HE INVESTS IN SALVATION
From Scattergood Baines's seat on the piazza of his hardware store he could look across the river and through a side window of the bank. Scattergood was availing himself of this privilege. As a member of the finance committee of the bank Scattergood was naturally interested in that enterprise, so important to the thrifty community, but his interest at the moment was not exactly official. He was regarding, speculatively, the back of young Ovid Nixon, the assistant cashier.
His concern for young Ovid was sartorial. It is true that a shiny alpaca office coat covered the excellent shoulders of the boy, but below that alpaca and under Scattergood's line of vision were trousers—and carefully stretched over a hanger on a closet hook was a coat! There was also a waistcoat, recognized only by the name of vest in Coldriver, and that very morning Scattergood had seen the three, to say nothing of a certain shirt and a necktie of sorts, making brave young Ovid's figure.
Ovid passed Scattergood's store on the way to his work. Baines had regarded him with interest.
"Mornin', Ovid" he said.
"Morning, Mr. Baines."
"Calc'late to be wearin' some new clothes, Ovid? Eh?"
Ovid smiled down at himself, and wagged his head.
"Don't recall seem' jest sich a suit in Coldriver before," said Scattergood. "Never bought 'em at Lafe Atwell's, did you?"
"Got 'em in the city," said Ovid.
"I want to know! Come made that way, Ovid, or was they manufactured special fer you?"
"Best tailor there was," said Ovid.
"Must 'a' come to quite a figger, includin' the shirt and necktie."
"Forty dollars for the suit," Ovid said, proudly, "and it busted a five-dollar bill all to pieces to git the shirt and tie."
Scattergood waggled his head admiringly. "Must be a satisfaction," he said, "to be able to afford sich clothes."
Ovid looked a bit doubtful, but Scattergood's voice was so interested, so bland, that any suspicion of irony was allayed.
"How's your ma?" Scattergood asked.
"Pert," answered Ovid. "Ma's spry. Barrin' a siege of neuralgy in the face off and on, ma hain't complainin' of nothin'."
"Has she took to patronizin' a city tailor, too?" Scattergood asked.
"Mostly," said Ovid, "ma makes her own."
Scattergood nodded.
"Still does sewin' for other folks?"
"Ma enjoys it," said Ovid, defensively. "Says it passes the time."
"Passes consid'able of it, don't it? Passes the time right up till she gits into bed?"
"Ma's industrious."
"It's a handsome rig-out," said Scattergood. "Credit to you; credit to Coldriver; credit to the bank."
Ovid glanced down at his legs to admire them.
"Been spendin' Saturday nights and Sundays out of town for a spell, hain't you? Seems like I hain't seen you around."
"Been takin' the 'three-o'clock' down the line," said Ovid, complacently.
"Girl?" said Scattergood—one might have noticed that it was hopefully.
"Naw.... Fellers. We go to the opery Saturday nights and kind of amuse ourselves Sundays."
"Um!... G'-by, Ovid."
"Good-by, Mr. Baines."
Coldriver had seen tailor-made clothing before, worn by drummers and visitors, but it is doubtful if it had ever really experienced one personally adorning one of its own citizens. A few years before it had been currently reported that Jed Lewis was about to have such a suit to be married in, but it turned out that the major part of the sum to be devoted to that purpose actually went as the first payment on a parlor organ and that Lafe Atwell purveyed the wedding garment. This dénouement had created a breath of dissatisfaction with Jed, and there were those who argued that organs were more wasteful than clothes, because you could go to church of a Sunday, drop a dime in the collection plate, and hear all the organ music a body needed to hear.
So now Scattergood regarded Ovid speculatively through the window, setting on opposite mental columns Ovid's salary of nine hundred dollars a year and the probable total cost of tailor-made clothes and weekly trips down the line on the "three-o'clock."
Scattergood was interested in every man, woman, and child in Coldriver. Their business was his business. But just now he owned an especial concern for Ovid, because he, and he alone, had placed the boy in the bank after Ovid's graduation from high school—and had watched him, with some pleasure, as he progressed steadily and methodically to a position which Coldriver regarded as one of the finest it was possible for a young man to hold. To be assistant cashier of the Coldriver Savings Bank was to have achieved both social and business success.
Scattergood liked Ovid, had confidence in the boy, and even speculated on the possibility of attaching Ovid to his own enterprises as he had attached young Johnnie Bones, the lawyer. But latterly he had done a deal of thinking. In the first place, there was no need for Mrs. Nixon to continue to take in sewing when Ovid earned nine hundred a year; in the second place, Ovid had been less engrossed in his work and more engrossed by himself and by interests "down the line."
It was Scattergood's opinion that Ovid was sound at bottom, but was suffering from some sort of temporary attack, which would have its run ... if no serious complication set in. Scattergood was watching for symptoms of the complication.
Three weeks later Ovid took the "three-o'clock" down the line of a Saturday afternoon and failed to return Sunday night. Indeed, he did not appear Monday night, nor was there explanatory word from him. Mrs. Nixon could give Scattergood no explanation, and she herself, in the midst of a spell of neuralgia, was distracted.
Scattergood fumbled automatically for his shoe fastenings, but, recalling in time that he was seated in a lady's parlor, restrained his impulse to free his feet from restraint in order that he might clear his thoughts by wriggling his toes.
"Likely," he said, "it's nothin' serious. Then, ag'in, you can't tell.... You do two things, Mis' Nixon: go out to the farm and stay with my wife—Mandy'll be glad to have you ... and keep your mouth shet."
"You'll find him, Mr. Baines?... You'll fetch him back to me?"
"If I figger he's wuth it," said Scattergood.
He went from Mrs. Nixon's to the bank, where the finance committee were gathering to discuss the situation and to discover if Ovid's disappearance were in any manner connected with the movable assets of the institution. There were Deacon Pettybone, Sam Kettleman, the grocer, Lafe Atwell, Marvin Towne—Scattergood made up the full committee.
"How be you?" Scattergood said, as he sat in a chair which uttered its protest at the burden.
"What d'you think?" Towne said. "Got any notions? Noticed anythin' suspicious?"
"Not 'less it's that there dude suit of clothes," said Atwell, with some acidity.
"You put him in here," said Kettleman to Scattergood.
"Calculate I did.... Hain't found no reason to regret it—not yit. Looks to me like the fust move's to kind of go over the books and the cash, hain't it?... You fellers tackle the books and I'll give the vault an overhaulin'."
Scattergood already had made up his mind that if Ovid had allowed any of the bank's funds to cling to him when he went away the shortage would be discoverable in the cash reserve, undoubtedly in a lump sum, and not by an examination of the books. It was his judgment that Ovid was not of a caliber to plan the looting of a bank and skillfully to hide his progress by a falsification of the books. That required an imagination that Ovid lacked. No, Scattergood said to himself, if Ovid had looted he had looted clumsily—and on sudden provocation.... Therefore he chose the vault for his peculiar task.
It is a comparatively easy task to count the cash reserve in the vault of so small a bank. Even a matter of thirty-odd thousand dollars can be checked by one man alone in half an hour, for the small silver is packed away in rolls, each roll containing a stated sum; the larger silver is bagged, each bag bearing a label stating the amount of its contents, and the currency is wrapped in packages containing even sums.... Scattergood went to work. He went over the cash carefully, and totaled the sums he set down on a bit of paper.... He found the amount to be inadequate by exactly three thousand dollars.
"Huh!" said Scattergood to himself. "Ovid hain't no hawg."
One might have thought the young man had dropped in Scattergood's estimation. It would have been as easy to make away with twenty thousand dollars as with three thousand, and the penalty would not have been greater.
"Kind of a childish sum," said Scattergood to himself. "'Tain't wuth bustin' up a life over—not three thousand.... Calc'late Ovid hain't bad—not at a figger of three thousand. Jest a dum fool—him and his tailor-made clothes...."
In the silence of the vault Scattergood removed his shoes and sat on a pile of bagged silver. His pudgy toes worked busily while he reflected upon the sum of three thousand dollars and what the theft of that amount might indicate. "Looked big to Ovid," he said to himself. Then, "Jest a dum young eediot...."
He replaced the cash and, carrying his shoes in his hand, left the vault and closed it behind him. His four fellow committeemen were sweating over the books, but all looked up anxiously as Scattergood appeared. He stood looking at them an instant, as if in doubt.
"What d'you find?" asked Atwell.
"She checks," said Scattergood.
The four drew a breath of relief. Scattergood wished that he might have joined them in the breath, but there was no relief for him. He had joined his fortunes to those of Ovid Nixon—and to those of Ovid's mother; had become particeps criminis, and the requirements of the situation rested heavily upon him.
It was past midnight before the laborious four finished their review of the books and joined with Scattergood in giving Ovid a clean bill of health.
"Didn't think Ovid had it in him to steal," said Kettleman.
"Hain't got no business stirrin' us up like this for nothin'," said Atwell, acrimoniously.
"Maybe," suggested Scattergood, "Ovid's come down with a fit of suthin'."
"Hope it's painful," said Lafe, "I'm a-goin' home to bed."
"What'll we do?" asked Deacon Pettybone.
"Nothin'," said Scattergood, "till some doin' is called fur. Calc'late I better slip on my shoes. Might meet my wife." Mandy Scattergood was doing her able best to break Scattergood of his shoeless ways.
"Guess we'll let Ovid git through when he comes back," said Deacon Pettybone, harshly, making use of the mountain term to denote discharge. There no one is ever discharged, no one ever resigns. The single phrase covers both actions—the individual "gets through."
"I always figgered," said Scattergood, urbanely, "that it was allus premature to git ahead of time.... I'm calc'latin' on runnin' down to see what kind of a fit of ailment Ovid's come down with."
Next morning, having in the meantime industriously allowed the rumor to go abroad that Ovid was suddenly ill, Scattergood took the seven-o'clock for points south. He did not know where he was going, but expected to pick up information on that question en route. His method of reaching for it was to take a seat on a trunk in the baggage car.
The railroad, Scattergood's individual property and his greatest step forward in his dream for the development of the Coldriver Valley, was but a year old now. It was twenty-four miles long, but he regarded it with an affection only second to his love for his hardware store—and he dealt with it as an indulgent parent.... Pliny Pickett once stage driver, was now conductor, and wore with ostentation a uniform suitable to the dignity, speaking of "my railroad" largely.
"Hear Ovid Nixon's sick down to town" said Pliny.
"Sich a rumor's come to me."
"Likely at the Mountain House?" ventured Pliny.
"Shouldn't be s'prised."
"That's where he mostly stopped," said Pliny.
"Um!... Wonder what ailment Ovid was most open to git?"
Scattergood and Pliny talked politics for the rest of the journey, and, as usual, Pliny received directions to "talk up" certain matters to his passengers. Pliny was one of Scattergood's main channels to public opinion. At the junction Scattergood changed for the short ride to town, and there he carried his ancient valise up to the Mountain House, where he registered.
"Young feller named Nixon—Ovid Nixon—stoppin' here?" he asked the clerk.
"Checked out Monday night."
"Um!... Monday night, eh? Expect him back? I was calc'latin' on meetin' him here to-day."
"He usually gets in Saturday night.... You might ask Mr. Pillows, over there by the cigar case. He and Nixon hang out together."
Scattergood scrutinized Mr. Pillows and did not like the appearance of that young man; not that he looked especially vicious, but there was a sort of useless, lazy, sponging look to him. Baines set him down as the sort of young man who would play Kelly pool with money his mother earned by doing laundry, and, in addition, catalogued him as a "saphead." He acted accordingly.
Walking lightly across the lobby, he stopped just behind Pillows, and then said, with startling sharpness, "Where's Ovid Nixon?"
The agility with which Mr. Pillows leaped into the air and descended, facing Scattergood, did some little to raise him in the estimation of Coldriver's first citizen. Nor did he pause to study Scattergood. One might have said that he lit in mid-career, at the top of his speed, and was out of the door before Scattergood could extend a pudgy hand to snatch at him. Scattergood grinned.
"Figgered he'd be a mite skittish," he said to the girl behind the cigar counter.
"I thought something sneaking was going on," said the young woman, as if to herself.
Scattergood gave her his attention. She had red hair, and his respect for red hair was a notable characteristic. There was a freckle or two on her nose, her eyes were steady, and her mouth was firm—but she was pretty. Scattergood continued to regard her in silence, and she, not disconcerted, studied him.
"You and me is goin' to eat dinner together this noon," he said, presently.
"Business or pleasure?" Her rejoinder was tart.
"Why?"
"If it's business, we eat. If it's pleasure, you've stopped at the wrong cigar counter."
"I knowed I was goin' to take to you," said Scattergood. "You got capable hair.... This here was to be business."
"Twelve o'clock sharp, then," she said.
He looked at the clock. It lacked half an hour of noon.
"G'-by," he said, and went to a distant corner, where he seated himself and stared out of the window, trying to imagine what he would do if he were Ovid Nixon, and what would make him appropriate three thousand dollars.... At twelve o'clock he lumbered over to the cigar case. "C'm on," he said. "Hain't got no time to waste."
The girl put on her hat and they walked out together.
"What's your name?" Scattergood asked.
"Pansy O'Toole.... You're Scattergood Baines—that's why I'm here.... I don't eat with every man that oozes out of the woods."
Scattergood said nothing. It was a fixed principle of his to let other folks do the talking if they would. If not he talked himself—deviously. Seldom did he ask a direct question regarding any matter of importance, and so strong was habit that it was rare for him to put any query directly. If he wanted to know what time it was he would lead up to the subject by mentioning sun dials, or calendars, or lunar eclipses, and so approach circuitously and by degrees, until his victim was led to exhibit his watch. Pansy did not talk.
"See lots of folks, standin' back of that counter like you do?" he began.
"Lots."
"Um!... From lots of towns?... From Boston?"
"Yes."
"From Tupper Falls?"
"Some."
"From Coldriver?"
"If you want to know if I know Ovid Nixon, why don't you ask right out?"
Scattergood looked at her admiringly.
"I know him," she said.
"Like him?"
"He's a nice boy." Scattergood liked the way she said "nice." It conveyed a fine shade of meaning, and he thought more of Ovid in consequence. "But he's awful young—and green."
"Calc'late he is—calc'late he is."
"He needs somebody to look after him," she said, sharply.
"Thinkin' of undertakin' the work?... Favor undertakin' it?"
She looked at him a moment speculatively. "I might do worse. He'd be decent and kind—and I've got brains. I could make something of him...."
"Um!... Ovid's up and made somethin' of himself."
"What?" She spoke quickly, sharply.
"A thief."
Scattergood glanced sidewise to study the effect of this curt announcement, but her face was expressionless, rather too expressionless.
"That's why you're looking for him?"
"Yes."
"To put him in jail?"
"What would you calc'late on doin' if you was me?"
"Before I did anything," she said, slowly, "I'd make up my mind if he was a thief, or if he just happened to take whatever it was he has taken.... I'd be sure he was bad. If I made up my mind he'd just been green and a fool—well, I'd see to it he never was that kind of a fool again.... But not by jailing him."
"Um!... Three thousand's a lot of money."
"Mr. Baines, I see men and other kinds of men from behind my cigar counter—and the kind of a man Ovid Nixon could be is worth more than that."
"Mebby so.... Mebby so. But if I was investin' in Ovid, I'd want some sort of a guarantee with him. Would you be willin' to furnish the guarantee? And see it was kept good?"
"If you mean what I think you do—yes," she said, steadily. "I'd marry Ovid to-morrow."
"Him bein' a thief?"
"Girls that sell cigars aren't so select," she said, a trifle bitterly.
"Pansy," said Scattergood, and he patted her back with a heavy hand that was, nevertheless, gentle, "if 'twan't for Mandy, that I've up and married already, I calc'late I'd try to cut Ovid out.... But then I've kinder observed that every woman you meet up with, if she's bein' crowded by somethin' hard and mean, strikes you as bein' better 'n any other woman you ever see. I call to mind a number.... Ovid some attached to you, is he?"
"He's never made love to me, if that's what you mean."
"Think you could land him—for his good and yourn?"
"I—why, I think I could," she said.
"Is it a bargain?"
"What?"
"For, and in consideration of one dollar to you in hand paid, and the further consideration of you undertakin' to keep an eye on him till death do you part, I agree to keep him out of jail—and without nobody knowin' he was ever anythin' but honest—and a dum fool."
She held out her hand and Scattergood took it.
"What's got Ovid into this here mess?"
"Bucket shop," she said.
"Um!... They been lettin' him make a mite of money—up to now, eh? So he calc'lated on gittin' rich at one wallop. Kind of led him along, I calc'late, till they got him to swaller hook, line, and sinker ... and then they up and jerked him floppin' on to the bank.... Who owns this here bucket shop?"
"Tim Peaney."
"Perty slick, is he?"
"Slick enough to take care of Ovid and sheep like him—but I can't help thinking he's a sheep himself."
"He got Ovid's three thousand, or Ovid 'u'd 'a' come back Sunday night.... Got to find Ovid—and got to git that money back."
"I've an idea Ovid's right in town. If you're suspicious, and keep your eyes open, you can tell when something's going on. That Pillows man you scared knows, and Peaney acts like the man of mystery in one of the kind of plays we get around here. It's breaking out all over them.... I'll bet they've fleeced Ovid, and now they're hiding him—to save themselves more than him."
"And Ovid's the kind that would let himself be hid," said Scattergood. "Do you and me work together on this job?"
"If I can help—"
"You bet you kin.... We'll jest let Ovid lie hid while we kind of maneuver around Peaney some—commencin' right soon. Peaney ever aspire to take you to dinner?"
"Yes," she said, shortly.
"Git organized to go with him to-night...."
It was in the neighborhood of five o'clock when Mr. Peaney came into the Mountain House and stopped at the cigar counter for cigarettes.
"Any more friendly to-day, sister?" he asked.
Pansy smiled and leaned across the case. "The trouble with you," she said, in a low tone, "is that you're a piker."
"Piker—me?"
"Always after small change."
"Just show me some real money once," he said, flamboyantly.
"It would scare you," she said.
"Show me some—you'd see how it would scare me."
"I wonder," she said, musingly, "if you have the nerve?"
"For what?" he said, with quickened interest.
"To go after a wad that I know of?"
"Say," he said, his eyes narrowing, his face assuming a look of cupidity and cunning, "do you know something? If you do, come on out where we can eat and talk. If there's anything in it I'll split with you."
"I know you will," she said, promptly. "Fifty-fifty.... In an hour, at Case's restaurant."
At the hour set Pansy and Mr. Peaney found a corner table in the little restaurant, and when they had ordered Peaney asked, "Well, what you got on your mind?"
"A big farmer from the backwoods—with a trunkful of money. Don't know how he got it. Must have sold the family wood lot, but he's got it with him ... and he came down to invest it."
"No."
"Honest Injun."
"How much?"
"From what he said it's more than ten thousand dollars."
"Lead me to him."
"He'll need some playing with—thinks he's sharp.... But I've been talking to him. Guess he took a liking to me. Wanted to take me to dinner—and he did."
"Say!" exclaimed Mr. Peaney, in admiration, "I had you sized all wrong."
"It'll take nerve," Pansy said.
"It's what I've got most of."
"He's no Ovid Nixon."
"Eh?... What d'you know about Ovid Nixon?"
"I know he was too green to burn and that you and he were together a lot.... Isn't that enough?"
He smiled complacently, seeing a compliment. "He was easy—but he got to be a nuisance."
"Making trouble?"
"No.... Scared."
"I see," she nodded, wisely. "Lost more than he had, was that it? And then helped himself to what he didn't have?"
"I'm not supposed to know where it came from. None of my business."
"Of course not"—her tone was rank flattery. "Wants you to take care of him. Threatens to squeal. I know.... So you've got to hide him out."
"You are a wise one. Where'd you get it?"
"I didn't always sell cigars for a living.... He isn't apt to break loose and spoil this thing, is he?"
"Too scared to show his face.... If we can pull this across he can show it whenever he wants to—I'll be gone."
So Ovid Nixon was here—in town. It was as she had reasoned. If here, he was somewhere in the building Mr. Peaney occupied as a bucket shop.
"It's understood we divide—if I introduce my farmer to you—and show you how to get it."
"You bet, sister."
"Have you any money? Nothing makes people so confident and trustful as the sight of money?"
"I've got it," he said, complacently.
"Then you come to the hotel this evening.... Just do as I say. I'll manage it. In a couple of days—if you have the nerve and do exactly what I say—you can forget Ovid Nixon and take a long journey."
Two hours later, when Peaney entered the lobby of the Mountain House, he saw a very fat, uncouthly dressed backwoodsman talking to Pansy. She signaled him and he walked over nonchalantly.
"Mr. Baines," said Pansy, "here's the gentleman I was speaking about. He can advise you. He's a broker, and everybody trusts him." She lowered her voice. "He's very rich, himself. Made it in stocks. I guess he knows what's going on right in Mr. Rockefeller's private office.... You couldn't do better than to talk business with him.... Mr. Peaney, Mr. Baines."
"Very glad to meet you, sir," said Peaney, in his grandest manner.
"Much obleeged, and the same to you," said Scattergood, beaming his admiration. "Hear tell you're one of them stock brokers."
"Yes, sir. That's my business."
"Guess you and me had better talk some. I'm a-lookin' for somebody to gimme advice about investin'. I got a sight of money to invest some'eres—a sight of it. Railroad stocks, or suthin'. Calc'late on makin' myself well off."
"I'm not taking any new clients, Mr. Baines. I'm very busy indeed." He glanced at Pansy. "But if you are a friend of Miss O'Toole's possibly I can break my rule.... About how much do you wish to invest?"
"Oh, say fifteen to twenty thousand. Figger on doublin' it up, or mebby better 'n that. Folks does it. I've read about 'em."
"To be sure they do—if they are properly advised. But one has to know the stock market—like a book."
"And Mr. Peaney knows it like a book," said Pansy.
Peaney lowered his voice. "I have agents—men in the offices of great corporations, and they telegraph me secrets. I know when a big stock manipulation is coming off—and my clients profit by it."
"Don't call to mind none, right now, do you?"
Mr. Peaney looked about him cautiously. "I do," he said, in a low voice. "My man in the office of the president of the International Utilities Company wired me to-day that to-morrow they were going to shove the stock up five points."
"Um!... Don't understand. What's that mean?"
"It means, if you invested a thousand dollars on margin and the stock went up five points, you would get your money back, and five thousand dollars besides."
"Say!... I knowed they was money to be made easy.... But I hain't no fool. I don't know you, mister." Scattergood became very cunning. "I don't know this here girl very well—though I kinder took to her at the first. I'm a-goin' cautious. I might git smouged.... What I aim to do is to go careful till I git on to the ropes and know who to trust.... Hain't goin' to put all my money in at the first go-off. No, siree. Goin' to try it first kind of small, and if it shows all right, why, then I'm a-goin' in right up to my neck.... Folks back home would figger I was pretty slick if I come home with a million dollars."
"That's the smart way," Pansy said, with a little grimace at Peaney. "Why don't you try this International Utilities investment, to-morrow—say for a thousand dollars?... If you—come out right, then you'll know you can trust Mr. Peaney, and the next time he has some real information you can jump right in and make a fortune."
"Sounds mighty reasonable. I kin afford to lose a thousand—charge it up to investigatin'.... My, jest think of gainin' five thousand dollars jest by settin' down and takin' it."
"It's the way money is made," said Mr. Peaney.
"How'd I know I'd git the money?" Scattergood asked, with sudden doubt.
"Why, you'd see it," said Pansy, with another grimace at Peaney. "You put your thousand dollars on the counter, and Mr. Peaney puts five thousand right beside it. You see it all the time. If you come out right, you just pick up the money and walk off."
"No!... Say! That's slick, hain't it? Wisht you'd come along when we try, Miss O'Toole. Somehow I'd feel easier in my mind if you was along.... See you early in the mornin'.... Got to git to bed, now. Always aim to be in bed by nine.... G' night."
"Say," expostulated Mr. Peaney, "do you expect me to hand over five thousand to that hick? He might walk off with it."
"He might walk off with the hotel.... I told you you hadn't any nerve.... Why, give that fat man a taste of easy money and you couldn't drive him away. Let him sleep all night with five thousand dollars that came as easy as that, and you couldn't drive him away from your office with a gun.... Besides, I'm here to take care of him ...or are you a quitter?"
"Twenty thousand dollars," Mr. Peaney said to himself. "Then I'll show you how good my nerve is. Bring on your fat man...."
Scattergood was up at his accustomed early hour, and before breakfast had examined Mr. Peaney's premises from front and rear. The bucket shop was in a small wooden building. The ground floor consisted of a large office where was visible the big blackboard upon which stock quotations were posted, and of a back room whose interior was invisible from the street. A corner of the main office had been partitioned off as a private retreat for Mr. Peaney. What was upstairs Scattergood could not tell with accuracy, but he judged it to be a single room or perhaps two small rooms.... It was here, he felt certain, Ovid was secreting himself, and, with a certain grimness, he hoped the young man was not happy in his surroundings.
"I calc'late," he said to himself, "that Ovid, bein' shet up with his own figgerin's and imaginin's, hain't in no jubilant frame of mind.... Meanest punishment you kin give a feller is to lock him in for a spell with himself, callin' himself names...." When the office opened, Scattergood and Pansy were at the door, where Mr. Peaney welcomed them, not without a certain uneasiness at the prospect of intrusting his money to Scattergood.
"Let's git started right off," Scattergood said. "I'd like to tell it to the folks how I gained five thousand dollars in one mornin'—jest doin' nothin' but settin'."
"Very well," said Mr. Peaney. "You buy a thousand shares of International Utilities on a one-point margin.... Sign this order slip."
"And you set out five thousand dollars right where I kinn see it," said Scattergood, with anxious fatuity.
"Certainly.... Certainly."
Mr. Peaney deposited on his desk a bundle of currency which Scattergood counted meticulously, and then laid his own thousand beside it.
"It's as good as yours, right now," said Pansy.
"We'll stay right here in my private room," said Peaney. "We can watch the board from here, and nobody will disturb us."
"I'd kinder like to have folks see me makin' all this money," complained Scattergood, but he acquiesced, and presently quotations commenced to be posted on the board. International Utilities opened at seventy-six. Presently they advanced half a point, lingered, and returned to their original position.
"Kind of slow, hain't it?" Scattergood said, a worried look beginning to appear on his face. "Maybe them folks hain't goin' to do what you said."
Mr. Peaney went out into the back room, and presently the ticker began to click furiously. International Utilities leaped a whole point. In ten minutes they ascended a half point, and at every advance Scattergood figured his profit, and hesitated as to whether or not it would be best to close the transaction then and there, but Pansy cajoled him skillfully, making evident to Mr. Peaney the power of her influence over the old fellow.
Scattergood was the picture of the fatuous countryman. He was childlike in his ignorance and in his delight. He exclaimed, he slapped his thigh, he laughed aloud at each advance. "It's a-comin'. Next time she h'ists, the money's mine.... And 'tain't been two hours. What'll the folks say to that, eh? Me doin' nothin' but settin' here and makin' five thousand dollars in two hours.... Nothin' short of a million's goin' to satisfy me—and when I get that million, Mr. Peaney, I'm a-goin' to show you how much obleeged I be. I'm a-goin' to git you a whole box of them cigars. Pansy knows which ones. They come at a nickel apiece...."
Then ...then International Utilities touched eighty-one. Scattergood slapped Peaney on the back. He laughed. He acted like a boy with a new jackknife.
"It's all mine now, hain't it? Mine? Fair and square? It's my money—every penny of it?"
"It's yours, Mr. Baines. And I congratulate you. I myself have made a matter of fifty thousand dollars."
"Wisht I'd put up every cent I got.... But there'll be other chances, won't they? I kin git in ag'in?"
"Of course. To-morrow. Possibly this afternoon."
"And I kin take this now?" Scattergood had his hands on the six thousand dollars; was handling it greedily.
"It's yours," said Mr. Peaney.
"Calc'lated it was," said Scattergood. "Calc'lated it was.... Now where's Ovid?"
Mr. Peaney stared. Something had happened suddenly to this countryman. He was no longer fatuous, futile. His face was no longer foolish and good-natured; it was; granite—it was the face of a man with force, and the skill to use that force.
"Where's Ovid?" he demanded again.
"Ovid ... Ovid who? I don't know any Ovid."
He became suddenly alarmed and blocked the way to the door. Scattergood's eyes twinkled. "If I was you I wouldn't git in the way to any extent. Feelin' the way I do I sh'u'dn't be s'prised if I got a certain amount of satisfaction out of tramplin' over you."
"Hey, you put that money back ..."
"Mine, hain't it? Gained it lawful, didn't I?"
He walked slowly toward the door, and Mr. Peaney, still barring the way, found himself sitting suddenly in an adjacent corner. Scattergood walked calmly past and made for the back room.
"Stop him!" shouted Mr. Peaney. "Don't let him go in there."
But Scattergood proceeded methodically, leaving no less than three of Mr. Peaney's employees in recumbent postures along his line of march.... Pansy followed him closely, pale, but resolute. He ascended the stairs, and, finding the door at the top fastened from within, he removed it bodily by the application of a calk-studded boot.... Ovid Nixon was disclosed cowering against the wall, pale, terrified.
"Howdy, Ovid?" said Scattergood, as if he had met the young man casually on the street. "How d'you find yourself?"
Ovid remained mute.
"Fetched a friend to see you, Ovid," said Scattergood. "This is her." He pushed Pansy forward. "Find her better comp'ny than you been havin' recent," he said. "She's got suthin' fer you.... When she gits through visitin' with you, I calculate to have a word to say.... Here, Pansy, you kin give this here to Ovid." He counted off three thousand dollars before the young man's staring eyes.
"I—I'm glad I'm found," Ovid said, tremulously. "I was making up my mind to give myself up...."
"What fer?" said Scattergood.
"You know—you know I took three thousand dollars out of the vault."
"Vault don't show nothin' short," said Scattergood, waggling his head. "Counted it myself. Did look for a minute like they was three thousand short, but I kind of put that amount in, and then counted ag'in, and, sure enough, it was all there...."
Ovid stared, took a step forward. "You mean.... What do you mean, Mr. Baines?"
"I'm goin' to step outside of what used to be the door," said Scattergood, "and let Pansy do the explainin'.... What I do after that depends a heap on ... Pansy...."
Scattergood went outside and waited, his eyes on the stairs, but nobody offered to ascend. He could hear the conversation within, but it was only toward the end that it interested him.
"Ovid," said Pansy, "you've been hanging around my counter a good deal—and asking me to dinners, and to go driving on Sunday. What for?"
"Because—because I liked you awful well, Pansy, but now—now that I've done this—"
"If you hadn't done this? If you had made money instead of losing it?"
"I—oh, what's the use of talking about it? I wanted you should marry me, Pansy."
"But you don't want me any more?"
"Nobody'd marry me—knowing what you know."
"Ovid," said Pansy, sharply, "there's nothing wrong with you except that—you haven't enough brains all by yourself. You need to be looked after ...and I'm going to do it."
"Looked after?"
"Ovid Nixon, do you like me well enough to marry me?"
"I—"
"Do you? Yes or no ... quick!"
"Yes."
"Then ask me," said Pansy.
Presently the three emerged into the street from the deserted offices of Mr. Peaney. Scattergood Baines held in his hands two thousand dollars in bills, representing net profit on the transaction. He regarded the money with a frown.
"Somethings got to be done to you to make you fit to tetch," he said to it.
Out of an adjoining store came a young woman in a queer bonnet, with a tambourine in her hand. "Huh!" said Scattergood, and stopped her. "Salvation Army, hain't you?"
"Yes, sir."
"Hold it out," he said, motioning to the tambourine.
She obeyed, and he dropped into it the package of bills, and, looking into her startled, almost frightened eyes, he said: "It come from fools to sharpers.... I calculate nothin' but a leetle salvation'll kill the cussedness in it.... Make it do all the salvagin' it kin...."
Whereupon he passed on, leaving a bewildered woman to stare after him.
Next morning, Scattergood, accompanied by Mr. and Mrs. Ovid Nixon, alighted from the train in Coldriver. Deacon Pettybone happened to be standing on the depot platform.
"Make you acquainted with Mis' Nixon," said Scattergood, with gravity. "She's what Ovid come down with.... Can't blame a young feller for forgittin' work a day or two when he's got him sich a wife.... Deacon, this here girl's performed a service for Coldriver. Increased our population by two—her and Ovid. And, Deacon, Ovid hain't the fust man that ever was made so's he was wuth countin' in the census by marryin' him a wife...."
"Dummed if she hain't got red hair," was the deacon's astonished contribution. It was as near to congratulations as the deacon ever came.