THE CAPTAINS
There was consternation in the great offices of Marcus Trefethen, for the chief had given an order that could not be understood. It was a sentence of twelve words, but its result, carried out, would be the sacrifice of more dollars than might be calmly contemplated. Beside infinite further consequences—throwing away, for instance, the glory, now almost in reach of these offices, of seeing their head the richest man on earth; that was a probable result if the twelve words went into action. It is easier to knock things to pieces than to build them. A great fortune assured, a great place in the financial world won, a future tremendous enough for a Dumas romance lying a few steps on—and the man who had done the work was tossing these immensities from him like playthings. What did it mean? Three men skilled in affairs, in touch with the delicate pulse of business life, bent their heads together and discussed it. Friday the policy of the office had been in the full vigor of its unhurrying, unrelenting swing. Saturday the chief had been restless, and had gone away and left things in a plastic form which needed his master-touch—an action out of character. And the first thing on this Monday was the extraordinary order. As long as they dared they discussed it, Compton and Barnes and Haywood, the three who stood next the throne, and at length, not over-eagerly, Compton knocked and went into the inner room of the great man and closed the door. He emerged five minutes later with a slight dizziness in his air. He answered the inquiry of his associates’ attentive silence.
“It’s so,” he said. “The order is to be carried out. He’s gone clean mad. ‘All negotiations as to the Southwestern road to be stopped at once.’”
In the inner room a man sat at a desk littered with the crisp sheets of a large mail, and stared out of the window, down over a wide landscape of jutting roofs and soaring sky-scrapers, over a harbor filled with shipping, and a broad quiet ocean. He was a big man, with a look of bygone athletic form; his face was lined, and every line meant accomplishment; his mouth was set now as if he were this moment engaged in something whose doing called for force. He drew a breath, and spoke aloud.
“It’s done,” he said. “Thank the Lord it’s done. Compton and the lot think me insane; but they can’t undo it now. Thank the Lord it’s done.” Then he dropped his head into his hand and, gazing once more across the brilliant volcano of the feverish city, across the water-city of masts and smokestacks, his eyes rested on the sea. With the crystal-clear, unwavering, and rapid consideration which was his greatest power he reviewed events; he followed up a clue which Compton and Barnes and Haywood had missed. Clearly as if it were a business affair he reviewed the time—but fully he did it—no moment of the three days’ crisis was forgotten. For an hour he sat so, withdrawn from the whirlpool in which he had been the master-swimmer, which flowed about him yet.
On Friday at ten there had been a short meeting of the directors of the Imperial and Western Railway; seven men present had decided in half an hour a few questions which would affect twenty thousand. The Southwestern Railway, covering much of the same country, willing or unwilling, was to be consolidated. Unwillingly it would be, for it was an old road, with a large clientage which could be held in spite of the new Imperial, and the routes differed enough to make both still useful. That was the point. If there was money to make, why should not the Imperial merge the Southwestern and make it all? There was a large mortgage on the Southwestern, and Marcus Trefethen held the bonds; the Imperial and Western was richer; they could afford to lower their rates, forcing the older road to do the same; it was a question of a short time before the Southwestern would be making no money and would be unable to pay interest on the mortgage. Trefethen could foreclose—the two roads would merge. And beyond this, to Trefethen’s far-seeing eye—the eye of a poet in stocks and combinations—sounded the rhythm of a greater combination, a poem in which railroads rhymed to each other, and whose metre was the swing of accumulating millions. It was not money he wanted—he had plenty—it was the interest of the great game which drew him, the poet’s joy to fit the verse and realize the vision.
The seven men decided that there was no reason why money should be made within reach of their grasp which they did not grasp. Marcus Trefethen unexpectedly demurred for a moment. In a flash of memory it came to him who the president of the Southwestern was, and that all his fortune was in the road.
“It seems a bit brutal,” he said, “to undo solid work of forty years’ standing.”
“It’s a case of the survival of the fittest,” Carroll’s harsh voice answered. “Centralization makes for efficiency—this is a world where the inefficient goes under.”
“The Southwestern isn’t inefficient. It’s a well-managed business, with a future as well as a past.”
“That’s why we want it,” Harrington slid in with suave readiness, and the others laughed cheerfully. Carroll took up the thread.
“Don’t strain at a gnat, Trefethen. You’re new to this business of absorbing small corporations, but if you want to do large work you’ve got to get used to it. If you believe in evolution you must see the reasonableness. The big beast preys on the little one through nature, and you can’t stop with a jerk when you get to man. We’re part of the scheme. Like the other beasts, if we want to live we’ve got to eat small fry.”
“Live!” said Trefethen, and he threw a glance around the circle of multi-millionaires, and gave a short laugh.
Van Vechten spoke. “All this is a side-issue,” and his glittering small eyes ranged about. “The point is whether our railroad can afford to let the old Southwestern, with its large business as a carrier of both passengers and produce, and with the prejudice of habit in its favor, continue to exist. If we do, the Imperial can’t be a great railroad. We shall not only be forced to divide profits—we shall have to contend for our existence. The Southwestern stands for equal rates, and other theories worthy but impracticable. It will bend our policy into the same lines. At this moment we are richer than they, and can force them to sell—it is lack of business initiative to hesitate. As to brutality, I don’t take that seriously—sentiment has nothing to do with business. What reason, as reasons are known in affairs, is against our absorbing the Southwestern?” As the chilly tones fell, the men who listened saw no reason. Trefethen sighed as if he were tired.
“Of course,” he said. “I meant it; but I was mistaken. It’s my first affair of the sort, as Carroll said, and I’m not used to it. But it’s got to be done. The American Beauty rose at its finest is only obtained by nipping off buds. Well, we’ll make the Imperial an American Beauty, and nip off the Southwestern to begin.”
As simply as a golf club committee arranging for new greens details were settled, and the meeting ended; clerks in the great offices lifted their heads to look sharply as the members of it filed out, for this in flesh and blood was the plutocracy about which one read in the papers. The most important of them all, left alone, turned to the calendar on his desk, where his time was spaced into half-hour, sometimes into fifteen-minute divisions, to see what came next. As he whirled about on his swinging chair, a knock sounded at the door. Young Haywood opened it.
“The Assistant Secretary of the Treasury had an appointment at this hour, sir.”
“Yes.”
“He telegraphs that he is detained in Washington and cannot be here till to-morrow.”
“Very well.” But Haywood stood in the doorway. Marcus Trefethen lifted his head. “That’s all.”
“Yes, sir”—the young man hesitated. “I’m sorry to trouble you, but there’s a lady here—”
“A lady?” Trefethen’s tone was surprised and not pleased.
“I hope you won’t blame me—she is not an ordinary person; she is anxious to speak to you.”
Trefethen glanced at his calendar. Here was an empty half-hour, too long to sit idle, too short to substitute any business effectively. He might as well fill it in this way. “Show her in.”
In a moment he was standing before a slim woman of forty who carried her straight figure and wore her well-made clothes with certainty, and the air of a person used to consideration. She put out her hand frankly.
“I used to know you, Mr. Trefethen. We went to school together—Sarah Speed.” Trefethen remembered well enough. It was one of the old names in the old Southern town. “I’m glad to see you,” he said cordially, stirred a little, as a reminiscence of the place and times stirred him always, and he placed a chair for her.
“I’m afraid you won’t be when you know my errand,” the woman said, and looked at him earnestly with wide gray eyes. Her face was troubled and sad, he noticed, for all her look of prosperity. He awaited developments. “I’ll try not to keep you long,” she said; “but the matter is life and death to me. I am Mrs. Ruthven now—Morgan Ruthven, the president of the Southwestern Railroad, is my husband.” The man knew now, and his face hardened as he hardened his soul, and the woman saw it.
“Of course you know what I’m going to say”—her voice shook and then she lifted her head courageously. “I realize that it is awfully unpleasant for you, and not quite fair—you’re here for business, and it’s unbusinesslike to have a woman break in and beg for mercy. But it isn’t just mercy—it’s justice. You are going to force the Southwestern into a position where you can foreclose on it. It is a personal sort of business, that railroad. My husband’s father was its president before him, and it has been prosperous and honorable forty years. It is now. They don’t want to sell it. They’re willing to make terms with your new road. You haven’t any right to force them out simply because you can. You—”
Trefethen interrupted gently. “I know all this, Mrs. Ruthven,” he said civilly.
The woman caught her breath and made an evident effort for calmness. “I know you do. It’s foolish of me to try you on that side. I won’t waste your time,” she brought out quickly. “What I want to do is this: I want to tell you what it means to us, and let you see if it means as much to you. My husband is very ill. He has been in an alarming state for a week, and to-day and to-morrow are turning-points. His business is on his mind, and last night when I was trying to calm him I thought of coming to you and telling you how things were, and asking you to remember old days and”—her voice broke, but she cleared her throat quickly and went on in even tones—“and just be merciful. Of course you have every right—I don’t mean moral—but every legal right to wipe out the old Southwestern, but you don’t understand. If I go back to Morgan and tell him I’ve failed with you it will kill him as surely as if I gave him slow poison. The doctor said yesterday that everything depended on his being kept cheerful. Cheerful!” She laughed, half choking. “Keep a man cheerful on the rack! And there’s more—the boy. He is to graduate at Yale this summer, and he’s a boy who deserves—everything. The happiest, cleverest, best boy! Best at everything—away up in his classes—a hero among the other boys for athletics. But I mustn’t bore you,” she caught herself. “Only he—he isn’t just an ordinary boy”—and she laughed a little, tremblingly, knowing well enough through her trouble that all women think that of their boys. “He isn’t,” she insisted prettily. This wife of Morgan Ruthven’s was an attractive woman, Trefethen acknowledged to himself unwillingly. “I want you to realize about Carl, because then you will know how impossible it seems to take away all his chances, that he has worked toward for years. Such a good boy, Mr. Trefethen,” the gray eyes glowed with the soul close back of them. “He has worked so hard and been so happy. And”—she threw this impulsively at him—“he’s captain of the ’Varsity crew. You’re a college man. You know what glory that means. To give all that up—graduation with honors—the great race—it’s enough to break a boy’s courage. It would break my heart to have him. He has been promised a trip abroad with his best friend, a boy like himself, and after that he is to have a special course in Germany. He is full of ambition and vitality. He could do anything—be anything. He’ll have to give it all up—if you ruin the Southwestern. You see what it means to me—my husband’s life, my boy’s future.”
Marcus Trefethen was uncomfortable and annoyed as the low, eager words stopped suddenly. This was all beside the question. The question was this—to make a gigantic enterprise must small interests be sacrificed? It had been answered. They must. That being the case, why should he harrow his soul with the details of each sacrifice? It served no purpose, his mind being made up, and it might unsteady his nerves, which he needed to keep steady. While he considered how to put things most concisely, the intense voice went on:
“Rich men nowadays, great financiers, seem to have a new standard of right and wrong. I don’t see why. I don’t see why the old standards of honesty and fairness don’t apply as much to magnates as to every-day people. I don’t see how it can make you happier, anyway. There’s no real happiness in doing wrong, and it’s wrong to crush life and hope out of people just to be richer yourself. You can’t be good and do that, and you can’t be light-hearted unless you’re good—and it’s worth a few millions to have a light heart.”
The gentle, stirring tones stopped. The woman was full of individuality and charm, and she had thrown all of it into her speech. The quiet room was as if swept with the rush of a mountain stream. But the man who listened meant to be the rock that such a stream dashes against to break in foam. He looked at her with cold, half-shut eyes.
“Mrs. Ruthven,” he answered, “you are very eloquent for your husband’s cause. If eloquence might affect a business decision of importance, in which a number of large interests are concerned, yours would succeed. I considered this view of the question before I came to any arrangement. I was reluctant”—there were other things which Marcus Trefethen was going to say in poised sentences, but they were suddenly caught from him. The woman was on her feet; color flooded her face and her hand flew out in a gesture of command as she gave a quick gasp.
“Don’t go on—it’s no use—I see,” she said. “I’ll go home now.” And before he could reach the door she had opened it for herself and passed out.
Always as direct and swift as a Winchester bullet, velocity and penetration seemed to be added to Trefethen’s mind through the hours of that day. Every second was full, hands and brain were full to overflowing, yet not for one of the busy minutes was the memory of the morning’s interview crowded out. Through the voices of men who talked to him, with his intellect keyed to its keenest to follow, to lead theirs, he heard all day the soft inflections so incongruous down there in his office. He saw again and again the gray eyes as she threw out her hand, heart-broken, scornful. It stabbed him that he should have broken her heart—it stabbed him again that she should despise him. Clearly Marcus Trefethen was not yet an expert in the art of being cold-blooded; the woman had got on his nerves—he could not shake off the memory of her. It was annoying. He dined at a club with men who were not concerned in the life of his daytime, and his spirits rose, and he walked over to his house later with a light step.
“All I needed was to get out of the rut,” he said aloud and set himself to reading. And there, in pages of a book on Tibet was the face, the agonized gray eyes; the descriptions of Lhassa read with the woman’s subtle accent. He threw down the book irritably. “I’ve overworked. I thought it was impossible, but I must have done it. This is morbid. I’ll get to bed early and sleep it off.”
Out of the blackness, as he lay staring, he heard a low voice say, “The happiest, cleverest, best boy!” “Stuff!” Trefethen spoke aloud to himself. He was a bachelor—he had no boy—why should he care about a boy? Doubtless she had exaggerated the whole business. Probably this boy was as commonplace as the average—each woman thinks hers exceptional. Yet at three in the morning he turned impatiently and said words aloud to try if that might break their hold. “He isn’t just an ordinary boy—he isn’t!” he repeated aloud. And then for a short time he fell asleep. But at six his eyes opened and his brain searched miserably for a moment after the thing that was harassing him. Only a moment—the thing was at hand. He sprang out of bed.
“I have to shake off this possession—it’s out of proportion,” he said to himself and dressed, and astonished a sleepy valet by ordering his saddle-horse at seven.
But the park and the spring freshness and the plunging beast gave him only temporary relief. In his office at ten he felt, with almost a terror, the possession taking hold again. He read his paper sternly, missing nothing, but his grip on his own powers was not as firm as yesterday. He had a nervous dread of certain things he must see in print. There they were—Morgan Ruthven’s name and the situation as it was known outside. He flapped the page over, and his eyes rested on the column beyond. Sporting news—from long habit it held his eye—the news of the athletic world had been interesting to him for twenty-five years.
“Boat-races at New Haven this afternoon.”
The paper fell to the floor. He knew what he would do. It would straighten him out as nothing else could—he would go up to New Haven and see the races. Twenty-five odd years ago he had been captain of a famous crew, and boats and water fascinated him to this day—the change of scene, the air, the old sharp interest in a race—these would make him over. It was fifteen years since he had been at New Haven. No one there would recognize him. This was not one of the great regattas which would draw crowds of people who might know him. He could come and go alone and unnoticed. He would do it. He went through his mail, gave orders, changed appointments, and at twelve o’clock he was on the train at Forty-second Street.
At two he went out from it into the New Haven station—into a throng of fresh, boyish faces—with a sense of exhilaration. He rushed for a car and hung from a strap with enjoyment in the discomfort of it. Soon some one got out, and he dropped into a seat by a pair of big shoulders which prodded into him. The owner twisted about.
“I beg your pardon,” he said in a frank young voice. “I’m afraid I’m taking up too much room, but I’m wedged into this crack on the bias, and I can’t help it,” and the two laughed together.
There was an irresponsible gayety in the air, and Trefethen found himself catching it. This friendly, honest-faced boy, with his enormous, inconvenient shoulders, pleased him. He fell to talking—asking questions about the new buildings, about the regatta, the university. Surprised, amused, he felt the old enthusiasm of Alma Mater rising in him. He was a Yale man—this lad was a Yale man—the brotherhood asserted itself—for years he had not had this feeling. Past the green, serene with its three churches set like oases in its broad expanse, they shot; past rows of New England homes stately with a dignity which money does not achieve; into Whitney Avenue with its wide lawns and fine old houses, crowned with the great sweep of the Hillhouse place, and its dominating, pillared mansion. And about there the car jolted and stopped. Looking ahead, there was a line of other stopped cars—a block forward. By slow degrees the passengers got out, and studied the case, and speculated.
“Let’s walk,” said the boy. “It’s only a mile.”
And Trefethen, with a flattered sense of being officially taken into the guild of the able-bodied, swung out by the side of his new friend into a gay stream of people headed for Lake Whitney. His sponsor had gathered him under his wing with the simple, unconscious air of an older brother, which, to the man used to dictatorship, gave a piquancy to the situation. It was pleasant, if funny, to be looked after in this kindly way.
“My name is Richard Elliot,” said the lad, without preface, and gave his year, and turned his brown eyes consideringly on the older man.
Trefethen hesitated. Not to return this frank confidence would be ungracious, yet his name suggested himself too much just now throughout America to risk telling and hope to be unidentified. He compromised.
“My graduation is a quarter of a century or so ahead of yours, I’m sorry to say.” He smiled. “And my name is Lord”—and spoke truthfully, for this was his unused middle name.
At that moment the lad’s coat swung open, and Trefethen saw, pinned on his waistcoat, an Alpha Delta Phi pin. From some atrophied muscles sprang a throb which astonished him. Out flew his hand, the boy’s eyes met his, and their fingers slid into the fraternity grip.
“Why, this is bully,” spoke the youngster joyfully. “I’m awfully glad I met you. I wonder if there’s anything I can do to make you enjoy yourself. Tell you what”—he went on in a burst—“ginger! I’m glad I thought of it—come out on the water with me, will you, Mr. Lord? I’ve got a canoe, and my side-partner’s sneaked—can’t find him. Anyhow, there’s plenty of room, even if he turns up, if you’ll sit tight and part your hair in the middle. Are you used to boats?”
Trefethen smiled. “That was my business when I was in college.”
“What, were you on a crew?” the lad asked, his eyes bright with interest.
Vanity betrayed Trefethen suddenly. “I was captain of the ’Varsity crew of my year,” he stated, and then felt alarmed to see the impression.
Elliot stopped short, quite casual as to halting a long procession back of him. With that he gave his own knee a sounding slap.
“Ginger!” he exploded. “Ginger! Hullygee! and I never suspected. I might have known you were something with that build,” and he glanced over Trefethen’s figure searchingly. “Nobody has that look without its meaning something. Ginger!” he murmured again with no sense of monotony, and swung on, gazing sidewise admiringly at the embarrassed Trefethen. “Why, this is simply great, Mr. Lord,” he addressed him. “We must have you over at the boat-house to meet the men—maybe you can row on a veteran crew—I don’t know how that is—that’s not my line—but anyhow they’d love to meet you. Lord—Lord,” he reflected. “Don’t seem to remember the name—but the crews are not in my beat, as I said—they’ll place you fast enough at the boat-house. What’s your year?”
With that Trefethen realized that his incognito was in peril. “It won’t do, Mr. Elliot,” he said firmly. “I’m tired and came out for a lazy afternoon, and I don’t want to meet people, even Yale men. I’m not up to it. I’ll be delighted to go out in your canoe if it won’t inconvenience you, but I’m a back number, and would only be in the way at the boat-house.”
“Back number nothing,” responded the boy earnestly. “Of course they’d be proud and glad. Yale men don’t shelve their chaps who’ve won laurels for them. Did you win, by the way? What class were you?” he demanded.
Now Trefethen’s crew had gained an historic victory, and to give his class might place it and him. He did not want to be placed. He had an uneasy feeling that the multi-millionaire Marcus Trefethen would lose this unique comradeship which the obscure graduate Lord had found. This afternoon he had no use for his millions and his powerful name.
“Don’t pin an old bald-head, young man,” he argued. “Don’t you see I’m ashamed of my age?”
The boy drew his brows and looked surprised, yet the glory of a crew-captainship overshadowed this exhibition of human weakness. “All right,” he agreed; “but I’ll look you up, you know. What difference does it make, anyway? Did your crew win? You can tell me that, Mr. Lord, and that’s the point.”
“You bet we won,” Trefethen threw at him emphatically, like another boy.
“Hooray for you!” said the youngster, and laughed for pure love of Yale’s greatness, and with that they were at Lake Whitney.
Girls and young men shifted in and out through a scene of gayety. Gray-haired men, men in the prime of life, and not a few older women with pleased faces to be there, thronged the landing-steps, and embarked every moment in boats of all sorts. And in every mouthful of the spring air Trefethen drew a breath of that clean and happy out-of-doors’ enthusiasm, of forgetfulness of people for deeds, which is the inspiration of right athletics. In five minutes, Elliot, serious and businesslike over his responsibility, was pushing his canoe from the dock with a well-handled paddle, and Trefethen sat facing him in the bow. He realized so the tremendous development of the young figure as, his coat off, the big muscles worked through a thin silk shirt.
“You must be interested in something muscular by the look of you,” he said. “What’s your specialty?”
The frank eyes dropped. “Oh—I’m not so good as I might be at anything,” he answered, and his manner was confused. He went on quietly: “My stunt’s football, but I’d like to do it better than I do.”
“Some failure to make good, poor lad,” the older man thought to himself, and said aloud, with friendliness, “That’s too bad—you’re a strapping fellow. I should think you’d be strong at athletics if you really tried. But I dare say you make it up some other way. Probably you’re a fine scholar.”
The boy laughed. “Oh, no. Well, I’m not a positive disgrace to the family, but I haven’t made ΦΒΚ by a good bit. Oh, no, I’m afraid you wouldn’t call me a search-light as a student. I’m afraid I’m better developed on the physical than the mental tack—can’t be good at everything, you know. At least most can’t. There’s only one fellow I know in Yale who’s all ’round first-class, and he’s a miracle.” The brown eyes flashed sudden fire. “Gosh!” the lad shot through set teeth. “Gosh! I wish I had the killing of that man!”
Trefethen looked at the irate youth in surprise. “The miracle?” he inquired, smiling. “Do you want to kill the miracle?”
“No; oh, no.” Elliot’s responsive smile did not come. He was too stirred. “Not him—of course not. He’s the finest chap in Yale University—the pride of the whole class. He’s a peach. Why just let me tell you, Mr. Lord, what that fellow is: He made ΦΒΚ, he was on the Junior Prom. Committee. He made”—the boy hesitated and spoke low—“he made Bones. He’s good enough for the tennis team, and he could have been on the football team, and he’s captain of the ’Varsity crew. You know what that means. He should have been here to-day—and he’s gone. And the Harvard race in June will have to do without him. We’ll lose it, likely, because of him. He’s gone—gone!” The boy hurled the word at the man.
“Where has he gone—how?” the other asked eagerly, carried away by the speaker’s intensity.
The paddle dipped in water for two liquid beats before he answered, and then it was with an evident effort for self-control. “It makes me so hot I can hardly talk about it,” he brought out in repressed tones. “But you’re a good sport, and square and all that—you’ll appreciate how we feel. Last night at the training table the captain had a telegram and a special delivery. His father has been ill, and his business has all gone wrong, and he’s—ruined. Just plain that. And when they were certain of it, yesterday, he got a lot worse at the news, and they were alarmed and sent for Carl. And the money’s all lost, you see, so he can’t come back. It’s a darned shame!” the lad brought out, losing his grip on himself again. “I’d like to have that man, that captain of industry, that robber baron, who’s got Carl down and out, at the end of my fist”—the great young hand shot out, clinched. “It’s Marcus Trefethen—the Marcus Trefethen, you know—and if I got within ten feet of him I’d beat his bloomin’ brains out.” The man in the bow, eight feet away, gazed thoughtfully at the speaker.
The canoe had worked up the lake; far away beyond the bridge was a stir as if those there could see the first crews of the first race coming; dozens of boats, gay with boys and girls and talk and laughter, lay below, beyond them, but at the turn where the canoe floated it was quiet. There was deep silence.
“It’s all his work. He’s a thieving, cold-blooded monopolist,” the boy went on angrily. “He doesn’t care how much flesh and blood he chops into hash to feed to his great fortune. He doesn’t care that Carl’s father’s railroad stands for forty years’ solid, honest work. He doesn’t care that wrecking it is going to kill Mr. Ruthven—that Carl’s got to give up his career and grind for bread and butter—all that’s nothing.”
The vehement voice stopped; the boy was out of breath, and the man felt a necessity to put in a word. “There are usually two sides,” he said. “Possibly Trefethen may not be free to stop the workings of a great affair—there are many men concerned in such a business. And perhaps he may not entirely realize the suffering entailed.” He wondered at his own tone, at his desire to conciliate. Why should he care how a college student judged his conduct? But he cared.
The boy’s eyes, gazing up the course, questioned the distance. His big shoulders stiffened to alertness. “They’re coming,” he announced, and a twist of the paddle set the boat sidewise so that Trefethen also could see. “Ginger, they’re coming fast! It’s the Columbia freshmen against ours—golly, I hope we smear ’em! We lead—see—gosh, we’ve got a good lead!”
Garnished with strange interjections, the pleasant, well-bred young voice went on in staccato sentences, and Trefethen, still thunderstruck by the bolt that had been launched from the blue at him and all his works, watched the play of excitement on the unconscious face. The clear eyes followed keenly every movement of the rapidly nearing crews; they glowed with joy as the Yale boat forged ahead; they darkened tragically as the rival shell crawled up on it. It was a spirited scene and the impersonal rush of interest all about him carried the man out of himself and into the bright flood of enthusiasm. Suddenly he found himself cheering madly, waving his hat as the blue coxswain, megaphone strapped to his mouth, howled hoarse encouragement to his men—as the crew of Yale swept past and first beyond the finish stakes. How glad the boy was—and how glad he himself was! When had he had such a day?
“Hooray for Yale!”
He shouted, and laughed as he heard his own voice. He caught a long breath and drew in a mouthful of sentiments—sport—fellow-feeling—the game played fairly—he nearly choked with the unfamiliar taste—but he liked it.
The first event was finished. “Rain,” young Elliot announced, turning up his face. “We’ll put in under the bridge till it’s over. I’ll hurry, so we’ll get there before the holy-poly.”
The canoe flew in under heavy stone arches only just in advance of a crowd of others. Everybody knew his friend, Trefethen remarked. There was a shouted word for him from almost every boat which scurried in for shelter, and the boy responded with ready friendliness always, yet also, it seemed to the older man, with an unconscious air of being somebody. A rowboat with two students came bumping alongside, and one caught the stern of the canoe and pulled in to it. “Here, you, Dick—you can’t take all of the roof, if you are a great man,” he threw at Elliot.
“Lots of room,” said the boy cheerfully. “I want to present you to my friend, Mr. Lord. Mr. Selden—Mr. Van Arden,” and two hands gripped him heartily in spite of the inconveniences of the situation. “Mr. Lord was captain of the ’Varsity crew of his year,” Dick Elliot hurried to explain, and there was instant deep respect in the newcomer’s manner. “Won’t go to the boat-house. He’s tired—doesn’t want to be fussed over,” he forestalled their suggestions, and they met this with a cloud of protestation. He ought—the men would want to see him. It wasn’t right for Dick Elliot to keep a good thing to himself.
“Ought to get you two out of conjunction, anyway,” Van Arden remarked in a half-shy, eager, boyish manner. “Two captains in one canoe are overallowance!” and Trefethen looked inquiringly at him and then at Elliot.
“Why, he doesn’t know,” Jimmy Selden burst out. “Mr. Lord doesn’t know that Dick Elliot’s the great and only captain of the football team! Holy smoke! But they make ’em ignorant down in New York!”
And Trefethen—railroads and combinations entirely overshadowed—was deeply confused. Certainly he should have known—Elliot—last November’s victorious team—certainly. But he had forgotten the first name; he hadn’t thought of such luck—he simply hadn’t placed him. And the boy laughed at him as a kind and modest emperor might laugh at an obscure subject unaware of his greatness.
“Tell you what,” he flung at them, “if Mr. Lord is game, what do you fellows say to coming to feed with me at Mory’s this evening?”
“O. K.,” spoke Selden. “We’ll come, anyway.”
“No, you don’t,” responded the host promptly. “This is a party for a distinguished stranger, and there ain’t going to be no party without him. Will you come, Mr. Lord?”
“My train goes at—”
“Oh, there’s another one at nine, and ten—and maybe eleven,” urged Jimmy Selden. “And we’ll have big chops and wonderful potatoes and—”
“Look here, Jimmy, who’s giving this dinner?” demanded Elliot. “Will you come, Mr. Lord? We will have those chops and things, and they’re great; but it’s none of his old business.”
“Yes, I’ll come,” said Trefethen. “I never was as hungry for a chop in my life.”
“Let’s invite Pearly Gates, so he can sing and tell about outdoor sports,” suggested Selden enthusiastically. “And you might ask Pat O’Connor—he does lovely stunts. And what about—”
“Jimmy,” shouted the entertainer, “will you let me run my own dinner?”
“Two captains in one canoe are overallowance!”
“Well, I don’t know,” growled Jimmy. “The last one wasn’t satisfactory. You’ve got the cash, but I’ve got the sense.”
And with that there was a spectacular, close race coming down the water—the rain was over—the canoe and rowboat flew out to posts of vantage, with parting arrangements for dinner-time called back and forth.
Mory’s is a low, wooden, two-story house on Temple Street. Trefethen, looking at it, as he and Elliot turned the corner that evening, suddenly remembered it well. It had looked just like that, small and dirty-white, twenty-five and thirty years ago. Up five or six steps and into a side door they went. In each of the three or four rooms—low rooms, with bare floors and a few cheap sporting prints about the walls—are perhaps three heavy oblong oak tables covered thick with initials cut deep into the top. They are initials of students of Yale who for twenty-odd years have been making monuments of Mory’s tables. Against the walls of some of the rooms hang other tables, initial-covered, and the legs taken off. Freshmen are not allowed in this holy place, but the three upper classes constantly give dinners here—little dinners of six or so, for the most part, and the boys sing college songs all through them. The especial feature of such a meal is a chop, enormous in size, and served on a plate twelve or fourteen inches across and supported by glorified potatoes. The chops and potatoes at Mory’s are famous.
Marcus Trefethen looked over the array of grouped letters, many of them standing for names now on the country’s roll of honor, carved when their owners were fresh-faced lads like these who stood about him, who leaned over him with a big young hand now and then familiarly, comrade-like, on his shoulder. Earnestly they studied out famous name after name to show him.
“There’s a futurity list, too, you know,” Van Arden spoke in his buoyant, eager way. “Here’s Dickey Elliot’s mark—football captain to-day, President of the United States to-morrow—who knows?”
“What’s the matter with Daisy Van Arden, editor Yale News to-day—Emperor of Russia next week-ski?” Jimmy Selden contributed, and then, in an awed tone, with a big forefinger pointed to letters freshly cut, “Boys, here’s Carl.”
“Ah!” A sound that was half a groan came from them all in unison, and they leaned across each other’s shoulders and looked. “C. R.” and the year. There was a minute’s serious silence as the heads bent, crowded together.
“It’s a darned shame,” Dick Elliot said slowly, and then: “Well, let’s have some eats. Our table’s this way, Mr. Lord.”
Selden’s suggestions, though frowned upon, had been carried out rather closely. Pat O’Connor, indeed, turned up missing, but enormous chops and marvellous potatoes appeared, and Pearly Gates was on hand with the two gifts which made him a desired dinner guest. His father’s fortune having been won by Gates’s Pearly Capsules for Rheumatism, it was perhaps inevitable that the heir, Alexander, should be known in college as Pearly Gates. He was a Glee Club man with a remarkable voice, and, as Selden put it, a “peculiarly ready warbler,” and also he was born with a marvellous ineptness for athletics which amounted to an inverted genius. It had been discovered that his au naturel descriptions of a sporting event threw a light on the occasion which could not be found otherwise; also it was impossible to him, though healthy and well made, to jump, run, vault, swim, skate, play football, baseball, tennis, or any known game.
“The blame thing can walk,” Elliot assured Trefethen, patting the exhibit fondly as he inventoried his qualities. “Show the gentleman how pretty you walk, Pearly,” he urged, and Pearly beamed from behind his glasses and kicked out affectionately. “Trainer says he’s made up all right,” Elliot went on. “It’s just a sort of foolishness of the muscles. We’re proud of him, you know,” he explained. “He’s the only one. There isn’t such a fool in college. Pearly, which will you do first, sing or tell Mr. Lord about the football game?”
“I’ll do anything you want in about a minute,” responded the obliging gentleman, “but I do like to chew this chop. Let me alone just a minute. Talk about me, but just let me alone.”
“Now look here, Pearly,” Jimmy Selden spoke severely. “I didn’t get you here to eat—primarily, that is. You were asked here to sing and be foolish—now do your part like a man. You’re to amuse Mr. Lord. That’s what I got you for.”
“You got him—I like your nerve,” observed the host, outraged. “Am I giving this dinner, I’d like to know?”
And the songster stuffed food placidly as war went on over him.
“In a way—in a way, certainly,” Selden agreed soothingly. “But you know, Dickey, you do give the rottenest dinners when my fatherly care isn’t about you. You know you do. Now you’d never have thought of Pearly, would you? And he’s going to be the life of the thing in a minute. Pearly—that’s enough—tune up!”
“All right,” agreed the sweet-tempered youth, and pushed his chair away a bit and tossed back his blond head, and out through the room floated, in the purest, most thrilling baritone, the words of “Amici.”
Our strong band can ne’er be broken;
Firm in friendship’s tie,
Far surpassing wealth unspoken,
It can never die,
he sang, and the words and the young voice went to the soul of Trefethen. Twenty-five odd years ago a lad like these and other lads, his friends, had sung that song in these low, old rooms, and in their hearts was the promise—he remembered how hotly it had risen in his—that the good friendship would last out their lives. How had he kept it? What had he to show for the years—what that was worth the price paid—good-will toward the world, belief in ideals, altruism on fire to brighten the earth? Little by little he had paid these out, each bit wrapped in its cover of happiness, for a heap of money. The boys were all gone—the men—his friends—He had not seen any of them for years. He had not taken any interest. Now he thought of it, he had no friends. His fortune had followers; he had associates—that was all. And with that all the voices together rose happily in the chorus:
Amici usque ad aras
Deep graven on each heart
Shall be found unwavering, true,
When we from life shall part.
“Hooray!” yelled Jimmy Selden vociferously. “Pearly, you’re the shark on the warble. Now buck up and tell Mr. Lord how you saw the football game.”
Pearly was seized with shyness. “You fellows make a fool out of me,” he complained.
“No trouble at all,” Selden assured him.
“It’s this way, Mr. Lord,” the pink-faced, spectacled, good-humored songster confided. “All these chaps pretend they see extraordinary things and talk about ’em with queer words an’ things. An’ I don’t understand an’ I don’t think most of the others do. So I just tell ’em about how it looks to the eye of nature, an’ they think it’s funny. ’Tisn’t funny. I don’t think it’s funny. I went to that game an’ I ate my sandwiches in the open, on a shelf with more like me. Humans—rows of ’em—thirty thousand. The fellows trotted on, pitter-patter, lookin’ foolish, and all of us cheered—thirty thousand. Then the other fellows trotted on, lookin’ foolish, an’ we cheered. I knew precious little what they were doin’ in the game, but it was pleasant to know they were doin’ their best an’ that we had an object in bein’ there ’s long ’s they kept it up. They squatted and reflected an’ then they fell on each other, an’ then everybody rose and yelled and waved flags and Yale had the ball—or else Harvard had it. Then they scattered out, and Harvard’s red-head got hurt once in so often, and then twice somebody—I think Yale—kicked the ball over the shinto shrine at the end. Oh, this is truck”—he appealed to his confrères—“don’t make me tell any more,” he pleaded. And Trefethen shook with laughter as he had not shaken for years. “’S cruel to make sport of my infirmity,” reasoned Pearly. “But it looked that way to me, anyhow.”
The dinner was over; pipes came out of coat pockets. Elliot produced cigars for his guest of honor, and the military formation of the party “fell out” about the table; chairs grouped at every angle. Jimmy Selden pumped a profound sigh.
“Gosh! how Carl would have enjoyed them mushrooms!” he said sorrowfully.
Dick Elliot’s level black eyebrows drew into a frown. “I don’t know if we’d better talk about Carl to-night,” he said. “It’s a pretty melancholy subject to drag a visitor in on,” and he turned to Trefethen. “You see, Mr. Lord,” he explained, “the whole college is sore. Ruthven was popular with both the undergraduates and the faculty. Everybody was proud of him. He was just a miracle, you see. A whooping good fellow, a fine student, but no grind, and a tiptop athlete. The worst is the race in June. There’s nobody fit for his place. Harvard will likely smear us. It’s taken the heart out of the whole business. It’s hard on us all.”
Van Arden spoke in his nervous, graceful way. “It’s hardest on Dick, Mr. Lord. Ruthven was his roommate, and he and Dick had it arranged to go abroad after they graduated this summer. It’s been cut and dried for two years.”
“Yes, Dickey-bird’s chief mourner, all right,” Selden agreed sadly, and with that he burst forth: “If about four like us had Trefethen clasped inside these loving arms, we’d fit him for a career of sausage-meat pretty quick.”
“I give you my word,” Dick Elliot said, and he threw back his great shoulders and threw up his square chin, and his brown eyes blazed at Trefethen—“I give you my word, Mr. Lord, that if that man Trefethen should get alone with a bunch of us to-night, feeling the way we do, I’d hate to be responsible for his safety. I believe we’d hurt him.”
This nervous English and the muscles that loomed back of it gave the guest of honor a sensation. He pulled at his cigar, and his eyes did not meet the football captain’s.
At last, “You’re a belligerent young lot,” he reflected aloud, and then, “I dare say the man’s a beast,” he brought out slowly, “but you boys ought not to be swept away by half of a question. Remember, there are always two sides—get at the other and found your judgment on knowledge—don’t let personal feeling place you.”
“It isn’t all personal feeling, Mr. Lord,” Van Arden threw at him eagerly. “It’s the big question of the day; it happens to have fired a broadside into us just this minute, and we’re hurt and howling—but it’s the big question we’re up against—the magnates—the huge overweight fortunes that destroy the balance. You’re an unprejudiced man”—and Trefethen smiled inwardly—“you know they don’t play the game fairly, these captains of industry—don’t you?”
“I do not,” Trefethen said with emphasis. “I know of no proof for a general statement like that. Of course there is plenty of advantage taken—you can’t help that when men are human and the stake is worth while, but—”
“You can’t help it?” Dick Elliot flung at him. “Of course you can help it—if you’re civilized and decent. What’s a standard for if not to live up to, Mr. Lord? What would you think of a football man that ‘took advantage’ and then said he couldn’t help it because he was human and the game was worth while? We’re penalized if we try that on; we’re kicked out if we keep it up—and that’s right. Lord, that stake looks bigger to us than a billion dollars! I don’t see why fair play isn’t the thing—the only thing—for a white man after he leaves college as much as before.”
“Hold on, Mr. Elliot, give me a show,” Trefethen protested. “I’m not advocating dishonesty. I was going to say that there are hosts of men who have made fortunes honorably—don’t you hope to be rich yourselves?”
There was a short stillness, and Pearly—the richest—broke it. They turned in their chairs and looked at him surprised. “Seems this way to me—like th’ story in th’ op’ra, y’ see. When the gold shines over the waters of the Rhine, an’ the Rhine-maidens guard it, it’s nice, an’ everybody would like it. But when the ugly dwarf, Alberich, climbs up and grabs it, you feel as if you’d rather get nothin’ than get it by turnin’ into a beast like that.”
“Hooray for Pearly! He’s turning into poetry,” Jimmy Selden contributed in an undertone, but Van Arden’s keen face was alert and serious.
“It’s so, what Pearly says—he wouldn’t have any money but clean money. Nor I. But there’s more. Even if huge fortunes are made straight we don’t want them—Americans. We don’t want kings, good or bad, and we don’t want plutocrats, good or bad. They don’t fit us. We won’t have them, either, I’ll bet,” he added sagely, this college editor, speaking as a man with his hand on the pulse of the people.
“I don’t see why fair play isn’t the thing—the only thing—for a white man after he leaves college as much as before.”
“You’ve missed some points,” said Trefethen quietly. “If we didn’t have variety we wouldn’t have civilization. It’s the men who step out of the ranks who make progress. We’d all be cave-dwellers yet if some old skin-dressed fellow hadn’t begun to accumulate stone knives and oyster-shells. I dare say they called him a menace to society. It’s better for the world that some houses should be filled with pictures and books than that all should be hovels alike.”
He stopped and considered, puffing at his cigar thoughtfully, and the bright-faced boys, sitting about the table, regarded him eagerly, respectfully.
“The race is tied together. The whole procession moves up when the leaders take a step. The hovels of to-day have luxuries the palaces didn’t have once. It’s competition; it’s survival of the fittest that raises the standard for all. To the man fittest to organize and lead goes the prize. It’s right it should go to him; he has earned it. He has created capital by efficiency. Before long his income inevitably exceeds his expenditures. A fortune is made, and it is a benefit to mankind that men of mental grasp should handle such fortunes, have the power to found libraries and hospitals and great public works; doing good to thousands, rather than that the money should be dribbled out in small sums among those who can’t accumulate and who can’t spend wisely.”
Van Arden was on his feet; his tall, nervous figure quivered with intensity. “That’s the optimist view, Mr. Lord; that’s not the average. Here and there, one in a thousand, maybe, is a magnate who takes his luck responsibly, but mostly what you see is vulgar greed—use of privilege without genius—brutal indifference, power used tyrannically, cynical hardness to human feelings. Why, the papers are chuck-full of it. Look at our case; look at this Trefethen.” He stopped and smiled a frank deprecation. “You see, I’m back to the personal view. I own up. Well, it isn’t an abstract question in New Haven to-night. It’s concrete as the dickens—it’s Carl.”
“This Trefethen,” lighting a fresh cigar, did not care to smile back into the sincere eyes; he occupied himself closely with the cigar. The football captain thundered in.
“Carl!” he echoed dramatically. “Of course it’s Carl, and he’s an illustration of the whole mess. What sort of fairness has been shown in his case? Legal, all right; but that play wouldn’t go in football. Just because Trefethen & Co. think they might as well make all the money in sight. He’s rolling now, but they say he’s going to be the richest man in the world—a sweet ambition! Hope he’ll enjoy himself! I’ll bet a doughnut he isn’t happy this second. I wouldn’t be in his skin for a dollar a minute.”
And the silent Trefethen squirmed under that skin and agreed.
“He’s a Yale man,” put in Van Arden reflectively.
“More’s the pity,” growled Elliot. “We’re not proud of him. Do you suppose any of us will ever turn into case-hardened octopuses like that? Ginger! I’ll make a try at least not to be a disgrace to my Alma Mater.” With that, as his guest sat quiet, his eyes on his cigar, “We’re giving Mr. Lord a dickens of a gay time,” Elliot announced cheerfully. “Unloading all our kicks for his benefit. Now cut it out, fellows. Mr. Lord’s not crazy about our great thoughts on political economy. He’s no captain of industry—” All at once he seemed to realize that in fact they did not know what their guest might be. “You said you were a lawyer, didn’t you?” he demanded a bit anxiously.
Trefethen smiled. “I’ve been called as bad as that,” he answered truthfully—for he had been admitted and had practised twenty years ago. And the boy was quite satisfied.
“That’s all right,” he said, relieved. “Pearly Gates, you sing.”
And Pearly’s lovely voice floated out as promptly and as easily as if some one had started a music-box. First an old song adapted to the football captain of the year, and all the room—but one—joined in as he led it:
Here’s to Dick Elliot, Dick Elliot—
Here’s to Dick Elliot, he’s with us to-night.
He’s with us, God bless him; he’s with us, God bless him;
Here’s to Dick Elliot, he’s with us to-night.
With its never-ending chorus of
Chug-a-chug, chug-a-chug, chug-a-chug—
Then, slipping effortless from one air to another, he was singing a favorite of Trefethen’s own time.
Winds of night around us sighing,
sang Pearly,
’Neath the elm-trees murmur low.
And the other voices joined in, and the deep sound flooded the room as the boys sang words about
The merry life we lead ’neath the elms,
’Neath the elms of dear old Yale.
They were out in the street now, marching together, arm linked in arm. Dick Elliot’s big hand was on the older man’s shoulder, and the touch was pleasant to him—so pleasant that his voice stopped in the middle of a line once, and the phalanx burst into a roar of young laughter.
“Did it swallow a fly?” Jimmy Selden inquired impudently. They were all boys together now for sure.
So, singing and laughing, the five went down the dark street to the station, Trefethen in the midst, the guest, the hero, quite dazed, and happy as he thought he had forgotten how to be happy.
“You wouldn’t let us give you a real red celebration,” Selden explained, as they stood on the platform, waiting. “It was fittinger that a crew captain should be officially blowed to a party, and that dinner wasn’t much—just a snack. But we done what we could—I done my durndest,” he finished modestly. And Dick Elliot’s scornful “Huh!” came out of darkness.
“Did we give you the time of your life? Do you like us?” Jimmy investigated further, and Trefethen laid a hand on his arm.
“You’ve given me the best time I’ve had in twenty-five years,” he said. “And I like you a lot.”
“Well, we like you; you’re the right sort,” Van Arden’s quick tones threw back frankly, and with that Pearly broke easily, sweetly, into
He’s a jolly good fellow
As nobody can deny.
And the others chorused it with ringing notes. And as the train moved slowly out—Trefethen standing on the platform, watching his friends with intent eyes, with a new sense of loneliness—Pearly Gates’s thrilling, clear music rose again in “Bright College Years,” the other voices instantly lifting to his.
The seasons come, the seasons go;
The earth is green or white with snow;
But time and change shall naught avail
To break the friendships formed at Yale
they sang. And the train moved faster, and the boys stood in the half-light of the station, arms around each other’s shoulders, leaning on each other, singing. And the train drew away.
On the 27th of August the Celtic sailed from Liverpool for New York. As the land of Wales melted into clouds a young fellow with conspicuous, broad shoulders walked aft and fell into conversation with a man who stood watching the fading earth-line.
“I never can take any stock in the ship till the land’s clean gone,” the man said. “It will be gone in a few minutes now.” He glanced about the deck as if the next interest were awakening. “A crowd on board,” he said. “Quite a lot of celebrities. Have you noticed the passenger list?”
“No,” answered the boy politely, but a bit absent-mindedly.
“There’s Lord and Lady de Gray, and a French marquis—I forget his name; and a Russian prince—I can’t pronounce his. And there are several big Americans. That’s Trefethen over there—Marcus Trefethen, the capitalist.” He nodded across the deck where a tall man stood alone, smoking and staring out at sea.
The boy turned. “Marcus Trefethen? I’d like to see him.” His eyes searched. “Where?”
“The tall fellow with a cigar—right where you’re looking.” The gaze changed to bewilderment, and with that there flashed to his face an astonished delight. “Marcus Trefethen your grandmother!” he threw at the man, and with a leap he was gone.
“Mr. Lord—why this is great! You haven’t forgotten me—Dick Elliot—the races on Lake Whitney last May. Yes—I didn’t think you would.” Trefethen’s hand hurt with the grip it got.
“So you and young Ruthven had your trip, after all?” he said five minutes later.
“Golly! Did we!” responded Elliot with enthusiasm. “Never had such a bully time in all my life, and Carl’s as happy as a king—his father all right, his two years in Germany arranged, everything going his way. The finest chap. I wish you knew him! Wasn’t it queer, though, about that old Trefethen, the octopus? Nobody understands, but he suddenly just took the clamps off, and buzz! the wheels went ’round. The Southwestern Railroad came to, and is going like a queen, and Mr. Ruthven was well the minute he heard it—pretty near dead he was, too. Carl came back to college with howls of joy, and he rowed the race, and we smeared the Harvards, and the whole thing went like a book. What do you suppose happened to old Trefethen?” he shot at the other. “Lost his mind, didn’t he?”
“Old Trefethen” puffed at his cigar. “Hadn’t heard of it,” he said tersely.
“Well, I’ll tell you one thing, Mr. Lord. I feel differently toward that old galoot. Since the Southwestern business I respect him. I don’t understand, but I swear I respect him. I’ve read every scrap about him in the papers, and I’ve formed an opinion. It’s my idea that he’s decided there are better games than being the richest man in the world. He’s certainly thrown away his chance for that, by what they say.”
“He certainly has,” the other responded, as one having authority, but the boy did not notice. A flash of amusement lit his face and his words flashed after it.
“Do you know, Mr. Lord—that’s queer—I’d forgotten.” The hurrying words fell over each other. “You were pointed out to me as Trefethen this minute. That’s how I came to see you.”
The man knocked his cigar ash into the sea. “Curious,” he said quietly. “It’s not the first time, however—I look like him.” He went on: “Tell me about yourself. What are you going to do when you get home?”
The bright face grew serious. “Well, Mr. Lord,” he said, “I’m in bad luck. Not the worst, for my people are all right, thank Heaven—but it’s bad. My father’s business—he’s a steel man—is in poor shape, and it’s about inevitable that he’s got to fail. If he could raise a hundred thousand he could tide through, but he can’t do it. It’s too much for the small people, and the big people won’t risk it—and he can’t ask them. So. They wanted me to stay over with Carl and finish out my six months, and I could, for the trip is off money that was left me. They said they’d rather have me, and I’d only be in the way at home, and all that. But it seemed to me that if the governor was in a scrape I’d better go and stand by him. Even if I’m not good for much at first, I might help brace him up. Don’t you think I was right?” he asked wistfully.
“I do, indeed,” the other answered with emphasis. And then slowly, staring at the earnest face: “I wish I owned something like a boy to stand by me in time of trouble.” A quick color rushed to Elliot’s cheeks.
“If you mean that—you don’t know me much—but if you’d let me—I’m not a lot of good yet, but I’m trustworthy. I’ll stand by you, Mr. Lord.”
It was very boyish, but it went straight. So straight that Trefethen did not speak, and the lad went on eagerly: “Looks like you were in a scrape this minute, from the cock of your eye. Is it money? All right. Here I be. Just use me for a battering-ram or any old thing, and I’ll take charge of you and the governor together.”
At that Trefethen found his voice and his hand fell on the huge shoulder. “You’re adopted,” he said. “Just remember that. But I don’t need you just at present—not that way. I’m doing rather well financially.”
Suddenly he drew back a step, and put his hands in his pockets and stared at the boy quizzically, a slow smile coming in his eyes. “You’re a dear lad,” he said, and his voice sounded strange to him. “But you’re an expensive luxury. That afternoon at New Haven cost me five million dollars down, and Heaven knows how many more by this time.” The boy stared, amazed. “I don’t grudge it, you know. What I got for it has paid, and will. I got a new point of view and a sense of proportion. I got a suspicion that what men want millions for is happiness, and that millions don’t bring it; I got a startling and original impression that the only way to get anything out of life is to live it for other people; I got the thought that service and not selfishness is the measure of a man’s value, and I got—oh, I got this thing rubbed in with salt and lemon juice till it smarted like the devil—I got the idea that to play the game fairly is the first thing required if you mean to be a man at all.”
The boy gasped. “Who are you?” he stammered.
“Wait a minute. I was just going over the edge of a precipice. I’d have slid down pleasantly—a long way down—and I’d have wallowed in gold at the bottom, and it would have been a mighty cold, hard bed, too. I’d have been miserable and lonely, with half the world envying me, after I’d got there. But there were two or three strings tied to me yet—and they were lying up on God’s earth above the precipice, and you boys got hold of them and yanked me back. Great Scott, but you yanked manfully!” he said, and laughed and shook his head at the memory. “It wasn’t your political economy—I’d read things something like what you said. But I saw myself through your eyes—honest eyes. You had nothing to gain or lose, and you gave me your sincere thoughts—and you gave ’em from the shoulder, you’ll allow me to say. Jove, how you roasted me! A spirit that I’d forgotten about was in every word, and I caught it, and I’m trying to keep the disease, for I believe that, from a practical point of view, it’s the spirit that will bring a man peace at the last—and all along.”
“Who are you?” Dick Elliot demanded again in a frightened voice.
“I think you half know,” the other said. “I’m Marcus Lord Trefethen, and I’ll never be the richest man in the world, and I thank Heaven for it. Don’t hate me, boy—don’t be afraid of me, for your friendship’s important to me,” he went on. “You remember what you said—you’d stand by me. I need you now.” And the young face brightened and smiled frankly at him.
“Ginger, I’ll do it, too!” he said. “You’re worth saving. You can’t phase me just by being a bloated bondholder, Mr. Lor—Mr. Trefethen.”
“That’s the sort,” said Trefethen gladly. “And as you belong to me a bit—adopted, you remember—you’re to take that hundred thousand to your father from me. We’ll send him a Marconi that will stagger him.”
Elliot gasped again. “Oh, no—I can’t do that—I wouldn’t have told you,” he stammered.
“Come, Dick, don’t be a jackass,” advised Trefethen. “It’s business—I’m lending it to him—I’ll skin you both yet.” And then, as he still hesitated, with wide troubled eyes on the great man’s face, Trefethen put out his hand and found the football captain’s fingers, and twisted them into the fraternity grip—and the old college boy smiled at the young one. “Brothers, aren’t we?” he demanded. “You’ve done a lot more for me than I can do for you,” and with that, a flash of misty mischief coming into his eyes. “‘By ginger,’” quoted Marcus Trefethen, “let me ‘make a try at least not to be a disgrace to my Alma Mater.’”
LITTLE MARCUS