vi
Well, we had to wait. Life must wait upon death because it can. There was much to think about. Mordecai spent two hours with me making precise arrangements against any contingency. It was very important that Wall Street should know nothing about Galt’s condition. The news might cause a panic. I was to call him up at regular intervals by a direct telephone wire on which no one could listen in. If any rumor got out it should be met with blank silence.
“Zey vill vind id zoon oud no matter,” he said.
What he needed was a little time to prepare the financial structure for the imminent shock. He would inform his associates and such others as were entitled to know and together they would agree upon protective measures. Galt’s death was bound to produce a terrific convulsion. There is no line of succession in Wall Street, no hereditary prince to receive the crown. When the monarch falls the wail is, “The king is dead! There is no king!”
About 10 o’clock in the morning of the second day Galt opened his eyes. He could neither move nor speak, but he was vividly conscious. Mrs. Galt came to the room where I had established a work station to tell me this.
“He wants something,” she said. “He says so with his eyes. I think it is you he wants.”
His eyes expressed pleasure at seeing me. Not a muscle moved. He could see and hear and think, and that was all. He did want something. I guessed a number of things and he looked them all away. It wasn’t Mordecai. It wasn’t anything in relation to business. In this dilemma I remembered a game we played in childhood. It was for one of the players to hold in his mind any object on earth and for the other to identify it by asking questions up to twenty that had to be answered yes or no. Galt’s eyes could say yes and no and he could hear. Therefore anything he was thinking of could be found out. I explained the game to him, he instantly understood, and we began. Was the thing a mineral substance? He did not answer. Was it vegetable? He did not answer. Was it animal then? Still no answer, but a bothered look in his eyes. I stopped to wonder why he hadn’t answered yes or no to one of the three. Was it perhaps something mineral, vegetable and animal combined? His eyes lighted, saying yes. Was it in this room? No. Was it far away? No. Was it just outside? Yes.
I went to the window and looked out. In every direction below the level of the finished terrace was the sight of construction work in a state of suspense, heaps of materials, tools where they had fallen, power machinery idle. A thought occurred to me. I went back and looked in his eyes.
“We’ve had all the work stopped because of the noise. Do you wish it to go on? Is that what you want?”
“Yes,” he answered, with a flash of his eyes.
Two hours later the air was vibrant with the clank-clank of many steam drills, the screech of taut hoisting cables, the throb of donkey engines, the roar of rock blasting, and he was happy.
Incidentally the resumption of work served Mordecai’s purpose in an unexpected way. Rumor of Galt’s illness did get out. The newspapers began to telephone. Unable to get information in that way they thought it must be serious and sent reporters out in haste. They returned to their offices saying they couldn’t get a word out of us, but Galt couldn’t be very ill so long as all that uproar was permitted to go on.
A week passed in this way. One evening on my return from an urgent trip to New York Natalie came racing down the great hall to meet me, with a flying slide at the end, as in the old days she was wont to meet Galt, and whether she meant it quite, or miscalculated the distance, I do not know; but anyhow I had either to let her go by off her balance or catch her, and she landed in my arms.
“Oh, Coxey, he’s asking for you,” she said, getting her feet and dragging me along at a run. “He’s better all at once. He can talk.”
The faculty of speech was gradually restored. When he could talk freely he told us that he had been conscious all the while, day and night. He heard every word that was spoken at the consultation. Therefore he had more expert opinion on his condition than we had. He had kept count of time. He knew what day it was when he first opened his eyes, and since then in his sleep he had been continuously conscious. He felt no pain.