term the equity above the mortgage&mdash;and Betty kept house for him in
+three rooms above the store.
+</p>
+<p>
+I saw nothing of him as I stepped across the street, and was wondering
+if he were at home when, through the small, dark panes of glass in his
+show windows I discerned his white old head bobbing busily over
+something on the rear counter. I pushed the door open and entered. He
+looked up with his never-failing smile of welcome and a wave of his
+hand.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Howdy, Homer? Come in. Well, well, I'm glad to see you. Sit down&mdash;I
+think that chair there by the stove will hold together under you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What are you doing, Sam?" I asked.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Fixin' up the sody fountain. 'Meant to get it working last month,
+Homer, but somehow I kind of forgot."
+</p>
+<p>
+He rubbed away briskly at the single faucet which protruded above the
+counter, lathering it briskly with a metal polish that smelt to Heaven.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Do much sody trade, Sam?"
+</p>
+<p>
+He paused, passing his worn old fingers reflectively across a chin
+snowy with a stubble of neglected beard. "No," he allowed thoughtfully,
+"not so much as we used to, now that Sothern and Lee've got this
+new-fangled notion of puttin' ice cream in a nickel glass of sody. Most
+of the young folks go there, now, but still I get a call flow and
+then&mdash;and every little bit helps." He rubbed on ferociously for a
+moment. "'Course, I'd do more, likely, if I carried a bigger line of
+flavours."
+</p>
+<p>
+"How many do you carry?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"One," he admitted with a sigh, "vanilly."
+</p>
+<p>
+While I filled my pipe he continued to rub very industriously.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why don't you get more?"
+</p>
+<p>
+He flashed me one of his pale, genial smiles. "I'm thinkin' of it,
+Homer, soon's I get some money in. Next week, mebbe. There's a man in
+N'York that mebbe can be int'rested in one of my inventions, Roland
+Barnette says. Mebbe he'd be willin' to put a little money in it,
+Roland says, and of course if he does, I'll be able to stock up
+considerable."
+</p>
+<p>
+I sighed covertly for him. He rubbed, humming a tuneless rhythm to
+himself.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Roland's goin' to write to him about it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What invention?" I asked, incredulous.
+</p>
+<p>
+Sam put down his bottle of polish and came round the counter, beaming;
+nothing pleases him better than an opportunity to exhibit some one of
+his innumerable models. "I'll show you, Homer," he volunteered
+cheerfully, shuffling over to his work-bench. He rasped a match over
+its surface and applied the flame to a small gas-bracket fixed to the
+wall. A strong rush of gas extinguished the match, and he turned the
+flow half off before trying again. This time the vapour caught and
+settled to a steady, brilliant flame as white as and much softer than
+acetylene.
+</p>
+<p>
+"There!" he said in triumph. "What d'ye think of that, Homer?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why," I said, "I didn't know you had an acetylene plant."
+</p>
+<p>
+"No more have I, Homer."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But what is that, then?" I demanded.
+</p>
+<p>
+"It's my invention," he returned proudly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I've been workin' on it two years, Homer, and only got it goin'
+yestiddy. It's going to be a great thing, I tell you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But what <i>is</i> it, Sam?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"It's gas from crude petroleum, Homer. See ..." he continued,
+indicating a tank beneath the bench which seemed to be connected with
+the bracket by a very simple system of piping, broken by a smaller,
+cylindrical tank. "Ye put the oil in there&mdash;just crude, as it comes out
+of the wells, Homer; it don't need refinin'&mdash;and it runs through this
+and down here to this, where it's vaporised&mdash;much the same's they
+vaporise gasoline for autymobile engines, ye know&mdash;and then it just
+naturally flows up to the bracket&mdash;and there ye are."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It's wonderful, Sam," said I, wondering if it really were.
+</p>
+<p>
+"And the best part of it is the economy, Homer. A gallon will run one
+jet six weeks, day in and out. And simple to install. I tell ye&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Have you got it patented yet?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, siree! took out patents just as soon as it struck me how simple
+it 'ud be&mdash;more than two years ago. Only, of course, it took time to
+work it out just right, 'specially when I had to stop now and then
+'cause I needed money for materials. But it's all right now, Homer,
+it's all right now."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And you say Roland Barnette's writing to some one in New York about
+it?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes; he promised he would. I explained it to Roland and he seemed real
+int'rested. He's kind, very kind."
+</p>
+<p>
+I was inclined to doubt this, and would probably have said something to
+that effect had not a shadow crossing the window brought me to my feet
+in consternation. But before I could do more than rise, Colonel Bohun
+had flung open the door and stamped in. He stopped short at sight of
+me, misguided by his near-sighted eyes, and singled me out with a
+threatening wave of his heavy stick.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, sir!" he snarled. "I've come for my answer. Have you sense
+enough in your addled pate to understand that, man? I've come for my
+answer!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"And may have it, whatever it may be, for all of me," I told him.
+</p>
+<p>
+His face flushed a deeper red. "Oh, it's only you, is it, Littlejohn? I
+took you for that fool Graham, in this damned dark hole. Where is he?"
+</p>
+<p>
+I looked to Graham and he followed the direction of my gaze to the
+work-bench, where Sam stood with his back to it, his worn hands folded
+quietly before him. He seemed a little whiter than usual, I thought;
+and perhaps it was only my fancy that made him appear to tremble ever
+so slightly. For he was quite calm and self-possessed&mdash;so much so that
+I realised for the first time there was another man in Radville besides
+myself who did not fear old Colonel Bohun.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm here, colonel," he said quietly. "What is it you wish?"
+</p>
+<p>
+The colonel swung on him, shaking with passion. But he held his tongue
+until he had mastered himself somewhat: a feat of self-restraint on his
+part over which I marvel to this day.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You know well, Graham," he said presently. "You got my letter&mdash;the
+letter I wrote you a week ago?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes," said Sam, with a start of comprehension. "Yes, I got it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then why the devil, man, don't you answer it?"
+</p>
+<p>
+Sam's apologetic smile sweetened his face.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why," he said haltingly&mdash;"I'm sure I meant no offence, but&mdash;you see,
+I'm a very busy man&mdash;I forgot it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"The hell you forgot it. D'ye expect me to believe that, man?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm afraid you'll have to."
+</p>
+<p>
+Bohun was speechless for a moment, stricken dumb by a second seizure of
+fury. But again he calmed himself.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Very well. I'll swallow that insolence for the present&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"It wasn't meant as such, I assure&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Don't interrupt me! D'you hear? ... I've come for my answer. Yes, I've
+come down to that, Graham. If you can't accord me the common courtesy
+of a written reply&mdash;I've come to hear it from your mouth."
+</p>
+<p>
+Sam nodded thoughtfully. "Mebbe," he said, "you forgot you have failed
+to accord me the common courtesy of any sort of a communication
+whatever for twenty years, Colonel Bohun. Even when my wife, your
+daughter, died, you ignored my message asking you to her funeral...."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Be silent!" screamed the colonel. "Do you think I'm here to bandy
+words with you, fool? I demand my answer."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And as for that," continued Sam as evenly as if he had not been
+interrupted, "your proposition was so preposterous that it could have
+come only from you, and deserved no answer. But since you want it
+formally, sir, it's no."
+</p>
+<p>
+For a moment I feared Bohun would have a stroke. The back of the chair
+I had just vacated and his stick alone supported him through that dumb,
+terrible transport. He shook so violently that I looked momentarily to
+see the chair break beneath him. There was insanity in his eyes. When
+finally he was able to articulate it was in broken gasps.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't believe it," he stammered. "It's a lie. I don't believe it.
+It's madness&mdash;the girl wouldn't be so mad. ..."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What is it, father?"
+</p>
+<p>
+I don't know which of us three was the more startled by that simple
+question in Betty Graham's voice; Sam, at all events, showed the least
+surprise; the old colonel wheeled toward the back of the store, his jaw
+dropping and his eyes protruding as though he were confronted with a
+ghost. As, in a way, he was: even I had been struck by that strange,
+heartrending similarity to her mother's tone; and even I trembled a
+little to hear that voice, as it seemed, from beyond the grave.
+</p>
+<p>
+Betty stood at the foot of the staircase; alarmed by the noise of the
+colonel's raging, she had stolen down, unheard by any of us. And in
+that moment I realised as never before that the girl had more of her
+mother in her than lay in that marvellous reproduction of Margaret
+Graham's voice. As she waited there one detected in her pose something
+of her mother's quiet dignity, in her eyes more than a little of
+Margaret's tragedy. Of Margaret's beauty I saw scant trace, I own; but
+in those days my eyes were blinded by the signs of overwork and
+insufficient nourishment that marred her young features, by the
+hopeless dowdiness of her garments.
+</p>
+<p>
+Abruptly she moved swiftly to her father's side and slipped her hand
+into his. "What is it, father?" she repeated, eyeing Colonel Bohun
+coldly.
+</p>
+<p>
+I thought Sam's eyes filled. His lips trembled and he had to struggle
+to master his voice. He smiled through it all, tenderly at his girl,
+but there was in that smile the weakness of the child grown old, the
+dependence of the man whose womanfolk must ever mother him.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why, Betty," he said, tremulous&mdash;"why, Betty, your grandfather here
+has been kind enough to offer to take you and educate you and make a
+lady of you, and&mdash;and we were just talking it over, dear, just talking
+it over."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Do you mean that?" she flung at Bohun.
+</p>
+<p>
+He straightened up and held himself well in hand. "Is it the first you
+have heard of it?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes." She looked inquiringly at her father.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why didn't you tell her?" Bohun persisted harshly. "Were you afraid?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"No." Sam shook his head slowly. "I wasn't
+afraid. But it was unnecessary.... You see, Betty, Colonel Bohun is
+willing to do all this for you on several conditions. You must leave me
+and never see me again; you mustn't even recognise me should we meet
+upon the street; you must change your name to Bohun and never permit
+yourself to be known as Betty Graham. Then you must&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Never mind, daddy dear," said the girl. "That is enough. I know now&mdash;I
+understand why you never told me. It's impossible. Colonel Bohun knew
+that when he made the offer, of course; he made it simply to harass
+you, daddy. It's his revenge...."
+</p>
+<p>
+She looked Bohun up and down with a glance of contempt that would have
+withered another man, poor, wan, haggard little maid of all work that
+she was.
+</p>
+<p>
+"And that's your answer, miss?" he snapped, livid with wrath.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I would not," she told him slowly, "accept a favour from you, sir, if
+I were starving...."
+</p>
+<p>
+Bohun drew himself up. "Then starve," he told her; and walked out of
+the shop.
+</p>
+<p>
+I gaped after his retreating figure. It seemed impossible, incredible,
+that he should have taken such an answer without yielding to a fit of
+insensate passion. And I was still marvelling when I heard Graham
+saying in a broken voice: "Betty! Betty, my little girl!"
+</p>
+<p>
+Then I, too, went away, with a mist before my eyes to dim the golden
+grace of June.
+</p>
+<br><br><br>
+<h3><a name="vi">
+	VI
+</a></h3>
+<p class="ctr">
+INTRODUCTION TO MISS CARPENTER
+</p>
+<p>
+On my way back from the Flats I discovered Duncan sitting on the wall
+of the bridge, moodily donating pebbles to the water. His attitude
+suggested preoccupation with unhappy reflections, a humour from which
+the sound of my footsteps roused him. He looked up and caught my eye
+with an uncertain nod, as though he half recognised me&mdash;presumably
+having casually noticed me at the Bigelow House the previous evening.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Good-morning," said I cheerfully, with a slight break in my stride
+intended craftily to convey the impression that I was not altogether
+averse to a pause for gossip.
+</p>
+<p>
+He said "Good-morning," sombrely.
+</p>
+<p>
+"A pleasant day," I observed spontaneously, stopping.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes," he agreed. "By the way, have you a match about you?"
+</p>
+<p>
+I searched my pockets, found a box and handed it over.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I've been perishing for a ..." He slid his fingers into a waistcoat
+pocket, as one who should seek a cigarette-case; but the hand came
+forth empty. He bit his remark off abruptly, with a blank look in his
+eyes which was promptly succeeded by an expression of deepest chagrin.
+He got up and with a little bow returned the box.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I forgot," he said, apologetic.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm afraid I can't help you out," said I.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, that's all right. I'd just forgotten that I don't smoke."
+</p>
+<p>
+I pretended not to notice his disconcertion.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You're to be congratulated; it's a shameful waste of time and money."
+</p>
+<p>
+"A filthy habit," said he warmly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Indeed, yes," I chanted, finding my pipe and tobacco pouch.
+</p>
+<p>
+He caught my twinkle as I filled and lighted, and looked away, the
+shadow of a smile lurking beneath his small, closely clipped moustache.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I beg your pardon," he said a moment later, regarding me with more
+interest, "but&mdash;do you live here?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Certainly. Why?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I was sure of it," he replied soberly. "But don't you feel a bit
+lonesome, sometimes?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not in the least. Radville's one of the most interesting places on
+this side of the footstool." He sighed. "Indeed," I insisted, "you
+won't feel any more lonely after you've lived here a while, than I do
+now, Mr. Duncan."
+</p>
+<p>
+He opened his eyes at my acquaintance with his name, but jerked his
+head at me comprehendingly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"To be sure," he said. "You would know. But I'm only beginning to
+realise what it feels like to be a marked man."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I hear you intend to make Radville your permanent residence, Mr.
+Duncan?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"It's part of the system," he said obscurely. "It may prove a life
+sentence."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Don't you think you'll like it here?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, I'm strong for Radville," he declared earnestly. "It's all to the
+merry ... I beg your pardon."
+</p>
+<p>
+I stared curiously to see him colour like a school-girl. "What for?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"My mistake, sir; I forgot myself again. I don't use slang."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh!" I commented, wondering. He was beginning to puzzle me.
+</p>
+<p>
+In the pause the air began to rock with the heavy clanging of the clock
+in the Methodist Church steeple.
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's noon," I said. "We'll have to cut along: dinner's ready."
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan immediately replanted himself firmly upon the parapet. "I know
+it," he said with some indignation.
+</p>
+<p>
+Again bewildered, I hesitated, but eventually advanced: "Our ways run
+together, Mr. Duncan, as far as the Bigelow House. My name is
+Littlejohn&mdash;Homer Littlejohn."
+</p>
+<p>
+He rose again to take my hand and assured me he was glad to make my
+acquaintance. "But," he added morosely, "I'll be damned if I go back to
+that hotel before dinner's over.... Great Scott! I forgot again. I
+don't swear!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Have you any other unnatural accomplishments?" I inquired, chuckling.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm so full of 'em I can hardly stick," he assented gloomily. "I don't
+drink or smoke or swear or play pool or cards, and on Sundays I go to
+church."
+</p>
+<p>
+I laughed outright. "You've come to the right place for such exemplary
+virtues to be fully appreciated, Mr. Duncan."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's all right," he said with a return of his indignation, "but it
+wasn't in the bargain that I should starve to death. Do you realise,
+Mr. Littlejohn," he continued, warming, "that you behold in me a young
+man in the prime of health actually on the point of wasting visibly
+away to a shadow of my former hardy self? It's a fact: I am. For the
+past two days I've had nothing to eat except railway sandwiches and
+coffee and the kind of fodder they pitchfork you at the Bigelow House.
+And I came here with a mind coloured with rosy anticipations of real
+old-fashioned country cooking. It's an outrage!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Look here," said I: "why not come home with me for dinner? I'll be
+glad to have you, and Miss Carpenter won't mind your coming, I'm sure."
+</p>
+<p>
+He got up with alacrity. "Those are the first human words I've heard in
+Radville, sir! I accept with joy and gratitude. Come&mdash;lead me to it!"
+</p>
+<p>
+Now, Miss Carpenter doesn't like her meals delayed; so I would have
+been inclined to hasten this Mr. Duncan; but he saved me the trouble.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Miss Carpenter?" he asked without warning, as we hurried up Main
+Street.
+</p>
+<p>
+"My landlady, Mr. Duncan."
+</p>
+<p>
+"She takes boarders? An old maid?" he persisted eagerly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"An elderly spinster; boarders are her distraction as well as a source
+of income."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Do you think she'd take me in, Mr. Littlejohn?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm sure of it. There's a vacant room ..."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Does she talk?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Moderately."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not a regular walking newspaper&mdash;no?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not exactly&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then I'm afraid it's no use," he sighed.
+</p>
+<p>
+I glanced up at his face, but it was inscrutable.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You&mdash;you want a landlady who talks?" I gasped, incredulous.
+</p>
+<p>
+"It's one of the rules," he said, again obscurely.
+</p>
+<p>
+I could make nothing of him. And had I any right to introduce to Hetty
+Carpenter a guest who came without credentials and talked more or less
+like a lunatic at large?
+</p>
+<p>
+"Mr. Duncan&mdash;" I began, uncomfortable.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Don't say it," he anticipated me. "I know you think I'm crazy&mdash;but I'm
+not. You would think so, naturally, because you're the only man here
+who's ever lived away from Radville long enough&mdash;not counting those who
+went to the World's Fair&mdash;."
+</p>
+<p>
+"How did you know?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Bigelow told me last night; said you'd be glad to meet somebody from
+New York. I hope he's right. I'm glad, personally.... You see&mdash;May I
+request that you regard this as confidential?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes&mdash;yes!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I've come to Radville to make my fortune."
+</p>
+<p>
+The confession smote me witless: I could only gape. He nodded
+confirmation, with a most serious mien. At length I found strength to
+articulate. "From New York&mdash;?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes. It's a new scheme. You see, Mr. Littlejohn,
+matters have come to such a state that a city-bred boy practically
+doesn't stand any show on earth of making good in the cities; your
+country-bred boys crowd him to the wall, nine times out of ten. They
+invade us in hordes, fresh from the open, strong, vigorous,
+clear-headed, ambitious.... What chance have we got? ... I've been
+figuring it out, you see, and I've come to the conclusion that it's my
+only salvation to get back to the country and improve some of the
+opportunities&mdash;the golden opportunities&mdash;that your boys have neglected,
+overlooked, in their mad desire to invade the commercial centres of the
+country."
+</p>
+<p>
+He seemed very much in earnest; I was watching him as closely as I
+might without making my scrutiny offensive; and there seemed to be the
+ring of conviction in his voice, while the expression of his eyes
+indicated concentrated thought. And how was I to know, then, that the
+concentration was due to the necessity of invention?
+</p>
+<p>
+"You follow me, Mr. Littlejohn?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I was here first," I corrected. "Still, there's more in what you say
+than perhaps you realise."
+</p>
+<p>
+"If I'd made this discovery originally I'd agree with you, sir. But,
+quite to the contrary, it was pointed out to me by one of the shrewdest
+business minds in the United States&mdash;a man who'd been a country boy to
+begin with. And I've come to the conclusion that he's right."
+</p>
+<p>
+"So you're here."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Here I am."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And what do you propose doing?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm reading law, Mr. Littlejohn; that I shall continue. In the
+meantime, I shall keep my eyes open. At any day, at any amount, the
+opportunity may present itself, the opportunity I'm looking for."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Probably you're right," I assented, impressed, as we turned a corner.
+</p>
+<p>
+A young woman in a very attractive linen gown was strolling toward us,
+quite prettily engaged with a book which she read as she walked, her
+fair young head bowed beneath a sunshade which tinted her face
+becomingly. She gave me a shy smile and a low-voiced greeting as we
+passed. Only my knowledge of the young woman prevented me from being
+blinded by her engaging appearance.
+</p>
+<p>
+"That," said I, when we were out of earshot, "shows you what a furore a
+good-looking young man can create in a town like this. Josie Lockwood
+has put on her best bib-and-tucker to go walking in this afternoon, on
+the off-chance of meeting you, Mr. Duncan."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Flattery note," he commented. "Who's Josie Lockwood?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Daughter of Blinky Lockwood, the richest man in Radville."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Ah!" he said cryptically.
+</p>
+<p>
+We had come to Miss Carpenter's. I opened the gate for him, but he
+stood aside, refusing to precede me. And courtesy in the young folk of
+to-day warms my old heart.
+</p>
+<p>
+He had as much for Hetty Carpenter. Within an hour he had insinuated
+himself into her good graces with a deftness, an ease, that astounded.
+Within three hours he was established, bag and baggage, in her very
+best room.
+</p>
+<p>
+And thirty minutes after she had helped Duncan unpack, Hetty had to run
+downtown to buy a spool of thread.
+</p>
+<br><br><br>
+<h3><a name="vii">
+	VII
+</a></h3>
+<p class="ctr">
+A WINDOW IN RADVILLE
+</p>
+<p>
+A jealous secret, which has never heretofore been divulged, is
+responsible for the prosperity of the Radville <i>Citizen</i>&mdash;at
+least, in very great measure. As the discoverer of this recipe for
+circulation, I have kept it carefully locked in my guilty bosom for
+many a year, and if I now betray it I do so without scruple, for the
+<i>Gazette</i> is now established firmly in a groove of popularity from
+which you'd find it hard to oust the paper. So here's letting the cat
+out of the bag:
+</p>
+<p>
+The policy of the <i>Citizen</i> has long been to devote its columns
+mainly to the exploitation of what is known in newspaper terminology as
+"the local story." Of the news of the great outside world we're
+parsimonious, recognising the fact that the coronation of King Edward
+VII. is a matter of much less import to our community than the
+holocaust which was responsible for the destruction of Sir
+Higginbottom's new hen-house. Similarly a West Indian tornado involving
+losses running up into hundreds of thousands of dollars sinks into
+relative insignificance as compared with the local weather forecast and
+its probable effect on crops not worth ten thousand; while the enforced
+abdication of the Sultan of Turkey gets a "stick" (a space in a
+newspaper column about as long as your forefinger, if you have a small
+hand) as contrasted with the column and a half assigned to the death of
+old Colonel Bohun.
+</p>
+<p>
+Now, naturally, a paper in a small country town can't afford a large
+and hustling staff of enthusiastic reporters; and very probably the
+<i>Citizen</i> would overlook many items and stories of burning local
+interest were it not for the fact that the population has been
+cunningly made to serve in a reportorial capacity without either pay or
+its own knowledge. We literally get our local news by wireless; and
+from dawn to dark there's a constant supply of it on tap.
+</p>
+<p>
+It's this way: our editorial rooms are in the second storey of a
+building overlooking Court House Square. The lower floor is occupied by
+the Post Office, and in front of the Post Office are a hitching-post
+and two long, weather-scarred benches, while just across the road&mdash;I
+mean street&mdash;on the boundary of the square proper&mdash;is a near-bronze
+drinking-fountain and watering-trough erected from the proceeds of
+several fairs given by the local branch of the W. C. T. U. Naturally,
+indeed inevitably, all Radville gravitates to the Post Office, bringing
+the news with it, and stops to discuss it on the steps or the benches
+or by the fountain; and the acoustics are admirable. With a window open
+and scratch-pad handy, the keen-eared scribe at his desk in our offices
+can hardly fail to pick up every scrap of town information between
+sunrise and dusk.... Of course, in winter the supply's not so good.
+Winter before last we all suffered with colds acquired through keeping
+the windows open; and last winter our circulation fell off surprisingly
+through keeping them closed. This winter we contemplate cutting a
+trap-door through the floor for the ostensible purpose of ventilation.
+</p>
+<p>
+And thus it was that I managed to hear much of Mr. Duncan while I
+myself was engaged in formulating an estimate of the young man. He
+engaged the popular imagination no less than mine own, although I was
+more intimately associated with him&mdash;as a fellow-resident at Hetty
+Carpenter's. My professional duties making their habitual demands upon
+my time, I saw, it may be, less of him than many of our people.
+Certainly I learned less of his ways from first-hand knowledge. But
+from my desk (it's the nearest to the window right above the Post
+Office door) I was enabled to keep a pretty close line upon his habits
+and movements, during the first fortnight of his stay in Radville.
+</p>
+<p>
+At home I saw him with unvarying regularity at meal-times and less
+frequently after supper. Between whiles he seemed to observe a fairly
+regular routine: in the morning, after breakfast, he walked abroad for
+his health's sake; in the afternoon and evening he sequestered himself
+in his room for the pursuit of his legal studies. About the genuineness
+of these latter I was long without a question: having been privileged
+to inspect his room I found it redolent of an atmosphere of highly
+commendable application. His writing table was a model of neatness, and
+his store of legal treatises impressed one vastly. That no one, not
+even Hetty Carpenter, ever saw the room without remarking the open
+volume of "The Law of Torts," with its numerous pages painstakingly
+spaced by slips of paper by way of bookmarks, is an attested fact. That
+it was always the same volume is less widely known.
+</p>
+<p>
+Less directly (that is to say, via my window) I learned of him
+compendiously from sources which would have been anonymous but for my
+long acquaintance with the voices of the townspeople.... I write these
+pages at my desk at home and, if truth's to be told, somewhat
+surreptitiously; but with these voices ringing in my memory's ear I
+seem still to be sitting at my erstwhile desk by the window, looking
+out over Court House Square, chewing the rubber heel of my pencil the
+while I listen. It's summer weather and there's a smell in the air of
+dust and heat; the square simmers and shimmers in unclouded sunshine,
+its many green plots of grass a trifle grey and haggard with dust, the
+flagstaff with its two flanking cannon by the bandstand in the middle
+wavering slightly in the haze of heat; there are two rigs, a farm-wagon
+and a buckboard, hitched to the post below, and some boys are squirting
+water on one another by holding their hands over the lips of the
+fountain across the way. Immediately opposite, on the far side of the
+square, the Court House rises proudly in all the majesty of its
+columned front and clapboarded sides; farther along there's the
+Methodist Church, very severe, with its rows of sheds to one side for
+the teams of the more rural members. Behind them all bulk our hills,
+dim and purple against the overwhelming blue of the sky. It's very
+quiet: there are few sounds, and those few most familiar: the raucous
+war-cry of a rooster somewhere on the outskirts of town; an
+intermittent thudding of hoofs in the inch-deep dust of the roadway;
+Miles Stetson wringing faint but genuine shrieks of agony from his
+cornet, in a room behind the Opery House on the next street;
+periodically a shuffle of feet on the sidewalk below; less frequently
+the whine of the swinging doors at Schwartz's place; above it all,
+perhaps, the shrill but not unpleasant accents of Angie Tuthill as she
+pauses on the threshold downstairs and injects surprising information
+into the nothing-reluctant ears of Mame Garrison.
+</p>
+<p>
+" ... He's got six suits of clothes, three for summer and three for
+winter, and two others to wear to parties&mdash;one regular full-dress suit
+and another without any tails on the coat that he told Miss Carpenter
+was a dinner-coat, but Roland Barnette says he must've meant a Tuxedo,
+because nobody wears that kind of clothes except at night; so how could
+it be a dinner-coat?... And Miss Carpenter told Ma he's got twelve
+striped shirts and eight white ones and dozens of silk socks and two
+dozen neckties and handkerchiefs till you can't count and...."
+</p>
+<p>
+Mame punctuates this monologue with a regular and excusable "My land!"
+and the young voices fade away into the mid-summer afternoon quiet. I
+am free to resume my interrupted flight of fancy, but I refrain. The
+atmosphere is soporiferous, hardly conducive to editorial inspiration,
+and I find the commingled flavours of red-cedar, glue and rubber quite
+nourishing.
+</p>
+<p>
+Presently Dr. Mortimer, the minister, comes down the street in company
+with his deacon, Blinky Lockwood. They are discussing someone in
+subdued tones, but I catch references to a worthy young man and the
+vacancy in the choir.
+</p>
+<p>
+Josie Lockwood rustles into hearing with Bessie Gabriel in tow. Josie
+is rattling volubly, but with a hint of the confidential in her tone.
+She insists that: "Of course, I never let on, but every time we meet I
+can just feel him looking and...."
+</p>
+<p>
+Bessie interposes: "Why, Tracey Tanner's just crazy for fear he'll take
+on with Angie."
+</p>
+<p>
+I can see Josie's head toss at this. "I bet he don't know what Angie
+Tuthill looks like. That's too absurd..."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Absurd" is Josie's newest word. It's a very good word, too, but
+sometimes I fear she will wear it threadbare. It closes her remarks as
+the two girls dart into the Post Office, and there is peace for a time;
+then they emerge giggling, and I hear Josie declare: "I'd get Roland
+Barnette to do it, but he's so jealous. He makes me tired."
+</p>
+<p>
+Bessie's response is inaudible.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well," Josie continues, "I'm simply not going to send them out until I
+meet him. Father said I could give it a week from Saturday, but I won't
+unless&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+Bessie interrupts, again inaudibly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Of course I could do that, but ... if I just said 'Miss Carpenter and
+guests' that nosey old Homer Littlejohn'd think I meant him too, and if
+I only said 'guest' it'd look too pointed. Don't you think so?"
+</p>
+<p>
+To my relief they pass from hearing, and I feel for my pipe for
+comfort. Anyway, I never did like Josie Lockwood.... Smoking, I
+meditate on the astonishing power of personality. Here is Mr. Nathaniel
+Duncan no more than a fortnight in our midst (the phrase is used
+callously, as something sacred to country journalism) and, behold! not
+yet has the town ceased to discuss him. The control he has over the
+local mind and imagination is certainly wonderful: the more so since he
+has apparently made no effort to attract attention; rather, I should
+say, to the contrary. Quiet and unassuming he goes his way, minding his
+own business as carefully as we would mind it for him, with all the
+good will in the world, if only we could find out what it is. But we
+can't leave him alone....
+</p>
+<p>
+Tracey Tanner interrupts my musings.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Hello!" he twangs, like a tuneless banjo.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Lo, Tracey." This lofty and blase greeting can come from none other
+than Roland Barnette.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Where you goin'?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Over to the railway station."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What for?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"To give you something to talk about. I'm going to send a telegram to a
+friend of mine in Noo York."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Aw, you ain't the only one can send telegrams. Sam Graham sent one
+just now."
+</p>
+<p>
+"<i>He</i> did!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Uh-huh. I was sort of hangin' round, when he came in, and I seen him
+send it myself."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Sam Graham telegraphing! Do you know; who to, Tracey?" Roland's
+superiority is wearing thin under contact with his curiosity. This
+surprising bit of news makes him distinctly more affable and inclined
+to lower himself to the social level of the son of the livery-stable
+keeper.
+</p>
+<p>
+As for myself, I am inclined to lean out of the window and call Tracey
+up, lest he get out of hearing before I hear the rest of it.
+Fortunately I am not thus obliged to compromise my dignity. The two are
+at pause.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Gimme a cigarette 'nd I'll tell you," bargains Tracey shrewdly. "Lew
+Parker told me after Sam'd gone."
+</p>
+<p>
+The deal is put through promptly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"He was telegraphin' to&mdash;Got a match?"
+</p>
+<p>
+For once I am in sympathy with Roland, whose tone betrays his desire to
+wring Tracey's exasperating neck.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Aw, he was only telegraphing to Gresham an' Jones for some sody water
+syrups."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Where'd he get the money?" There's fine scorn in Roland's comment.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I dunno, but he handed Lew a five-dollar bill to pay for the message."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, if Sam Graham's got any money he'd better hold on to it, instead
+of buying sody-water syrups. I guess Blinky Lockwood'll get after him
+when he finds it out. He owes Blinky a note at the bank and it's coming
+due in a day or two and Blinky ain't going to renew, neither."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Sam seemed cheerful 'nough. Anyhow, it ain't my funeral."
+</p>
+<p>
+I have now something to think about, indeed, and am more than half
+inclined to stroll up to Graham's and find out what has happened, on my
+own account, when the voices of Hi Nutt and Watty the tailor drift up
+to me. The cronies are coming down for their regular afternoon session
+on the Post Office benches&mdash;a function which takes place daily, just as
+soon as the sun gets round behind the building, so that the seats are
+shaded. And I pause, true to the ethics of journalism; it's my duty not
+to leave just yet.
+</p>
+<p>
+Surprisingly enough these two likewise are discussing Sam Graham. At
+least I can deduce nothing else from Hiram's first words, though their
+subject is for the moment nameless.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, sir; he's the poorest man in this town."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes," Watty quavers; "yes, I guess he be."
+</p>
+<p>
+"An' he's got no more business sense <i>into</i> him than God give a
+goose."
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, I guess he ain't."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why, look at the way things has run down at his store since Margaret
+died. She kept things a-runnin' while she was alive."
+</p>
+<p>
+ "Yes, she was a fine woman, Margaret Bohun
+was."
+</p>
+<p>
+"An' they ain't no doubt about it, Sam had money into the bank when she
+died. But ever sinst then it's been all go out and no come in with him.
+He keeps fussin' and fussin' with them inventions of his, but no one
+ever heard tell of his gettin' anything out of 'em."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And what'd he do with all the money he had when Margaret died?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Spent it, what he didn't lend and give away and lose endorsin' notes
+for his friends and then havin' to pay 'em. An' speakin' of notes, I
+heard Roland Barnette say, t'other day, that old Sam had a note comin'
+due to the bank, an' Blinky wasn't goin' to renew it any more."
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Course Sam can't pay it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Certainly he can't. I was in his store day before yestiddy an' they
+wasn't nobody come in for nothin' while I was there. He don't do no
+business to speak of."
+</p>
+<p>
+"How long was you there, Hi?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"From nine o'clock to noon."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What doin'?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Nuthin'; jes' settin' round."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I seen him to-day goin' into the bank. Guess he must've gone to see
+Lockwood 'bout thet note."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, I don't envy him his call on Blinky Lockwood none."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Mebbe he went in to deposit his coupons," Watty chuckled.
+</p>
+<p>
+Hiram snorted and there was silence while he filled and lit his pipe.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I hearn tell this mornin'," he resumed, "that Josie Lockwood's goin'
+to give a party next week."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, I hearn it too. Angie Tuthill was talkin' 'bout it to Mame
+Garrison up to Leonard and Call's. She said they was goin' to have the
+biggest time this town ever see. Goin' to decyrate the grounds with
+lanterns an' have ice cream sent from Phillydelphy, and cakes, too.
+Can't make out what's come into Blinky to let that gal of his waste
+money like that."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I figger," says Hiram after a sapient pause, "she must be gettin' it
+up for thet New York dood."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Duncan?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Uh-huh."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I didn't know he was 'quainted with the Lockwoods."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I didn't know he was 'quainted with nobody."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Nobody 'ceptin' Homer Littlejohn an' Hetty Carpenter, an' they don't
+seem to know much about him. I call him darn cur'us. Hetty says he
+allus a-settin' in his room, a-studyin' an' a-studyin' an' a-studyin'."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He goes walkin' mornin's, Hetty told me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Wal, he don't come downtown much. Nobody hardly ever sees him 'cept to
+church."
+</p>
+<p>
+Hiram ponders this profoundly, finally delivering himself of an opinion
+which he has never forsaken. "I claim he's a s'picious character."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Don't look to me as though he knew 'nough to be much of anythin'."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Wal, now, if he's a real student an' they ain't no outs 'bout him,
+what in tarnation's he doin' here? Thet's jest what I'd like to have
+somebody tell me, Watty."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Hetty sez he sez he wants a quiet place to study."
+</p>
+<p>
+Hiram snorts with scorn. "Oh, fid-del! You don't catch no Noo York
+young feller a-settlin' down in Radville unless he's crazy or somethin'
+worse."
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Tain't no use tellin' Hetty Carpenter thet." "No; if anybody sez a
+word agin him she shets 'em right up."
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Tain't only Hetty, but all the wimmin's on his side."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Thet's proof enough to me he ain't right." "Wimmin," says Watty, as
+the result of a period of philosophical consideration, "is all crazy
+about clothes. When a feller's got good clothes you can't make them see
+no harm into him, no matter what he is. I pressed some of Duncan's last
+Satiddy. I never see clothes&mdash;such goods and linin's. They was made for
+him, too&mdash;made by a tailor on Fifth Avenue, Noo York. I fergit the name
+now."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Wal, Roland Barnette sez they ain't stylish. He sez they're too much
+like an undertaker's gitup."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Wal, Roland oughter know. He's the fanciest dressed-up feller in the
+county."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, I guess he be."
+</p>
+<p>
+The subject apparently languishes, but I know that it still occupies
+their sage meditations; and presently this is demonstrated by Hiram,
+who expectorates liberally by way of preface.
+</p>
+<p>
+"When this cuss Duncan fust come here," he says with a self-contained
+chuckle, "ev'rybody but me figgered he had stacks of money. Guess they
+be singin' a different tune, now, sinst he's been goin' round askin'
+for work."
+</p>
+<p>
+This is news to me, and I sit up, sharing Watty's astonishment.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Be he a-doin' thet, Hiram?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's what he's been a-doin'."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Funny I missed hearin' about it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He only started this mornin'. He went to Sothern and Lee's and Leonard
+and Call's and Godfrey's&mdash;'nd then I guess he must 'ev quit
+discouraged. They wouldn't none of them give him nothin'. Leastways,
+thet's what they said after he'd gone out. He didn't give anybody a
+reel chance to say anythin'. I was in Leonard and Call's and he came in
+an' asked for a job, but the minute Len looked at him he turned right
+round and slunk out without a-waitin' for Len to say a word." Hiram
+smoked in huge enjoyment of the retrospect. "He's the curiousest
+critter we ever had in this town."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes," agrees Watty, "I guess he be."
+</p>
+<p>
+At this juncture comes an interruption; Tracey Tanner returns,
+hot-foot. Either he has been running, or his breathlessness is due to
+excitement. Before the two upon the bench he pauses in agitated glee, a
+bearer of tremendous tidings.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Hello," he pants.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Now, you Tracey Tanner," Hiram cuts in sharply, "you run 'long an'
+don't be a-botherin' round. Seems like a body never can git a chance to
+rest, with you children allus a-buttin' in&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Aw, shet up," says Tracey dispassionately. "I only wanted to tell you
+the news."
+</p>
+<p>
+Watty quavers: "What news, Tracey?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well," says the boy, "I'll tell you, Watty, but I wouldn't 've told
+him after what he said."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But what's the news, Tracey?" There is suspense in the iteration.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, seein's it's you, Watty&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"You Tracey Tanner, you run 'long and stop your jokin'!" interrupts
+Hiram with authority.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Tain't no joke; it's news, I'm tellin' you. Sa-ay, what d'ye think,
+Watty?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, Tracey, yes? What is it, boy?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Thet&mdash;Noo&mdash;York&mdash;dood," drawls Tracey, "is a-workin' for Sam Graham!"
+</p>
+<p>
+A dramatic pause ensues. I rise and find my coat.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Tracey Tanner," shrills Hiram, "be you a-tellin' the truth?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Kiss my hand and cross my heart and vow Honest Injun, I seen him up
+there just now in the store, Watty, tendin' the sody fountain."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Wal," says Hiram, rising, "I don't believe a word of it, but if it's
+true we better be goin' round to see, Watty, 'cause it ain't a-goin' to
+last long. He won't stay after he finds out Sam ain't got no money to
+pay his wages with."
+</p>
+<br><br><br>
+<h3><a name="viii">
+	VIII
+</a></h3>
+<p class="ctr">
+THE MAN OF BUSINESS IN EMBRYO
+</p>
+<p>
+There's no questioning the fact that two weeks of Radville had driven
+Duncan to desperation; on the morning of the fifteenth day he wakened
+in his room at Miss Carpenter's and lay for a time abed staring
+vacantly at the gaudily papered ceiling, not through laziness remaining
+on his back, but through sheer inertia. The prospect of rising to
+ramble through another purposeless, empty day appalled his imagination;
+it had been all very well when the humour of his project intrigued him,
+when the village was a novelty and its inhabitants "types" to be
+studied, watched, analysed and classified with secret amusement; but
+now he felt that he had already exhausted its possibilities; he was a
+foreigner in thought and instinct, had as little in common with
+Radvillians as any newly imported Englishman would have had. In plain
+language, he was bored to the point of extinction.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why," he reflected aloud, "it doesn't seem reasonable, but I'm
+actually looking forward to the delirious dissipation of church next
+Sunday!
+</p>
+<p>
+"Me?...
+</p>
+<p>
+"If Kellogg could only see me now!"
+</p>
+<p>
+He laughed mirthlessly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I must have done something to deserve this in my misspent life...
+</p>
+<p>
+"Wonder if nothing ever happens here?.... I'd give a whole lot, if I
+had it, for a good rousing fire on Main Street&mdash;the Bigelow House, for
+choice....
+</p>
+<p>
+"And it's got me to the point of drooling to myself, like those fellows
+you read about who get lost in the desert....
+</p>
+<p>
+"Come! Get out of this! And, my boy, remember to 'count that day lost
+whose low descending sun sees nothing accomplished, nothing done.'...
+</p>
+<p>
+"Probably misquoted, at that."
+</p>
+<p>
+Sullenly he rose and dressed.
+</p>
+<p>
+He was late at the breakfast and silent and reserved throughout that
+meal. Poor Miss Carpenter thought him dissatisfied and hung round his
+chair, purring with a solicitude that almost maddened him. As soon as
+possible he made his escape from the house.
+</p>
+<p>
+The walk he indulged in that morning took him in a wide circle: south
+on the road to the Gap, then eastwards, crossing the railroad and the
+river, north through a smiling agricultural region, east to the Flats,
+and so across the stone bridge to the Old Town once more. He was
+trudging up Street toward Centre shortly after eleven&mdash;hot, a little
+tired, and utterly disgusted. The exercise, instead of exhilarating,
+had depressed him; the quickened flow of blood through his veins, the
+vigour of the clean air he inhaled, demanded of him action of some
+sort; and he had nothing whatever to do with himself all afternoon save
+drowse over "The Law of Torts."
+</p>
+<p>
+Recognition of Leonard and Call's familiar shop-front fired him with a
+spirit of adventure and enterprise. He stopped short, thoughtfully
+rubbing his small moustache the wrong way, his vision glued to the
+embarrassingly candid window displays.
+</p>
+<p>
+"It'd be an awful thing for me to do....
+</p>
+<p>
+"Think of yourself, man, jumping counters in and out amongst all
+hose&mdash;those <i>Things!</i> like a lunatic monkey performing on a Monday
+morning's clothes line!..."
+</p>
+<p>
+He thought deeply, and sighed. "It ain't moral....
+</p>
+<p>
+"But it's one of the rules, it must be did. Henry said a ribbon clerk
+was a social equal....
+</p>
+<p>
+"Come, now! No more shennanigan! Brace up! Be a man!...
+</p>
+<p>
+"A man? That's the whole trouble: I am a man; I've got no business in a
+place like that."
+</p>
+<p>
+He turned and moved away slowly. But the idea had him by the heels. He
+struggled against a growing resolution to return. Then enlightenment
+came to him suddenly. He paused again, grappling with this amazing
+revelation of self.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Great Scott! Harry was right, damn him! He said this place would
+reconstruct me from the inside out and vice versa, and by jinks! it
+has. I actually <i>want</i> to work!...
+</p>
+<p>
+"Can you beat that&mdash;<i>me</i>!"
+</p>
+<p>
+He swung back to Leonard and Call's, mentally reviewing his
+instructions.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Let's see. I was to wait at least a month, to let the shopkeepers get
+accustomed to the sight of me.... <i>Hmm</i>.... Harry certainly has a
+cute way of expressing his thought.... But it can't be helped; I can't
+wait. If I do, I'll throw up the job....
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm to walk in and say, politely: '<i>I'm looking for employment. If
+at any time you should have an opening here that you can offer me, I
+shall endeavour to give satisfaction. Good-day</i>.'...
+</p>
+<p>
+"But be careful not to press it. Just say it and get right out...."
+</p>
+<p>
+With the air of a man who knows his own mind he pulled open the wire
+screen-door and strode in.
+</p>
+<p>
+Two minutes later he emerged, breathing hard, but with the glitter of
+determination in his eye.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I wouldn't 've believed I could get away with it. Here goes for the
+next promising opening."
+</p>
+<p>
+He headed for Sothern and Lee's drug-store.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Wonder what that fellow would have said if I'd had the nerve to wait
+and listen...."
+</p>
+<p>
+In the drug-store he experienced less difficulty in making his speech
+and exit; he flattered himself that he accomplished both gracefully,
+even impressively. And indeed you may believe he left a gaping audience
+behind him. So likewise at Godfrey's notions and stationery shop.
+</p>
+<p>
+As he emerged from the latter the resonant clamour of the Methodist
+Church clock drove him home for dinner, hungry and glowing with
+self-approbation. At all events, no one had refused him: he had not
+been set upon and incontinently kicked out. He felt that he was getting
+on.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Now this afternoon," he mused, "I'll wind up the job. By night
+everyone in town will know I want work."
+</p>
+<p>
+But if he had thought a moment he would have realised that he might
+have spared himself the trouble; the consummation he so earnestly
+desired was already being brought about by resident and recognised, if
+unofficial, agents for the dissemination of news.
+</p>
+<p>
+It was two o'clock or thereabouts, I gather, when, shaping his course
+toward Radville's commercial centre, Duncan hesitated on the corner of
+Beech Street, cocking an incredulous eye up at the weather-worn sign
+which has for years adorned the side of Tuthill's grocery: a hand
+indicating fixedly:
+</p>
+<p class="ctr">
+THIS WAY TO GRAHAM'S DRUG STORE
+</p>
+<p>
+"Two druggists in Radville!" he mused. "Is it possible?... Then it's
+Harry's mistake if the scheme fails; he said this was a one-horse
+country town, but I'm blest if it isn't a thriving metropolis! Two!...
+Here, I'm going to have a look."
+</p>
+<p>
+He turned up Beech and presently discovered the object of his quest, a
+two-storey building of "frame," guiltless of the ardent caress of a
+paint-brush since time out of mind. On the ground floor the windows
+were made up of many small square panes, several of which had been
+rudely mended. Through them the interior glimmered darkly. In the
+foreground stood a broken bottle, shaped like a mortuary urn and half
+full of pink liquid. Beside it reposed a broken packing-box in which
+bleary camphor-balls nestled between torn sheets of faded blue paper.
+Of these a silent companion in misery stood on the far side of the
+window: a towering pagoda-like cage of wire in which (trapped,
+doubtless, by means of some mysterious bait known only to alchemists)
+three worn but brutal-looking sponges were apparently slumbering in
+exhaustion. Back of these a dusty plaster cast of a male figure lightly
+draped seemed to represent the survival of the fittest over some
+strange and deadly patent medicine. The recessed door bore an
+inscription in gold letters, tarnished and half obliterated:
+</p>
+<pre>
+AM GRAHAM
+ RUGS &amp; CHEM C LS
+
+ R SCRIPTION CAREF LY C POUNDED
+</pre>
+<p>
+"Looks like the very place for one of my acknowledged abilities," said
+Duncan. He turned the knob and entered, advancing to the middle of the
+dingy room. There, standing beside a cold and rusty stove whose pipe
+wandered giddily to a hole in the farthest wall (reminding him of some
+uncouth cat with its tail over its back), he surveyed with the single
+requisite comprehensive glance the tiers of shelves tenanted by a
+beggarly array of dingy bottles; the soda fountain with its company of
+glasses and syrup jars; the flanking counters with their broken
+show-cases housing a heterogenous conglomeration of unsalable wares;
+the aged and tattered posters heralding the virtues of potent affronts
+to the human interior&mdash;to say naught of its intelligence; the drab
+walls and debris-littered flooring.
+</p>
+<p>
+A slight grating noise behind him brought Duncan round with a start. At
+a work-bench near the window sat a white-haired man garbed baggily in
+an old crash coat and trousers. His head was bowed over something
+clamped in a vise, at which he was tinkering busily with a file. He did
+not look up, but, as his caller moved, inquired amiably: "Well?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Good-morning," stammered Duncan; "er&mdash;I should say afternoon."
+</p>
+<p>
+"So you should," Sam admitted, still fussing with his work. "Anything
+you want?"
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan swallowed hard and mastered his confusion. "Would it be possible
+for me to speak to the proprietor a moment?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I should jedge it would. Go right along." Sam filed vigorously.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Might I ask&mdash;are you Mr. Graham?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, sir; that's me."
+</p>
+<p>
+The filing continued stridently. Duncan moved closer. There was scant
+encouragement to be gathered from Graham's indifferent attitude; yet
+his voice had been pleasant, kindly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I&mdash;I'm looking for employment," said Duncan hastily. "If&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Employment!"
+</p>
+<p>
+Graham dropped his tools with a clatter and faced round. For a moment
+his eyes twinkled and a wintry smile lightened his fine old features.
+"Well, I declare!" he said, rising. "You must be the stranger the whole
+town's been talkin' about."
+</p>
+<p>
+"If at any time," Duncan pursued hastily, "you should have an opening
+here that you can offer me, I shall endeavour to give satisfaction.
+Good-day, sir." And he made for the door.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Eh, just a minute," said Graham. "Are you in a hurry?"
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan paused, smiling nervously. "Oh, no&mdash;only I mustn't press it, you
+know&mdash;just say it and get right&mdash;I mean I don't want to take up your
+valuable time, sir."
+</p>
+<p>
+Graham chuckled. "Guess the folks haven't been talking much to you
+about me," he suggested. "You seem to have a higher opinion of the
+value of my time than anybody else in Radville."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, but&mdash;that is to say&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"But if you're really looking for a job, I'd like to give you one first
+rate."
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan started toward him in breathless haste. "You&mdash;you'd like
+to!&mdash;You don't mean it!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes," Graham nodded, smiling with enjoyment of his little joke. It was
+harmless; he didn't for a moment believe that Duncan really needed
+employment; and on the other hand it tickled him immensely to think
+that anyone should apply to him for work.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well," said Duncan, staring, "you're the first man I ever met that
+felt that way about it."
+</p>
+<p>
+Sam's amusement dwindled. "The trouble is," he confessed&mdash;"the trouble
+is, my boy, my business is so small I don't need any help. There isn't
+much of anything to do here."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's just the sort of a place I'd like," said Duncan impulsively.
+Then he laughed a little, uneasily. "I mean, I'm willing to take any
+position, no matter how insignificant. I mean it, honestly."
+</p>
+<p>
+"This might suit you, then&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I wish you'd let me try it, sir."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But you don't understand." Graham was serious enough now; there wasn't
+any joke in what he had to say. "To tell you the truth, I can't afford
+it. When your pay was due, I'm afraid I shouldn't have any money to
+give you."
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan dismissed this paltry consideration with a princely gesture. "I
+don't mind that part," he insisted. "Mr. Graham, if you'll teach me the
+drug business I'll work for you for nothing."
+</p>
+<p>
+He said it earnestly, for he meant it just a bit more seriously than he
+himself realised at the moment; and I'm glad to think it was because
+Sam's serene and gentle, guileless nature had appealed to the young
+man. He had that in him, that instinct for decency and the right, that
+made him like this simple, sweet and almost childish old man at
+sight&mdash;like him and want to help him, though he was hardly conscious of
+this and believed his motive rather more than less selfish, that he was
+grasping at this opportunity for relief from the deadly ennui that
+oppressed him as madly as a famished man at a crust. Indeed, the boy
+was eager to deceive himself in this respect, with youth's wholesome
+horror of sentiment.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Between you and me," he hurried on, "it's this way: I've been here for
+two weeks with nothing to do but look at a book, and it's got me crazy
+enough to want to work!"
+</p>
+<p>
+But still I like to think it was for a better reason, that his conduct
+then bore out my theory that there are streaks of human kindliness and
+right-thinking in all of us&mdash;buried deep though they may be by many an
+acquired stratum of callousness and egoism: the sediment of life caking
+upon the soul....
+</p>
+<p>
+But as for Sam, as soon as he recovered he shook his head in thoughtful
+deprecation. "Well, I swan!" he said. "I guess you must find it pretty
+slow down here. But"&mdash;brightening&mdash;"if you feel that way about it, I'd
+better take you over to Sothern and Lee's. They'd be glad to get you at
+the price."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And in a week they'd think they were over-paying me," Duncan argued.
+"No&mdash;I've been there. Why not try me on here?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, I'm just a little bit afraid you wouldn't learn much, my boy. I
+don't do business enough to give you a good idea of it. Sothern and Lee
+get all the trade nowadays."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But look here, sir: don't you think if I came in here perhaps we could
+build up the business?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, I'm afraid not," Graham deprecated, pursing his lips and rubbing
+the white stubble of his beard with a toil-worn thumb.
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan eyed him in bitter humour. "No, of course not. You're right&mdash;but
+somebody must have tipped you off."
+</p>
+<p>
+Graham paid little heed, whose mind was bent upon his own parlous
+circumstances. "I haven't got capital enough to stock up the store," he
+explained; "that's the real trouble. Folks have got into the habit of
+going to the other store because I'm out of so many things."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, to be sure," said Duncan, a little dashed; "you can't expect to
+do business unless you've got things to sell...."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't expect it, my boy," Sam assented dolefully. "'Twouldn't be in
+reason.... You see," he added, hope lightening his gloom, "I'm working
+on an invention of mine, and if that should work out I'd get some money
+and be able to get a fresh stock. Then I'd be glad to have you."
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan brushed this impatiently aside. "How much business are you doing
+here now?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Some days"&mdash;Graham reckoned it on his fingers&mdash;"I take in a dollar or
+two, and some days... nothing.... There's my sody fountain," he said
+with a jerk of a thumb toward it: "got that fixed up a little while
+ago, and it's bringing in a little. Not much. You see, I need more
+syrups. I've only got vanilly now."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Soda water!" Duncan jumped at the idea. "Hold on! All the girls round
+here drink soda, don't they?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, yes," said Graham abstractedly.
+</p>
+<p>
+The thought infused new life into the younger man's waning purpose.
+"Mr. Graham, I wish you'd let me come in here for a while. I don't care
+about wages."
+</p>
+<p>
+Graham lifted his shoulders resignedly. "Well, my boy, it don't seem
+right, but if you really want to work here for nothing, I'll be glad to
+have you; and if things look up with me, I'll be glad to pay you."
+</p>
+<p>
+Abruptly he found his hand grasped and pumped gratefully.
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's mighty good of you, Mr. Graham. When can I start?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why... whenever you like."
+</p>
+<p>
+In a twinkling Duncan's hat and gloves were off. "I'd like to, now," he
+said. "Where can we get more syrups?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Unfortunately... I'll have to buy them."
+</p>
+<p>
+"How much?" Duncan's hand was in his pocket in an instant.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, no, you mustn't do that." Sam backed away in alarm. "I couldn't
+allow it, my boy. It's good of you, but..."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Either," Nat told himself, "I'm asleep or someone's refusing to take
+money from me." He grinned cheerfully. "Oh, that's all right," he
+contended aloud. "I'll draw it down as soon as we begin to sell soda."
+He selected a bill from his slender store. "Will five dollars be
+enough?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, yes, but it wouldn't be right for me to&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+But by this time Duncan was pressing the bill into his hand.
+"Nonsense!" he insisted. "How can we build up trade without syrup?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"But&mdash;but&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"And how can I learn the business without trade?" He closed Graham's
+unwilling fingers over the money and skipped away.
+</p>
+<p>
+Sighing, Graham gave over the unequal argument. "Well, if you're
+satisfied, my boy.... But I'll have to write to Elmiry for it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Telegraph."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Telegraph!" Graham laughed. "That'd kill Lew Parker, I guess."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Who's he?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Telegraph operator and ticket agent."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, he won't be missed much. Telegraph and tell 'em to send the
+goods C.O.D. Please, Mr. Graham. We want to get things moving here, you
+know; we've got to build up the business. We'll put out some signs and
+... and ... well, we'll get the people in the habit of coming here
+somehow. You'll see!"
+</p>
+<p>
+He raked the poverty-stricken shelves with a calculating eye, all his
+energy fired by enthusiasm at the prospect of doing something. Graham
+watched him with kindling liking and admiration. His old lips quivered
+a little before he voiced his thought.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You&mdash;you know, my boy, you've got splendid business ability," he
+asserted with whole-souled conviction.
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan almost reeled. "What?" he cried.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I was just saying, you have wonderful business ability."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You're the first man that ever said that. I wonder if it's so."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm sure of it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well," said Nat, chuckling, "I'll write that to my chum. He'll&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, I can tell," Graham interrupted. "Now, I ... Well, you see, I've
+been a failure in business. So far as that goes, I've been a failure in
+everything all my life."
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan stared for a moment, then offered his hand. "For luck," he
+explained, meeting Graham's puzzled gaze as his hand was taken.
+</p>
+<p>
+Wondering, Graham shook his head; and gratitude made his old voice
+tremulous. He put a hand over Duncan's, patting it gently.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I want you to know, my boy, that I appreciate..." His voice broke.
+"It's mighty kind of you to buy the syrup&mdash;very kind&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Nothing of the sort; it's just because I've got great business
+ability." Duncan laughed quietly and moved away. "We'll want to clean
+up a bit," said he; "got a broom? I'll raise the dust a bit while
+you're out sending that wire."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You'll find one in the cellar, I guess, but&mdash;your clothes&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, that's all right. Where's the cellar?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Underneath," Graham told him simply, taking down a battered hat from a
+hook behind the counter.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I know; but how do I get there?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"By the steps; you go through that door there into the hall. The steps
+are under the stairs to our rooms. I live above the store, you see."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes.... Good-bye, Mr. Graham."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Good-bye, my boy."
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan watched the old man move slowly out of sight, then with a groan
+sat down on the counter to think it over. "It wouldn't be me if I
+didn't make a mess of things somehow," he told himself bitterly. "Now
+you have gone and went and done it, Mr. Fortune Hunter. You stand a
+swell chance of getting away with the goods when you take a wageless
+job in a spavined country drug-store with no trade worth mentioning and
+nothing to draw it with... just because that old duffer's the only
+human being you've spotted in this burg!...
+</p>
+<p>
+"Wonder what Harry would say if he heard about that wonderful business
+ability thing...
+</p>
+<p>
+"But what in thunder can we do to bring business to this bum joint?"
+</p>
+<p>
+He raked his surroundings with a discouraged glance.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh," he said thoughtfully, "hell!"
+</p>
+<p>
+Five minutes later Ben Sperry found him in the same position, his head
+bent in perplexed reverie. Sperry had been travelling for Gresham and
+Jones, a wholesale drug-house in Elmira, more years than I can
+remember. His friendship for Sam Graham, contracted during the days
+when Graham's was the drug-store of Radville, has survived the decay of
+the business. He's a square, decent man, Sperry, and has wasted many an
+hour trying to persuade Sam to pay a little more attention to the
+business. I suspect he suffered the shock of his placid life when he
+found Sam absent and the shop in the care of this spruce, well set-up
+young man.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Anything I can do for you?" chirped Duncan cheerfully, dropping off
+the counter as Sperry entered.
+</p>
+<p>
+"No-o; I just wanted to see old Sam. Is he upstairs?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, Mr. Graham's not in at present," Duncan told him civilly.
+</p>
+<p>
+Sperry wrinkled his brows over this problem. "You working here?" he
+asked.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, sir."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, I'll be hanged!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Let us hope not," said Duncan pleasantly. He waited a moment, a little
+irritated. "Sure there's nothing <i>I</i> can do for you?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"No-o," said Sperry slowly, struggling to comprehend. "Thank you just
+the same."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not at all." Duncan turned away.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You see," Sperry pursued, "I don't buy from drug-stores: I sell to
+'em."
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan faced about with new interest in the man. "Yes?" he said
+encouragingly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"My card," volunteered Sperry, fishing the slip of pasteboard from his
+waistcoat pocket. He dropped his sample case beside the stove and
+plumped down in the chair, to the peril of its existence. "I don't make
+this town very often," he pursued, while Duncan studied his card.
+"Sothern and Lee are the only people I sell to here, but I never miss a
+chance to chin a while with old Sam. So, having half an hour before
+train time, I thought I'd drop in."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Mr. Graham doesn't order from your house, then?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Doesn't order from anybody, does he?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't know; I've just come here. He'll be sorry to have missed you,
+though. He's just stepped out to wire your house&mdash;I gather from the
+fact that it's in Elmira; he mentioned that town, not the firm
+name&mdash;for some syrups."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You don't mean it!" Sperry gasped. "What's struck him all of a sudden?
+He ain't put in any new stock for ten years, I reckon."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, you see," Duncan explained artfully, "I've persuaded him, in a
+way, to try to make something out of the business here. We're going to
+do what we can, of course, in a small way at first."
+</p>
+<p>
+Sperry wagged a dubious head. "I dunno," he considered. "Sam's a nice
+old duffer, but he ain't got no business sense and never had; you can
+see for yourself how he's let everything run to seed here. Sothern and
+Lee took all his trade years ago."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, I know; that's why he needs me," said Duncan brazenly. In his
+soul he remarked "O Lord!" in a tone of awe; his colossal impudence
+dazed even himself. "But don't you think he could get back some of the
+trade if the store was stocked up?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"No doubt about that at all," Sperry averred; "he'd get the biggest
+part of it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You think so?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Sure of it. You see, everybody round here likes Sam, and Sothern and
+Lee have always been outsiders. They'd swing to this shop in a minute,
+just on account of that. Fact is, I wasted a lot of talk on our firm a
+couple of years ago, trying to make our people give him some credit,
+but they couldn't see it. He owed them a bill then that was so old it
+had grown whiskers."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And still owes it, I presume?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"You bet he still owes it. Always will. It's so small that it ain't
+worth while suing for&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Look here, Mr. Sperry, how much is this bill with the whiskers?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"About fifty dollars, I think," said the travelling man, fumbling for
+his wallet. "I'm supposed to ask for payment every time I strike town,
+you know, so I always have it with me; but I haven't had the heart to
+say a word to Sam for a good long time.... Here it is."
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan studied carefully the memorandum: "To Mdse, as per bill
+rendered, $47.85." "I wonder..." he murmured.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Eh?" said Sperry.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I was wondering:... Suppose you were to tell your people that there's
+a young fellow here who'd like to give this store a boom.... Say he
+wants a little credit because&mdash;because Mr. Graham won't let him put in
+any cash&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not a bit of use," Sperry negatived. "I would, myself, but the
+house&mdash;no."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But suppose I pay this bill&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Pay it? You really mean that?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Certainly I mean it." Duncan produced the wad of bills which Kellogg
+had furnished him the night before his departure from New York. Thus
+far he had broken only one of the five-hundred-dollar gold
+certificates, and of that one he had the greater part left; living is
+anything but expensive in Radville.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm beginning to understand that I was cut out for an actor," he told
+himself as he thumbed the roll with a serious air and an assumed
+indifference which permitted Sperry to estimate its size pretty
+accurately.
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's quite a stack of chips you're carrying," Sperry observed.
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan's hand airily wafted the remark into the limbo of the
+negligible. "A trifle, a mere trifle," he said casually. "I don't
+generally carry much cash about me. Haven't for five years," he added
+irrepressibly. He extracted a fifty-dollar certificate from the sheaf,
+and handed it over.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'll take a receipt, but you needn't mention this to Mr. Graham just
+now."
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, certainly not." Sperry scrawled his signature to the bill.
+</p>
+<p>
+"And about that line of credit?&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, with this paid, I guess you could have what you needed, in
+moderation. Of course&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"My name is Duncan&mdash;Nathaniel Duncan." Sperry made a memorandum of it
+on the back of an envelope. "Any former business connections?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"None that I care to speak about," Duncan confessed glumly.
+</p>
+<p>
+Sperry's face lengthened. "No references?"
+</p>
+<p>
+It took thought, and after thought courage; but Duncan hit upon the
+solution at length. "Do you know L. J. Bartlett &amp; Company, the
+brokers?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Do I know J. Pierpont Morgan?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then that's all right. Tell your people to inquire of Harry Kellogg,
+the junior partner. He knows all about me."
+</p>
+<p>
+Noting the name, Sperry put away the envelope. "That's enough. If he
+says you're all right, you can have anything you want." He consulted
+his watch. "Hmm. Train to catch.... But let's see: what do you need
+here?"
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan reviewed the empty shelves, his face glowing. "Pills," he said
+with a laugh: "all kinds of pills and... everything for a regular,
+sure-enough drug-store, Mr. Sperry: everything Sothern and Lee carries
+and a lot of attractive things they don't.... Small lots, you know,
+until I see what we can sell."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I see. You leave it to me; I probably know what you need better than
+you do. I'll make out a list this afternoon and mail it to-night with
+instructions to ship it at the earliest possible moment."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Splendid!" Duncan told him. "You do that, and don't worry about our
+making good. I'm going to put all my time and energy into this
+proposition and&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then you'll make good all right," Sperry assured him. "All anybody's
+got to do is look at you to see you're a good business man." He
+returned Duncan's pressure and picked up his sample-case. "S'long,"
+said he, and left briskly, leaving Duncan speechless.
+</p>
+<p>
+As if to assure himself of his sanity he put a hand to his brow and
+stroked it cautiously. "Heavens!" he said, and sought the support of
+the counter. "That's twice to-day I've been told that in the same
+place!"...
+</p>
+<p>
+"It's funny," he said, half dazed, "I never could have pulled that off
+for myself!"
+</p>
+<br><br><br>
+<h3><a name="ix">
+	IX
+</a></h3>
+<p class="ctr">
+SMALL BEGINNINGS
+</p>
+<p>
+Presently Duncan moved and came out of his abstraction. "I'd better get
+that broom," he said slowly. "The place certainly needs some expert
+manicuring before we get that new stock in.... By George, I really
+begin to believe we've got a chance to do something, after all!...
+</p>
+<p>
+"Or else I'm dreaming...."
+</p>
+<p>
+He opened the back door and entered a narrow and dark hallway, almost
+stumbling over the lowest step of a flight of stairs communicating with
+the upper storey. From above he could hear a clatter of crockery,
+sounds of footsteps, a woman singing softly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Graham's wife, I presume. Never struck me he might be married....
+Well, I'll be quiet. If she catches me now, before we're introduced,
+she'll take me for a burglar."
+</p>
+<p>
+On tiptoes he found the descent to the cellar, where by the aid of a
+match he discovered a floorbrush whose reasons for retirement from
+active employment were most evident even to his inexpert eye. None the
+less nothing better offered, and he took it back with him to the shop.
+</p>
+<p>
+Graham's tinkering was never of a cleanly sort; the floor was thick
+with a litter of rubbish&mdash;shavings, old nuts and bolts, bits of scrap
+tin and metal, torn paper, charred ends of matches: an indescribable
+mess. Duncan surveyed it ruefully, but with the will to do strong in
+him, took off his coat, turned up his trousers, and fell to. The
+disposition of the sweepings troubled him far less than the dust he
+raised; obviously the only place to put it was behind the counters.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Nobody'll see it there," he said in a glow of satisfaction, pausing
+with the room half cleared. "I always wondered what they did with that
+sort of truck&mdash;under the beds, I suppose. Funny Graham never thought of
+this, himself&mdash;it's so blame' easy."
+</p>
+<p>
+He resumed his labours, thrilled with the sensation of accomplishment.
+"One thing at least that I can do," he mused; "never again shall I fear
+starvation... so long as there's a broom handy." Absorbed he brushed
+away, raising a prodigious amount of dust and utterly oblivious to the
+fact that he was observed.
+</p>
+<p>
+Two shadows moved slowly athwart the windows, to which his back was
+turned, paused, moved on out of sight, returned. It was only during a
+pause for breath that he became aware of the surveillance.
+</p>
+<p>
+Straightening up, he looked, gasped and fled for the back of the store.
+"Heavens!" he whispered, aghast to recognise Josie Lockwood and Angie
+Tuthill, of whose ubiquitous shadows in his way he had been conscious
+so frequently within the past several days. "I <i>thought</i> I must
+have made an impression.... Don't tell me they're coming in!"
+</p>
+<p>
+Behind the counter he struggled furiously into his coat. "They are," he
+said with a sinking heart; "and I'll bet a dollar my face is dirty!"
+</p>
+<p>
+Notwithstanding these misgivings, it was a very self-possessed young
+man, to all appearances, who moved sedately round the end of the
+counter to greet these possible customers. His bow was a very passable
+imitation of the real thing, he flattered himself; and there's no
+manner of doubt but that it flattered the two prettiest and most
+forward young women in Radville of that day.
+</p>
+<p>
+"May I have the honour of waiting on you, ladies?" he inquired with all
+the suavity of an accomplished salesman.
+</p>
+<p>
+Josie and Angie sidled together, giggling and simpering, quite overcome
+by his manner. A muffled "How de do?" from Angie and a half-strangled
+echo of the salutation from the other were barely articulate. But
+hearing them he bowed again, separately to each.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Good-afternoon," said he, and waited in an inquiring pose.
+</p>
+<p>
+"This&mdash;'this is Mr. Duncan, isn't it?" inquired Josie, controlling
+herself.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, and you are Miss Lockwood, if I'm not mistaken?"
+</p>
+<p>
+Renewed giggles prefaced her: "Oh, how <i>did</i> you know?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Could anyone remain two weeks in Radville and not hear of Miss
+Lockwood?"
+</p>
+<p>
+The shot told famously. "How nice of you! Mr. Duncan, I want you to
+meet my friend, Miss Tuthill."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I've had the honour of admiring Miss Tuthill from a distance," Duncan
+assured the younger woman. And, "She'll burn up!" he feared secretly,
+watching the conflagration of blushes that she displayed. "Just think
+of getting away with a line of mush like that! Harry was right after
+all: this is a country town, all right."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And&mdash;and are you working here, Mr. Duncan?" Josie pursued.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm supposed to be; I'm afraid I don't know the business very well, as
+yet."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, that's awf'ly nice," Angle thought.
+</p>
+<p>
+He thanked her humbly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"We didn't expect to see you here," Josie assured him. "We just thought
+we'd like some soda."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Soda!" he parroted, horrified. He cast a glance askance at the tawdry
+fountain. "Let's see: how d'you work the infernal thing?" he asked
+himself, utterly bewildered.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes," Angie chimed in; "it's so warm this afternoon, we&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I've got to put it through somehow," he thought savagely. And aloud,
+"Yes, certainly," he said, and smiled winningly. "Will you be pleased
+to step this way?"
+</p>
+<p>
+Out of the corners of his eyes he detected the amused look that passed
+between the girls. "Oh, very well!" he said beneath his breath. "You
+may laugh, but you asked for soda, and soda you shall have, my dears,
+if you die of it." He put himself behind the counter with an air of
+great determination, and leaned upon it with both hands outspread until
+he realised that this was the pose of a groceryman. "What'll you have?"
+he demanded genially. "Er&mdash;that is&mdash;I mean, would you prefer vanilla
+or&mdash;ah&mdash;soda?"
+</p>
+<p>
+A chant antiphonal answered him:
+</p>
+<p>
+"I hate vanilla."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And so do I."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, don't say that!" he pleaded. "Of course you know there's&mdash;ah&mdash;
+vanilla and vanilla..., Ah... some vanilla I know is detestable, but
+when you get a really fine vintage&mdash;ah&mdash;imported vanilla, it's quite
+another matter&mdash;ah&mdash;particularly at his season of the year&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+His confusion was becoming painful.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, is it?" asked Josie helpfully. Her eyes dwelt upon his with a
+confiding expression which he later characterised as a baby stare; and
+he was promptly reduced to babbling idiocy.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Indeed it is; no doubt whatever, Miss Lockwood. Especially just now,
+you know&mdash;ah&mdash;after the bock season&mdash;ah&mdash;I mean, when the weather is&mdash;
+is&mdash;in a way&mdash;you might put it&mdash;vanilla weather."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But I like chocolate best," Angle pouted. And he hated her consumedly
+for the moment.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Very well," Josie told him sweetly, "I'll have the vanilla."
+</p>
+<p>
+He thanked her with unnecessary effusion and turned to inspect the
+glassware. There could be no mistake about the right jar, however;
+there was nothing but vanilla, and seizing it he removed the metal cap
+and placed it before the girls. With less ease he discovered a whiskey
+glass and put it beside the bottle, with a cordial wave of the hand.
+</p>
+<p>
+A pause ensued. Duncan was smiling fatuously, serene in the belief that
+he had solved the problem: the way to serve soda was to make them help
+themselves. It was very simple. Only they didn't... With a start he
+became sensible that they were eyeing him strangely.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You&mdash;ah&mdash;wanted vanilla, did you not?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, thanks, vanilla," Josie agreed.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, that's it," he said firmly, indicating the jar and the glass.
+</p>
+<p>
+Josie giggled. "But I don't want to drink it clear. You put the syrup
+in the glass, you know, and then the soda."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, I see! You want to make a high-ba&mdash;ah&mdash;a long drink of it. Ah,
+yes!" He procured a glass of the regulation size. "Now I understand." A
+pause. "If you'll be good enough to help yourself to the syrup."
+</p>
+<p>
+"No; you do it," Josie pleaded.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Certainly." He lifted the whiskey-glass and the jar and began to pour.
+"If you'll just say when."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What? Oh, that's enough, thank you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"If I ever get out of this fix, I'll blow the whole shooting match," he
+promised himself, holding the glass beneath the faucet and fiddling
+nervously with the valves. For a moment he fancied the tank must be
+empty, for nothing came of his efforts. Then abruptly the fixture
+seemed to explode. "A geyser!" he cried, blinded with the dash of
+carbonated water and syrup in his face, while he fumbled furiously with
+the valves.
+</p>
+<p>
+As unexpectedly as it had begun the flow ceased. He put down the glass,
+found his handkerchief and mopped his dripping face. When able to see
+again he discovered the young women leaning against one of the
+show-cases, weak with laughter but at a safe remove.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Our soda's so strong, you know," he apologised. "But if you'll stay
+where you are, I'll try again."
+</p>
+<p>
+Warned by experience, he worked at the machine gingerly, finally
+producing a thin, spluttering trickle. Beaming with triumph, he looked
+up. "I think it's safe now," he suggested; "I seem to have it under
+control."
+</p>
+<p>
+Angie and Josie returned, torn by distrust but unable to resist the
+fascination of the stranger in our village. And there's no denying the
+boy was good-looking and a gentleman by birth: a being alien to their
+experience of men.
+</p>
+<p>
+He had filled one glass and was tincturing it with syrup when he caught
+again that confiding smile of Josie's, full upon him as the beams of a
+noon-day sun.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Haven't we seen you at church, Mr. Duncan?" she said prettily.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I think, perhaps, you may have," he conceded. "I have seen you, both."
+The second glass (for he was determined that Angie should not escape)
+took up all his attention for an instant. "Do you have to go, too?" he
+inquired out of this deep preoccupation.
+</p>
+<p>
+"What?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I mean, do you attend regularly?" he amended hastily.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, yes, of course," Josie simpered, accepting the glass he offered
+her. "You make it a rule to go every Sunday, don't you, Mr. Duncan?"
+</p>
+<p>
+He permitted himself an indiscretion, secure in the belief it would
+pass unchallenged: "It's one of the rules, but I didn't make it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Did you know there was a vacancy in the choir?" Angle asked, taking up
+her glass.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Choir?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes," Josie chimed in; "we were hoping you'd join. I want you to,
+awfully."
+</p>
+<p>
+"We're both in the choir," Angie explained.
+</p>
+<p>
+"And all the girls want you to join. Don't they, Angie?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, yes, indeed; they're all just dying to meet you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'll have to write and ask," he said abstractedly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why, what do you mean by that?"
+</p>
+<p>
+Josie's question struck him dumb with consternation. He made curious
+noises in his throat, and fancied (as was quite possible) that they
+eyed him in a peculiar fashion. "It's&mdash;I mean&mdash;a little trouble with my
+throat," he managed to lie, at length. "I must ask my physician if I
+may, first."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, I see," said Josie.
+</p>
+<p>
+"But," he hastened to change the subject, "you're not drinking, either
+of you. I sincerely hope it's not so very bad."
+</p>
+<p>
+Angie replaced her glass, barely tasted. "Do you like it, Josie?"
+</p>
+<p>
+To Josie's credit it must be admitted that she made a brave attempt to
+drink. But the mixture was undoubtedly flat, stale and unprofitable.
+She sighed, put it back on the counter, and rose to the emergency.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Mine's perfectly lovely"&mdash;with a ravishing smile&mdash;"but it's not very
+sweet."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I made them dry for you&mdash;thought you'd like 'em that way," he
+stammered. "Perhaps you'd like 'em better if I put a collar on 'em?"
+</p>
+<p>
+The chorus negatived this suggestion very promptly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why don't you try a glass, Mr. Duncan?" Angie added with malice.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm on the wagon&mdash;I mean, I don't drink at all," he said wretchedly;
+and was deeply grateful for the diversion afforded by the entrance of a
+third customer.
+</p>
+<p>
+It was Tracey Tanner, as usual swollen with important tidings, as usual
+propelling himself through the world at a heavy trot. It has always
+been a source of wonderment to me how Tracey manages to keep so stout
+with all the violent exercise he takes.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Say, Angle," he twanged at sight of her, "I've been lookin' for you
+everywhere. Did you hear that&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+He stopped instantaneously with open mouth as he saw Duncan behind the
+counter; and openmouthed he remained while the young man came round and
+advanced toward him, with a bland smirk accompanied by a professional
+bow and rubbing of hands.
+</p>
+<p>
+"May I have the pleasure of serving you, Mr. Tanner?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Huh?" bleated Tracey, dumbfounded.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Is there anything you wish to purchase?"
+</p>
+<p>
+A violent emotion stirred in Tracey. Sounds began to emanate from his
+heaving chest. "N-n-no, ma'am!" he breathed explosively.
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan bowed again, his face expressionless. "Then will you be good
+enough to excuse me?" He turned precisely and made his way back to the
+counter.
+</p>
+<p>
+As if released from some spell of strong enchantment by the movement,
+Tracey swung on his heel and lunged for the door.
+</p>
+<p>
+"What was it you wanted to ask me, Tracey?" Angie called after him.
+</p>
+<p>
+As the boy disappeared at a hand-gallop his response floated back: "I
+fergit."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm afraid I must have frightened him?" Duncan said inquiringly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, no, not at all," Josie reassured him; "he's just gone to tell
+everybody you're here."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Come, Josie, we've been here ever so long." Angie moved slowly toward
+the door, but Josie inclined to linger.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Don't hurry, I beg of you," Duncan interposed.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, we haven't hurried," she said with a gush of gratification that
+startled the man. "You'll remember what I said about the choir, won't
+you?"
+</p>
+<p>
+He braced himself to take advantage of the opening. "I shall never
+forget it," he said impressively.
+</p>
+<p>
+She gave him her hand. "Then good-bye."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not good-bye, I trust?" He retained the hand, despising himself
+inexpressibly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, we'll be in again, won't we Angie?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, yes, indeed."
+</p>
+<p>
+"My land, Angie! What do you think? I'd almost forgotten to pay for the
+soda?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Please don't speak of it, Miss Lockwood&mdash;the pleasure&mdash;."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But I must, Mr. Duncan. How much is it?"
+</p>
+<p>
+Josie fingered the contents of her purse expectantly, but Duncan hung
+in the wind. He had no least notion what might be the price of soda
+water. "Two for a quarter?" he hazarded with his disarming grin.
+</p>
+<p>
+Angle choked with appreciation of this exquisite sally. "Ain't you
+funny!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm afraid you're right," he conceded; "still I'd rather you didn't
+think so."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It's ten cents, isn't it, Mr. Duncan?"
+</p>
+<p>
+Josie was offering him a dime; he accepted it without question.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Thank you, very much," said he. "Good afternoon, ladies."
+</p>
+<p>
+He was aware of Angle's fluttering farewells on the sidewalk. Josie was
+lingering on the doorstep in an agony of untrained coquetry. He lowered
+his tone for her benefit, thereby adding new weight to his bombardment
+of her amateur defences.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Remember you promised to call again."
+</p>
+<p>
+Her giggles tore his ear-drums. "Th-thank you, I'm sure," she
+stammered, and fled.
+</p>
+<p>
+They disappeared. He wandered to the chair and threw himself limply
+into it. "That voice!" he said stupidly. "That giggle! I've got to woo
+and win... <i>that!</i>...
+</p>
+<p>
+"It serves me right," he concluded.
+</p>
+<p>
+The most hopeless of humours assailed him, and he yielded to it without
+a struggle. His attitude expressed his mood with relentless verity.
+Chin sunken upon his breast, eyes fairly distilling gloom, legs
+stretched out carelessly before him, he sat motionless, suffocating at
+the bottom of a gulf of discontent. His lips moved, sometimes
+noiselessly, again in whispers barely audible.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Years of this!... A matter of human endurance&mdash;no, superhuman!... If
+it wasn't for the bargain, I'd chuck it all and...
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, the only way to forget your misery is to work, I suppose."
+</p>
+<p>
+He pulled himself together and stood up, wondering where he had left
+his broom, and simultaneously stiffened with surprise, aware that he
+was not alone. A glance, however, established the connection between
+the rear door, which stood ajar, and the young woman who stood staring
+at him in utterest stupefaction. This, he thought, must be the woman of
+the voice, upstairs.
+</p>
+<p>
+But she couldn't be Graham's wife. She was too young. Even beneath the
+mask of care and weariness, the all too plain evidences of privation,
+spiritual and mental as well as physical, that Betty wore unceasingly
+in those days, he could discern youth and grace and gentleness, and the
+nascent promise of prettiness that longed to be, to have the chance to
+show itself and claim its meed of deference and love. He was quick to
+see the intelligence in her mutinous eyes, and the sweet lines of her
+mouth, too often shaped in sullen mould, and no less quick to recognise
+that she would carry herself well, with spirit and dignity, once she
+were relieved of household toil and moil, once given the chance to
+discard her shapeless, bedraggled and threadbare garments for those
+dainty and beautiful things for which her starved heart must be sick
+with longing....
+</p>
+<p>
+"Good Lord!" he thought, pitiful, "it's worse here than I dreamed. Old
+Graham must need a keeper&mdash;and this child has been trying to be that,
+with nothing to keep him on."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Who are you?" the girl demanded sullenly, in a voice a little harsh
+and toneless. "What are you doing here? Where's my father?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Mr. Graham has stepped out on business," Duncan replied. "You are his
+daughter, I believe?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, I'm his daughter, but&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"My name is Nathaniel Duncan. Mr. Graham has been kind enough to take
+me on as apprentice, so to speak."
+</p>
+<p>
+Her stare continued, intense, resentful, undeviating.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You mean you're going to work here?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"That my intention, Miss Graham." He nodded gravely.
+</p>
+<p>
+"What for?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"To learn the drug business."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh-h!" She flung herself a pace away, impatiently. "I'm not a child,
+and I don't want to be talked to like one."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I didn't mean to annoy you&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+
+
+
+<p class="ctr">
+<a href="illp154.jpg"><img src="illp154_th.jpg" width="150"
+alt="'You Mean You're Going to Work Here?'"></a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Well, you do. You've got no business in a run-down place like this&mdash;
+you with your fine clothes and your fine airs. You didn't come here to
+learn the drug business; you know as well as I do you've got some other
+motive."
+</p>
+<p>
+There was a truth in that to sting him. He smarted under its lash, but
+held his temper in check because he was sorry for the girl. "Perhaps
+you're right," he conceded; "perhaps I have some other motive. But
+that's neither here nor there. I'm here, and it is my present intention
+to learn the drug business in your father's store."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't believe you, Mister Duncan&mdash;or whatever your name is."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm sorry," he said patiently.
+</p>
+<p>
+Betty's lips twitched, contemptuous. "Well, saying you do mean to work
+here&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I do."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Where do you think your pay's going to come from?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Heaven, perhaps."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I guess you think that's funny, don't you?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I confess, at the moment I did. But now I realise it's probably a
+bitter truth."
+</p>
+<p>
+He was too much for her, she saw, and the knowledge only served to fan
+her indignation and suspicions.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You're making a mistake," she snapped. "Father can't pay you nothing."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He'll pay me all I'm worth," said Duncan meekly.
+</p>
+<p>
+She glared at him an instant longer, then mute for lack of a
+sufficiently scornful retort, turned and ran back up the steps,
+slamming the door behind her.
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan drew a rueful face, contemplating the place where she had been.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I didn't think this was going to be a bed of roses&mdash;and it isn't," he
+concluded.
+</p>
+<br><br><br>
+<h3><a name="x">
+	X
+</a></h3>
+<p class="ctr">
+ROLAND BARNETTE'S FRIEND
+</p>
+<p>
+Nat had a busy day or two after that, trying to set things to rights in
+the store for the better reception and display of the new stock. Sperry
+dropped him a line saying that the goods would arrive on the third day,
+and there was much to do to make way for it. He managed to get the shop
+cleaned up thoroughly with Betty's not unwilling but distinctly
+suspicious aid; the girl was apparently convinced that Duncan meant
+business, and that this would ostensibly work for her father's benefit,
+but she was distinctly dubious as to the <i>deus ex machina</i>. Duncan
+now and again would catch her watching him, her eyes dark with
+speculation; but when she detected his gaze her look would change
+instantly to one of hostility and defiance. He suspected that only her
+father's wishes prevented an open break with her; as it was he was
+conscious that there was no more than an armed truce between them. And
+he did not like it; it made him uncomfortable. He wasn't hardened
+enough to have an easy conscience, and Betty's open doubts as to the
+reason for his coming to Radville disturbed Duncan more than he would
+have cared to own.
+</p>
+<p>
+For all that, they worked together steadily, and accomplished a rather
+sensational transformation in the appearance of the place. The floor,
+counter and shelves were swept, washed, dusted and garnished with
+paint; that is, all but the floor received the attention of the
+paint-brush; Duncan managed to smuggle a quantity of oil-cloth into the
+shop and get it down before Graham could enter any protest: the effect
+approximated tiling nearly enough to brighten the room up wonderfully.
+Aside from this the old stock was routed out and, for the greater part,
+donated to the rubbish-heap. Teddy Smart, the glazier, was commissioned
+to repair the broken window-panes and show-cases. A can of metal polish
+freshened up the nickel and brass trimmings and rendered the single
+upright of the soda fountain almost attractive. The stove was uprooted
+and stored away, and its aspiring pipes dispensed with. Finally, after
+considerable argument, Graham consented to the removal of his
+work-bench to a shed in the back-yard. The model was suffered to
+remain, the tanks and burner being stored out of sight beneath one of
+the window-seats, more because Duncan considered it would be a good
+thing to have the light than because he understood or attached much
+importance to the contrivance. For that matter, he hadn't the time to
+listen to an exposition of its advantages, and Graham, recognising
+this, was content to abide his time, serene in the conviction that he
+would presently find in his assistant a willing and sympathetic
+listener.
+</p>
+<p>
+Between spasms of work Duncan had his hands full attending to the soda
+fountain. Soda water being practically the only salable thing in the
+store, it had to serve as an excuse for the inquisitiveness of many of
+my fellow-citizens, to say nothing of&mdash;I should put it, but
+especially&mdash;their wives and daughters. The consumption of vanilly sody
+in those two days broke all known Radville records, and stands a
+singular tribute to the Spartan fortitude of Radville womanhood,
+particularly the young strata thereof. Duncan, after he had succeeded
+in taming the fountain, seemed rather to enjoy than object to
+dispensing sody, standing inspection and receiving adulation and
+nickels in unequal proportions. By the end of the second day he could
+not truthfully have told his friend Willy Bartlett: "The list has
+shrunk." It had swollen enormously. There isn't any doubt but that he
+had a nodding acquaintance with every pretty girl in town, as well as
+with most not considered pretty.
+</p>
+<p>
+From my window in the <i>Citizen</i> office I was able to keep a
+tolerably close account of events and obtain a consensus of public
+opinion. So far as the latter bore upon Duncan, it was divided into two
+rather distinct parties, one of course favouring him; and this was
+feminine almost exclusively. Tracey Tanner, to be sure, confessed
+within my hearing to a predilection for the Noo York dood, but was
+inclined to hedge and climb the fence when assailed by Roland's
+strictures. Roland, I suspect, was a wee mite jealous; he had been
+paying attention to&mdash;I mean, going with&mdash;Josie Lockwood for several
+months. Instinctively he must have divined his danger; and it's not in
+reason to exact admiration of the usurper from the usurped, even when
+the act of usurpation has not yet been definitely consummated. Roland
+went to the length of labelling Duncan "sissy," and professed to
+believe that Hiram Nutt was justified in calling him a "s'picious
+character"; Roland hinted darkly that Duncan knew New York no better
+than Will Bigelow.
+</p>
+<p>
+"And if he did come from there," he asseverated, "I betcher he didn't
+leave for no good purpose."
+</p>
+<p>
+His temper inspired me with the sapient reflection that it's a terrible
+thing to be in love, even if only with an old man's millions.
+</p>
+<p>
+"There's goin' to be a real Noo Yorker here before long," Roland
+boasted; "he's comin' to see me on some 'special private bus'ness of
+ourn."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Huh," commented Tracey, the sceptical. "What kind of a Noo Yorker'd
+come all the way here to see you?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's all right. You'll see when he gets here. He's a pro-motor."
+</p>
+<p>
+"A what?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"A pro-motor, a financier." Roland pronounced it "finnan seer," thus
+betraying symptoms of culture and bewildering Tracey beyond expression.
+</p>
+<p>
+"What's that?" he demanded aggressively.
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's a feller 't can take nothing at all and incorporate it and make
+money out of it," Roland defined with some hesitancy.
+</p>
+<p>
+"And that's why he's coming down here to take a look at you?" inquired
+Tracey, skipping nimbly round the corner.
+</p>
+<p>
+Curiously enough in my understanding (for I own to no great faith in
+Roland's statements, taking them by and large) his friend from New York
+put in an unheralded appearance in Radville that same night, on the
+evening train. The Bigelow House received him to its figurative bosom
+under the name of W.H. Burnham. He sent for Roland promptly and treated
+him to a dinner at the hotel; something which I have always regarded as
+a punishment several sizes too large for the crime. Later, having
+displayed him on the streets in witness to his good faith, Roland spent
+the evening with Mr. Burnham mysteriously confabulating behind closed
+doors in the hotel. Speculation ran rife through the town until nine
+o'clock, and land for several days basked in the heat of public
+interest.
+</p>
+<p>
+I happened accidentally to get a glimpse of Mr. Burnham after supper,
+although I had to miss my baked apple in order to get down town in
+time. He was a disappointment to some extent, although his mode of
+dress attracted much comment as being far more sprightly than Duncan's
+and less startling than Roland's. He had a self-confident air and a bit
+of swagger that filled the eye, but a face and a voice that detracted,
+the one too boldly good-looking, with eyes roving and predaceous, the
+other a suggestion too loud and domineering. ... I fear association
+with Duncan had vitiated my taste.
+</p>
+<p>
+However that may be, Roland got an hour off at the bank the following
+morning, and the pair of them, after wandering with evident aimlessness
+round the town, drifted as it were on the tide of hap-chance into
+Graham's drug-store.
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan was at the station, superintending the transportation of the new
+stock, which had come by the early local; Betty was busy with her
+housework upstairs; and only old Sam kept the shop.
+</p>
+<p>
+Sam wasn't in the best of spirits. His evergreen optimism seldom
+withered, but in spite of all that had already been accomplished in
+behalf of the store, in spite of the rosier aspect of his declining
+fortunes and his confidence in and affection for Duncan, Sam was
+worried. He had been over to the bank once, even at that early hour,
+but Blinky Lockwood had driven out of town to see about foreclosing one
+of his numerous mortgages in the neighbourhood, and his note, which
+fell due at the bank that day, was still a weight upon Sam's mind.
+</p>
+<p>
+Roland and Burnham found him wandering nervously round the store,
+alternately taking his hat down from the peg, as if minded to make a
+second trip to the bank, and replacing it as he realised that patience
+was his part. He looked older and more worn than ordinarily, and seemed
+distinctly pleased to be distracted by his callers.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why, hello, Roland!" he cried cheerfully, hanging up his hat for
+perhaps the twentieth time. And, "How de doo, sir?" he greeted the
+stranger.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Good-morning, sir," said Burnham pleasantly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Say, Sam," Roland blundered with his usual adroitness, "this
+gentleman&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+Burnham's hand fell heavily on his forearm and he checked as if
+throttled.
+</p>
+<p>
+"What's that, Roland?" Sam turned curiously to them.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, nothin'; I was&mdash;er&mdash;just going to say that this gentleman's my
+friend from Noo York, Mr. Burnham. I was showin' him round the town and
+we just happened to look in."
+</p>
+<p>
+"The friend you were going to write to about my burner?" inquired Sam.
+"Well, I'm right glad to meet you, sir."
+</p>
+<p>
+It was here that Roland got a look from Mr. Burnham that withered him
+completely. His further contributions to the conversation were somewhat
+spasmodic and ineffectual.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why, no, Mr. Graham," Burnham interposed deftly. "Mr. Barnette must've
+been talking of someone else he knew in New York. I&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Didn't know he knew more'n one there," Sam observed mildly.
+</p>
+<p>
+Burnham's glance jumped warily to Sam's face, but withdrew reassured,
+having detected therein nothing but the old man's kindly and simple
+nature. "At all events," he continued, "I don't remember hearing
+anything about the matter (what did you call it? A burner, eh?) from
+Mr. Barnette."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I s'pose Roland forgot," Sam allowed. "He's so busy courtin' our
+pretty girls, Mr. Burnham&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, that was it," Roland put in hastily, seeing his chance to mend
+matters. "I did intend to write you about it, Mr. Burnham, but it kind
+of slipped my mind. We've had a lot of important business over to the
+bank recently."
+</p>
+<p>
+"By the way, Roland, did you just come from the bank? Is Mr. Lockwood
+back yet?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"No; I got off this morning. I don't think he is, Sam. Did you want to
+see him?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, yes," Sam admitted. "I guess you know about that, Roland."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Mean business, sometimes, asking favours of these bankers, eh, Mr.
+Graham?" Burnham remarked, much too casually to have deceived anybody
+but old Sam.
+</p>
+<p>
+Graham nodded, dolefully. "Yes, it is unpleasant," he admitted
+confidingly. "You see, there's a note of mine come due to-day, and I'm
+not able to take care of it or pay the interest just now...." He
+thought it over gravely for a moment, then brightened. "But I guess
+it'll be all right. Mr. Lockwood's kind, very kind."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm afraid you're a little too sure, Sam," Roland contributed
+tactfully. "When there's money due Lockwood, he wants it, and most
+times he gets it or its equivalent."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes," Sam assented sadly, "I guess he does, mostly."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But," Burnham changed the subject adroitly, "what was this&mdash;burner,
+did you say?&mdash;that Mr. Barnette forgot to tell me about?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, just one of my inventions, sir."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I understand you're quite an inventor?"
+</p>
+<p>
+Sam's smile lightened his face like sunlight striking a snow-bound
+field. He nodded slowly, thinking of his past enthusiasms, his hopes
+and discouragements. "I've spent most of my life at it, sir, but
+somehow nothing has ever turned out well... not so far, I mean. But I
+mean to hit it yet."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's the way to talk," Burnham cried heartily; "never give up, I
+say!... But tell me about some of these inventions, won't you?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Wel-l"&mdash;Sam knitted his fingers and pursed his lips reflectively&mdash;"I
+patented a new type threshing machine, once, but I couldn't get anybody
+to take hold of it. You see, I haven't any money, Mr. Burnham."
+</p>
+<p>
+"How would you like to talk it over with me, some time? I'm interested
+in such things&mdash;as a sort of side issue."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Will you?" Sam's eagerness was not to be disguised.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Be glad to. Tell me, how did you get your power?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"From gas, sir&mdash;though coal will do 'most as well. You see, I've got
+this burner patented, that makes gas from crude oil&mdash;no waste, no odour
+nor trouble, and little expense. It'd be cheaper than coal, I thought;
+that's why I invented it. I could get steam up mighty quick with that
+gas arrangement. I use it for lighting here in the store, now."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Do you, indeed?" Burnham's tone indicated failing interest, but such
+diplomacy was lost on Sam.
+</p>
+<p>
+"If you've got time, I could show you; it's right over here."
+</p>
+<p>
+A glance at his watch accompanied Burnham's consent to spare a few
+minutes. "There's a telegram I must send presently," he said. "But I'd
+like to see this burner, if it won't take long."
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, not long; just a minute or two." Sam was already dragging the
+affair out from under the window box. "You see..."
+</p>
+<p>
+He went on to expound its virtues with all the fond enthusiasm of a
+father showing off his firstborn, and wound up with a demonstration of
+the illuminating appliance. I'm afraid, though, he got little
+encouragement from Mr. Burnham. He considered the machine with a
+dispassionate air, it's true, and admitted its practical advantages,
+but wasn't at all disposed to take a roseate view of its future.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes," he grudged, when Sam put a match to the jet, "that's certainly a
+very good light."
+</p>
+<p>
+"All right, ain't it?" chimed Roland, enthusiastic.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, it may amount to something. It's hard to tell. Of course you know,
+sir," he continued, addressing Graham directly, "you've got competition
+to overcome."
+</p>
+<p>
+Sam's old fingers trembled to his chin. "No-o," he said, "I didn't know
+that. I've got the patent&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Of course that's something. But the Consolidated Petroleum crowd has
+another machine, slightly different, which does the same work, and, I
+should say, does it better."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Is&mdash;is that so?" quavered Sam. "My patent&mdash;&mdash;."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Now see here, Mr. Graham," Burnham argued, "we're practical men, both
+of us&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"No; I shouldn't say that about myself," Sam interrupted. "Now you,
+sir&mdash;&mdash;I can see you're a man who understands such things. But I&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Nevertheless, you must know that a patent isn't everything. You said a
+moment ago a man had to have money to make anything out of his
+inventions."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Did I?" Sam interjected, surprised.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Certainly you did; and dead right you are. A patent's all very well,
+but supposing you're up against a powerful competitor like the
+Consolidated Petroleum Company. They've got a patent, too. Granted it
+may be an infringement of yours even&mdash;what can you do against them."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why, if it's an infringement&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Sue, of course. But do you suppose they're going to lie down just
+because an unknown and penniless inventor sues them? Bless you, no!
+They'll fight to the last ditch, they'll engage the best legal talent
+in the country. You'll have to carry the case to the Supreme Court of
+the United States if you want a winning decision. And that's going to
+cost you thousands&mdash;hundreds of thou-sands&mdash;a million&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Never mind; a thousand's enough," said Sam gently. "I see what you
+mean, sir. It's just another case where I've got no chance."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, I wouldn't put it as strong as that&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"But I have no money."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Still, you never can tell. I'll think it over, if I get time."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why, that's kind of you, sir, very kind."
+</p>
+<p>
+It was at this point that Roland rose to the occasion like the noble
+ass he is. Roland never could see more than an inch beyond the end of
+his nose.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Say, Mr. Burnham," he floundered, "don't you think you could help Sam
+to&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I think," said Mr. Burnham, with additional business of looking at his
+watch, "I'd like to send that wire I spoke of."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, Roland," Sam agreed meekly; "you mustn't keep your friend from
+his business. I'm glad you looked in, sir. You'll call again, I hope."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Thank you," said Burnham, moving toward the door.
+</p>
+<p>
+It was too much for Roland's sense of opportunity. He rolled in
+Burnham's wake, sullenly reluctant. "Say, Mr. Burnham," he exploded as
+they got to the door, "if you'll just offer Sam five&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+<i>"That will do!"</i> Roland collapsed as if punctured. Burnham turned
+to Graham with a wave of his hand. "I'm leaving on the afternoon train,
+but if I get time I may drop in again and talk things over with you.
+There might be something in that threshing machine you mentioned."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'll be glad to show you anything I've got here..."
+</p>
+<p>
+"All right. Good-day. I'll see you again, perhaps."
+</p>
+<p>
+This cavalier snub was lost on Sam, an essential of whose serene soul
+is the quality of humility. He followed them to the door, as grateful
+as a lost dog for a stray pat instead of a kick. "Good-day, sir.
+Good-day, Roland," he sped their parting cheerfully.
+</p>
+<p>
+But it was a broken man who shut the door behind them and turned back,
+fingering his grey chin. There must have been a dimness in his eyes and
+a quiver to his wide-lipped, generous mouth.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Perhaps Mr. Burnham was right. Only I was kind of hopin'... Now Mr.
+Lockwood over there..."
+</p>
+<p>
+He shook himself to throw off the spell of depression and somehow
+managed to quicken again his abiding faith in the essential goodness of
+the world.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, well! He's kind, very kind."
+</p>
+<p>
+He began to restore his model to its hiding place, musing upon the
+ebb-tide in his affairs in his muddle-headed way, and in the process
+managed to convince himself that "it 'ud all come right."
+</p>
+<p>
+"With this young man in here, and everythin' gettin' fixed up, and new
+stock comin' in ... I'm sure Mr. Lockwood'll see it the right way ...
+for us.... He's kind, very kind."
+</p>
+<p>
+Thus it was that he presently called up the stairs in a very cheerful
+voice: "Betty, are you pretty near through up there?"
+</p>
+<p>
+The girl's weary voice came down to him without accent: "Yes, father,
+almost."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, then, you keep an eye on the store, please. I'm goin' to step
+out for a minute."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, father."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And if&mdash;if anybody asks for me, I'll most likely be down to the depot,
+with Mr. Duncan."
+</p>
+<p>
+He didn't mention that he contemplated calling on Lockwood, because he
+feared it might worry Betty. ... As if a woman doesn't always
+understand when things are going wrong!
+</p>
+<p>
+Betty knew, or rather divined. And she had no hope, no faith such as
+made Sam what he was. She came down the steps listlessly, overborne by
+her knowledge of the world's wrongness. The glance with which she
+comprehended the renovated shop was bitter with contempt. What was the
+worth of all this? Nothing good would come of it; nothing good came of
+anything. Life was drab and dreary, made up of weary, profitless years
+and months and weeks and days, to each its appointed disappointment.
+</p>
+<p>
+Only her sense of duty sustained her. She owed something to old Sam for
+the gift of life, dismal though she found it. He needed her; what she
+could do for him she would. I have always thought that her affection
+for her father was less filial than maternal. He seemed such a child,
+she&mdash;so very old! She mothered him; it was her only joy to care for
+him. Her care was constant, unfailing, omniscient. In return she got
+only his love. But it was almost enough&mdash;almost, not quite, dearly as
+she prized it. There were other things a girl should have&mdash;indeed, must
+have, if her life were to be rounded out in fulness. And these, she
+understood, were forever denied her: apples of Paradise growing in her
+sight, heartrending in their loveliness so far beyond her reach....
+</p>
+<p>
+Sighing, she went to work. In work only could she forget.... The soda
+glasses needed cleaning, and the syrup jars replenishing (for the new
+order of syrups had come in the previous evening).
+</p>
+<p>
+After a time, to a tune of pounding feet, Tracey Tanner pranced into
+the shop with all the graceful abandon of a young elephant feeling its
+oats. His face was fairly scarlet from exertion and his eyes bulging
+with a sense of importance. The girl looked up without interest,
+nodding slightly in response to his breathless: "'Lo, Betty."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Father's gone out," she said, holding a glass to the light, suspicious
+of the lint from her dish towel.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I know&mdash;seen him down the street." The boy halted at the counter,
+producing a handful of square envelopes. "Note for you from the
+Lockwoods, Betty," he panted. "Josie ast me to bring it round."
+</p>
+<p>
+Betty put down her glass in consternation. From the Lockwoods?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Uh-huh." Tracey offered it, but she withheld her hand, dubious.
+</p>
+<p>
+"For me, Tracey?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Uh-huh. It's a ninvitation. I got four more to take." He thrust it
+into her reluctant fingers. "Got five, really, but one of 'em's for
+me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"An invitation, Tracey!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yeh. Hope you have a good time when it comes off." Already he was
+bouncing toward the door. "Goo'-bye."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But what is it, Tracey?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Aw, it tells in the ninvitation. S'long."
+</p>
+<p>
+"From the Lockwoods!" she whispered.
+</p>
+<p>
+Suddenly she tore it open, her hands unsteady with nervousness.
+</p>
+<p>
+The envelope contained a square of heavy cardboard of a creamy tint
+with scalloped edges touched with gold. On the face of the card a round
+and formless hand had traced with evident pains the information:
+</p>
+<p>
+Miss Josephine Mae Lockwood
+</p>
+<p>
+Requests the Pleasure of your Company at a Lawn Fête and Dance to be
+held at the residence of her Parents, Mr. &amp; Mrs. Geo. Lockwood,
+Saturday July 15, at 8 p. m. R.S.V.P.
+</p>
+<p>
+The envelope fluttered to the floor while the card was crushed between
+the girl's hands. For a moment her face was transfigured with delight,
+her eyes blank with rapturous visions of the joys of that promised
+night.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh!... it 'ud be grand!..."
+</p>
+<p>
+Then suddenly the light faded. Her eyes clouded, her face settled into
+its discontented lines. She stuffed the card heedlessly into the pocket
+of her dingy apron, and took up another glass.
+</p>
+<p>
+"But I can't go; I've got nothin' to wear...."
+</p>
+<br><br><br>
+<h3><a name="xi">
+	XI
+</a></h3>
+<p class="ctr">
+BLINKY LOCKWOOD
+</p>
+<p>
+She was scrubbing blindly at the same glass when, a quarter of an hour
+later, Blinky Lockwood strode into the store, his right eye twitching
+more violently than usual, as it always does in his phases of mental
+disturbance&mdash;as when, for instance, he fears he's going to lose a
+dollar.
+</p>
+<p>
+Lockwood is that type of man who was born to grow rich. He inherited a
+farm or two in the vicinity of Radville and the one over Westerly way,
+to which I have referred, and ... well, we've a homely paraphrase of a
+noted aphorism in Radville: "Them as has, gits." Lockwood had, to begin
+with, and he made it his business to get; and, as is generally the case
+in this unbalanced world of ours, things came to him to which he had
+never aspired. Fortune favoured him because he had no need of her
+favours; the discovery of coal under his Westerly acres was wholly
+adventitious, but it made him far and away the richest man in
+Radville&mdash;with the possible exception of old Colonel Bohun's
+traditional millions.
+</p>
+<p>
+In person he is as beautiful as a snake-fence, as alluring as a stone
+wall. Something over six feet in height, he walks with a stoop (one
+hand always in a trouser-pocket jingling silver) that materially
+detracts from his stature. His face, like his figure, is gaunt and
+lanky, his nose an emaciated beak; his mouth illustrates his attitude
+toward property&mdash;is a trap from which nothing of value ever escapes;
+his eyes are small and hard and set close together under lowering
+brows. He's grizzled, with hair not actually white, but grey as the iron
+from which his heart was fashioned. Aside from these characteristics his
+principal peculiarity is a nervous twitching of the right eye which has
+earned him his sobriquet of Blinky. Legrand Gunn said he contracted the
+affliction through squinting at the silver dollar to make sure none of
+its milling had been worn off. ... I have never known the man to wear
+anything but a rusty old frock coat, black, of course, and black and
+shiny broadcloth trousers, with a hat that has always a coating of dust
+so thick that it seems a mottled grey.
+</p>
+<p>
+He grunts his words, a grunt to each. He grunted at Betty when he saw
+her.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Where's your father?"
+</p>
+<p>
+She put down her glass and dish-rag. "I don't know, sir."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Don't know, eh?" he asked in an indescribably offensive tone.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I think he went to the bank to see you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, he did, eh? Did he have anything for me."
+</p>
+<p>
+The girl took up another glass. "I don't know, sir," she said wearily.
+"I'm afraid not."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, if he didn't there's no use see in' me. It won't do him any
+good."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I guess he knows that," she returned with a little flash of spirit.
+</p>
+<p>
+Lockwood looked her up and down as if he had never seen her before,
+then summarised his resentful impression of her attitude in an open
+sneer. "Does, eh? Well, that's a good thing; saves talk."
+</p>
+<p>
+She contained herself, saying nothing. He glared round the place,
+remarking the improvements.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You don't do no business here, not to speak of, do ye?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"No," she admitted without interest, "not to speak of."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then what's the good of all this foolishness, fixing up?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't know."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Costs money, don't it?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I guess so."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And that money belongs to me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It's Mr. Duncan's doing. Father ain't paying for it. He can't."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What's he doin', then? Sittin' round foolin' with his inventions,
+ain't he?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What's he inventin' now?"
+"I don't know much about it." She pointed to the model beneath the
+window. "That's the last thing, I guess."
+</p>
+<p>
+Blinky snorted and stamped over to the window, stooping to peer at the
+machine. "What's the good of that?" he demanded, disdainful; and
+without waiting for her response went on nagging. "Foolishness! That's
+what it is. Why don't you tell him not to waste his time this way?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Because he likes it," said Betty hopelessly. "It's the only thing that
+makes life worth while to him. So I let him alone."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What difference does that make? It don't bring him in nothin', does
+it?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"No ..."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Nor do any good?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"No."
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, siree, it don't. He'd oughter stop it. What does he do with them
+things when he gets 'em finished?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Patents them."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And then what?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Nothin' that I know of."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's it; nothing&mdash;nor ever will. Well, he's been getting money from
+me for those patents&mdash;I thought at fust there might be somethin' in
+'em&mdash;but he won't any more. I'd oughter had more sense."
+</p>
+<p>
+A little colour spotted the girl's sallow cheeks. "He'd never ha' got
+money from you if he hadn't thought he could pay it back," she told
+Blinky hotly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, nor if I hadn't thought he could&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+She interjected a significant "Huh!" He broke off abruptly, pale with
+anger.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, I want to see him, and I want to see him before noon," he
+snapped. "I'm goin' over to the bank, an' if he knows what's good for
+him he'll come there pretty darn quick."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'll try to find him for you; he must be somewhere round," she
+offered.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, you better. I ain't got much patience to-day."
+</p>
+<p>
+He swung on one heel and slouched out, as Betty turned to go upstairs.
+Presently she reappeared pinning on her sad little hat, and left the
+store.
+</p>
+<p>
+It was upwards of an hour before she returned, walking quickly and very
+erect, with her head up and shoulders back, her eyes suspiciously
+bright, the spots of colour in her cheeks blazing scarlet, her mouth
+set and hard, the little work-worn hands at her sides clenched tightly
+as if for self-control. Even old Sam, who had returned from the depôt
+after missing Blinky at the bank&mdash;even he, blind as he ordinarily was,
+saw instantly that something was wrong with the child.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why, Betty!" he cried in solicitude as she flung into the
+store&mdash;"Betty, dear, what's the matter?"
+</p>
+<p>
+For an instant she seemed speechless. Then she tore the hat from her
+head and cast it regardlessly upon the counter. "Father!" she cried.
+"Father!"&mdash;and gulped to down her emotion. "Can you get me some money?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Money? Why, Betty, what&mdash;?"
+</p>
+<p>
+Her foot came down on the floor impatiently. "Can you get me some
+money?" she repeated in a breath.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well&mdash;er&mdash;how much, Betty?" He tried to touch her, to take her to his
+arms, but she moved away, her sorry little figure quivering from head
+to feet.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Enough," she said, half sobbing&mdash;"enough to buy a dress&mdash;a nice
+dress&mdash;a dress that will surprise folks&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"But tell me what the matter is, Betty. Wanting a dress would never
+upset you like this."
+</p>
+<p>
+She whipped the cracked and crumpled card from her pocket and pushed it
+into his hand. "Look at that!" she bade him, and turned away,
+struggling with all her might to keep back the tears.
+</p>
+<p>
+He read, his old face softening. "Josie Lockwood's party, eh? And she's
+sent you an invitation. Well, that was kind of her, very kind."
+</p>
+<p>
+She swung upon him in a fury. "No, it was not kind. It was mean... It
+was mean!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, Betty," he begged in consternation, "don't say that. I'm sure&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, you don't know... I heard the girls talking in the post-office&mdash;
+Angle Tuthill and Mame Garrison and Bessie Gabriel... I was round by
+the boxes where they couldn't see me, but I could hear them, and they
+were laughing because I was invited. They said the reason Josie did it
+was because she knew I didn't have anything to wear, and she wanted to
+hear what excuse I'd make for not going. Ah, I heard them!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, but Betty, Betty," he pleaded; "don't you mind what they say.
+Don't&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"But I do mind; I can't help mindin'. They're mean." She paused, her
+features hardening. "I'm going to that party," she declared tensely:
+"I'm goin' to that party and&mdash;and I'm goin' to have a dress to go in,
+too! I don't care what I do&mdash;I'm goin' to have that dress!"
+</p>
+<p>
+Sam would have soothed her as best he might, but she would neither look
+at nor come near him.
+</p>
+<p>
+"We'll see," he said gently. "We'll see. I'll try&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+She turned on him, exasperated beyond thought. "That only means you
+can't help me!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, no, it doesn't. I'll do what I can&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Have you got any money now?"
+</p>
+<p>
+He hung his head to avoid her blazing eyes. "Well, no&mdash;not at present,
+but here's this new stock and&mdash;."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That doesn't mean anything, and you know it. You owe that note to Mr.
+Lockwood, don't you? And you can't pay it?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not to-day, Betty, but he'll give me a little more time, I'm sure.
+He's kind, very kind."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You don't know him. He's as mean&mdash;as mean as dirt&mdash;as mean as Josie."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Betty!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then if you did get any money you'd have to give it to him, wouldn't
+you?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, but&mdash;I'm sure&mdash;I think it'll come all right."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Ah, what's the use of talkin' that way? What's the use of talkin' at
+all? I know you can't do anything for me, and so do you!"
+</p>
+<p>
+Sam had dropped into his chair, unable to stand before this storm; he
+stared now, mute with amazement, at this child who had so long, so
+uncomplainingly, shared his poverty and privations, grown suddenly to
+the stature of a woman&mdash;and a tormented, passionate woman, stung to the
+quick by the injustice of her lot. He put out a hand in a feeble
+gesture of placation, but she brushed it away as she bent toward him,
+speaking so quickly that her words stumbled and ran into one another.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I can't understand it!" she raged. "Why is it that I have to be more
+shabby than any other girl in town? Why is it that the others have all
+the fun and I all the drudgery? Why is it that I can't ever go anywhere
+with the boys and girls and laugh and&mdash;and have a good time like the
+rest do?..."
+</p>
+<p>
+Sam bent his head to the blast. In his lap his hands worked nervously.
+But he could not answer her.
+</p>
+<p>
+"It ain't that I mind the cookin' and doin' the housework and&mdash;all the
+rest&mdash;but&mdash;why is it you can never give me anything at all? Why must it
+be that everyone looks down on us and sneers and laughs at us? Why is
+it that half the time we haven't got enough to eat?... Other men manage
+to take care of their families and give their children things to wear.
+You've got only us two to look after, and you can't even do that. It
+isn't right, it isn't decent, and if I were you I'd be ashamed of
+myself&mdash;!"
+</p>
+<p>
+Her temper had spent itself, and with this final cry she checked
+abruptly, with a catch at her breath for shame of what she had let
+herself say. But, childlike, she was not ready to own her sorrow; and
+she turned her back, trembling.
+</p>
+<p>
+Sam, too, was shaken. In his heart he knew there was justification for
+her indictment, truth in what she had said. And he was heartbroken for
+her. He got up unsteadily and put a gentle hand upon her shoulder.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why, Betty&mdash;I&mdash;I&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+A dry sob interrupted him. He pulled himself together and forced his
+voice to a tone of confidence. "Just be a little patient, dear. I'm
+sure things will be better with us, soon. Just a little more patience&mdash;
+that's all... Why, there was a gentleman here this morning, from Noo
+York City, talkin' about an invention of mine."
+</p>
+<p>
+The girl moved restlessly, shaking off his hand. "Invention!" she
+echoed bitterly. "Oh, father! Everybody knows they're no good. You've
+been wastin' time on 'em ever since I can remember, and you've never
+made a dollar out of one yet."
+</p>
+<p>
+He bowed to the truth of this, then again braced up bravely. "But this
+gentleman seemed quite interested. He's over to the Bigelow House now.
+I think I'll step over and have a talk with him&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"You'd much better go and have a talk with Blinky Lockwood," she told
+him brutally. "He's waitin' for you at the bank, and said he wasn't
+goin' to wait after twelve o'clock, neither!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Wel-l, perhaps you're right. I'll go there. It's after twelve, but..."
+He started to get his hat and stopped with an exclamation: "Why, Nat!
+I didn't know you'd got back!"
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan was at the back of the store, clearing the last remnants of the
+old stock from the shelves. "Yes," he said pleasantly, without turning,
+"I've been here some time, cleaning up the cellar, to make room for the
+stuff that's coming in. I came upstairs just a moment ago, but you were
+so busy talking you didn't notice me."
+</p>
+<p>
+He paused, swept the empty shelves with a calculating glance, and came
+out around the end of the counter. "Everything's in tip-top shape," he
+said. "I checked up the bill of lading myself, and there's not a thing
+missing, not a bit of breakage. Mr. Graham," he continued, dropping a
+gentle hand on the old man's shoulder, "you're going to have the finest
+drug-store in the State within six months. With the stuff that Sperry
+has sent us we can make Sothern and Lee look like sixty-five cents on
+the dollar.... We're going to make things hum in this old shop, and
+don't you forget it." He laughed lightly, with a note of encouragement.
+But he avoided Graham's eyes even as he did Betty's. He could not meet
+the pitiful look of the former, any more than that stare of hostility
+and defiance in the latter.
+</p>
+<p>
+"It's good of you, my boy," Graham quavered. "I&mdash;but I'm afraid it
+won't&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Now don't say that!" Duncan interposed firmly. "And don't let me
+keep you. I think you said you were going out on business? And I'll be
+busy enough right here."
+</p>
+<p>
+And without exactly knowing how it had come about, Graham found himself
+in the street, stumbling downtown, toward the bank.
+</p>
+<p>
+When he had gone, Duncan would have returned to the shelves for a final
+redding-up. He desired least of all things an encounter with Betty in
+her present frame of mind, and he tried his level best to seem as one
+who had heard nothing, who was only concerned with his occupation of
+the moment. But from the instant that she had been made aware of his
+presence Betty had been watching him with smouldering eyes, wondering
+how much he had heard and what he was thinking of her. The keen
+repentance that gnawed at her heart, allied with shame that an alien
+should have been private to her exhibition, half maddened the child.
+With a sudden movement she threw herself in front of Duncan, thrusting
+her white, drawn face before his, her gaze searching his half in anger,
+half in morose distrust.
+</p>
+<p>
+"So you were listening!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm sorry," he said uncomfortably.
+</p>
+<p>
+She drew a pace away, holding herself very straight while she threw him
+a level glance of unqualified contempt.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I didn't mean to hear anything," he argued plaintively. "I was in
+the room before I understood, and by the time I did, it was too late&mdash;
+you had finished."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, don't try to explain. I&mdash;I hate you!"
+</p>
+<p>
+He held her eyes inquiringly. "Yes," he said in the tone of one who
+solves a puzzling problem, "I believe you do."
+</p>
+<p>
+She looked away, shaking with passion. "You just better believe it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But," he went on quietly, "you don't hate your father, too, do you,
+Miss Graham?"
+</p>
+<p>
+She swung back to meet his stare with one that flamed with indignation.
+</p>
+<p>
+"What do you mean by that, Mr. Duncan?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I mean," he said, faltering in where one wiser would have feared to
+venture&mdash;"I'm going to give you a bit of advice. Don't you talk to your
+father again the way you did just now."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What business is that of yours?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"None," he admitted fairly. "But just the same I wouldn't, if I were
+you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, you ain't me!" she cried savagely. "You ain't me! Understand
+that? When I want advice from you, I'll ask for it. Until I do, you
+let me alone."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Very well," he replied, so calmly that she lost her bearings for a
+moment. And inevitably this, emphasising as it did all that she
+resented most in him&mdash;his education, wit, address, his advantages of
+every sort&mdash;only served further to infuriate the child.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, I know why you talk that way," she said, rubbing her poor little
+hands together.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Do you?" he asked in wonder.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, I do&mdash;you!..."
+</p>
+<p>
+Suddenly she found words&mdash;poverty-stricken words, it's true, but the
+best she had wherewith to express herself. And for a little they flowed
+from her lips, a scalding, scathing torrent. "It's because you go to
+church all the time and try to look like a saint and&mdash;and try to make
+out you're too religious for anything, and like to hear yourself givin'
+Christian advice to poor miserable sinners&mdash;like me. You think that's
+just too lovely of you. That's why you said it, if you want to know.
+... Folks wonder what you're doing here, don't they? Guess you know
+that&mdash;and like it, too. It makes 'em look at you and talk about you,
+and that's what you like. <i>I</i> could tell 'em. You're only here to
+show off your good clothes and your finger-nails and the way you part
+your hair and&mdash;and all the other things you do that nobody in Noo York
+would pay any attention to!"
+</p>
+<p>
+He faced her soberly, attentively. She was a little fool, he knew, and
+making a ridiculous figure of herself. But&mdash;his innate honesty told him
+&mdash;she was right, in a way; she had hit upon his weakest point. He was
+in Radville to "show off," as she would have said, to make an
+impression and ... to reap the reward thereof. The way she spoke was
+ludicrous, but what she said was mostly plain truth. He nodded
+submissively.
+</p>
+<p>
+"A pretty good guess at that," he acknowledged candidly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, it is, and I know it, and you know it. ... Oh, it's easy enough
+to give advice when you've got plenty of money and fine clothes and ...
+but..."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I understand," he said when she paused to get a grip upon herself and
+find again the words she needed. "You needn't say any more. The only
+reason I said what I did was because I'm strong for your father and ...
+well, I wanted to do you a good turn, too."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't want any of your good turns!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then I apologise."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And I don't want your apologies, neither!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"All right, only ... think over what I said, some time."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I had a good reason for saying what I did."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I know you had."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You know I had!" She looked at him askance. She had been on the point
+of relenting a little, of calming, of being a bit ashamed of herself.
+But his quiet acquiescence rekindled her resentment. "How do you know?
+You!" she said bitterly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Because I'm not what you think I am, altogether."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I guess you're not," she observed acidly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"But I don't mean what you mean. I mean you think I'm conceited and
+rich and don't know what trouble is. Well, you're mistaken. I've been
+up against it the worst way for five years, and I know just how it
+feels to see other people getting up in the world when you're at the
+bottom of the heap with no chance of squirming out&mdash;to know that they
+have things you haven't got any chance of getting. I've been through
+the mill myself. Why, I've kept out of the way for days and days rather
+than let my prosperous friends see how shabby I was. Many's the time
+I've dodged round corners to avoid meeting men I knew would invite me
+to have dinner or luncheon or a drink&mdash;of soda&mdash;or something, for fear
+they'd find out that I couldn't treat in return. Many a time I've gone
+hungry for days and weeks and slept on park benches ... until an old
+friend found me and took me home with him."
+</p>
+<p>
+The ring of sincerity in his manner and tone silenced the girl,
+impressed her with the conviction of his absolute sincerity. The tumult
+in her mind quieted. She eyed him with attention, even with interest
+temporarily untinged with resentment. And seeing that he had succeeded
+in gaining this much ground in her regard, Duncan dared further,
+pushing his advantage to its limits.
+</p>
+<p>
+"But it's your father I wanted to talk about," he hurried on. "I'd bet
+a lot he knows more than any other man in this town; and besides, he's
+a fine, square, good-hearted old gentleman. Anybody can see that.
+Only, he's got one terrible fault: he doesn't know how to make money.
+And that's mighty tough on you&mdash;though it's just as tough on him. But
+when you roast him for it, like you did just now ... you only make him
+feel as miserable as a yellow dog ... and that doesn't help matters a
+little bit. He can't change into a sharp business crook now; ... he's
+too old a man. ... Before long he ... he won't be with you at all and
+... when he's gone you'll be sore on yourself ... sure! ... if you keep
+on throwing it into him the way I heard you. ... And that's on the
+level."
+</p>
+<p>
+He paused in confusion; the role of preacher sat upon him awkwardly, a
+sadly misfit garment. He felt self-conscious and ill at ease, yet with
+a trace of gratulation through it all. For he felt he'd carried his
+point. He could see no longer any animus in the pale, wistful little
+face that looked up into his&mdash;only sympathy, understanding, repentance
+and (this troubled him a bit) a faint flush of dawning admiration.
+Presently she grew conscious of herself again, and looked aside, humbled
+and distressed.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I&mdash;I won't do it again," she faltered, twisting her hands together.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Bully for you!" he cried, and with an abrupt if artificial resumption
+of his business-like air turned away to a show-case&mdash;to spare her the
+embarrassment of his regard.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I didn't think," said the voice behind him; "I didn't mean to&mdash;
+something happened that almost drove me wild and..."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I know," he said gently.
+</p>
+<p>
+After a bit she spoke again: "I'll go up and get dinner ready now."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's all right," he returned absently. "I'll tend the store."
+</p>
+<p>
+He heard her footsteps as she crossed to the door and opened it. There
+followed a pause. Then she came hurriedly back. He faced about to meet
+her eyes shining with wonder.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I wanted to ask you," she said hastily, "if&mdash;was it this friend you
+spoke about&mdash;that found you in the park&mdash;who set you on the road to
+fortune?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's what he said," Duncan answered, twisting his brows whimsically.
+</p>
+<br><br><br>
+<h3><a name="xii">
+	XII
+</a></h3>
+<p class="ctr">
+DUNCAN'S GRUBSTAKE
+</p>
+<p>
+Like almost all business Radville, Duncan went home for his midday
+meal. It wasn't much of a walk from Sam Graham's store to Miss
+Carpenter's, and he didn't mind in the least.
+</p>
+<p>
+On this particular day he was sincerely hungry, but he had much to
+think about besides, and between the two he just bolted his food and
+made off, hot-foot for the store, greatly to the distress of his
+landlady.
+</p>
+<p>
+Naturally, knowing nothing about Sam's note, although he knew Pete
+Willing by sight as the sheriff and town drunkard in one, it didn't
+worry him at all to discover that gentleman tacking toward the store as
+he hurried up Beech Street, eager to get back to his job. The first
+intimation that he had of anything seriously amiss was when he entered,
+practically on Pete's heels.
+</p>
+<p>
+Pete Willing is the best-natured man in the world, as a general rule;
+drunk or sober, Radville tolerates him for just that quality. On only
+two occasions is he irritable and unmanageable: when his wife gets
+after him about the drink (Mrs. Willing is an able-bodied lady of Irish
+descent, with a will and a tongue of her own, to say nothing of
+an arm a blacksmith might envy) and when he has a duty to perform in
+his official capacity. It is in the latter instance that he rises
+magnificently to the dignity of his position. The majesty of the law in
+his hands becomes at once a bludgeon and a pandemonium. No one has ever
+been arrested in Radville, since Pete became sheriff, without the
+entire community becoming aware of it simultaneously. Pete's voice in
+moments of excitement carries like a cannonade. Legrand Gunn said that
+Pete had only to get into an argument in front of the Bigelow House to
+make the entire disorderly population of the Flats, across the river,
+break for the hills. (This is probably an exaggeration.)
+</p>
+<p>
+Tall, gaunt, gangling and loose-jointed, Duncan found Pete standing in
+the middle of the floor, hands in pockets and a noisome stogie thrust
+into a corner of his mouth, swaying a little (he was almost sober at
+the moment) and explaining his mission to old Sam in a voice of
+thunder.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm sorry about this, Sam," he bellowed, "but there ain't no use
+wastin' words 'bout it. I'm here on business."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But what's the matter, Sheriff?" Graham asked, his voice breaking.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Ah, you know you got a note due at the bank, don't you?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, but&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, it's protested. Y'un'erstand that, don't you?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why, Pete!" Graham swayed, half-dazed.
+</p>
+<p>
+"An' I'm here to serve the papers onto you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But&mdash;but there must be some mistake." Sam clutched blindly for his
+hat. "I'll step over and see Mr. Lockwood. He'll arrange to give me a
+little more time, I'm sure. He's always been kind, very kind."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Naw!" Pete bawled, "Mr. Lockwood don't want to see you unless you can
+settle. Y'can save yourself the trouble. Y'gottuh put up or git out!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"But, Pete&mdash;Mr. Lockwood said he didn't want to see me?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yah, that's what he said, and I got orders from him, soon's I got
+judgment to close y'up. And that goes, see!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"To&mdash;to turn me out of the store, Pete?" Graham's world had slipped
+from beneath his feet. He was overwhelmed, witless, as helpless as a
+child. And it was with a child's look of pitiful dismay and perplexity
+that he faced the sheriff.
+</p>
+<p>
+The father who has fallen short of his child's trust and confidence
+knows that look. To Duncan its appeal was irresistible. He had his
+hand in his pocket, clutching the still considerable remains of what
+Kellogg had termed his grubstake, before he knew it.
+</p>
+<p>
+"But&mdash;there must be some mistake," Graham repeated pleadingly. "It
+can't be&mdash;Mr. Lockwood surely wouldn't&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Now there ain't no use whinin' about it!" Willing roared him into
+silence. "Law is Law, and&mdash;&mdash;" He ceased quickly, surprised to find
+Duncan standing between him and his prey. "What&mdash;&mdash;!" he began.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Wait!" Duncan touched him gently on the chest with a forefinger, at
+the same time catching and holding the sheriff's eye. "Are you," he
+inquired quietly, "labouring under the impression that Mr. Graham is
+deaf?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"What&mdash;&mdash;!"
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan turned to Sam, apologetically. "He said 'what.' Did you hear it,
+sir?"
+</p>
+<p>
+But by this time Pete was recovering to some degree. "What've you got
+to say about this?" he demanded, crescendo.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'll show you," Duncan told him in the same quiet voice, "what I've
+got to say if you'll just put the soft pedal on and tell me the amount
+of that note."
+</p>
+<p>
+Pete struggled mightily to regain his vanished advantage, but try as he
+would he could not escape Duncan's cool, inquisitive eye. Visibly he
+lost importance as he yielded and dived into his pocket. "With interest
+and costs," he said less stridently, "it figgers up three hundred 'n'
+eighty dollars 'n' eighty-two cents."
+</p>
+<p>
+There's no use denying that Duncan was staggered. For the moment his
+poise deserted him utterly. He could only repeat, as one who dreams:
+<i>"Three hundred and eighty dollars!..."</i>
+</p>
+<p>
+His momentary consternation afforded Pete the opening he needed. The
+room shook with his regained sense of prestige.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, three hundred 'n' eighty dollars 'n'&mdash;say, you look a-here!&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+Again the calm forefinger touched him, and like a hypnotist's pass
+checked the rolling volume of noise. "Listen," begged Duncan: "if
+you've got anything else to tell me, please retire to the opposite side
+of the street and whisper it. Meanwhile, <i>be quiet!"</i>
+</p>
+<p>
+Pete's jaw dropped. In all his experience no one had ever succeeded in
+taming him so completely&mdash;and in so brief a time. He experienced a
+sensation of having been robbed of his spinal column, and before he
+could pull himself together was staring in awe, while with one final
+admonitory poke of his finger Duncan turned and made for the soda
+counter, beneath which was the till. His scanty roll of bills was in
+his right hand, and there concealed. He stepped behind the counter (old
+Sam watching him with an amazement no less absolute than Pete's),
+pulled out the till, bent over it with an assured air, and pushed back
+the coin slide. Then quite naturally, he produced&mdash;with his right
+hand&mdash;his four-hundred-and-odd dollars from the bill drawer, stood up
+and counted them with great deliberation.
+</p>
+<p>
+"One ... two ... three ... four."
+He smiled winningly at Pete. "Four hundred dollars, Mr. Sheriff. Now
+will you be good enough to hand over that note and the change and then
+put yourself, and that pickle you're wearing in your face, on the other
+side of the door?"
+</p>
+<p>
+Pete struggled tremendously and finally succeeded in producing from
+his system a still, small voice:
+</p>
+<p>
+"I ain't got the note with me, Mr. Duncan."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then perhaps you won't mind going to the bank for it?"
+</p>
+<p>
+Half suffocated, Pete assented. "Aw'right, I'll go and git it. Kin I
+have the money?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Certainly." Duncan extended the bills, then on second thought withheld
+them. "I presume you're a regular sheriff?" he inquired.
+</p>
+<p>
+Very proudly Pete turned back the lapel of his coat and distended the
+chest on which shone his nickel-plated badge of office. Duncan examined
+it with grave admiration.
+</p>
+<p>
+"It's beautiful," he said with a sigh. "Here."
+</p>
+<p>
+Gingerly, Pete grasped the bills, thumbed them over to make sure they
+were real, and bolted as for his life, his coat-tails level on the
+breeze.
+</p>
+
+
+
+<p class="ctr">
+<a href="illp198.jpg"><img src="illp198_th.jpg" width="150"
+alt="'Four Hundred Dollars, Mr. Sheriff'"></a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There floated back to Duncan and old Sam his valedictory: "Wal, I'll be
+damned!"
+</p>
+<p>
+With a short, quiet laugh Duncan made as though to go out to the
+back-yard, where the new stock was being delivered, having been carted
+up from the station through the alley&mdash;thereby doing away with the
+necessity of cluttering up the store with a débris of packing. His
+primal instinct of the moment was to get right out of that with all the
+expedition practicable. He didn't want to be alone with old Sam another
+second. The essential insanity of which he had just done was patent;
+there was no excuse for it, and he was like to suffer severely as a
+consequence. But he wasn't sorry, and he did not want to be thanked.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm going," he said hurriedly, "to find me a hatchet and knock the
+stuffing out of some of those packing-cases. Want to get all that truck
+indoors before nightfall, you know&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+But old Sam wasn't to be put off by any such obvious subterfuge as
+that. He put himself in front of Duncan.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Nat, my boy," he said, tremulous, "I can't let this go through&mdash;I
+can't allow you&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"There, now!" Duncan told him, unconcernedly yet kindly, "don't say
+anything more. It's over and done with."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But you mustn't&mdash;I'll turn over the store to you, if&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"O Lord!" Duncan's dismay was as genuine as his desire to escape
+Graham's gratitude. "No&mdash;don't! Please don't do that!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"But I must do something, my boy. I can't accept so great a kindness&mdash;
+unless," said Graham with a timid flash of hope&mdash;"you'll consider a
+partnership&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's it!" cried Duncan, glad of any way out of the situation.
+"That's the way to do it&mdash;a partnership. No, please don't say any more
+about it, just now. We can settle details later. ... We've got to get
+busy. Tell you what I wish you'd do while I'm busting open those boxes:
+if you don't mind going down to the station to make sure that
+everything's&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, I'll go; I'll go at once." Sam groped for Duncan's hand, caught
+and held it between both his own. "If&mdash;if fate&mdash;or something hadn't
+brought you here to-day&mdash;I don't know what would've happened to Betty
+and me. ..."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Never mind," Duncan tried to soothe him. "Just don't you think about
+it."
+</p>
+<p>
+Graham shook his head, still bewildered. "Perhaps," he stumbled on, "to
+a gentleman of your wealth four hundred dollars isn't much&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"No," said Duncan gravely, without the flicker of an eyelash:
+"nothing." Then he smiled cheerfully. "There, that's all right."
+</p>
+<p>
+"To me it's meant everything. I&mdash;I only hope I'll be able to repay
+you some day. God bless you, my boy, God bless you!"
+</p>
+<p>
+He managed to jam his hat awry on his white old head and found his way
+out, his hands fumbling with one another, his lips moving inaudibly&mdash;
+perhaps in a prayer of thanksgiving.
+</p>
+<p>
+Motionless, Duncan watched him go, and for several minutes thereafter
+stood without stirring, lost in thought. Then his quaint, deprecatory
+grin dawned. He found a handkerchief and mopped his forehead.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Whew!" he whistled. "I wouldn't go through that again for a million
+dollars."
+</p>
+<p>
+Gradually the smile faded. He puckered his brows and drew down the
+corners of his mouth. Thoughtfully he ran a hand into his pocket and
+produced the little crumpled wad of bills of small denominations,
+representing all he had left in the world. Smoothing them out on the
+counter, he arranged them carefully, summing up; then returned them to
+his pocket.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Harry," he observed&mdash;"Harry said I couldn't get rid of that stake in a
+year!...
+</p>
+<p>
+"He doesn't know what a fast town this is!"
+</p>
+<br><br><br>
+<h3><a name="xiii">
+	XIII
+</a></h3>
+<p class="ctr">
+THE BUSINESS MAN AND MR. BURNHAM
+</p>
+<p>
+It was, perhaps, within the next thirty minutes that Betty (who had
+been left in charge of the store while Duncan, with coat and collar off
+and sleeves rolled above his elbows, hacked and pounded and pried and
+banged at the packing-cases in the backyard) sought him on the scene of
+his labours.
+</p>
+<p>
+She waited quietly, a little to one side, watching him, until he should
+become aware of her presence. What she was thinking would have been
+hard to define, from the inscrutable eyes in her set, tired face of a
+child. There was no longer any trace of envy, suspicion or resentment
+in her attitude toward the young man. You might have guessed that she
+was trying to analyse him, weighing him in the scales of her
+impoverished and lopsided knowledge of human nature, and wondering if
+such conclusions as she was able to arrive at were dependable.
+</p>
+<p>
+In the course of time he caught sight of that patient, sad little
+figure, and, pausing, panting and perspiring under the July sun,
+cheerfully brandished his weapon from the centre of a widespread
+area of wreckage and destruction.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Pretty good work for a York dude&mdash;not?" he laughed.
+</p>
+<p>
+There was a shadowy smile in her grave eyes. "It's an improvement," she
+said evenly.
+</p>
+<p>
+He shot her a curious glance. "<i>Ouch!</i>" he said thoughtfully.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I just came to tell you," she went on, again immobile, "you're wanted
+inside."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Somebody wants to see <i>me?</i>" he demanded of her retreating back.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But who&mdash;?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Blinky Lockwood," she replied over her shoulder, as she went into the
+house.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Lockwood?" He speculated, for an instant puzzled. Then suddenly:
+"Father-in-law!" he cried. "Shivering snakes! he mustn't catch me like
+this! I, a business man!"
+</p>
+<p>
+Hastily rolling down his shirt-sleeves and shrugging himself into his
+coat, he made for the store, buttoning his collar and knotting his tie
+on the way.
+</p>
+<p>
+He found Blinky nosing round the room, quite alone. Betty had
+disappeared, and the old scoundrel was having quite an enjoyable time
+poking into matters that did not concern him and disapproving of them
+on general principles. So far as the improvements concerned old Sam
+Graham's fortunes, Blinky would concede no health in them. But with
+regard to Duncan there was another story to tell: Duncan apparently
+controlled money, to some vague extent.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You're Mr. Duncan, ain't you?" he asked with his leer, moving down to
+meet Nat.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, sir. Mr. Lockwood, I believe?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's me." Blinky clutched his hand in a genial claw. "I'm glad to
+meet you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Thank you," said Duncan. "Something I can do for you, sir?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Wal, Pete Willin' was tellin' me you'd just took up this note of
+Graham's?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not exactly; the firm took it up."
+</p>
+<p>
+Blinky winked savagely at this. "The firm? What firm?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Graham and Duncan, sir. I've been taken into partnership."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Have, eh?" Blinky grunted mysteriously and fished in his pocket for
+some bills and silver. "Wal, here's some change comin' to the firm,
+then; and here," he added, producing the document in question, "is
+Sam's note."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Thank you." Duncan ceremoniously deposited both in the till, going
+behind the soda fountain to do so, and then waited, expectant. Blinky
+was grunting busily in the key of one about to make an important
+communication.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm glad you're a-comin' in here with Sam," he said at length, with an
+acid grimace that was meant to be a smile.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, it may be only temporary." Nat endeavoured to assume a seraphic
+expression, and partially succeeded. "I'm devoting much of my time to
+my studies," he pursued primly; "but nevertheless feel I should be
+earning something, too."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's right; that's the kind of spirit I like to see in a young
+man.... You always go to church, don't you?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, sir&mdash;Sundays only."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's what I mean. D'you drink?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, no, sir," Duncan parroted glibly: "don't smoke, drink, swear, and
+on Sundays I go to church."
+</p>
+<p>
+The bland smile with which he faced Lockwood's keen scrutiny disarmed
+suspicion.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm glad to hear that," Blinky told him. "I'm at the head of the
+temp'rance movement here, and I hope you'll join us, and set an example
+to our fast young men."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I feel sure I could do that," said Duncan meekly.
+</p>
+<p>
+Lockwood removed his hat, exposing the cranium of a bald-headed eagle,
+and fanned himself. "Warm to-day," he observed in an endeavour to be
+genial that all but sprained his temperament.
+</p>
+<p>
+Indeed, so great was the strain that he winked violently.
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan observed this phenomenon with natural astonishment not unmixed
+with awe. "Yes, sir, very," he agreed, wondering what it might portend.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I believe I'll have a glass of sody."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Certainly." Duncan, by now habituated to the formulae of soda
+dispensing, promptly produced a bright and shining glass.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I see you've been fixin' this place up some."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, yes," said Nat loftily. "We expect to have the best drugstore in
+the State. We're getting in new stock to-day, and naturally things are
+a little out of order, but we'll straighten up without delay. We'll try
+to deserve your esteemed patronage," he concluded doubtfully, with a
+hazy impression that such a speech would be considered appropriate
+under the circumstances.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You shall have it, Mr. Duncan, you shall have it!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Thank you, I'm sure.... What syrup would you prefer?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Just sody," stipulated Lockwood.
+</p>
+<p>
+His spasmodic wink again smote Duncan's understanding a mighty blow.
+Unable to believe his eyes, he hedged and stammered. Could it be&mdash;?
+This from the leader of the temperance movement in Radville?
+</p>
+<p>
+"I beg pardon&mdash;&mdash;?"
+</p>
+<p>
+His denseness irritated Blinky slightly, with the result that the right
+side of his face again underwent an alarming convulsion. "I say," he
+explained carefully, "just&mdash;<i>plain</i>&mdash;sody."
+</p>
+<p>
+"On the level?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"What?" grunted Blinky; and blinked again.
+</p>
+<p>
+A smile of comprehension irradiated Nat's features. "Pardon," he said,
+"I'm a little new to the business."
+</p>
+<p>
+Blinky, fanning himself industriously, glared round the store while
+Duncan, turning his back, discreetly found and uncorked the whiskey
+bottle. He was still a trifle dubious about the transaction, but on the
+sound principles of doing all things thoroughly, poured out a liberal
+dose of raw, red liquor. Then, with his fingers clamped tightly about
+the bottom of the glass, the better to conceal its contents from any
+casual but inquisitive passer-by, he quickly filled it with soda and
+placed it before Blinky, accompanying the action with the sweetest of
+childlike smiles.
+</p>
+<p>
+Lockwood, nodding his acknowledgments, lifted the glass to his lips.
+Duncan awaited developments with some apprehension. To his relief,
+however, Blinky, after an experimental swallow, emptied the mixture
+expeditiously into his system; and smacked his thin lips resoundingly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"How," he demanded, "can anyone want intoxicatin' likers when
+they can get such a bracin' drink as that?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I pass," Nat breathed, limp with admiration of such astounding
+hypocrisy.
+</p>
+<p>
+Blinky reluctantly pried a nickel loose from his finances and placed it
+on the counter. Duncan regarded it with disdain.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Ten cents more, please," he suggested tactfully.
+</p>
+<p>
+"What for?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Plain sody." The explanation was accompanied by a very passable
+imitation of Blinky's blink.
+</p>
+<p>
+Happily for Duncan, Blinky has no sense of humour: if he had he would
+explode the very first time he indulged in introspection.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not much," said he with his sour smile. "I guess you're jokin'....
+Well, good luck to you, Mr. Duncan. I'd like to have you come round and
+see us some evenin'."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Thank you very much, sir." Duncan accompanied Blinky to the door.
+"I've already had the pleasure of meeting your daughter, sir. She's a
+charming girl."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm real glad you think so," said Blinky, intensely gratified. "She
+seems to've taken a great shine to you, too. Come round and get
+'quainted with the hull family. You're the sort of young feller I'd
+like her to know." He paused and looked Nat up and down captiously,
+as one might appraise the points of a horse of quality put up for sale.
+"Good-day," said he, with the most significant of winks.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, that's all right," Nat hastened to reassure him. "I won't say a
+word about it."
+</p>
+<p>
+Blinky, on the point of leaving, started to question this (to him)
+cryptic utterance, but luckily had the current of his thoughts diverted
+by the entrance of Roland Barnette, in company with his friend Mr.
+Burnham.
+</p>
+<p>
+Roland's consternation at this unexpected encounter was, in the mildest
+term, extreme. At sight of his employer he pulled up as if slapped.
+"Oh!" he faltered, "I didn't know you was here, sir."
+</p>
+<p>
+"No," said Blinky with keen relish, "I guess you didn't."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I&mdash;ah&mdash;come over to see Sam about that note," stammered Roland.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Wal, don't you bother your head 'bout what ain't your business, Roly.
+Come on back to the bank."
+</p>
+<p>
+"All right, sir." Roland grasped frantically at the opportunity to
+emphasise his importance. "Excuse me, Mr. Lockwood, but I'd like to
+interdoos you to a friend of mine, Mr. Burnham from Noo York."
+</p>
+<p>
+Amused, Burnham stepped into the breach. "How are you?" he said with
+the proper nuance of cordiality, offering his hand.
+</p>
+<p>
+Lockwood shook it unemotionally. "How de do?" he said, perfunctory.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I brought Mr. Burnham in to see Sam&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes," Burnham interrupted Roland quickly; "Barnette's been kind enough
+to show me round town a bit."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Here on business?" inquired Lockwood pointedly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, not exactly," returned Burnham with practised ease, "just looking
+round."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Only lookin', eh?" Blinky's countenance underwent one of its erratic
+quakes as he examined Burnham with his habitual intentness.
+</p>
+<p>
+The New Yorker caught the wink and lost breath. "Ah&mdash;yes&mdash;that's all,"
+he assented uneasily. And as he spoke another wink dumbfounded him.
+"Why?" he asked, with a distinct loss of assurance. "Don't you believe
+it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Don't see no reason why I shouldn't," grunted Blinky. "Hope you'll
+like what you see. Good day."
+</p>
+<p>
+"So long ... Mr. Lockwood," returned Burnham uncertainly.
+</p>
+<p>
+Lockwood paused outside the door. "Come 'long, Roland."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, sir; right away; just a minute." Roland was lingering
+unwillingly, detained by Burnham's imperative hand. "What d'you want? I
+got to hurry."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What was he winking at me for?" demanded Burnham heatedly. "Have
+you&mdash;&mdash;?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh!" Roland laughed. "He wasn't winking. He can't help doing that.
+It's a twitchin' he's got in his eye. That's why they call him Blinky."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, that was it!" Burnham accepted the explanation with distinct
+relief, while Duncan, who had been an unregarded spectator, suddenly
+found cause to retire behind one of the show-cases on important
+business.
+</p>
+<p>
+So that was the explanation!...
+</p>
+<p>
+After his paroxysm had subsided and he felt able to control his facial
+muscles, Duncan emerged, suave and solemn. Roland had disappeared with
+Blinky, and Burnham was alone.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Anything you wish, sir?" asked Nat.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Only to see Mr. Graham."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He's out just at present, but I think he'll be back in a moment or so.
+Will you wait? You'll find that chair comfortable, I think."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Believe I will," said Burnham with an air. He seated himself. "I can't
+wait long, though," he amended.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, sir. And if you'll excuse me&mdash;&mdash;?"
+</p>
+<p>
+Burnham's hand dismissed him with a tolerant wave. "Go right on about
+your business," he said with supreme condescension.
+</p>
+<p>
+And Duncan returned to his work in the backyard. It wasn't long before
+he found occasion to go back to the store, and by that time old Sam was
+there in conversation with Burnham. Neither noticed Nat as he entered,
+and to begin with he paid them little heed, being occupied with his
+task of depositing an armful of bottles without mishap and then placing
+them on the shelves. The hum of their voices from the other side of the
+counter struck an indifferent ear while he busied himself, but
+presently a word or phrase caught his interest, and he found himself
+listening, at first casually, then with waxing attention.
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's part of my business," he heard Burnham say in his sleek,
+oleaginous accents. "Sometimes I pick up an odd no-'count contraption
+that makes me a bit of money, and more times I'm stung and lose on it.
+It's all a gamble, of course, and I'm that way&mdash;like to take a gambling
+chance on anything that strikes my fancy&mdash;like that burner of yours."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes," Graham returned: "the gas arrangement."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It's a curious idea&mdash;quite different from the one I told you about;
+but I kinda took to it. There might be something to it, and again there
+mightn't. I've been thinking I might be willing to risk a few dollars
+on it, if we could come to terms."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Do you mean it, really?" said old Sam eagerly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not to invest in it, so to speak; I don't think it's chances are
+strong enough for that. But if you'd care to sell the patent outright
+and aren't too ambitious, we might make a dicker. What d'you say?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why, yes," said Graham, quivering with anticipation. "Yes, indeed,
+if&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"If you really think it's worth anything, sir."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, as I say, there's no telling; but I was thinking about it at
+dinner, and I sort of concluded I'd like to own that burner, so I made
+out a little bill of sale, and I says to myself, says I: 'If Graham
+will take five hundred dollars for that patent, I'll give him spot
+cash, right in his hand,' says I."
+</p>
+<p>
+With this Burnham tipped back in his chair, and brought forth a wallet
+from which he drew a sheet of paper and several bills.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Five hundred dollars!" repeated Graham, thunderstruck by this
+munificence.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, sir: five hundred, cash! To tell you the truth&mdash;guess you don't
+know it&mdash;I heard at the bank that they didn't intend to extend the time
+on that note of yours, and I thought this five hundred would come in
+handy, and kind of wanted to help you out. Now what do you say?"
+</p>
+<p>
+He flourished the bills under Graham's nose and waited, entirely at
+ease as to his answer.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well," said the old man, "it is kind of you, sir&mdash;very kind. Everybody's
+been good to me recently&mdash;or else I'm dreamin'."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then it's a bargain?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why, I hope it won't lose any money for you, Mr. Burnham," Sam
+hesitated, with his ineradicable sense of fairness and square-dealing.
+"Making gas from crude oil ought to&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan never heard the end of that speech. For some moments he had been
+listening intently, trying to recollect something. The name of Burnham
+plucked a string on the instrument of his memory; he knew he had heard
+it, some place, some time in the past; but how, or when, or in respect
+to what he could not make up his mind. It had required Sam's reference
+to gas and crude oil to close the circuit. Then he remembered: Kellogg
+had mentioned a man by the name of Burnham who was "on the track of" an
+important invention for making gas from crude oil. This must be the
+man, Burnham, the tracker; and poor old Graham must be the tracked....
+</p>
+<p>
+Without warning Duncan ran round and made himself an uninvited third to
+the conference.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Mr. Graham, one moment!" he begged, excited. "Is this patent of yours
+on a process of making gas from crude oil?"
+</p>
+<p>
+Burnham looked up impatiently, frowning at the interruption, but Graham
+was all good humour.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why, yes," he started to explain; "it's that burner over there that&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"But I wouldn't sell it just yet if I were you," said Nat. "It may be
+worth a good deal&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Now look here!" Burnham got to his feet in anger. "What business 've
+you got butting into this?" he demanded, putting himself between Duncan
+and the inventor.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Me?" Duncan queried simply. "Only just because I'm a business man. If
+you don't believe it, ask Mr. Graham."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He's got a perfect right to advise me, Mr. Burnham," interposed
+Graham, rising.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, but&mdash;but what objection 've you got to his making a little money
+out of this patent?" Burnham blustered.
+</p>
+<p>
+"None; only I want to look into the matter first. I think it might be&mdash;
+ah&mdash;advisable."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What makes you think so?" demanded Burnham, his tone withering.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well," said Nat, with an effort summoning his faculties to cope with a
+matter of strict business, "it's this way: I've got an <i>idea</i>," he
+said, poking at Burnham with the forefinger which had proven so
+effective with Pete Willing, "that you wouldn't offer five hundred iron
+men for this burner unless you expected to make something big out of
+it, and... it ought to be worth just as much to Mr. Graham as to you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Ah, you don't know what you're talking about."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I know that," Nat admitted simply, "but I do happen to know you're
+promoting a scheme for making gas from crude oil, and if Mr. Graham
+will listen to me you won't get his patent until I've consulted my
+friend, Henry Kellogg."
+</p>
+<p>
+"<i>Kellogg!</i>"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes. You know&mdash;of L.J. Bartlett &amp; Company." Nat's forefinger continued
+to do deadly work. Burnham backed away from it as from a fiery brand.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, well!" he said, dashed, "if you're representing Kellogg"&mdash;and Nat
+took care not to refute the implication&mdash;"I&mdash;I don't want to interfere.
+Only," he pursued at random, in his discomfiture, "I can't see why he
+sent you here."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'd be ashamed to tell you," Nat returned with an open smile. "Better
+ask him."
+</p>
+<p>
+Burnham gathered his wits together for a final threat. "That's what I
+will do!" he threatened. "And I'll do it the minute I can see him. You
+can bet on that, Mister What's-Your-Name!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, I can't," said Nat naïvely. "I'm not allowed to gamble."
+</p>
+<p>
+His ingenuous expression exasperated Burnham. The man lost control of
+his temper at the same moment that he acknowledged to himself his
+defeat. In disgust he turned away.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, there's no use talking to you&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's right," Nat agreed fairly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"But I'll see you again, Mr. Graham&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not alone, if I can help it, Mr. Burnham," Duncan amended sweetly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"But," Burnham continued, severely ignoring Nat and addressing himself
+squarely to Graham, "you take my tip and don't do any business with
+this fellow until you find out who he is." He flung himself out of the
+shop with a barked: "Good-day!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, Mr. Graham?" Duncan turned a little apprehensively to the
+inventor. But Sam's expression was almost one of beatific content. His
+weak old lips were pursed, his eyes half-closed, his finger tips
+joined, and he was rocking back and forth on his heels.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Margaret used to talk that way, sometimes," he remarked. "She was the
+best woman in the world&mdash;and the wisest. She used to take care of me
+and protect me from my foolish impulses, just as you do, my boy...."
+</p>
+<p>
+For a space Duncan kept silent, respecting the old man's memories, and
+a great deal humbled in spirit by the parallel Sam had drawn. Then: "I
+was afraid what I said would sound queer to you, sir," he ventured&mdash;
+"that you mightn't understand that I'm not here to do you out of your
+invention..."
+</p>
+<p>
+"There's nothing on earth, my boy,"&mdash;Graham's hand fell on Nat's arm&mdash;
+"could make me think that. But five hundred dollars, you see, would
+have repaid you for taking up that note, and&mdash;and I could have bought
+Betty a new dress for the party. But I'm sure you've done what's best.
+You're a business man&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Don't!" Nat pleaded wildly. "I've been called that so much of late
+that it's beginning to hurt!"
+</p>
+<br><br><br>
+<h3><a name="xiv">
+	XIV
+</a></h3>
+<p class="ctr">
+MOSTLY ABOUT BETTY
+</p>
+<p>
+Sam Graham said to me, that night: "I don't know when so many things
+have happened to me in so short a time. It don't seem hardly possible
+it's only four days since that boy came in here asking for a job. It's
+wonderful, simply wonderful, the change he's made."
+</p>
+<p>
+He waved a comprehensive hand, and I, glancing round the transformed
+store, agreed with him. Everything was spick and span and mighty
+attractive&mdash;clean and neat-looking&mdash;with the new stock in the shining
+cases and arranged on the glistening white shelves: not all of it set
+out by any means, of course, but no unplaced goods in sight, cluttering
+up the counters or kicking round the floor.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The way he's worked&mdash;&mdash;! You'd hardly believe it, Homer. He said he
+wanted to get home early so's to write a letter to a friend of his in
+New York, a Mr. Kellogg, junior member of L. J. Bartlett &amp; Company,
+about my invention. But he insisted on leaving everything to rights for
+business to-morrow. And just look!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"But I thought Roland Barnette&mdash;&mdash;?" I suggested with guile. Of
+course I'd heard a rumour of what had happened&mdash;'most everyone in town
+had&mdash;and how Roland and his friend, Mr. Burnham, had sort of fallen out
+on the way from the Bigelow House to the train; but no one knew
+anything definite, and I wanted to get "the rights of it," as Radville
+says.
+</p>
+<p>
+So I had dropped in at Graham's, on my way home from the office, as I
+often do, for an evening smoke and a bit of gossip: something I rarely
+indulge in, but which I've found has a curious psychological effect on
+the circulation of the <i>Citizen</i>&mdash;like a tonic. Sam was just at
+the point of closing up. He was alone, Duncan having gone home about an
+hour earlier, and Betty being upstairs, while (since it was quite
+half-past nine) all the rest of Radville, with few exceptions (chiefly
+to be noted at Schwartz's and round the Bigelow House bar) was making
+its final rounds of the day: locking the front door, putting out the
+lamp in its living-room, banking the fire in the range, ejecting the
+cat from the kitchen and wiping out the sink, and finally, odoriferous
+kerosene lamp in hand, climbing slowly to the stuffy upstairs
+bed-chamber. Indeed, the lights of Radville begin to go out about
+half-past eight; by ten, as a rule, the town is as lively as a
+cemetery.
+</p>
+<p>
+But I am by nature inexorable and merciless, a masterful man with such
+as old Sam; and it was an hour later before I left him, drained of
+the last detail of the day. He was a weary man, but a happy one, when
+he bade me good-night, and I myself felt a little warmed by his
+cheerfulness as I plodded up Main Street through the thick oppression
+of darkness beneath the elms.
+</p>
+<p>
+After a time I became aware that someone was overtaking me, and waited,
+thinking at first it would be one of my people. But it wasn't long
+before I recognised from the quick tempo of the approaching footfalls
+that this was no Radvillian. There was just light enough&mdash;starlight
+striking down through the thinner spaces in the interlacing foliage&mdash;to
+make visible a moving shadow, and when it drew nearer I saluted it with
+confidence.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Good-evening, Mr. Duncan."
+</p>
+<p>
+He stopped short, peering through the gloom. "Good-evening, but&mdash;Mr.
+Littlejohn? Glad to see you." He joined me and we proceeded homeward,
+he moderating his stride a trifle in deference to my age. "Aren't you
+late?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"A bit," I admitted. "I've been gossiping with Sam Graham."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh...?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"You're out late yourself, Mr. Duncan, for one of such regular, not to
+say abnormal, habits."
+</p>
+<p>
+He laughed lightly. "Had a letter I wanted to catch the first morning
+train."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then you're interested in Sam's burner?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, I'm not, but I hope to interest others....Oh, yes: Mr. Graham
+told you about it, of course.... It just struck me that if a man of
+Burnham's stamp was willing to risk five hundred dollars on the
+proposition, he very likely foresaw a profit in it that might as well
+be Mr. Graham's. So I've sent a detailed description of the thing to a
+friend in New York, who'll look into it for me."
+</p>
+<p>
+He was silent for a little.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Who's Colonel Bohun?" he asked suddenly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why do you ask?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I saw him this evening. He was passing the store and stopped to glare
+in as if he hated it&mdash;stopped so long that I got nervous and asked Miss
+Lockwood (she'd just happened in for a parting glass&mdash;of soda) whether
+he was an anarchist or a retired burglar. She told me his name, but was
+otherwise inhumanly reticent."
+</p>
+<p>
+"For Josie?" I chuckled; but he didn't respond. So I took up the tale
+of the first family of Radville.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The story runs," said I, "that the Bohuns were one of the F.F.V.'s;
+that they sickened of slavery, freed their slaves and moved North, to
+settle in Radville. I <i>believe</i> they came from somewhere round
+Lynchburg; but that was a couple of generations ago. When the Civil War
+broke out the old Colonel up there"&mdash;I gestured vaguely in the general
+direction of the Bohun mansion&mdash;"couldn't keep out of it, and
+naturally he couldn't fight with the North. He won his spurs under
+Lee.... After the war had blown over he came home, to find that his
+only son had enlisted with the Radville company and disappeared at
+Gettysburg. It pretty nearly killed the old man&mdash;though he wasn't so
+old then; but there's fire in the Bohun blood, and his boy's action
+seemed to him nothing less than treason."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And that's what soured him on the world?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not altogether. He had a daughter&mdash;Margaret. She was the most
+beautiful woman in the world...." I suspect my voice broke a little
+just there, for there was a shade of respectful sympathy in the
+monosyllable with which he filled the pause. "He swore she should never
+marry a Northerner, but she did; I guess, being a Bohun, she had to,
+after hearing she must not. There were two of us that loved her, but
+she chose Sam Graham...."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why," he said awkwardly&mdash;"I'm sorry."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm not: she was right, if I couldn't see it that way. They ran away&mdash;
+and so did I. I went East, but they came back to Radville. Colonel
+Bohun never forgave them, but they were very happy till she died.
+Betty's their daughter, of course: Sam's not the kind that marries more
+than once."
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan thought this over without comment until we reached our gate.
+There he paused for a moment.
+</p>
+<p>
+"He's got plenty of money, I presume&mdash;old Bohun?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"So they say. Probably not much now, but a great deal more than he
+needs."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then why doesn't somebody get after the old scoundrel and make him do
+something for that poor&mdash;for Miss Graham?" he asked indignantly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"He tried it once, but they wouldn't listen. His conditions were
+impossible," I explained. "She was to renounce her father and take the
+name of Bohun&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What rot!" Duncan growled. "What an old fiend he must be! Of course he
+knew she'd refuse."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I suspect he did."
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan hesitated a bit longer. "Anyhow," he said suddenly, "somebody
+ought to get after him and make him see the thing the right way."
+</p>
+<p>
+"S'pose you try it, Mr. Duncan?" I suggested maliciously, as we went up
+the walk.
+</p>
+<p>
+He stopped at the door. "Perhaps I shall," he said slowly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'd advise you not to. The last man that tried it has no desire to
+repeat the experiment."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Who was he?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"An old fool named Homer Littlejohn."
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan put out his hand. "Shake!" he insisted. "We'll talk this over
+another time."
+</p>
+<p>
+We went in very quietly, lit our candles, and with elaborate care
+avoided the home-made burglar-alarm (a complicated arrangement of
+strings and tinpans on the staircase, which Miss Carpenter insists on
+maintaining ever since Roland Barnette missed a dollar bill and
+insisted his pocket had been picked on Main Street) and so mounted to
+our rooms. As we were entering (our doors adjoin) a thought delayed my
+good-night.
+</p>
+<p>
+"By the way, did you get your invitation to Josie Lockwood's party, Mr.
+Duncan? I happened to see it on the hall table this evening."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes," he assented quietly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"It's to be the social event of the year. I hope you'll enjoy it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm not going."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not going!... Why not?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"It's against the rules at first&mdash;I mean, business rules. I'll be so
+busy at the store, you know."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Josie'll be disappointed."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Thank you," said he gratefully. "Good-night."
+</p>
+<p>
+Alone, I was fain to confess he baffled my understanding.
+</p>
+<p>
+The rush of business to Graham's began the following morning: Duncan's
+hands were full almost from the first, and he had to relegate such
+matters as making final disposition of his stock and getting acquainted
+with it to the intervals between waiting upon customers. Old Sam must
+have put up more prescriptions in the next few days than he had within
+the last five years. Everybody wanted to take a look at the renovated
+store, shake Sam's hand, and see what the new partner was really like.
+Sothern and Lee's was for some days quite deserted, especially after
+Duncan took a leaf out of their book, bought an ice-cream freezer and
+began to serve dabs of cream in the sody. I've always maintained that
+our Radville folks are pretty thoroughly sot in their ways (the phrase
+is local), but the way they flocked to Graham's forced me to amend the
+aphorism with the clause: "except when their curiosity is aroused."
+Every woman in town wanted to know what Graham and Duncan carried that
+Sothern and Lee didn't, and how much cheaper they were than the more
+established concern; also they wanted to know Mr. Duncan. I suspect no
+drug-store ever had so many inquiries for articles that it didn't
+carry, but might possibly, or ought to, in the estimation of the
+prospective purchasers, as well as that at no time had Radvillians
+happened to think of so many things that they could get at a
+druggist's. People drove in from as far as twenty miles away, as soon
+as the news reached them, to buy notepaper and stamps&mdash;people who
+didn't write or receive a letter a month. Will Bigelow, even, dropped
+round and bought samples of the tobacco stock, from two-fors up to
+ten-centers&mdash;and smoked them with expressive snorts. Tracey Tanner's
+soda and cigarette trade was transferred bodily to Graham's from the
+first, and Roland Barnette gave it his patronage, albeit grudgingly, as
+soon as he found it impossible to shake Josie Lockwood's allegiance. I
+say grudgingly, because Roland didn't like the new partner, and had
+said so from the first. But everyone else did like him, almost without
+exception. His attentiveness and courtesy were not ungrateful after the
+way things were thrown at you at Sothern and Lee's, we declared.
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan certainly did strive to please. No man ever worked harder in a
+Radville store than he did. And from the time that he began to believe
+there would be some reward for his exertions, that the business was
+susceptible to being built up by the employment of progressive methods,
+he grew astonishingly prolific of ideas, from our sleepy point of view.
+The window displays were changed almost daily, to begin with, and were
+made as interesting as possible; we learned to go blocks out of our way
+to find out what Graham and Duncan were exploiting to-day. And daily
+bargain sales were instituted&mdash;low-priced articles of everyday use,
+such as shaving soap, tooth brushes, and the like, being sold at a
+few cents above cost on certain days which were announced in advance by
+means of hand-lettered cards in the show-windows; whereas formerly we
+had always been obliged to pay full list-prices. An axiom of his creed
+as it developed was to the effect that stock must not be allowed to
+stand idle upon the shelves; if there were no call for a certain line
+of articles, it must be stimulated. I remember that, some time along in
+August, he began to worry about the inactivity in cough-syrups.
+</p>
+<p>
+"No one wants cough-syrups in summer," he told Graham; "that stuff's
+been here six weeks and more. It's getting out of training. Needs
+exercise. Look at this bottle: it says: 'Shake well.' Now it hasn't
+been shaken at all since it was put on the shelves, and I haven't got
+time to shake it every morning. We must either hire a boy to give it
+regular exercise, or sell it off and get in a fresh supply for the
+winter. I'll have to think up some scheme to make 'em take it off our
+hands."
+</p>
+<p>
+He did. Somehow or other he managed to convince us that forewarned was
+forearmed, that it was better to have a bottle or two of cough-syrup in
+our medicine chests at home than on the shelves of the drug-store, when
+the chill autumnal winds began to blow, especially when you could buy
+it now for thirty-nine cents, whereas it would be fifty-four in
+October.
+</p>
+<p>
+Still earlier in his career as a business man he noticed that the local
+practitioners wrote their prescriptions on odd scraps of paper.
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's all wrong," he declared. "We'll have to fix it." And by next
+morning the job-printing press back of the Court House was groaning
+under an order from Graham and Duncan's, and a few days later every
+physician within several miles of Radville received half a dozen neat
+pads of blanks with his name and address printed at the top and the
+advice across the bottom: "Go to Graham's for the best and purest drugs
+and chemicals." The backs of the blanks were utilised to request people
+living out of reach, but on rural free delivery routes, either to mail
+their prescriptions and other orders in, or have the physicians
+telephone them, promising to fill and despatch them by the first post.
+</p>
+<p>
+For he had a telephone installed within the first fortnight, and the
+next day advertised in the <i>Gazette</i> that orders by telephone
+would receive prompt attention and be delivered without delay. Tracey
+Tanner became his delivery-boy, deserting his father's stables for the
+obvious advantages of three dollars a week with a chance to learn the
+business.... Sothern and Lee were quick to recognise the advantage the
+telephone gave Graham and Duncan, and promptly had one put in their
+store; but the delay had proven almost fatal: Radville had already
+got into the habit of telephoning to Graham's for a cake of soap, or
+whatnot, and it's hard to break a Radville habit.
+</p>
+<p>
+As business increased and the stock turned itself over at a profit,
+Duncan began to branch out, to make improvements and introduce new
+lines of goods. He it was who inoculated Radville with the habit of
+buying manufactured candies. Up to the time of his advent, we had been
+accustomed to and content with home-made taffies and fudges&mdash;and were,
+I've no doubt, vastly better off on that account. But Duncan, starting
+with a line of five- and ten-cent packages of indigestible sweets, in
+time made arrangements with a big Pittsburgh confectionery concern to
+ship him a small consignment of pound and half-pound "fancy" boxes of
+chocolates and bonbons twice a week. And taffy-pulls and fudge parties
+lapsed into desuetude.
+</p>
+<p>
+Later, Sperry introduced him to an association of druggists, of which
+he became a member, for the maintenance and exploitation of the cigar
+and tobacco trade in connection with the drug business. They installed
+at Graham's a handsome show-case and fixtures especially for the sale
+and display of cigars, and thereafter it was possible to purchase
+smokable tobacco in our town.
+</p>
+<p>
+Again, he treated Radville to its first circulating library,
+establishing a branch in the store. One could buy a book at a moderate
+price, and either keep it or exchange it for a fee of a few cents. I
+disputed the wisdom of this move, alleging, and with reason, that
+Radville didn't read modern fiction to any extent. But Duncan argued
+that it didn't matter. "They're going to try it on as a novelty, to
+begin with," he said, "and it'll bring 'em into the store for a few
+exchanges, at least. That's all I want. Once we get 'em in here, it'll
+be hard if we can't sell them something else. You'll see."
+</p>
+<p>
+He was right.
+</p>
+<p>
+Undoubtedly he made the business hum during those first few months; and
+after that it settled down to a steady forward movement. The store
+became a social centre, a place for people to meet. In time Tracey was
+promoted to be assistant and another boy engaged to make deliveries.
+... And Duncan had never been happier; he had found something he could
+understand and, understanding, accomplish; there was work for his hands
+to do, and they had discovered they could do it successfully. I don't
+believe he stopped to think about it very much, but he was conscious of
+that glow of achievement, that heightening of the spirits, that comes
+with the knowledge of success, be that success however insignificant,
+and it benefited him enormously....
+</p>
+<p>
+But this chronicle of progress has run away altogether with a desultory
+pen, which started to tell why Duncan didn't want to go to Josie
+Lockwood's party. I was long in finding out, but not so long as Duncan
+himself, perhaps; by which I mean to say that he was conscious of the
+desire not to go, and determined not to, without stopping to analyse
+the cause of that desire more than very superficially.
+</p>
+<p>
+It happened, toward the close of the eventful day already detailed at
+such length, that as Duncan was entering the house with a load of boxed
+goods, he heard voices in the store&mdash;young voices, of which one was
+already too familiar to his ears. He paused, waiting for them to get
+through with their business and go; for he had no time to waste just
+then, even upon the heiress of his manufactured destiny. Betty was
+keeping shop at the time (old Sam having gone upstairs for a little
+rest, who was overwrought and weary with the excitement of that day)
+and it was Duncan's hope that she would be able to serve the customers
+without his assistance.
+</p>
+<p>
+There were two of them, you see&mdash;Josie and Angle Tuthill&mdash;hunting as
+usual in couples; and while he waited, not meaning to eavesdrop but
+unwilling to betray his whereabouts by moving, he heard very clearly
+their passage with Betty.
+</p>
+<p>
+He overheard first, distinctly, Betty responding in expressionless
+voice: "Hello, Angie.... Hello, Josie."
+</p>
+<p>
+There ensued what seemed a slightly awkward pause. Then Josie,
+painfully sweet: "Did you get the invitation, Betty?"
+</p>
+<p>
+Betty moved into Duncan's range of vision, apparently intending to come
+and call him. She turned at the question, and he saw her small, thin
+little body and pinched face <i>en silhouette</i> against the fading
+light beyond. He saw, too, that she was stiffening herself as if for
+some unequal contest.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The invitation?" she questioned dully, but with her head up and
+steady.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why," said Josie, "I sent you one. To the party, you know&mdash;my lawn
+feet next week."
+</p>
+<p>
+I give the local pronunciation as it is.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Did you?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I gave it to Tracey for you," persisted the tormentor. "Didn't you get
+it?"
+</p>
+<p>
+Betty caught at her breath, inaudibly; only Duncan could see the little
+spasm of mortification and anger that shook her.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, perhaps I did," she said shortly. "I&mdash;I'll ask Mr. Duncan to wait
+on you."
+</p>
+<p>
+She swung quickly out into the hallway, slamming the door behind her
+and so darkening it that she didn't detect Duncan's shadowed figure.
+And if she had meant to call him, she must have forgotten it; for an
+instant later he heard her stumbling up the stairs, and as she
+disappeared he caught the echo of a smothered sob.
+</p>
+<p>
+He waited, motionless, too disturbed at the time to care to enter the
+store and endure Josie's vapid advances; and through the thin partition
+there came to him their comments on Betty's ungracious behaviour.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well!... <i>did</i> you ever!"
+</p>
+<p>
+That was Angle; Josie chimed in the same key: "Oh, what did you expect
+from that kind of a girl?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"<i>Ssh!</i> maybe he's coming!"
+</p>
+<p>
+After a moment's silence, Josie: "Oh, come on. Don't let's wait any
+longer. I don't think it's healthy to drink sody so soon before dinner,
+anyway."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And, besides, we only wanted to hear&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+Their voices with their footsteps diminished. Duncan allowed a prudent
+interval to elapse, entered the store and began to bestow the goods he
+had brought in.
+</p>
+<p>
+While he was at work the light failed. He stopped for lack of it just
+as Betty came downstairs.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Hello!" he said cheerfully. "Know where the matches are?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes." She moved behind a counter and fetched him a few. "Are you 'most
+done?" she inquired, not unfriendly, as he took down from its bracket
+one of the oil lamps.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Hardly," he responded, touching a light to the wick and replacing the
+chimney. "It's a good deal of a job."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes..."
+</p>
+<p>
+He replaced the lamp, and in the act of turning toward another caught a
+glimpse of the girl's face, pale and drawn, her eyes a trifle reddened.
+And with that commonsense departed from him, leaving him wholly a prey
+to his impulse of pity. "Oh, thunder!" he told himself, thrusting a
+hand into his pocket. "I might as well be broke as the way I am now."
+He produced the scanty remains of his "grubstake."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Miss Graham..."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes?" she asked, wondering.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Could you get a party dress for thirty-four dollars?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Thirty-four dollars!" she faltered.
+</p>
+<p>
+He discovered what small change he had in his pocket: it was like him
+to be extravagant, even extreme. "And fifty-three cents?" he pursued,
+with a nervous laugh.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Heavens!" the girl gasped. "I should think so!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then go ahead!" He offered her the money, but she could only stare,
+incredulous. "I'll stake you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh...<i>no</i>, Mr. Duncan," she managed to say.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, yes!" He tried to catch one of the hands that involuntarily had
+risen toward her face in a gesture of wonder. "Please do," he begged,
+his tone persuasive, "as a favour to me."
+</p>
+<p>
+But she evaded him, stepping back. "I couldn't take it; I couldn't
+really."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, you can. Just try it once, and see how easy it is," he persisted,
+pursuing.
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, I can't." She looked up shyly and shook her head, that smile of
+her mother's for the moment illuminating her face almost with the
+radiance of beauty. "But I&mdash;I thank you very much&mdash;just the same."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But I want you to go to that party..."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You're awful' kind," she said softly, still smiling, "but I don't care
+to go, now. I&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Don't care to! Why, you were insisting on going, a little while ago."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes," she admitted simply, "I know I was. But ... I've been thinking
+over what you said, since then, and I ... I've made up my mind I'd be
+out of place there."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Out of place!" he echoed, thunderstruck.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes. I've concluded I belong here in the store with father." She half
+turned away. "And I guess folks is better off if they stay where they
+belong...."
+</p>
+<p>
+She went slowly from the room, and he remained staring, stupefied.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You never can tell about a woman," he concluded with all the gravity
+of an original philosopher.
+</p>
+<br><br><br>
+<h3><a name="xv">
+	XV
+</a></h3>
+<p class="ctr">
+MANOEUVRES OF JOSIE
+</p>
+<p>
+Nat didn't go to the Lockwood lawn fête, and did excuse himself on the
+plea of being unable to leave the store. I'm afraid the young man had a
+faint, fond hope that Josie would be offended; but his excuse was
+accepted without remonstrance. And, indeed, it was at that time quite a
+reasonable one. Tracey had not been added to the staff, although
+business was booming, and Saturday night is, as everyone who has lived
+in a Radville knows, the busiest of the week; all the stores keep open
+late on Saturday&mdash;some as late as eleven&mdash;and frequently take in half
+the week's income between noon and the closing hour. Duncan really
+couldn't be spared; so it's probable that Josie cloaked her
+disappointment and comforted herself with the assurance that her
+selection of the day had been an error in judgment, of which she would
+not again be guilty.
+</p>
+<p>
+But the party came off, without fail, and that on a wonderful, still,
+moonlit night; and everybody voted it a splendid success. The
+<i>Citizen</i> in its next issue recorded the event to the extent of a
+column and a half of reading matter, called it a social function, and
+described the gowns of the leading ladies of society present in
+bewildering phrases. I was not invited, but the owner of the paper was,
+and his wife wrote the description with the assistance of the entire
+editorial and reportorial force, a dictionary and some evil if
+suppressed language from the foreman of the composing-room. I read
+the proofs with an admiration strongly tinctured with awe, and found
+it lacking in one particular only: no mention was made of Roland
+Barnette's first open-faced suit.
+</p>
+<p>
+Roland had ordered it from a clothing-house in Chicago, and it arrived
+just in time. Having heard all about it from Roland's own lips (they
+dilated upon the matter to Watty the tailor, just beneath my window), I
+sort of hung round downtown Saturday evening in the hope of catching
+a glimpse of it, and was not disappointed. I was loitering in Graham's
+when Roland sauntered nonchalantly in at about a quarter to eight and
+called for a pack of "Sweets." Sam served him, and Duncan, happily for
+him disengaged at the moment, after one look at Roland retired
+precipitately behind the prescription counter&mdash;overcome, I judged from
+Roland's triumphant smirk, by deepest chagrin. Well, thought I, might
+he have been: he could never, by whatever wildest endeavour, have
+approximated Roland's splendour.
+</p>
+<p>
+The coat was bob-tailed (at least, so Watty described it within my
+hearing) and curiously double-breasted, caught together at the waist
+with a single button, thus revealing a shining expanse of very stiff
+shirt-bosom; which creaked, for some reason. With this Roland wore a
+ribbed white-silk waistcoat, very brilliant low-cut patent leather
+shoes, and white-silk socks. The trousers were strikingly cut, as to
+each leg, after the physical configuration of the domestic pear, and
+the effect of the whole was measurably enhanced by an opera-hat&mdash;one
+of those tall and striking contraptions that you can shut up by
+pressing gently but firmly upon the human midriff and looking
+unconscious, but which is apt to open with a resounding report if
+you're not careful... I am glad to be able to report that Roland failed
+to commit the solecism of wearing a red string tie; his tie was a
+sober black, firmly knotted at the factory. I'm glad too, for the
+sartorial honour of Radville, that Roland knew how to wear such
+fixin's: that is to say, with an expression of proud defiance.
+</p>
+<p>
+After he had departed, stepping high, Sam called me behind the counter
+to assist in reviving Duncan. We found him leaning upon the counter,
+his forehead resting upon a mortar, very red in the face and breathing
+stertorously; and when Sam addressed him, to learn what was the matter,
+he seemed unable to speak, but choked and beat the air feebly with his
+hands. Sam concluded he had swallowed something, and was, I think,
+right; he was plainly half strangled, and only recovered after we had
+beaten his back severely. Then he refused any explanation, beyond
+saying that he was subject to such seizures.
+</p>
+<p>
+After the party the town's excitement simmered down and subsided; we
+had become moderately accustomed to the presence of Duncan in our midst
+(strange as this may sound), and for some time nothing happened germane
+to the fate of the Fortune Hunter.
+</p>
+<p>
+On his part, he fell into a routine without the least evidence of
+discontent. He was early to rise and early to work, and rarely left the
+store save at meal hours and closing-up time. And in the course of our
+serene days, I began to notice in him an increasing interest in the
+affairs of the church; he seemed to look forward with a not uneager
+anticipation to the fixtures of its calendar. He attended with
+admirable regularity both morning and evening services, on Sunday, the
+mid-weekly prayer-meeting, and Friday evening choir practice. For in
+the course of time he had been won over to join the choir, and modestly
+discovered to our edification a barytone voice, wholly untrained but
+not unpleasing. Mrs. Rogers, our organist, averred his superiority to
+Packy Soule, whom he superseded, and was supported in this estimate by
+the remainder of the choir, with the exception of Roland Barnette,
+who helped with his reedy tenor. Josie Lockwood sang contralto and Bess
+Gabriel what we were informed was soprano&mdash;only Radville called it a
+treble. Tracey Tanner pumped the organ and puffed audibly in the
+pauses&mdash;a singular testimony to his devotion to Angie Tuthill, who
+"just sang" with the others, chiefly because she was Josie's nearest
+friend.
+</p>
+<p>
+I remember that, one Sunday night after evening service, Duncan
+confided to me, quite seriously, "that the church thing was getting to
+him." He seemed somewhat surprised, to a degree indignant, as if he
+suspected religion of having taken an advantage of him in some
+roundabout, underhand way.... He wondered audibly what Harry would
+think if he could see him now.
+</p>
+<p>
+He had settled down to a pretty steady correspondence with Kellogg,
+chiefly on business matters. Kellogg was investigating old Sam's
+burner, and seemed quite impressed with its possibilities. He had
+quarrelled with Roland's friend, Burnham, on Duncan's representations,
+and ordered him out of the offices of L. J. Bartlett &amp; Company, it
+seemed. Later he opened up negotiations with a corporation known as the
+Modern Gas Company, I believe, a competitor of Consolidated Petroleum,
+and in due course representatives of both concerns came to Radville,
+examined the burner, and retired, non-committal. Then Bartlett sent
+a requisition for a model, and supplied the funds for making it&mdash;thus
+demonstrating his confidence. Sam never had such a good time in his
+life as when occupied with that model, and in his elation was inspired
+to invent two notable improvements on the machine&mdash;which were promptly
+patented. Then the model was despatched, receipt acknowledged, and
+nothing ensued for three or four months. Radville, which had been
+watching and wondering with open incredulity and dissatisfaction (this
+latter because neither Graham nor Duncan would talk about the matter),
+concluded that the whole business had gone up in smoke, said "I told ye
+so," and forgot it completely. Roland Barnette, I believe, drove the
+last nail in the coffin of our expectations that anything would ever
+come of it, by writing to Burnham that Duncan's negotiations had
+failed, and inviting him to renew his offer if he thought it worth
+while. Presumably he didn't, for Roland received no reply, and told the
+town so....
+</p>
+<p>
+I don't remember just how soon it was, but it was shortly after the
+formation of the firm of Graham and Duncan that the young man received
+his first invitation to dinner at the Lockwoods'. He accepted, of
+course, whether he wanted to or not, for there could be no excuse for
+his refusing a Sunday bid, and the Lockwoods made quite an event of
+it. The Soules were invited, because they were Araminta Lockwood's
+brother and sister-in-law, and the Godfreys came over from Westerly to
+grace the board as representatives of the Lockwood strain. Also Ben
+Lockwood attended&mdash;Blinky's first cousin and senior.
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan described the function in a letter to Kellogg as the time of his
+young life. Undoubtedly it was in certain respects singular in his
+experience. The entire party walked home from church through a hot
+August noon, with that air of chastened joy common to a gathering of
+relations&mdash;an atmosphere of festive gloom and funeral baked meats
+painfully enlivened by exhilarating jests from old Ben, who was a
+connoisseur of vintages when it came to jokes. Duncan wished
+fervently, first that he might expire; secondly, and with greater
+intensity of feeling, that they all might die. Minta Lockwood, he felt,
+was slowly but expertly greasing him with adulation&mdash;as a python
+prepares its prey before dining (or is it a python?)&mdash;and he knew he
+was presently to be swallowed alive.
+</p>
+<p>
+They dined protractedly. The meal, consisting of baked chicken, mashed
+potatoes, boiled onions with cream sauce, boiled beets and green corn,
+followed by rhubarb pie and ice cream, was served by an independent,
+bony and red-faced specimen of the "help" genus. The atmosphere was
+stifling, with the heat of the day thickened by the steam and odour of
+cooked food. Duncan was seated consciously beside Josie&mdash;a circumstance
+of which, in fact, everyone else seemed tolerantly aware. He writhed in
+impotent agony, confronted alone by the consciousness he had brought
+this thing upon himself: it was a part of his punishment.
+</p>
+<p>
+At the conclusion of the meal, which endured throughout two
+interminable hours, the elder menfolk withdrew to the garden and the
+lawn, where they strolled about, sleepy eyes glistening with repletion,
+until finally they disappeared, to each his doze. The ladies
+foregathered in the parlour, conversing in undertones, with significant
+glances and liftings of their eyebrows. Nat was left to Josie, who
+conducted him to the side porch, out of sight of everybody, and planted
+herself in the baggy hammock there. She was gay, even brilliant within
+her limitations, arch, naïve, coquettish, shy, petulant, by turns:
+animated by a sense of conquest. She supplied the major part of the
+conversation, chatting volubly on the thousand subjects she didn't
+understand, the dozen she did. In the most ingenuous manner imaginable
+she laid herself open to advances, not once, but a score of times; and
+when he failed to respond according to the code of Radville, had the
+wit to mask her chagrin, did she feel any: very probably she laid his
+lack of responsiveness at the door of his shyness (a quality he was
+wholly without) and liked him the better for it.
+</p>
+<p>
+It was on this day that she extracted from him his promise to join the
+choir; he acceded through apathy alone.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't care whether you can sing or not," she confessed, with a look.
+"But I do want somebody to walk home with me that ... I like."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's a nice way of putting it," Duncan considered without emphasis.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Roland Barnette's always walked home with me, but I think he's just
+tiresome."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why?" inquired the young man, with some interest.
+</p>
+<p>
+She averted her head, plucking at the strands of the hammock. "Oh,
+<i>you</i> know," she said diffidently.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh?" Nat was enlightened. "Then I'm sorry for Roland."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I can't blame him, you know." He couldn't help this: the time, the
+place, the girl inspired, indeed incited, one to banality.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why?" she persisted.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, <i>you</i> know." He caught the intonation of her previous words
+precisely.
+</p>
+<p>
+She had the grace to blush and hang her head; but he received a
+thrilling sidelong glance.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Ah... aren't you awful to talk that way, Mr. Duncan?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes," he admitted meekly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then you will join the choir?" she pursued, failing to fathom the
+meaning of that humble acquiescence. Any other boy or man of her
+acquaintance would have taken her remark as openly provocative.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, yes," he agreed listlessly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm so glad..."
+</p>
+<p>
+He thanked her, but avoided her eye.
+</p>
+<p>
+"We might's well begin to-night," she suggested presently, with
+diffident, downcast eyes.
+</p>
+<p>
+"What&mdash;the choir?" He was startled. "Oh, I couldn't without a
+rehearsal&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, I didn't mean that..."
+</p>
+<p>
+"No?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I mean about Roland." She was paying minute attention to the lace
+insertion of her skirt. From this circumstance he divined that he was
+on dangerous ground, but could not, in his stupidity, understand just
+what made it dangerous.
+</p>
+<p>
+"About Roland&mdash;?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes; I mean... You know what I mean, Mr. Duncan?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I assure you I do not, Miss Lockwood."
+</p>
+<p>
+"About not walking home with him any more. I don't want to. I wish
+you'd commence to-night, instead of choir practice night. I'd much
+rather walk home with you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"After evening service, you mean?" She nodded. "It'll be a great
+pleasure."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Really?" She gave him her eyes now.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Really," he assured her.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Ah, I don't believe you mean that!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"But indeed I do...."
+</p>
+<p>
+It was not until nearly five o'clock that he was given a chance to
+escape. He had, even then, to refuse inflexibly an invitation to stay
+to supper.
+</p>
+<p>
+Minta Lockwood&mdash;an expansive woman, generously convex&mdash;almost
+smothered him with appreciation of his thanks. She held his hand in a
+large, moist palm and beamed upon him, saying: "Now't you know the way,
+Mr. Duncan...."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes," Blinky insisted, blinking roguishly, "drop in any time. Take pot
+luck. We're plain people, Mr. Duncan, but allus glad to see our
+friends. Drop in any time."
+</p>
+<p>
+Josie accompanied him to the front gate, where etiquette required him
+to linger for a parting chat....
+</p>
+<p>
+"Good-bye." The girl gave him her hand. "I'm real glad you came&mdash;at
+last."
+</p>
+<p>
+"The pleasure has been all mine," insisted the gallant bromide, fishing
+the trite phrase desperately from the grey vacuity of his thoughts.
+"You won't forget?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Forget what?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"About to-night?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Do you imagine I could?..."
+</p>
+<p>
+Josie returned to the family conclave, to interrupt a symposium on
+Duncan's qualities. He was unanimously approved, on every point. She
+took no part in the conversation, but listened, aglow with the pride of
+triumph, until old Ben chose to observe:
+</p>
+<p>
+"He seems to've taken a right smart set for Josie."
+</p>
+<p>
+Then she rose, blushing, and tossed her pretty, pert head. "How you all
+do talk!" she cried. "I'm not thinking about Mr. Duncan that way." And
+she left the gathering.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You might's well begin now as later," pursued her, accompanied by
+chucklings; and she tossed her head, but wasn't at all displeased, be
+sure.
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan wrote to Kellogg in his room that night after church: "I don't
+want to sound immodest, but it looks as if you were right, old man:
+apparently there's nothing to it...
+</p>
+<p>
+"Probably I should have stayed on for supper, but I couldn't; I should
+have choked. As it was, my soul was curdling. Another ten minutes and I
+should have jumped down on the lawn and run round the house on all
+fours, yapping and foaming at the mouth, and have wound up by
+biting old Blinky..
+</p>
+<p>
+"The worst of it all is, I know I'm ungrateful: I know they mean well.
+But why is it that people who mean well almost invariably grate upon
+your sensibilities like the screeching of a slate-pencil?
+</p>
+<p>
+"In this case, I suspect it's a case of when Snob meets Snob. A snob, I
+take it, is a fellow who holds himself your superior because he looks
+at things in a different way. That counts me a snob in my mental
+attitude toward the Lockwoods. I don't understand their conception of
+life&mdash;wasn't brought up to understand it. And yet I know they're not a
+bad sort, though they bore me to death what time I'm not laughing in my
+sleeve at them. Blinky, for instance, is an old screw, but he can't
+help that; he was born that way; and aside from the fact that money has
+made him snobbish toward his neighbours, he's a simple, honest,
+square-dealing (according to his lights) old Jasper. He's not snobbish
+toward me, because I've got something he admires but can't understand
+and never can acquire; but he's a snob of the first water when it comes
+to somebody like this old prince I'm working for&mdash;Graham&mdash;and his
+daughter. And so is Josie....
+</p>
+<p>
+"But I mustn't say mean things about my future spouse, I presume....
+That is the great trouble with your infernal scheme, Harry: it seems
+to be working like a charm, and now that I've got something to do I'm
+not so strong for it as I was. But I gave you my word. ... Only, mind
+this: if the rules prescribe a perpetual course of Sunday dinners,
+<i>en famille</i>, it's going to break down and turn out a natural-born
+flivver. There are limits to human endurance, and I'm human, whatever
+else I am not...."
+</p>
+<br><br><br>
+<h3><a name="xvi">
+	XVI
+</a></h3>
+<p class="ctr">
+WHERE RADVILLE FEARED TO TREAD
+</p>
+<p>
+Summer slumbered to its close, a drowsy autumn settled upon our valley,
+in which its traditional peace seemed but the more profound. The skies
+darkened to an ineffable intensity of blue; the livery of the fields
+was changed, green giving place to gold; the woodlands and lower slopes
+of our hills flamed with the scarlet of dying sumach, with the russet
+and orange and crimson of a foliage making merry against its moribund
+to-morrows; a drought parched the land, and our little river lessened
+to a mere trickle of water. The daylight hours became sensibly
+abbreviated; while they endured they were golden and warm and hazy:
+faint veils of purple shrouded the distances. Twilight fell early, its
+air sweet with the tang of dead leaves raked into heaping bonfires by
+the children of the town. The nights were long and cool, with a hint of
+frosts to come. Day dissolved into day almost imperceptibly. ...
+</p>
+<p>
+Josie Lockwood announced that she was going away to school in New York
+for the winter. Pete Willing took the pledge and kept it almost a
+month. Will Bigelow secured time-tables and laboriously mapped out his
+semi-annually contemplated trip to the East: like the others
+destined never to come off. Tracey Tanner went to work for Graham and
+Duncan. The <i>Citizen</i> gained eighteen subscribers; four old ones
+paid up their accounts. Babies were born, people married and died,
+loved and hated, lived in striving or sloth, accomplished or failed.
+Roland Barnette paid ostentatious attentions to Bess Gabriel, who
+tolerated him simply because she didn't much like Josie; but, blighted
+by Josie's supreme indifference, this budding passion drooped and
+failed by mutual consent of both parties concerned. Angie Tuthill
+became more conspicuously than ever the orb of Tracey's universe.
+Duncan walked home with Josie on two weekday evenings and twice on
+Sundays, and learned how to play Halma and Parcheesi, as well as how
+long to linger at the front gate in the gloaming, saying good-night.
+Eight young women of the town set their caps for him, at one time or
+another and... set them back again, because he was too blind to see. As
+a body they united with the female element in Radville in condemning
+Josie for a heartless flirt, and sympathising with Nat, behind his
+back, for being so nice and at the same time so easily taken in. Mrs.
+Lockwood gave a Bridge party which failed as such because Radville knew
+not Bridge; but everybody went and played progressive euchre, instead.
+The drug-store prospered in moderation, Sothern and Lee vainly
+contesting its conquering campaign. And Duncan grew thoughtful.
+</p>
+<p>
+One has more time to think unselfishly in Radville than in a great
+city, where there's rarely more time than enough to think of one's own
+concerns. And Duncan was making time to think about others&mdash;notably,
+Betty Graham. The girl was, as usual, shy, reticent, reserved; she kept
+her thoughts to herself, sharing the most intimate not even with old
+Sam, who <i>would</i> talk; but Duncan divined that she was unhappy.
+The easier circumstances of the family had provided her with a few
+simple frocks, adequate clothing which she had gone without for years,
+and with a sufficiency of wholesome and appetising food: with these,
+peace of mind should likewise have come to her, and content. But Duncan
+thought they hadn't. Relieved, on Tracey's engagement, of any share in
+the store service, she had only the housework for herself and father to
+occupy her; her associations with the girls of her age were distant and
+constrained. Usage wears into tradition in the Radvilles of our land;
+even with the young folks this is so; and in Betty's case, the girl had
+for so long been "out of it," debarred by her unfortunate circumstances
+from participation in the pastimes, pleasures and duties of her
+generation, that by common consent, unspoken but none the less
+absolute, she remained an outsider. You might say that she relied on
+her father alone for companionship. Duncan she avoided, unobtrusively
+but with pains; he consorted with those with whom she had nothing in
+common, and she would not thrust herself upon him or seem to seek his
+notice. Her early suspicion and sullen resentment of his intrusion into
+their affairs had vanished; there remained only a gnawing consciousness
+that to him she was little or nothing, that his vision ranged above her
+humble head. She was not the sort to take this ill; she was reasonable
+enough to believe it natural. But she would not willingly intrude upon
+his thoughts&mdash;who little knew how much she did occupy his leisure
+moments.
+</p>
+<p>
+He saw her go and come, a wistful shadow on the borders of his
+occupations, self-contained, a little timid, but at the same time brave
+in her own quiet, uncomplaining fashion. And the distant look in those
+soft eyes he divined to be one of longing for that which she might not
+possess&mdash;the advantages that other girls had, socially and
+educationally, the pleasures they contrived, the attentions they
+received, the thousand and one slight things that make existence life
+for a woman. He saw her drooping insensibly day by day, growing a
+little paler, a shade more aloof and listless. And he became infinitely
+concerned for her.
+</p>
+<p>
+He told himself he had solved the problem of her disease, but its
+remedy remained beyond his reach. The business was doing very well
+indeed, but it was still young and must be subjected to as few
+financial drains as possible; as it ran, there was an income sufficient
+to board, lodge and clothe the three of them, maintain the credit of
+the partnership, and now and again admit of a slight but advantageous
+addition to the stock or fixtures. Things would certainly be better in
+the course of time, but... Kellogg he would not beg another dollar of,
+the bank was an equally impossible resource; there wasn't a chance in a
+hundred that Lockwood would refuse to accommodate the growing concern
+with money in reason, but the concern, individually and collectively,
+would never ask it of him. There remained&mdash;?
+</p>
+<p>
+It came to pass that he left the store early one evening, excusing
+himself on the plea of some slight indisposition, and lost himself for
+the space of two hours. I mean to say, that no one knew where he went
+until long after. When he came home some time after ten he told me he
+had been for a walk....
+</p>
+<p>
+He found himself shortly after eight at pause by the gate to the Bohun
+place. The night was dark and murmurous with a sibilant wind that sent
+the leaves drifting, softly clashing one with another. At the far end
+of the straight brick walk, up through the formal grounds, he could
+just see the glimmer of the stately columns, and, between them, to one
+side, a little twinkling light. The gate was closed, but he tried it
+and found it on the latch. He entered and scuffled up the walk, ankle
+deep in fallen leaves. His footfalls as he crossed the porch sounded
+startlingly loud by contrast; he even fancied a note of indignation in
+the cavernous echoes of the knocker on the front door. He waited with a
+thumping heart, aware that he was venturing where even fools would fear
+to tread.
+</p>
+<p>
+An aged negro butler, one of the freed slaves brought from Virginia by
+the Bohuns, admitted him to the hall and took his card, smothering his
+own wonderment. For in those days nobody disturbed the silence and the
+peace of decay of the Bohun mansion save its master. And Duncan had
+long to wait in the wide, gloomy, musty hall before the servant
+returned.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Cunnul Bohun will see yo', suh," he said, and ushered him into the
+library&mdash;a great, high-ceiled, shadowy room illuminated by a single
+lamp, tenanted by the old colonel alone.
+</p>
+<p>
+Bohun received the young man standing: he was as courteous beneath his
+own roof as he was impossible away from it. A quaint old figure, with
+his grey hair tousled and his dressing-gown draped grotesquely from his
+shoulders, he stood by the fireplace, Duncan's card between his
+fingers, and bowed ceremoniously.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Mr. Duncan, I believe?"
+</p>
+<p>
+Nat returned the bow. "Yes, sir," he said. "Will you be good enough to
+pardon this intrusion, Colonel Bohun, and spare me five minutes of your
+time?"
+</p>
+<p>
+The colonel nodded. "At your service, sir," he replied, and waited
+grimly&mdash;perhaps not unsuspicious of the nature of his visitor's errand,
+since he could not have been ignorant of his place in Radville.
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan had his own way of getting at things&mdash;generally more circuitous
+than now, though he struck on a tangent sufficiently acute momentarily
+to puzzle Bohun.
+</p>
+<p>
+"May I inquire, sir, if you are acquainted with the firm of L.J.
+Bartlett &amp; Company of New York?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I have heard of it, Mr. Duncan, through the newspapers."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You know that it ranks pretty high, then, I presume?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I understand that such is the case."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then would you mind doing me the favour of writing to Mr. Henry
+Kellogg, the junior partner, and asking him about me?"
+</p>
+<p>
+The colonel stiffened. "May I ask why I should do anything so
+uncalled-for?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Because it isn't uncalled-for, sir. I mean, you won't think so after
+I've explained."
+</p>
+<p>
+Bohun inclined his head, searching Nat's face with his keen, bright
+eyes.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You see, sir, it's this way: I want you to entrust me with a
+considerable sum of money, and naturally you wouldn't do that without
+knowing something about me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I incline very much to doubt that I should do it in any event, Mr.
+Duncan."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, don't say that. You don't know the circumstances, as yet." Nat
+jerked his head earnestly at the colonel. "You see, you're said to be
+one of the richest men in town, and I'm certainly one of the poorest,
+so of course I turn to you in a case like this."
+</p>
+<p>
+"In a case like what, Mr. Duncan?" Something in the young man's manner
+seemed to tickle the colonel; Duncan could have sworn that the eyes
+were twinkling beneath the savagely knitted brows.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, you must understand I'm in business here in Radville&mdash;a partner
+in a growing and prospering concern&mdash;ah&mdash;doing&mdash;very well, in point of
+fact."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"But we haven't any spare capital; in fact, we haven't got any capital
+worth mentioning. But the business is entirely sound and solvent."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I congratulate you, sir."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Thank you very much.... Now I'm interested in a rather singular
+case: that of a young woman&mdash;a girl, I should say&mdash;daughter of my
+partner. She's a good girl and wonderfully sweet and fine, sir. She
+comes of one of the best families in these parts&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"On her mother's side," suggested the colonel drily.
+</p>
+<p>
+"So I'm told, sir. But she's been neglected. Circumstances have been
+against her. She hasn't had a real chance in life, but she ought to
+have it, and I'm going to see that she gets it, one way or another."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You haven't finished?" said the colonel coldly, as he paused for
+breath and thought.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not quite, sir," said Duncan. "Good sign!" he told himself: "he hasn't
+ordered me thrown out yet." And he hurried on, speaking quickly in the
+semi-humorous style he had, more arresting to the attention than
+absolute gravity would have been.
+</p>
+<p>
+"To come down to cases, sir, she ought to be sent to a good
+boarding-school for a few years. It'll make a new woman of her&mdash;a woman
+to be proud of. She's got that in her&mdash;it only needs to be brought
+out."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And before you leave, sir," said the colonel with significant
+precision, "will you be so kind as to inform me why you think this
+should interest me?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"No," said Duncan candidly; "I haven't got the nerve to. But what I
+wanted to propose was this: that you lend me five hundred dollars to
+cover the expense of the first year, on condition that I represent the
+money as coming from the profits of the business and, in short, keep
+the transaction between ourselves absolutely quiet. If you'll inquire
+of Mr. Kellogg he'll tell you I can be trusted to keep my word.
+Furthermore"&mdash;he galloped, suspecting that his time was perilously
+short and desiring to get it all out of his system&mdash;"I'll guarantee you
+repayment within a year, and that you shan't be annoyed this way a
+second time."
+</p>
+<p>
+Bohun looked him over from head to foot, bowed in silence, and
+turning&mdash;both had stood throughout this passage&mdash;grasped a bell-rope by
+the chimney, and pulled it violently.
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan turned to the door, hat in hand, realising that he had his
+answer and was lucky to get away with one so mild. Only the emergency
+could have spurred him to the point of so outrageous an impertinence.
+</p>
+<p>
+In the desolate fastnesses of that dreary house somewhere a bell
+tinkled discordantly. A moment later the white-headed darky butler
+opened the door.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Suh?" he said.
+</p>
+<p>
+Colonel Bohun essayed to speak, cleared his throat angrily, and
+indicated Duncan with a courteous gesture.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Scipio," said he, "this gentleman will have a glass of wine with me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yassuh!" stammered the negro, overcome with astonishment.
+</p>
+<p>
+Bohun turned to his guest. "Won't you be seated, Mr. Duncan?" he said.
+"You have interested me considerably, sir, and I should be glad to
+discuss the matter with you."
+</p>
+<p>
+Speechless, Duncan gasped incoherently and moved toward a chair as the
+servant reappeared with a tray on which was a decanter of sherry and
+two old-fashioned, thin-stemmed crystal glasses. He placed this on the
+library table, filled the glasses, and at a sign from Bohun retired.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Sir," said the colonel, indicating the tray, "to you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I&mdash;I thank you, sir." Duncan lifted one of the glasses. Bohun took up
+the one remaining, and held it toward his guest with the gracious
+gesture of a bygone day.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I hold it a privilege, sir," he said, "to drink to the only gentleman
+of spirit it's been my good fortune to meet this many a year."
+</p>
+<p>
+By way of an aside, it should be mentioned that this was the first and
+only drink Duncan took while he lived in Radville.
+</p>
+<br><br><br>
+<h3><a name="xvii">
+	XVII
+</a></h3>
+<p class="ctr">
+TRACEY'S TROUBLES
+</p>
+<p>
+Probably nothing ever gave rise to more comment in Radville than Betty
+Graham's departure to spend the winter at a boarding-school near
+Philadelphia. Hardly anyone knew anything about it&mdash;in fact, the rumour
+of it was just being noised about and contemptuously discredited on all
+hands&mdash;when Tracey galloped down Main Street Monday morning with the
+news that she had left on the early train. He himself had remained in
+ignorance of the impending event until requested to carry Betty's bag
+down to the station....
+</p>
+<p>
+She left under convoy of a certain Mrs. Hamilton, who lived in
+Philadelphia and had been visiting her cousin, Mrs. Will Bigelow.
+Duncan had met this lady at a church sociable and, apparently, taken a
+liking to her; for he prevailed upon her, via Sam Graham and Will
+Bigelow, to see the girl safely to her school, after superintending the
+purchase of a suitable wardrobe in Philadelphia.
+</p>
+<p>
+So Betty was gone&mdash;herself, I believe, no less surprised and
+incredulous than the rest of us.
+</p>
+<p>
+Radville was at first stupefied, then clamorous; but there was little
+information to be got out of old Sam. I found him busy working on his
+new model and much preoccupied with that. When interrogated and given
+to understand that I would not be put off, he roused a bit, but beyond
+being unquestionably a very happy man, seemed himself slightly dazed by
+the amazing circumstances. I learned from him that Nat had evidently
+made all his plans in advance, but had withheld his announcement of
+them until the Saturday prior to that Monday; and then he had fairly
+whirled Betty and her father off their feet and left them no time to
+think or to raise objections.
+</p>
+<p>
+"There's no use at all arguing with that boy," Sam told me, with the
+fond smile that I was beginning to recognise as the invariable
+accompaniment of his thoughts about Nat; "when he says a thing must
+be, it must. When he first came here I told him he was a wonderful
+business man, and he laughed at me, but now I know he is. Why, he gave
+Betty a hundred dollars to buy clothes with in Philadelphia, and said
+he'd have more for her by Christmas, besides paying all the expenses of
+that school&mdash;which must be considerable. I don't see how the store's
+going to stand the strain&mdash;though it's doing splendidly since he came
+in, splendidly!&mdash;but he says it's all right, and so it must be...."
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan himself refused to be interviewed. He told everybody who had
+the impudence to mention the matter to him, that it was Mr. Graham's
+affair: Mr. Graham was a substantial business man, he said, and if he
+chose to send his daughter away to school he had a perfect right to do
+so. I don't believe even Josie Lockwood got more than that out of him,
+for if she had we would have heard of it; and Josie was unmistakably a
+little jealous, and undoubtedly questioned Nat.
+</p>
+<p>
+One direct result of it all was to hasten Josie's own leave-taking. It
+would never do to let the Grahams eclipse the Lockwoods, you see. Josie
+had been talking of going to a school in Maryland, but Betty's move to
+a fashionable centre like Philadelphia made her change her mind; and
+arrangements were made by which Josie was able to go Betty one better:
+a young ladies' seminary in New York City itself received Josie. She
+left us bereaved about a week after Betty vanished from our ken, but
+promised to be back for the Christmas holidays&mdash;an announcement which
+Duncan received with expressions of chastened joy, as he did her
+promise to write to him regularly, in return for his covenant to
+respond promptly.... Betty, by the way, had made no such arrangement;
+but she wrote twice a week to old Sam, and I understand she never
+failed to include a message to Nat.
+</p>
+<p>
+Betty was happy, she protested in every communication, and wholly
+content. She was getting along. The other girls liked her and she liked
+them (these statements being made in the order of their relative
+importance). Lots of them, of course, were frightfully swell (Betty
+annexed "frightfully" at school, by the by) and had all sorts of
+clothes; but Betty was perfectly content with her modest outfit, and
+none of the other girls seemed to mind how she dressed. They were all
+kind and nice, and she'd never had such a good time.... I quote these
+expressions from memory of Sam's digest of her letters.
+</p>
+<p>
+Of Josie I heard less; I know that Graham and Duncan's mail seldom
+lacked a personal communication to Duncan, postmarked at New York; our
+postmaster told me so. But Duncan was reticent, and the Lockwoods said
+little. I gathered an impression that Josie was not altogether happy
+in her new surroundings.... One inferred there was a difference between
+New York and Philadelphia, that one was less friendly and sociable
+than the other.
+</p>
+<p>
+Josie kept her promise and came home for Christmas. She was reticent as
+to her impressions of the New York seminary, but seemed extremely glad
+to be home, notwithstanding the fact that Nat had apparently contracted
+no disturbing alliances with the other belles of our village. And
+Roland remained true&mdash;a reliable second string to Josie's bow. Roland
+was working hard at the bank, with an application that earned Blinky
+Lockwood's regard and outspoken approbation; and his Christmas raiment
+proved the sensation of the season. But none of us believed he had any
+chance against Duncan: Josie's attitude toward the latter was such
+that we confidently anticipated the announcement of their engagement
+before she went away again. But it didn't come, for some reason. We
+bore up under the disappointment bravely, all things considered,
+sustained by a very secure feeling that the proclamation couldn't be
+long deferred.
+</p>
+<p>
+In passing, I should mention that Betty didn't come home once
+throughout the entire school term. The Christmas and Easter holidays
+she spent with a girl friend at her Philadelphia home.
+</p>
+<p>
+Meanwhile, life in our town simmered gently. Things went on much as
+they might have been expected to. I don't recall much essential to this
+narrative, in the way of events; and part of the ground I've covered on
+earlier pages. Duncan continued to make progress: for one thing, I
+recall that he put in hot soda with whipped cream, which helped a lot
+to hold the trade regained in the summer from Sothern and Lee. And he
+bought a new soda fountain, a very magnificent affair, installing it in
+the early spring. Graham and Duncan's, in short, became a town
+institution: to it Radville pointed with pride....
+</p>
+<p>
+He remained reserved, retiring, inconspicuous, and puzzling to our
+understanding. In his effort (never very successful) to strike off the
+shackles of modern slang, he fell into a way of speech that bewildered
+those unable to realise what an abiding sense of humour underlay it&mdash;as
+water runs beneath ice&mdash;more, I think, a matter of intonation and
+significant silences, than a mere play upon words and phrases; which,
+coupled with an unshakable sobriety of demeanour, furnished us with
+wonder and some admiration, but no resentment. We liked him pretty
+well and mostly unanimously: he was a good fellow, if queer; entitled
+to his idiosyncrasy, if he chose to keep one....
+</p>
+<p>
+There was a certain night, by way of illustration&mdash;a bitter night,
+along toward the first of January&mdash;when trade was dull, as it always is
+after Christmas, and there was nobody in the store save Nat and Tracey.
+Each had their task, whatever it may have been, and each was busied
+with it, but of the two Tracey seemed the more restless. His ample, if
+low, forehead was decidedly corrugated; his always rosy face owned an
+added trace of scarlet&mdash;a flush of perturbation; his chubby hands were
+inexpert, clumsy. He stumbled, fumbled, forgot and (in our homely
+phrase) flummoxed generally; his mind was elsewhere, and his hands and
+feet went anywhere but where they should have gone: a condition which
+eventually excited Duncan's attention.
+</p>
+<p>
+He broke a long silence in the store. "What's the trouble, Tracey?"
+</p>
+<p>
+Tracey pulled up with a stare of confusion. "I&mdash;I dunno, Mr. Duncan; I
+was thinkin', I guess."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Anything gone wrong?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not yet." Niobe would have made the response with a greater show of
+cheer.
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan looked up curiously, struck by the boy's tone. "Somebody been
+demonstrating that your doll's stuffed with sawdust, Tracey?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"No-o, but..."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Say, Mr. Duncan&mdash;" Tracey's confusion became terrific.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Say on, Mr. Tanner."
+</p>
+<p>
+The interjection diverted Tracey's train of thought to an
+inconsiderable siding. "I only called you Mr. Duncan," he said,
+aggrieved, "'cause you're my boss."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's a poor excuse, Tracey. You call Mr. Graham 'Sam,' and he's
+likewise your boss."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I know. But it's diff'runt."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't see it. Even Nats have their place in the cosmic system,
+Tracey."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I dunno what that is, but you ain't like Sam."
+</p>
+<p>
+"The loss is mine, Tracey. Proceed."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But, Mr. Duncan..."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I beg of you, speak to me as to a friend."
+</p>
+<p>
+Tracey struggled perceptibly. The words, when they came, were blurted.
+"Ah... I was only thinkin' 'bout Angie."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Do you ever think about anything else?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"No," Tracey admitted honestly, "not much. But I was wonderin'&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Are you stuck on Angie, Mr. Duncan?" demanded Tracey desperately.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Great snakes! I hope not!" Duncan cast an anxious glance about him,
+and discovered the poster depicting the gentleman in strange attire
+vainly endeavouring to free his overcoat (I believe it's his overcoat)
+from the bench upon which a pot of glue has been spilled. He lifted a
+reverent hand to the card. "Tracey," he said solemnly, "I swear to you
+that not even that indispensable article of commerce could stick me on
+Angie."
+</p>
+<p>
+The boy sighed. "Thank you, Mr. Duncan. I was only worryin' because you
+and Angie is singin' together in the choir, now Josie Lockwood's gone
+to school, an'&mdash;an' Angie's the purtiest girl in town&mdash;and I was 'fraid
+'t you might like her best, when Josie's away. An' I wanted to ask you
+to pick out s'mother girl."
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan chuckled silently. "Tracey," he said presently, "it strikes me
+you must be in love with Angie."
+</p>
+<p>
+The boy gulped. "I&mdash;I am."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And I think she's rather partial to you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Do you, really, Mr. Duncan?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I do. Do you want to marry her?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Gee! I can't hardly wait!... Only," Tracey continued, disconsolate,
+"it ain't no use, really. She's so purty and swell and old man
+Tuthill's so rich&mdash;not like the Lockwoods, but rich, all the same&mdash;an'
+I'm only the son of the livery-stable man, an' fat an'&mdash;all that&mdash;an'&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Nonsense, Tracey!" Nat interrupted firmly. "If you really want her and
+will follow the rules I give you, it's a cinch."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Honest, Mr. Duncan?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I guarantee it, Tracey. Listen to me...." And Duncan expounded
+Kellogg's rules at length, adapting them to Tracey's circumstances, of
+course; and throughout maintained the gravity of a graven image. "You
+try, and you'll see if I'm not right," he concluded.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Gosh! I b'lieve you are!" Tracey cried admiringly. "I'm just going to
+see how it works."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Do, if you'd favour me, Tracey."
+</p>
+<p>
+Tracey was quiet for a time, working with the regularity of a mind
+relieved. But presently he felt unable to contain himself. Gratitude
+surged in his bosom, and he had to speak.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Sa-y, lis'en...."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Proceed, Tracey."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Say, Mist&mdash;Nat, you've treated me somethin' immense."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Your mistake, Tracey. I haven't treated anybody since I've been here:
+I'm on the wagon."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I mean just now, when we was talkin' 'bout me an' Angie. I'd&mdash;I'd like
+to help you the same way, if I could."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You would?" Duncan eyed the boy apprehensively, wondering what was
+coming.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, indeedy, I would. An' p'rhaps I kin tell you somethin' that
+will."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Speak, I beg."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You&mdash;er&mdash;you're tryin' to court Josie Lockwood, ain't you?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh!" said Nat. "So that was it! That's a secret, Tracey," he averred.
+</p>
+<p>
+"All right. Only, if you are, she's your'n."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Just how do you figure that out?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, I kin tell. She was in here to-night with Roland."
+</p>
+<p>
+"To-night?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, just afore you come home from prayer-meetin'. She was lookin'
+for you, and when she seen you wasn't here, she wouldn't wait for no
+soda nor nothin'. Said she had a headache an' was goin' home. Roland
+went with her, but she didn't want him to. You just missed seein'
+her."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Heavens, what a blow!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"But Roland's takin' her home needn't upset you none."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Thank you for those kind words, Tracey." Nat sighed and passed a
+troubled hand across his brow. "You're a true friend."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm tryin' to be, Nat, same's you are to me." Tracey thought this
+over. "But you ain't foolin' me, are you?" he asked presently. "I mean
+'bout bein' a true friend?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why should I?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Ah, I dunno. You're so cur'us, sometimes. I ain't never sure whether
+you mean what you're sayin' or not."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, don't say that."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, I ain't the only one. Everybody in town says they don't
+understand you, half the time."
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan left his counter and moved over to that at which Tracey was
+occupied. His face was entirely serious, his manner deeply
+sympathetic. "Tracey," he said, dropping a hand on the boy's shoulder,
+"do you know, nothing in life is harder to bear than not to be
+understood?"
+</p>
+<p>
+Tracey wrestled with this for a moment, but it was beyond him.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then why the hell don't you talk so's folks'll know what it's about?"
+he demanded heatedly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Because... <i>Hm</i>." Duncan hesitated, with his enigmatic smile.
+"Well, because the rules don't require it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What d'you mean by <i>that</i>?" Tracey exploded.
+</p>
+<p>
+Nat couldn't explain, so he countered neatly. "This is one of your
+Angie... evenings, isn't it, Tracey?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yep, but&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, you hurry along. I'll close up the shop."
+</p>
+<p>
+Tracey had slammed on his hat and was struggling into his overcoat
+almost as soon as the words were out of Nat's mouth.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Kin I?" he cried excitedly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes," said Nat, watching the boy turn up his collar and button his
+overcoat to the throat, "I haven't got the heart to keep you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Ah, thanks, Mr. Duncan."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But, Tracey..."
+</p>
+<p>
+The boy paused at the door. "What?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Remember what I told you. Don't you make too much love. Let Angie do
+that."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Gosh, that'll be the hardest rule of all for me!" A shadow clouded
+Tracey's honest eyes. "But I got to do it that way, anyway. I can't
+ask her to marry me yit. I can't afford to get married."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It's a contrary world, Tracey, a contrary world!" sighed Nat in a tone
+of deepest melancholy.
+</p>
+<p>
+"What makes you say that? You kin git married's soon's you want to."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You think so, Tracey?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"All you got to do's ask Josie&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm almost afraid you're right."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why? Don't you want to git married?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well"&mdash;Nat smiled&mdash;"no. Don't believe I do. Not just now, at any
+rate."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, you don't have to if you don't want to.... G'd-night."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, I do," Nat told Tracey's back. "The rules say so. If the girl
+asks me, I must."
+</p>
+<p>
+He grimaced ruefully beneath his wisp of a moustache. "Anyhow, I've got
+a few months left...."
+</p>
+<br><br><br>
+<h3><a name="xviii">
+	XVIII
+</a></h3>
+<p class="ctr">
+A BARGAIN IS A BARGAIN
+</p>
+<p>
+So the winter wore away.... And as spring drew nigh upon our valley,
+Duncan seemed to grow perturbed, even as he had been in the autumn
+before Betty went away. He was pondering another scheme for the
+betterment of the condition of those he cared for, and gave it ample
+consideration before he broached it to old Sam, after swearing him to
+secrecy.
+</p>
+<p>
+He had to propose nothing more or less than an abandonment of the old
+Graham housekeeping quarters above the store and a removal of the
+<i>ménage</i> bodily to a vacant house on Beech Street, near the store,
+which could be rented, partly furnished, at a moderate rate.
+</p>
+<p>
+To begin with (thus ran his argument) the store itself was growing too
+small for the volume of business it commanded. More room was needed,
+both for storage and laboratory purposes, to say nothing of
+accommodation for Sam's models and work-bench. The latter had already
+been moved upstairs for the winter, the shed in the backyard being too
+cold to work in; and the laboratory end of the business was growing at
+such a rate that it was crowding the prescription counter to the
+wall&mdash;so to speak. You see, there really wasn't a more clever
+analytical chemist in the northern part of the State than Sam Graham,
+and now that the drug-store was becoming an influence in the
+neighbourhood he was receiving commissions from physicians operating in
+districts as far as fifty miles away. So a room was needed for that
+branch of the business alone.
+</p>
+<p>
+Moreover, a separate residence distinctly befitted the dignity of a
+man who was at once a prominent inventor and one of Radville's leading
+merchants (vide a "Personal" in the late issue of the Radville
+<i>Citizen</i>), to say nothing of the social position of his
+daughter&mdash;meaning Betty. And the house Duncan had his metaphorical eye
+upon was large enough to shelter Nat himself in addition to the Graham
+family. Thus they might pool their living expenses to the economical
+advantage of each.
+</p>
+<p>
+Finally, it would be a great and glad surprise for Betty on her
+homecoming.
+</p>
+<p>
+Graham fell in with the scheme without a murmur of dubiety or dissent.
+Whatever Nat proposed in Sam's understanding was right and feasible;
+and even if it wasn't really so, Nat would make it so.... They engaged
+the house and moved. Miss Ann Sophronsiba Whitmarsh, a maiden lady of
+forty-five or thereabouts, popularly known as "Phrony," had been coming
+in by the day to "do for" old Sam in the rooms above the shop. She was
+engaged as resident housekeeper for the new establishment, and entered
+upon her duties with all the discreet joy of one whose maternal
+instincts have been suppressed throughout her life. She mothered Sam
+and she mothered Nat and she panted in expectation of the day when she
+would have Betty to mother. Incidentally, she was one of the best
+housekeepers in Radville, and cooperated with all her heart with Nat
+in the task of making a home out of the new house. They arranged and
+disarranged and rearranged and discarded old furniture and bought new
+with almost the abandon of a newly married couple fitting out their
+first home.... It was surprising what they managed to accomplish with
+it; when they were finished, there wasn't a prettier nor a more
+home-like residence in all Radville&mdash;and Phrony Whitmarsh was Nat's
+slave, even as Miss Carpenter had been. She gave him all the credit for
+everything praiseworthy about the place: and with some reason; for, as
+a matter of fact, he had spared himself not at all in the business of
+scheming and contriving to make the new home suitable for the
+reception of Betty Graham....
+</p>
+<p>
+It's interesting when one has come to my time of life, to sit and
+speculate on the singular mental blindness of mortal man, such as that
+which kept Nat unaware of the real, rock-bottom reason why he was
+working so hard on the Beech Street house. I daresay the young idiot
+thought his motives as much selfish as anything else&mdash;told himself that
+he wanted a comfortable home&mdash;and this was his way of securing one&mdash;and
+all that rot. At all events, he told me as much, quite seriously&mdash;
+seemed to believe it himself; and this, in spite of the fact that Miss
+Carpenter had done everything imaginable to make him comfortable....
+</p>
+<p>
+Josie Lockwood came home again for the Easter holidays, but didn't
+return to finish her term in the New York school. Just why, we never
+discovered: the Lockwoods furnished us with no really satisfying
+explanation; they said that Josie didn't like New York, but I've always
+doubted that, especially since Josie married and insisted on moving
+straightway to that metropolis. I suspect she didn't get along with
+the class of young women with whom she was thrown at school, and I'm
+pretty certain she was uneasy about Nat all the time she was so far
+away from him. Anyway, she elected to remain in Radville and keep the
+young man dancing attendance on her day in and out. Which he did, as in
+duty bound; he liked the game less and less all the time, but Kellogg
+held his promise....
+</p>
+<p>
+It was during this period, between the Easter vacation and the end of
+the spring school term, that Roland Barnette's animosity toward Duncan
+became virulent. Looking back, I can recall the symptoms of his waxing
+hostility&mdash;as, for instance, the evening he spent in the
+<i>Citizen</i> office, poring over back files of our exchanges. That
+seemed innocent enough at the time, a harmless freak on the part of the
+young man, and no one paid much attention to it; but it led to great
+things, in the end, and incidentally did Duncan a service which
+probably could have been accomplished through no other agency. This,
+however, is something that Roland doesn't realise to this day; and I'm
+inclined to doubt if you could ever make him understand it.
+</p>
+<p>
+Josie, of course, was prompt to oust Angie Tuthill from her place in
+the choir. After that she sang with Nat on Friday nights as well as
+Wednesdays and twice per Sunday. Between whiles she was a pretty
+constant patron of the store. There was no longer the least doubt in
+the collective mind of the town as to the inclination of Josie's
+affections. Nat himself gave evidence of his appreciation of the
+gravity of the situation, managing by some admirable diplomacy to evade
+the issue until the very last moment. But with the three&mdash;Roland, Nat,
+and Josie&mdash;so involved, we sensed a storm below the horizon, and
+awaited its breaking, if not with avidity, at least with quickened
+apprehension.
+</p>
+<p>
+The culmination came the day before Betty was to return&mdash;a day late in
+May, I remember, and a Friday at that.
+</p>
+<p>
+It began along toward evening. Duncan, alone in the store, was busy
+behind the prescription counter. The day had been humid, warm and
+sultry, and the doors and windows were open. The air was bland and
+still, and sound travelled easily. He could hear the musical clanking
+of hammers in Badger's smithy, on the next block, the deep-throated
+<i>hoot-toot</i> of the late afternoon train as it rushed down the
+valley, sounds of fierce altercation from the home of Pete Willing near
+by, a boy rattling a stick along palings down on Main Street.... But he
+did not hear anybody enter the store: absorbed with his task, he
+thought himself quite alone until a well-kenned voice reached his ear.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well!" it said, unctuous with appreciation of the sight of him.
+"<i>Old</i> Doctor Duncan!"
+</p>
+<p>
+He let the pestle fall from his hand and jumped as if he had been stuck
+with a pin. His jaw dropped and his eyes bulged. "Great Scott!" he
+cried; and in a twinkling was round the counter, throwing himself into
+the arms of a man whom he hailed ecstatically: "Harry, by all that's
+wonderful!" He fairly danced with delight. "Henry Kellogg, Esquire!"
+he cried, holding him at arms' length and looking him over. "What in
+thunderation are you doing here?"
+</p>
+<p>
+Kellogg freed himself, only to seize both Nat's hands and squeeze them
+violently. "Wanted to see you," he replied, beaming. "On my way to
+Cincinnati on business&mdash;thought I'd drop off for a night and size you
+up. My, but it's good to get a look at you! How are you?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Me? Look at me&mdash;picture of health. Harry, you've made a new man of
+me." Duncan pranced round his friend in a mild frenzy. "No booze&mdash;no
+smokes&mdash;no swears&mdash;work! I feel like a two-year-old: I could do a
+Marathon without turning a hair. Watch me kick up my heels and neigh!"
+He paused for breath. "And you?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Fine as silk&mdash;but you've got it on me, Nat, physically. You're a sight
+to heal the blind."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And listen!" Nat crowed: "I'm a business man. Didn't you believe it?
+Pipe my shop!"
+</p>
+<p>
+Kellogg checked to obey the admonition of Duncan's gesticulations, and
+took a long look round the store. "Gad!" said he. "I'm blowed if it
+isn't true! It <i>was</i> hard to credit your letters. But it's great,
+old man. I congratulate you, with all my heart."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Just wait and I'll tell you all about it. But first tell me how long
+you're going to be here."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, I plan to hang around with you a couple of days. My business in
+the West isn't pressing."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Good!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Which is the least worst hotel?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"There ain't no such thing in the whole giddy town.... No, none of that
+hotel stuff, now I I'm going to put you up&mdash;and I'll do it in style,
+too. I wrote you about taking a new place for the Grahams?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, and I'm mighty keen to meet 'em. The girl here?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Betty? No; she's coming home to-morrow. But Graham himself is upstairs
+in the laboratory. Take you up in a minute, but not before I've had a
+good look at you."
+</p>
+<p>
+Kellogg found himself a chair. "Well," he inquired, twinkling, "how's
+the scheme working out? Are you really living up to all the rules?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Every singletary one."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You have got a strong constitution.... Even prayer-meetings?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"The church thing? Honest, Harry, I <i>own</i>
+it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Bully for you, Nat. But how does it work? Was I right?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I should say you were. It's so easy it's a shame to do it. If this
+thing ever should get into the papers there'd be a swarm of city men
+lighting out for the Rube centres so thick you wouldn't be able to see
+the sky."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I knew it! Trust your Uncle Harry." Kellogg waited a time for further
+particulars, but Duncan seemed stuck; his transports of the few
+minutes just gone were sensibly abated; and the sidelong look he gave
+Kellogg was both uneasy and rueful&mdash;apprehensive, indeed. So Kellogg
+had to pump for news. "And you've made a strong play for the fond
+affections of Lockwood's daughter?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Certainly not!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not&mdash;?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"You forget your rules." Nat grinned, whimsical. "I let her to make a
+play for me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Of course. My mistake.... But how has it worked?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh! immense." Duncan's tone, however, was wholly destitute of
+enthusiasm. He stuck his hands in his trousers' pockets and half turned
+away from his friend, looking out of the window.
+</p>
+<p>
+Kellogg smiled secretly. "You mean you've won her already?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, there's nothing to it," said Duncan, shaking his head and meaning
+just the exact opposite of what his words conveyed, for of such is our
+modern slang.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then you're engaged?" Kellogg had understood perfectly, you see.
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, not <i>yet</i>. I've got two months left&mdash;almost."
+</p>
+<p>
+"So you have. And since she's so strong for you, there's no hurry: let
+her take her time."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I only wish she would." Duncan removed one hand from the pocket the
+better to tug at his moustache. "It's got beyond that&mdash;to the point
+where I have to keep dodging her."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You don't mean it! That's splendid." Kellogg got up and slapped Nat's
+shoulder heartily. "But don't overdo the dodging. She might get her
+back up."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not she. She'd eat out of my hand, if I'd let her. You don't
+understand."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What's the matter, then? Aren't you strong for her?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I wish I were."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But why? Is there another&mdash;&mdash;?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"No." Nat shook his head, honestly believing he was telling the truth.
+"Only ... I don't look at things the way I did once."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Just what do you mean by that?"
+</p>
+<p>
+Nat, squaring himself to face Kellogg, was very serious, now, and
+troubled. "See here, Harry," he said: "do you really want me to carry
+out the rest of the agreement?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Most certainly I do. Why not?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Because I'm pretty well fixed here. The business is making good&mdash;and
+so am I. It won't be long before I can pay you back, with interest, as
+we agreed, without having to marry that poor girl and ... and draw on
+her money to make good to you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You want to go back on our agreement?" demanded Kellogg, with a show
+of disappointment and disgust.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes and no. I won't break faith with you, if you insist, but I'd give
+a lot if you'd let me off&mdash;let me pay back what you advanced and cry
+quits.... When you outlined this scheme I was down and three times
+out&mdash;willing to take a chance at anything, no matter how contemptible.
+Now... well, it's different."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Good heavens! You don't mean you'd be willing to <i>live</i> here?"
+</p>
+<p>
+Nat smiled, but not mirthfully. "I don't know," he hesitated; "I'm
+afraid I'm beginning to like it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You, Nat?" Kellogg's amazement was unfeigned. "You, ready to spend
+your life here slaving away in this measly store?"
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan grunted indignantly. "Hold on, now. Don't you call this a measly
+store. There isn't a more complete drug-store in the State!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Do you hear that?" Kellogg appealed vehemently to the universe at
+large. "Is it possible that this is Nat Duncan, the fellow who hated
+work so hard he couldn't earn a living?... Gad, I believe I've arrived
+just in time!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"In time for what?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"To save you from yourself, old man. Here's the heiress you came here
+to cop out, ready and anxious, everything else coming your way and ...
+and you're more than half inclined to back out.... You make me tired."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I suppose I must. But I can't help it. I can't make you see how the
+thing looks to me. You know&mdash;I've written you all about everything&mdash;
+what this place has meant to me. Until I came here I never realised it
+was in me to make good at anything. But here I have; I'm doing so well
+that I'd actually have some self-respect if I wasn't bound to play this
+low-down trick on Josie Lockwood. I've worked and succeeded and been
+of some service to people who were worth it&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Who? Sam Graham?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"He and his daughter&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, his daughter!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Now get that foolish idea out of your head; there's nothing in it.
+Betty's just a simple, sweet little girl, who's had a pretty hard time
+and never a real chance in life&mdash;until I managed to give it to her. And
+I'd feel pretty good about that if ... Oh, there's no use talking to
+you!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"No; go on; you're very entertaining." Kellogg laughed mockingly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, I have tried to keep to the terms of our understanding; I
+singled out this Lockwood girl and worked all the degrees&mdash;didn't say
+much, you know&mdash;no love-making&mdash;just let her catch me looking sadly
+at her once in a while..."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's the way to work it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, that's the way," Nat assented gloomily. "But the longer I keep it
+up the meaner I feel and... I wish you'd agree to call it off. ...
+These Rubes at first struck me as being nothing but a lot of jay
+freaks, but when I got to know them I realised they were just as human
+as we are. I like them now and... on the level, I'm getting kind of
+stuck on church.... As for work, why, I eat it up!"
+</p>
+<p>
+Kellogg laughed with delight "Nat," he cried, "my poor crazy friend,
+listen to me: This working and church-going and helping old Graham is
+all very noble and fine, and I'm glad you've done it. This drug-store
+is a monument to the business ability that I always knew was latent in
+you. And clean living hasn't done you any harm.... But now you're due
+to come down to earth. This place pays you a neat profit. Well and
+good! That's all it'll ever do. It's new to you now and you like the
+novelty and you're having the time of your life finding out you're good
+for something. But pretty soon it'll begin to stale on you, and before
+long you'll find yourself hating it and the town&mdash;and then you'll be
+back where you started. Now, I'm going to hold you to our bargain for
+your own sake. If you're stuck on the town and the work you can keep
+right on just as well after you're married; but when you do begin to
+tire of it, you'll want that fortune to fall back on and do what you
+like with. Don't let this chance slip&mdash;not on your life!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"But," Nat argued feebly, "think of the injustice to the girl. From
+the way I've behaved since I struck this burg she thinks I'm closely
+related to the saints."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Very well, then; I'll concede a point. If you really think you're
+taking a mean advantage of her, when she proposes to you tell her all
+about yourself&mdash;just the sort of a chap you've been. You needn't
+mention our agreement, however. Then if she wants to drop you, I'll
+have nothing to say."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Thank you for nothing," said Duncan bitterly. "A bargain's a bargain.
+I gave you my word of honour I'd go through with this thing, and I'll
+stick to it. But I tell you now, I don't like it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, I know how you feel, Nat. But I <i>know</i> that some day you'll
+come to me and say: 'Harry, if you had let me back out, I'd never have
+forgiven you.'"
+</p>
+<p>
+"All right," said Nat impatiently. "I presume you know best."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You can bet I do. And now I'd like to meet old Graham."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'll take you right up&mdash;no, I can't. Here comes a customer. But you
+just go through that door and upstairs; he'll be in the laboratory&mdash;the
+front room&mdash;and he knows all about you. I'll join you just as soon as
+Tracey gets back."
+</p>
+<br><br><br>
+<h3><a name="xix">
+	XIX
+</a></h3>
+<p class="ctr">
+PROVING THE PERSPICUITY OF MR. KELLOGG
+</p>
+<p>
+A customer came and went, and then Nat noticed that twilight was
+beginning to darken the store. Though the hour wasn't late and the
+evenings were long at that season, the windows faced the east, and
+there were huge, overshadowing elms outside&mdash;just then heavy with
+luxuriant foliage; so dusk was always early in the room.
+</p>
+<p>
+It was one of Nat's axioms that a store, to be successful, should be
+always brilliantly lighted. It was a bit expensive, perhaps, but in the
+long run it paid. For that reason he installed electric light as soon
+as he felt the business could afford it.
+</p>
+<p>
+Now he moved to the windows and switched on the bulbs behind the huge
+glass jars filled with tinted water. Returning, he was about to connect
+up the remainder of the illuminating system, when Josie, entering,
+stayed him. Later he was glad of this.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Nat..."
+</p>
+<p>
+He knew that voice. "Why, Josie!" he exclaimed in surprise, swinging
+about to discover her standing on the threshold&mdash;very dainty and
+fetching, indeed, in one of the summery frocks she had brought back
+from New York.
+</p>
+<p>
+She moved over to him, holding out her hand. He took it with disguised
+reluctance. "Where's Tracey?" she asked with a look that first held his
+eyes, then reviewed the store.
+</p>
+<p>
+"This is his afternoon off," Nat reminded her.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then you're all alone?" she deduced archly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, quite...."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm so glad." She sighed and dropped into a chair by the soda-water
+counter. "I wanted to see you&mdash;to talk to you alone."
+</p>
+<p>
+He bit his lip in his annoyance, shivering with a presentiment. "What
+about, Josie?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"About Wednesday night&mdash;after prayer meeting. Why didn't you wait for
+me?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why&mdash;ah&mdash;I had to get back to the store, you know&mdash;there were some
+cheques to be made out and sent off, and I'd forgotten them. Besides,"
+he added on inspiration, "you were talking with Roland and I didn't
+want to interrupt you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"So you left me to go home with him?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why, what else&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"You're making me awful' unhappy." Her voice trembled.
+</p>
+<p>
+"<i>I</i>, Josie?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes. You knew I didn't want to walk home with Roland."
+</p>
+<p>
+"How could I know that?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I should think you ought to know it, Nat, unless you're blind.
+Besides, I told you once."
+</p>
+<p>
+"True," he fenced desperately, "but that was a long time ago; and how
+could I be sure you hadn't changed your mind? Besides, you know, I
+mustn't monopolise you. If I do...."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well?" she inquired sweetly as he paused on the lip of a break.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why, if I do&mdash;ah&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"If you're afraid people will talk about us, seeing us so much
+together, you needn't worry. They're doing that now."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why, Josie!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, they are. We've been going together so long, and then suddenly
+you don't seem to care about&mdash;care to be alone with me at all. This
+is the first chance I've had to talk to you, when there wasn't somebody
+else round, for I don't know how long. And even now you don't seem glad
+to see me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You should <i>know</i> I am...."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You don't act like it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It's so unexpected," he muttered wretchedly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You didn't really think I wanted Roland Barnette to go home with me
+Wednesday night, did you, Nat?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"It seemed so, but ... that's all right. Why shouldn't you?"
+</p>
+<p>
+She turned to him, trembling a little. "Must I tell you, Nat?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"O, no!" he cried in dismay. "Please don't&mdash;&mdash;!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I see I must," she persisted. "You're so blind. It&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Josie, don't say anything you'll be sorry for," he entreated wildly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I can't help it: I've got to. It was&mdash;it was because I wanted to be
+with you.... There!" she gasped, frightened by her own forwardness.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Now I've said it!"
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan grasped frantically at straws. "But you don't really mean it,
+Josie: you know you don't," he floundered. "You're just saying that
+because you&mdash;you have such a kind heart and&mdash;ah&mdash;don't want to hurt
+me&mdash;ah&mdash;because&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+She stemmed the flood of his protestations with a hand on his arm.
+"Nat," she said gently, looking up into his face, "would it make you
+happy to know I really meant it?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why&mdash;ah&mdash;why shouldn't it, Josie?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then please believe me, when I say it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But I do believe it. I..." He stammered and fell still.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Because I do like you, Nat, very much, and&mdash;and it's very hard for me
+to know that folks think I'm pursuing you and that you're trying to
+avoid me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Josie!" he exclaimed reproachfully.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, that's the way it looks," she affirmed plaintively. "You don't
+want it to, do you?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why, no; of course I don't."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then why don't you stop it?" She watched his face, her manner coy and
+yielding. "Nat," she said in a softer voice, "if you like me as well as
+I like you&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+He moved away a pace or two. "Ah, child!" he said, with a feeling that
+the term was not misapplied, somehow, "you don't know what you're
+saying."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, I do." She pouted. "I don't believe you... care anything about
+me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, Josie, please&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, anyway, you've never told me so." She turned an indignant
+shoulder to him.
+</p>
+<p>
+"How could I?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why couldn't you?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"But don't you see that I shouldn't, Josie?" He turned back to her
+side, looked down at her, pleaded his defence with the fire of
+desperation.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Just think: you are an only daughter." Just what this had to do with
+the case was not plain even to him. "An only daughter," he repeated&mdash;
+"ah&mdash;not only your father's only daughter, but your mother's only
+daughter. Your father&mdash;ah&mdash;is my friend. How unfair it would be to him."
+</p>
+<p>
+But the girl interrupted with decision. "But papa wants you to... He
+told me so."
+</p>
+<p>
+He could only pretend not to understand. "But consider, Josie: you are
+rich, an heiress: I'm a poor man. Would you like it to be said I was
+after your money?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"No one would dare say such a thing," she asserted with profound
+conviction.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, yes, they would. You don't know the world as I do. And for all you
+know, they might be right. How do you know that&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Nat!" A catch in her voice stopped him. "Don't say such horrid things!
+I could tell: a woman always can. I know you would be incapable of such
+a thing. Papa knows it, too. No one has ever got ahead of papa, and
+<i>he</i> says you are a fine, steady, Christian man, and he would
+rather see me your wife than any&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;"'
+</p>
+<p>
+"Josie!"
+</p>
+<p>
+The interjection was so imperative that she was silenced. "Why, what,
+Nat?" she asked, rising.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The time has come," he declared; "you must know the truth."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, Nat!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm <i>not</i> what you think me," he continued, dramatic.
+</p>
+<p>
+<i>"Oh, Nat!"</i>
+</p>
+<p>
+"Nor what your father thinks me, nor what anybody else in this town
+thinks me. I'm not a regular Christian&mdash;it's all a bluff: I didn't
+know anything about a church till I came here. I smoke and I drink and
+I swear and I gamble, and I only cut them all out in order to trick you
+into caring for me!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, Nat, I don't believe it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Alas, Josie!" he protested violently, "it's true, only too true!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"But you did it to win my love, Nat?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Ye-es." He saw suddenly that he had made a fatal mistake.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then, Nat, I will be your wife in spite of all!"
+</p>
+<p>
+He found himself suddenly caught about the neck by the girl's arms. His
+head was drawn down until her cheek caressed his and he felt her lips
+warm upon his own.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Josie!" he gasped.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Nat, my darling!"
+</p>
+<p>
+With a supreme effort he pulled himself together and embraced the girl.
+"Josie," he said earnestly, "I&mdash;I'm going to try to be a good husband
+to you.... And that," he concluded, <i>sotto voce</i>, "wasn't in the
+agreement!"
+</p>
+<p>
+She held him to her passionately. "Dearest, I'm so glad!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"It makes me very happy to know you are, Josie," he murmured miserably.
+And to himself, while still she trembled in his embrace: "What a cur
+you are!... But I won't renege now; I'll play my hand out on the
+square, with her...."
+</p>
+<p>
+Upon this tableau there came a sudden intrusion. The back door opened
+and Graham came in, Kellogg at his heels. It was the voice of the
+latter that told the two they were discovered: a hearty "Hello! What's
+this?" that rang in Nat's ears like the trump of doom.
+</p>
+<p>
+In a flash the girl disengaged herself, and they were a yard apart by
+the time that Graham, blundering in his surprise, managed to turn on
+the lights at the switchboard. But even in the full glare of them he
+seemed unable to credit his sight.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why, Nat!" he quavered, coming out toward the guilty pair. "Why,
+Nat...!"
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan took a long breath and Josie's hand at one and the same time.
+"Mr. Graham," he said coolly, "I'm glad you're the first to know it.
+Josie has just ask&mdash;agreed to be my wife."
+</p>
+<p>
+Old Sam recovered sufficiently to take the girl's hand and pat it. "I'm
+mighty glad, my dear," he told her. "I congratulate you both with all
+my heart."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And so will I, when I have the right," Kellogg added, smiling.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, I forgot." Nat hastened to remedy his oversight. "Josie, this is
+my dearest friend, Mr. Kellogg; Harry, this is Miss Lockwood."
+</p>
+<p>
+Josie gave Kellogg her hand. "I&mdash;I," she giggled&mdash;"I'm pleased to meet
+you, I'm sure."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm charmed. I've heard a great deal of you, Miss Lockwood, from Nat's
+letters, and I shall hope to know you much better before
+long."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It's awful' nice of you to say so, Mr. Kellogg."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And, Nat, old man!" Kellogg threw an arm round Duncan's shoulder. "I
+congratulate you! You're a lucky dog!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm a dog, all right," said Nat glumly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"But we mustn't disturb these young people, Mr. Kellogg," Graham broke
+in nervously.
+</p>
+<p>
+"They'll&mdash;they'll have a lot to say to one another, I'm sure; so we'll
+just run along. I'm taking Mr. Kellogg up to the house, Nat. You'll
+follow us as soon as you can, won't you?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes&mdash;sure."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I've got some news for you, too, that'll make you happy."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Never mind about that; it'll keep till supper, Mr. Graham." Kellogg
+laughed, taking the old man's arm. "Good-bye, both of you&mdash;good-bye for
+a little while."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Good-bye..."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Wasn't that terrible!" Josie turned back to Nat when they were alone.
+"I think it was real mean of Mr. Graham to turn on all the lights
+that way," she simpered. "Somebody else might've seen."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes," agreed the young man, half distracted; "but of course I daren't
+turn them off again."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Never mind. We can wait." Josie blushed.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'll just sit here and wait&mdash;we can talk till Tracey comes, and then
+you can walk home with me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, that'll be nice," he agreed, but without absolute ecstasy.
+</p>
+<p>
+Fortunately for him, in his temper of that moment, Pete Willing reeled
+into the shop, two-thirds drunk, with his face smeared with blood from
+a cut on his forehead.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Scuse me," he muttered huskily. "Kin I see you a minute, Doc?"
+</p>
+<p>
+He reeled and almost fell&mdash;would have fallen had not Duncan caught his
+arm and guided him to a chair. "Great Scott, Pete!" he cried. "What's
+happened to you?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"M' wife..." Pete explained thickly.
+</p>
+<br><br><br>
+<h3><a name="xx">
+	XX
+</a></h3>
+<p class="ctr">
+ROLAND SHOWS HIS HAND
+</p>
+<p>
+"Perhaps I'd better go." Josie, fluttering with alarm and a little
+pale, went quickly to the door.
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan followed her a pace or two. "I can't leave just now," he
+stammered.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't mind one bit. I don't want to be in the way. I'll telephone
+from home.... Good-night, dearest!" On tiptoes she drew his face down
+to hers and kissed him. "I'm so happy..."
+</p>
+<p>
+Half dazed, Nat stared after her until her lightly moving figure merged
+with the shadows beneath the trees and was lost. Then, with a sigh, he
+turned back to Pete.
+</p>
+<p>
+The sheriff had undoubtedly suffered at the hands of that militant
+person, Mrs. Willing. "Great Scott!" Duncan exclaimed as he examined
+the two-inch gash in his head. "That's a bird, Pete."
+</p>
+<p>
+"M' wife done it," Willing muttered huskily. "Sh' threw side 'r th'
+house at me, I think."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Wife, eh?" The coincidence smote Duncan with redoubled force. He
+shivered "Well, she certainly gave it to you good." He went behind the
+counter to prepare a dressing for the wound, which, if wide, was
+neither deep nor serious and gave him little concern for Pete.
+</p>
+<p>
+The latter ruminated on the event, breathing stertorously, while Duncan
+was fixing up a wash of peroxide. "She'll kill me some day," he
+announced suddenly, with intense conviction in his tone.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, don't say that...."
+</p>
+<p>
+Opposition roused Pete to a fury of assertion. "Yes, she will, sure!"
+he bawled. Then his emotion quieted. "But I'd 'bout as soon be dead's
+live with her, anyway."
+</p>
+<p>
+"<i>Um</i>." Nat got some absorbent cotton and adhesive plaster. "Been
+drinking again, hadn't you?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yesh," Pete admitted with a leer of drunken cunning. "But she druv me
+to it." He was quiet for a moment. "Mish'r Duncan," he volunteered
+cheerfully, "you ain't got <i>no</i> idee how lucky y'are y'aint married."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Is that so?" Nat returned with the dressings.
+</p>
+<p>
+"No idee'tall." Pete surrendered his head to Nat's ministrations. "'Nd
+I hope y' won't never have."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But I'm going to be married, Pete."
+</p>
+<p>
+The sheriff assimilated this information and became abruptly
+intractable. He jerked his head away and swung round in his chair to
+argue the matter.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, no!" he expostulated. "Don't, Mish'r Duncan. Don't never do it.
+Take warnin' from me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But I'm engaged, Pete."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Maksh no diff'runsh&mdash;break it off." His voice rose to a howl of alarm.
+"F'r Gaw's sake, break it off!&mdash;now, before it's too late! Do anythin'
+rather'n that: drink&mdash;lie&mdash;steal&mdash;murder&mdash;c'mit suicide&mdash;don't care
+what&mdash;only <i>keep single!</i>" "Here," said Duncan, laughing, "sit back
+there and let me'tend to your head." He began to wash the wound with
+the peroxide. "There: that'll sting a bit, but not long.... But
+suppose, Pete, I'd get a lot of money by marrying?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"No matter how mush y'get, 'tain't enough!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm inclined to think you're about right, Pete."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You bet I'm right. I'm married 'nd <i>I know</i>."
+</p>
+<p>
+Nat finished dressing the cut, smoothed down the ends of the adhesive
+tape, and stood back. "That's all right, now. Go home, wash your face,
+and sleep it off. Let me see you sober in the morning."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Huh!" Pete chuckled derisively. "Ain't goin' home t'night."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You've got to get some sleep: that's the only way for you to
+straighten up."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well," agreed Pete, rising, "then I'll go over to the barn 'nd sleep
+with the horse."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Aren't you afraid he'll step on you?" asked Nat, amused.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Maybe he will," Pete replied fairly, "but I'd ruther risk that 'n m'
+wife."
+</p>
+<p>
+He swerved and lurched toward the door. "Thanks, doc, 'nd g'night," he
+mumbled, and incontinently collided with Roland Barnette.
+</p>
+<p>
+Roland was working under a full head of steam, apparently; his
+naturally sanguine complexion was several shades darker than the
+normal, and he was seething with repressed emotion&mdash;excitement,
+anticipated triumph, jealousy, envy and hatred: all centring upon the
+hapless head of Nat Duncan. Plunging along with his head down, his
+thoughts wholly preoccupied with his grievance and its remedy, he
+bumped into Willing and cannoned off, recognising him with an angry
+growl. The result of this was to stay Pete's departure; he grasped
+the frame of the door and steadied himself, glaring round at the
+aggressor.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Lo, Roland," he said, focussing his vision. "Whash masser?"
+</p>
+<p>
+Roland disregarded him entirely. "Say, you!" he snorted, catching sight
+of Nat. "I want to see you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh?" Nat drawled exasperatingly. He had never had much use for Roland,
+and now with hidden joy he read the signs of passion on the boy's
+inflamed countenance. Happy he would be, thought Nat, if Roland were to
+be delivered into his hands that night. He owed the world a grudge,
+just then, and needed nothing more than an object to wreak his
+vengeance upon. "Well, I'll stake you to a good long look," he added
+sweetly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Ah-h! don't you try to be so funny; you might get hurt."
+</p>
+<p>
+Pete seemed to be suddenly electrified by Ro-land's matter. "Here!" he
+interposed. "Whajuh mean by that?" And relinquishing his grasp on the
+door, he reeled between the two and thrust his face close to Roland's.
+"Who're you talkin' to, an'way?" he demanded, truculent.
+</p>
+<p>
+Nat stepped forward quickly and grabbed Pete's arm. "That's all right,
+Pete," he soothed him. "Don't get nervous. Roly won't hurt anybody."
+</p>
+<p>
+The diminutive stung Roland to exasperation. "Why, damn you&mdash;&mdash;!" he
+screamed, and promptly became inarticulate with rage.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Ah! ah! ah!" Nat wagged a reproving forefinger. "Naughty word, Roly!
+Careful, or you'll sour your chewing gum."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Now, say! Do you think&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+At this juncture Pete drowned his words with an incoherent roar, having
+apparently reached the conclusion that the time had now arrived when it
+would be his duty and pleasure to eat Roland alive. Nat saved the young
+man by the barest inch; he grappled with Pete and drew himself aside
+just in time.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Steady, Pete!" he said quietly. "Steady, old man. Let Roland alone."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Awrh, I ain't 'fraid of him!" spluttered Pete.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Neither am I. Get out, won't you, and leave him to me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Aw'right." Pete became more calm. "I'll leave him 'lone, but all the
+same I wan' it 'stinctly un'erstood I kin lick any man in town 'ceptin'
+m' wife. G'night, everybody."
+</p>
+<p>
+He gathered himself together and by a supreme effort lunged through the
+door and into the deepening dusk.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, Roly?" Nat asked, turning back.
+</p>
+<p>
+His ironic calm gave Roland pause. For a moment he lost his bearings
+and stammered in confusion. "I come in to tell you that me and you's
+apt to have trouble," he concluded.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh? And are you thinking of starting it?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"You bet I'll start it, and I'll start it damn' quick if you don't
+leave Josie Lockwood alone."
+</p>
+<p>
+"So that's the trouble, is it?" commented Nat thoughtfully.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, that's the trouble. From now on I want you to let her alone, and
+you'll do it, too, if you know what's best for you."
+</p>
+<p>
+A suggestion of menace in his manner, unconnected with any hint of
+physical correction, caught Nat's attention. He frowned over it.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Just what do you mean by this line of talk?" he inquired blandly,
+stepping nearer.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'll tell you what I mean." Roland clenched both fists and thrust his
+chin out pugnaciously. "I'd been a-goin' steady with Josie Lockwood for
+more'n a year before you come here and thought that, on account of her
+money, you could sneak in and cut me out...."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Was her money the reason you were after her, Roly?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"What&mdash;&mdash;?" The question brought Roland momentarily up in the wind.
+"'Tain't none of your business if it was!" he snapped, recovering. "But
+here's what I'm gettin' at." He tapped his breast-pocket with a sneer
+of bucolic triumph. "Just about ten months ago," he continued
+meaningly, "they was a cashier skipped out of the Longacre National
+Bank in Noo Yawk, and they ain't got no track of him yet."
+</p>
+<p>
+So this was why Roland had been so assiduous a student of the back
+files in the Citizen office!
+</p>
+<p>
+"Indeed?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, indeed. I had my suspicions all along, but didn't say nothin',
+but just to-day I got a description of him, and the description just
+fits, Mr. Mortimer Henry."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Just fits Mr. Mortimer Henry? But what has that&mdash;&mdash;?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Ah, don't you try to seem too darn' innocent," Roland snarled. "You
+can't fool me!"
+</p>
+<p>
+A light dawned upon Nat, and laughter flooded his being, although
+outwardly he remained imperturbable&mdash;merely mildly curious. But his
+fingers were itching.
+</p>
+<p>
+"So you think I'm the absconding cashier, eh, Roly?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"You keep away from Josie 'r you'll find out what I think." Nat's
+placidity deceived Roland, who drew the wholly erroneous conclusion
+that he had succeeded in frightening his rival, and consequently dared
+a few lengths further in his tirade. "Why, if I was to go to Mr.
+Lockwood and tell him you're Mortimer Henry, alias Nat Duncan&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan's temper suddenly snapped like a taut violin string.
+</p>
+<p>
+"That will do," he said icily. "That will be all for this evening,
+thanks."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Ah... Are you going to quit chasin' after Josie?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'll begin chasing after you if you don't clear out of here."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You better agree&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+
+
+
+<p class="ctr">
+<a href="illp308.jpg"><img src="illp308_th.jpg" width="150"
+alt="'Betty!'"></a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Just there the storm burst. Ten seconds later Roland, with a confused
+impression of having been kicked by a mule, picked himself up out of
+the dust in the middle of the street and stared stupidly back at the
+store. Nat was waiting in the doorway for a renewal of hostilities, if
+any such there were to be. Seeing, however, that Roland had apparently
+sated his appetite for personal conflict, he picked up a dark object at
+his feet and held it out.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Here's your hat, Roly," he called.
+</p>
+<p>
+Roland spat out a mouthful of dust and swore beneath his breath. "Throw
+it out here," he replied prudently.
+</p>
+<p>
+Tossing him the hat, Nat turned contemptuously. "Come in again, any
+time you want to apologise," he shouted over his shoulder, as an
+afterthought.
+</p>
+<p>
+He paused in the middle of the store and felt of his necktie. It proved
+to be a little out of place, but otherwise he was as immaculate as was
+his wont. He reviewed the encounter and laughed quietly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"There's no cure for a fool," he mused....
+</p>
+<p>
+The telephone bell roused him from his reverie. He went over to the
+instrument, sat down, and put the receiver to his ear.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Hello?" he said.... "Oh, hello, Josie! ... What's that?... That's
+right, but I'm not used to it yet, you know.... Well, I'll try again.
+Now&mdash;ready?"
+</p>
+<p>
+He schooled his voice to a key of heartrending sentiment: "Hello,
+darling.... How's that? ... Told your father? Told him what?... Oh,
+about the engagement! Was he angry? ... Oh, he wasn't, eh? What did he
+say? ... Wasn't that nice of him!..."
+</p>
+<p>
+Conscious of a slight noise in the store he looked up. A young woman
+had just entered. She paused just inside the door, smiling at him a
+little timidly.
+</p>
+<p>
+Without another word to his fiancee Nat put down the telephone and
+hooked up the receiver.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Betty!" he cried wonderingly.
+</p>
+<br><br><br>
+<h3><a name="xxi">
+	XXI
+</a></h3>
+<p class="ctr">
+AS OTHERS SAW HIM
+</p>
+<p>
+If Nat's cry of recognition had been wondering, it was no less one of
+delight. The surprise he felt was perfectly natural; Betty wasn't to
+have returned until the morrow, and was therefore the last person he
+had expected to see when he looked up from the telephone desk. But it
+was the change in the girl that most stirred him: the change he had
+prophesied, planned for, anticipated eagerly throughout the long seven
+months of her absence; to have his expectations so wonderfully
+fulfilled, and more than fulfilled, pleased him beyond expression. And
+it's curious to speculate upon the fact that he fancied his greatest
+pleasure came from the knowledge that old Sam would be so overjoyed....
+</p>
+<p>
+It was really only a paraphrase of the old story of the grub and the
+butterfly. The little, starveling drudge who had found him in the
+store, that first day, had completely vanished; it was as if she had
+never been. In her place he discovered a girl all grace and loveliness,
+her slender figure ripening into gracious womanhood; a girl of mind and
+heart and understanding, all fire and tenderness; demure, intelligent,
+with a pretty pose of independence and sureness of herself moderated by
+modesty and reserve. Her travelling dress of sober colouring and severe
+lines became her bewitchingly. Beneath the brim of her dainty hat, with
+veil thrown back, her dark hair waved back, glossy with the sheen of
+perfect well-being, from a face serenely charming&mdash;the more so for her
+slightly deepened flush; and the eyes that shone into Nat's danced with
+the light of enjoyment, bred of his supreme astonishment....
+</p>
+<p>
+"Nat, I'm so glad to see you again!"
+</p>
+<p>
+He was speechless.
+</p>
+<p>
+She laughed, put down her suit-case, and moved toward him, offering him
+both her hands. He took them, stammering.
+</p>
+<p>
+"It's such a surprise, Betty&mdash;&mdash;!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I knew it would be. I just couldn't wait, Nat, when I found I could
+get here by the night train instead of tomorrow morning. I haven't been
+home, you know, but I couldn't resist the temptation to stop in here
+and see&mdash;what the store looked like after all these months. Besides, I
+thought that you or father&mdash;&mdash;" Her eyes fell and she faltered,
+withdrawing her hands.
+</p>
+<p>
+By now he had himself in hand. "Why," he laughed, "you nearly took my
+breath away. Even now I can hardly believe it..."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Believe what, Nat?" she asked quickly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"That you're the same little Betty Graham. I never saw such a change."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It's a change for the better, isn't it, Nat?" she asked with a smile
+half wistful.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I should think it was. It's just marvellous!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Did I seem so very awful, then?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Nonsense. You know you didn't, only, now..."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then you think father will be pleased?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"If he isn't, I'm blind!"
+</p>
+<p>
+She looked away, embarrassed, and touched by his interest and his
+feeling. "And does it make you a little proud, Nat?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Proud!" he exclaimed blankly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Because you know you've done it all. If there's any improvement in
+Betty Graham to-day, it's because of you. If it hadn't been for
+you&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Never in the world; you don't know what you're talking about, Betty.
+Nobody but yourself could have brought about this change. It had to be
+in you before it could come out. You know that."
+</p>
+<p>
+She shook her head very decidedly, seating herself on one of the chairs
+by the soda-fountain. "Oh, no," she contradicted calmly and sincerely.
+"Why, Nat, don't you suppose I have any memory? You began making me a
+better girl the very first day we met here in the store, by the things
+you said to me. And ever since I've been watching you, while you were
+making life a Heaven for father and me, and thinking that if I were a
+man I'd try to be as near like you as I could."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, don't say that," he pleaded wretchedly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"It's true.... And when you sent me away to school I promised myself
+I'd try to repay you for the sacrifice you must be making for me; that
+I'd follow your example as nearly as ever I could; that I'd work hard
+and try to treat people the way you do&mdash;kindly, Nat, and considerately,
+and bravely and tenderly and honestly&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+He dropped into a chair near her and buried his head in his hands.
+"Don't!" he begged huskily. "Please, Betty, don't!"
+</p>
+<p>
+But she wouldn't stop, little guessing how she was racking his heart in
+her innocent desire to make him understand how deeply she appreciated
+all he had done for her. "And, O Nat, it's worked so wonderfully! It's
+made all the girls at school like me, and it's made me understand and
+like everybody else better; and now, what's ten thousand times the best
+of all, you notice an improvement the minute you see me! And I&mdash;I never
+was so happy in all my life." She bent forward and took one of his
+hands, patting it softly. "Nat, I think you're the very best man in the
+whole world!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Don't!" he groaned. "Don't, for Heaven's sake!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, I know, Nat&mdash;I know you don't like me to say this, but I must,
+just the same, tell you the truth about yourself. It's so splendid to
+live the life you do. You're all unconscious of it, but I want you to
+realise it and know that I do, too. You've made everybody love you
+and..."
+</p>
+<p>
+But confusion silenced her, and she gently replaced his hand. For
+several moments neither spoke. Then Nat broke the tension with a short,
+hard laugh.
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's right," he said inscrutably; "that was the idea...."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Nat, what do you mean?"
+</p>
+<p>
+He turned to her. "Betty, does it make you&mdash;feel that way toward me?"
+</p>
+<p>
+She coloured divinely. "Why, Nat, of course ... Why, everyone..."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's why I came here, Betty," he pursued, blind to her
+embarrassment. "I came here with the idea... of getting married...."
+</p>
+<p>
+He was staring gloomily at the floor and could not see the light that
+dawned upon the girl's face. Absorbed in the struggle with his
+conscience he had no least suspicion of how his words were affecting
+her. He knew only that he must somehow make a confession to her, that
+to own her regard and gratitude on the terms that then existed between
+them was utterly intolerable.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You never guessed that, did you?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"No," she breathed brokenly. "No, Nat, I&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, it's the truth and...." He rose and moved away. "But I can't
+tell you just now&mdash;not now...."
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, not now, Nat." Betty, too, got up. "I think I'd better go home and
+see father&mdash;I mustn't forget&mdash;" she faltered, half blinded by the mist
+of the happiness before her eyes.
+</p>
+<p>
+"No&mdash;wait." She stopped to find his gaze full upon her; for the first
+time he comprehended that she had not understood, that, worst of all,
+she had misunderstood. "I must tell you," he blurted desperately, "I
+must."
+</p>
+<p>
+Instinctively she moved a step toward him. He hung his head.
+</p>
+<p>
+"To-night, Betty&mdash;this evening, just a little while ago, I became
+engaged to Josie Lockwood."
+</p>
+<p>
+She stood as if petrified throughout a wait that seemed to both
+interminable. Then he heard her catch her breath sharply. He looked up,
+frightened, but she was smiling steadily into his face. Somehow he
+found her hand in his.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, Nat dear," she said, "I'm so glad for you.... I wish you all the
+happiness in the world. I ... Good-night."
+</p>
+<p>
+The hand slipped out of Nat's. He did not move, but waited there with
+his empty palm outstretched, despair in his eyes and hell in his heart,
+while she walked quietly from the store.
+</p>
+<p>
+After some time he awoke to the knowledge that she was gone.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Blithering fool!" he growled. "Why didn't I know I loved her like
+this?" He took a turn to and fro, distracted. "And now I've made a mess
+of everything! Good Lord! what can I do? I must do something or go
+mad!" He swung round behind the soda-fountain counter and seized a
+bottle. "I know what! The rules are off! I can have a drink! I can have
+two drinks! I can have a million drinks if I want 'em!"
+</p>
+<p>
+Pouring a generous dose of raw whiskey into the glass he lifted it to
+his lips and threw back his head. But the heavy bouquet of the liquor
+was stifling in his nostrils, and the first mouthful of it almost
+choked him. In a fury he flung the glass from him, so that it crashed
+and splintered upon the floor. "Great Heavens!" he cried. "I don't like
+the stuff any more.... But"&mdash;his gaze fell upon the cigar case&mdash;"I can
+have a smoke. That'll help some!"
+</p>
+<p>
+With feverish haste he snatched a cigar from the nearest box, gnawed
+off one end, and thrusting the other into the alcohol lighter, puffed
+vigorously. But to his renovated palate the potent fumes of the tobacco
+were no less repugnant than the whiskey had been. Half strangled, he
+plucked the cigar from his mouth and stamped on it.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh," he cried wildly, "I'll be&mdash;I'll be damned!"
+</p>
+<p>
+He paused, staring vacantly at nothing. "And even that doesn't do any
+good! God help me, I've forgotten how to swear!"
+</p>
+<p>
+To him, in this overwrought state, came Tracey, lumbering cheerfully
+in, his mouth shaped for a whistle. At sight of Nat he pulled up as if
+hit by a club.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Evenin', Mister Duncan. What's the matter?"
+</p>
+<p>
+By an effort Nat brought his gaze to bear upon the boy and comprehended
+his existence.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Ain't you feeling well, Mr. Duncan?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"No&mdash;rotten!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"What's the matter?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"<i>Nothing</i>!" Nat shouted ferociously.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Anything I kin&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"<i>No</i>!"
+</p>
+<p>
+At that instant Kellogg appeared. "Hello, Nat! What's been keeping you?
+I came down to bring you home to supper."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Go to blazes with your supper! Keep away from me! Don't talk to me! I
+don't want anything to do with you, d'you understand? You and your
+confounded systems have got me into all this&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+He caught sight of his hat abruptly, ceased talking, grabbed the hat
+and jammed it on his head, muttering; then started on a run for the
+door.
+</p>
+<p>
+"But what's the matter?" demanded Kellogg, thunderstruck. "Here! Hold
+on! Where are you going?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"To the only place I can get any consolation&mdash;church!"
+</p>
+<br><br><br>
+<h3><a name="xxii">
+	XXII
+</a></h3>
+<p class="ctr">
+ROLAND'S TRIUMPH
+</p>
+<p>
+But at the doorstep of the Methodist Church Nat hesitated. The building
+was dimly lighted, for it was choir practise night, and the door was
+ajar; but he couldn't bring himself to enter. He would not long have
+peace and quiet in which to think, there; presently would come Angle
+and Josie and Roland and...
+</p>
+<p>
+"I couldn't stand it; I'd probably murder Roland....
+</p>
+<p>
+"Besides, I've no right there&mdash;an impostor&mdash;a contemptible low-lived
+pup like me!...
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why the thunderation did I ever allow myself to be persuaded to come
+here? Why was I ever such a fool?...
+</p>
+<p>
+"How <i>could</i> I be such a fool?..."
+</p>
+<p>
+He was walking, now, striding swiftly through the silent village
+streets, meeting few wayfarers and paying them no heed, whether they
+knew and greeted him or not. His entire consciousness was obsessed by
+regret, repentance and remorse. He had ruined everything, deceived
+everybody&mdash;even himself for a time&mdash;played the cad and the bounder with
+consummate address. There were no bounds to the contempt he felt for
+the man who had tricked these simple, kindly folk into believing him
+immaculate, impeccable; who had hoodwinked "that old prince, Graham,"
+and under false pretences gained his confidence and affection; who had
+deliberately set out to snare an innocent and trusting girl for the
+sake of the filthy money her father owned; who had made another and a
+better girl love him, though that he had done so unconsciously, only to
+break her heart; who had sacrificed everything, honour and decency and
+self-respect, to his greed for money.
+</p>
+<p>
+But it should go no further. He'd given what he called his word of
+honour to a despicable compact; there could be no dishonour so great as
+holding by that word, sticking to his bargain, maintaining the
+deception and&mdash;ruining the life of one woman&mdash;perhaps two: Josie
+Lockwood's, for he could never love her; and possibly Betty Graham's,
+for she was of that sort that loves once and once only. If she truly
+loved him...
+</p>
+<p>
+But by his own act he had placed himself forever beyond the joy of her
+love. He could never accept it, desire it as passionately as he
+might&mdash;and did. He could never consent to drag her down to his base
+level...
+</p>
+<p>
+To-morrow&mdash;no, to-night, that very night, he would unmask himself,
+declare his character to them all, pillory himself that all might see
+how low a man could fall. And to-morrow he would go, leave Radville,
+lose himself to all that had come to be so dear to him, forever....
+</p>
+<p>
+So, raving and ranting with the extravagance of youth, he passed
+through the village, out into the open country, and in the course of an
+hour and a half, back&mdash;all blindly: circling back to the store, in the
+course of his wanderings, as instinctly as a carrier pigeon shapes its
+course for home.
+</p>
+<p>
+It was with incredulity that he found himself again in that cheerful,
+cherished, homely place. But there he was when he came out of his
+abstraction: there in those familiar surroundings, with Tracey's round
+red face beaming at him over the cigar-stand like a lively counterfeit
+of the round red moon he had watched lift up into the skies, back there
+in the still countryside, just as he paused to turn back to town.
+</p>
+<p>
+He recollected his faculties and resumed command of himself
+sufficiently to acknowledge Tracey's greeting with a moody word.
+</p>
+<p>
+"All right, Tracey," he said abruptly. "You may go, now. I'll shut up
+the store."
+</p>
+<p>
+He looked at his watch, and was surprised to discover that it was no
+later than half-past eight. He seemed to have lived a lifetime in the
+last few hours.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Thank you, sir," said Tracey with a gush of gratitude. "I'll be glad
+to get off. Angle's waiting."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Angle&mdash;&mdash;?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Good-evening, Mr. Duncan."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, Miss Tuthill!" Nat discovered that little rogue, all smiles and
+dimples and blushes, not distant from his elbow. "I didn't see you&mdash;I
+was thinking."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Guess we know what you was thinkin' about," observed Tracey, bringing
+his hat round the counter. "Everybody in town's talkin' about it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"About what?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Ah, you know about what, and we're mighty glad of it, and we want to
+congratulate you, don't we, Angie."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, yes, indeed, Mr. Duncan. It's just too sweet for anything."
+</p>
+<p>
+"O Lord!" groaned Nat.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm awful glad you done it when you did," pursued Tracey, oblivious to
+Nat in his own ecstatic temper. "I guess I wouldn't never 've got up
+the spunk to&mdash;to tell Angie what I did to-night, 'f it hadn't been we
+was talkin' 'bout your engagement to Josie. Then, somehow, it just
+seemed to bust right out of me, like I couldn't hold it no longer.
+Didn't it, Angie?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, Tracey, how can you talk so!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then you're engaged, too?" Nat inquired, rousing himself a little and
+smiling feebly upon them.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, sir."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm glad to hear it. It's great news. Now run along, both of you, and
+don't forget you'll never be so happy again." With what he thought an
+expiring flash of humour he raised his hands above their heads. "Bless
+you, my children!" he said solemnly. "Now, for Heaven's sake, beat it!"
+</p>
+<p>
+Alone he went to the prescription desk and opening one of the drawers
+took out the firm's books. After that for some fifteen minutes there
+was nothing to be heard in the store save Nat's breathing and the
+scratching of his pen as he figured out a trial balance....
+</p>
+<p>
+Brisk footfalls disturbed him. He sighed and moved out into the store
+to find Kellogg there, suave and easy as always, yet with that in his
+manner, perceptible perhaps only to a friend of long-standing like Nat,
+to betray a mind far from complacent.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, you're here!" he cried, with a distinct start of relief. "I've
+been looking all over for you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I just got in." Nat brushed aside explanations curtly, intent upon his
+purpose. "Harry, I've got something to say to you: I'm not going
+through with this thing."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You're not?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"No; and that's final. I was just on the point of drawing you a cheque
+for three-hundred; that's all my share of the profits of this concern,
+so far; and my note for the balance. I'll pay that up as soon as I'm
+able&mdash;and I'll work like a terrier until I do. But as for the rest of
+it, I'm through."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, you are?" Kellogg took a chair and tipped back, frowning gravely.
+"But what about your word to me?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Damn that," said Duncan without heat. "The word of honour of a man
+who'd stoop to a trick as vile as I have doesn't amount to a
+continental shinplaster. I'll rather be dishonoured by breaking it than
+by ruining a woman's life."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Very well, if you feel that way about it," said Kellogg as coolly.
+"And you may keep your cheque and note: I wouldn't take them. You can
+pay me back when it's convenient&mdash;I don't care when. But what I want to
+know is what you mean to do?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I mean to do the only thing left to do. I'm going to shut up here and
+then see Lockwood and Josie and tell them the whole story."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Hm," Kellogg reflected, quizzical. "You've got a pleasant little job
+ahead of you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't care about that: I deserve all that's coming to me. I owe
+Josie a duty. Why, it's awful, Harry, to trick a girl into caring for
+you and then to&mdash;to&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Break her heart?" Kellogg's tone was sardonic.
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's what I meant."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Don't flatter yourself, my boy. Josie Lockwood doesn't love you; she
+just set herself to win you because you're the best chance she's seen."
+Kellogg laughed quietly. "The system would have worked just as well if
+anyone else had tried it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Do you think so&mdash;honest?" Nat's eagerness to believe him was
+undisguised.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm sure of it. The trouble is that people will say you've thrown her
+over&mdash;there isn't anyone in Radville who hasn't heard the news by this
+time; and that's going to make the girl feel pretty cheap. But only for
+a while: she'll get over it and solace herself with the next best
+thing.... And don't forget; you lose a fortune."
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, I don't," Duncan disclaimed. "I never had it and now I don't want
+it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's true enough," Kellogg admitted evenly. "And I hope you'll
+always feel that way about it; but, believe me, you'll find plenty of
+money a great help if you want to live a happy life."
+</p>
+<p>
+"There are better things than money to make a man happy; I'll pass up
+the money and try for the others."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's true, too; but when did you find it out?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Here&mdash;this last year.... You know I had everything my heart desired
+until the governor cashed in; and I used to think I was a pretty happy
+kid in those days. But now I've learned that you can beat that kind of
+happiness to death. Harry"&mdash;Duncan was growing almost sententious&mdash;"the
+real way to be happy is to work and have your work amount to something
+and&mdash;and to have someone who believes in you to work for."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Is this a sermon, Nat?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Call it what you like: it goes, just the same. ... That's what I've
+found out this year."
+</p>
+<p>
+Kellogg let his chair fall forward and rose, imprisoning Nat's
+shoulders with two heavy but kindly hands. "And you're right!" he cried
+heartily. "I'm glad you had the backbone to back out, Nat. It was a
+low-down trick and I'm ashamed of myself for proposing it. I did it, I
+presume, simply because I'm a schemer at heart, and I knew it would
+work. It did work, but it's worked a finer way than I dreamed of: it's
+made a man of you, Nat, and I'm mightly glad and proud of you!"
+</p>
+<p>
+Nat swayed with amazement. "What's changed you all of a sudden?" he
+demanded blankly.
+</p>
+<p>
+Releasing him, Kellogg resumed his seat, laughing. "Well, a number of
+things. Among others, I've talked with Graham and I've met his
+daughter."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh-h!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"And that reminds me," Kellogg changed the subject briskly; "I
+understood from you that Graham was sole owner of that patent burner."
+</p>
+<p>
+"So he is."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He says not. I had a proposition to make him from the Mutual people,
+and he referred me to you, saying that you controlled the matter."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I've not the slightest interest in it!" Nat protested.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I know you haven't, but Graham insisted you owned the whole thing. I
+pressed him for an explanation, and he finally furnished one in his
+rambling, inconsequent, fine old way. He admitted that there wasn't any
+sort of an existing contract or agreement of any sort, even oral,
+between you, but just the same you'd been so good to him and his girl
+that he'd made up his mind&mdash;some time ago, I gather&mdash;to make you a
+present of the burner; but naturally he forgot to tell you about an
+insignificant detail like that."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Of course that's nonsense; I wouldn't and shant accept."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Of course you won't. I did you the honour to discount that. But he
+wouldn't say a word about the offer&mdash;yes or no&mdash;just left it all up to
+you. He says you're a business man, and that he's often thought what a
+help you must have been to me before you left New York."
+</p>
+<p>
+Nat laughed outright. "Can you beat that? ... But what is the offer?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Fifty thousand cash and ten thousand shares of preferred
+stock&mdash;hundred dollars par."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What's that worth?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"At the market rate when I left town, seventy-eight." Kellogg waited a
+moment. "Well, what do you say?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Say? Great Caesar's Ghost! What is there to say? Wire 'em an
+acceptance before they get their second wind.... You don't know how
+good this makes me feel, Harry; I can't thank you enough for what
+you've done. This'll square me with Graham to some extent, and I can
+clear out&mdash;&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, you can't, Mr. Smarty! You ain't been 'cute enough."
+</p>
+<p>
+Both men, startled by the interruption, wheeled round to discover
+Roland Barnette dancing with excitement in the doorway, the while he
+beckoned frantically to an invisible party without. "Come on!" he
+shouted. "Here he is!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"What's eating you, Roly-Poly?" inquired
+</p>
+<p>
+Nat, too happy for the money to cherish animosity even toward his
+one-time rival.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You'll find out soon enough," snarled Roland. "Mr. Lockwood's got
+something to say to you, I guess."
+</p>
+<p>
+And on the heels of this announcement Lockwood strode into the store,
+Josie clinging to his arm, Pete Willing&mdash;a trifle more sanely drunk
+than he had been some hours previous&mdash;bringing up the rear.
+</p>
+<p>
+"So!" snarled Blinky, halting and transfixing Nat with the stare of his
+cold blue eyes. "So we've found you, eh?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh? I didn't know I was lost."
+</p>
+<p>
+"No nonsense, young man. I ain't in the humour for foolin'." Blinky was
+unquestionably in no sort of a humour at all beyond an evil one. "I
+come here to have a word with you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, sir?" Nat's tone and attitude were perfectly pacific.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Ah, there ain't no use beatin' 'round the bush. You've behaved
+yourself ever since you come to Radville, and insinooated yourself into
+our confidence, 'spite of the fact that nobody in town knows who you
+were before you came. But now Roland's laid a charge again' you, and I
+want to know the rights to it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well," Roland interposed cockily, "I accused him of it to-night and he
+didn't deny it."
+</p>
+
+
+
+<p class="ctr">
+<a href="illp330.jpg"><img src="illp330_th.jpg" width="150"
+alt="'You're a Thief With a Reward out for You!'"></a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"What's more," Lockwood continued with rising colour, "Roland says he
+can prove it?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Prove what?" Nat insisted. "Get down to facts, can't you?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"That you're a thief with a reward out for you," said Roland. "You're
+that Mortimer Henry what absconded from the Longacre National Bank in
+Noo York."
+</p>
+<p>
+There fell a brief pause. Nat bowed his head and tugged at his
+moustache, his shoulders shaking with emotion variously construed by
+those who watched him. Presently he looked up again, his features
+gravely composed.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Roly," said he, "Balaam must miss you terribly."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That ain't no answer." Lockwood put himself solidly between Nat and
+the object of his obscure remark&mdash;who was painfully digesting it. "I
+want to know about this. You got my daughter to say she'd marry you
+this evenin', and you've got to explain to me about this bank business
+before it goes any further."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes?" commented Nat civilly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes!" thundered Blinky. "Do you deny it? ... Answer me."
+</p>
+<p>
+To Kellogg's huge diversion, Nat struck an attitude, "I refuse to
+answer," said he.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Aha! What'd I tell you?" This was Roland's triumphant crow.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Nat!" Josie advanced, trembling with excitement. "Tell me, what does
+this mean?"
+</p>
+<p>
+Duncan perforce avoided her gaze. "Don't ask," he said sadly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Is it true?" she insisted.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You heard what Roly said," he replied, with a chastened expression.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then you admit it?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I admit nothing."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh-h!" The girl drew away from him as from defilement. "I&mdash;I hate
+you!" she cried in a voice of loathing
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's all right," he told her serenely; "I've despised myself all
+evening."
+</p>
+<p>
+The girl showed him a scornful back. "Papa&mdash;&mdash;" she began.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Don't thank me, Josie. Roland done it all: he got onto him." Lockwood
+continued to watch Duncan with the air of a cat eyeing a mouse.
+</p>
+<p>
+Impulsively Josie moved to Roland's side and caught his arm. He drew
+himself up proudly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I do thank you, Roland; I can never be grateful enough. I've been so
+foolish.
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's all right." Roland tucked the girl's hand beneath his arm and
+patted it down. "You wasn't to blame. I never seen anyone from Noo York
+yet that wasn't a crook."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Won't you please take me away from this&mdash;place, Roland?" she appealed.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'll be mighty glad to see you home, Josie," he assured her
+generously, turning.
+</p>
+<p>
+In the act of leaving, Josie caught Nat's eye. She hung back for an
+instant, withering him with a glare. "Oh-h!" she cried. "How did you
+dare pretend to care for me?"
+</p>
+<p>
+He bowed politely. "It was one of the rules, Josie."
+</p>
+<p>
+"There's no need to tell you, I guess, that the engagement is broken."
+</p>
+<p>
+"None whatever, Miss Lockwood. Good-evening."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Come, Roland!"
+</p>
+<p>
+Arm in arm they left, with the haughty tread of the elect, while Pete
+Willing lurched to Duncan's side and caught his arm.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Come 'long to jail, Mish'r Duncan," he said with sympathy. "Mush
+bessher."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You look after him, Pete." Lockwood turned to leave with a final shot
+for Duncan. "I'll 'tend to your case in the mornin', young man, and
+I'll make you wish you never came to this town."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You needn't trouble. I feel that way about it already. <i>Good</i>-night."
+</p>
+<p>
+Lockwood left them, snarling. Nat caught Kellogg's eye and began to
+giggle. But Pete was still holding him fast, partially, beyond doubt,
+for support.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You've been saved just in time, Mish'r Duncan," he commented; "y'are
+mighty lucky man. Now lissen: you better make tracks. I ain't got no
+warrant to hold you, 'nd I wouldn't if I had."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You're a good fellow, Pete; but you needn't worry. I'm not the man
+they think me, and it'll be easy to prove."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Wal," said Pete, "jus' the same, you better git out, 'r you may have
+to marry her aft'all."
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, I won't."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Thank Gawd f'r that!" Pete exclaimed in maudlin gratitude. He swung
+widely toward the door, and by a miracle found it. "G'night, Mish'r
+Duncan. I feel s' good 'bout thish I'm goin' try goin' home 'nd face m'
+wife. G'night."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Good-night, Pete."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well!" said Kellogg after a pause, "that was a bit of luck!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Luck!" Nat seized his hat and began to turn off the lights. "It's more
+luck than I thought there was in the whole world. Come along."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Where are you going?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"First, to see Lockwood and have it out with him."
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, you aren't," Kellogg laughed as Nat locked the door. "You're going
+to leave Lockwood to me; I'll manage to ease his mind. You've got
+infinitely more important matters to attend to&mdash;and the sooner you find
+her, the better, Nat!"
+</p>
+<br><br><br>
+<h3><a name="xxiii">
+	XXIII
+</a></h3>
+<p class="ctr">
+THE RAINBOW'S END
+</p>
+<p>
+The air was heavy with moisture and very still and warm; a heady
+fragrance of precocious blooms flavoured the air, vying with the scent
+of rain. The silence was profound, but shaken now and then by a grumble
+of distant thunder. The world hung breathless on the issue of the night.
+</p>
+<p>
+Since evenfall a wall of cloud, massive and portentous, had been
+climbing up over the western hills, slowly but with ominous steadiness
+obscuring the moon-swept sky with its far, pale wreaths of stars,
+blotting it out with monstrous folds and convolutions of impenetrable
+purple-black. Along its crest fire played like swords in the sunlight,
+and now and again sheeted flame lightened the monstrous expanse so that
+it glowed with the pale phosphorescence of a summer sea.
+</p>
+<p>
+As Duncan hurried homeward over sidewalks chequered in silver and ink,
+the advance of the cloud army seemed to become accelerated. With
+increasing frequency gusts of air set the trees a-shiver until their
+sibilant whispers of warning filled the valley. The rolling of the
+thunder grew more sharp, more instant upon the flashes.... When there
+was no wind the air seemed to quiver with terror&mdash;as a dog cringes to
+the whip....
+</p>
+<p>
+But of this Duncan was barely conscious.
+</p>
+<p>
+He gained the gate in the fence of wood paling, opened it, and entered.
+The lawn and house were lit with the unearthly radiance of moonlight
+threatened by eclipse. He could see the light in Graham's study and,
+through the open doors, the faint glow of the hall-lamp. But there was
+no one visible.
+</p>
+<p>
+He hurried up the path, tortured by impatience, fear, longing,
+despair....
+</p>
+<p>
+Then he saw what seemed at first a pale shadow detach itself from
+darker shades in the shrubbery and move toward him.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Nat, is it you?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Betty!"
+</p>
+<p>
+His whole heart was in that cry; the girl thrilled to its timbre as
+though a master hand had struck a chord upon her heart-strings.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Nat, what&mdash;what is it?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Betty, I want to tell you something."
+</p>
+<p>
+She came very slowly toward him, torn alternately by fear and hope.
+What did he mean?
+</p>
+<p>
+"Do you happen to remember that I told you a while ago I was engaged to
+Josie Lockwood?"
+</p>
+
+
+
+<p class="ctr">
+<a href="illp336.jpg"><img src="illp336_th.jpg" width="150"
+alt="'Forever and Ever and a Day'"></a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"Nat! Could I forget? ... Why?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Because ... it's broken off, Betty."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Broken off! ... How? Why?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Because it had to be, sweetheart: because I love you."
+</p>
+<p>
+She was very close to him then. Her uplifted face shone like marble in
+the fading light. "Nat, I ... I don't understand."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then, listen&mdash;I must tell you. It was all a plan, a scheme, my coming
+here, Betty. Everything I did, said, thought, was part of a
+contemptible trick.... I meant to marry Josie Lockwood, whom I'd never
+seen, for her money. ... Now you know what I was, dear.... But it's
+different, now. I'm not the same man who came to Radville ten months
+ago. I've learned a little to understand the right, I hope: I've
+learned to love and reverence goodness and purity and unselfishness and
+... And I want to be a man, the kind of a man you thought me: a man
+worthy of you and your love, Betty.... Because I love you. I want you
+to be my wife. ... And, O Betty, Betty, I need you to help me!"
+</p>
+<p>
+His voice broke. He waited, every nerve and fibre of him tense for her
+answer. While he had been speaking, the onrush of the storm had blotted
+out the moon. There was only darkness there in the garden&mdash;deep, dense
+darkness, so thick he could not even see the shimmer of her dress....
+</p>
+<p>
+Then suddenly she was in his arms, shaking and sobbing, straining him
+to her.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, Nat, my Nat! I've loved you from the first day I ever saw you! You
+know I have."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Betty! ... sweetheart..."
+</p>
+<p>
+There came an abrupt, furious patter of heavy drops of water, beating
+upon the foliage, splashing and rebounding from the house.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Forever and ever, Nat?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Forever and ever and a day, my dear ... my dear!"
+</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Fortune Hunter, by Louis Joseph Vance
+
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