IV
“The point we want to hammer in is that we—the Ward family—are the only people in Sycamore county who are in touch with the Campbell power, social and financial,” John elucidated to his friend Townley. “Modest, retiring to the point of utter self-effacement as we, the Wards, are, no other family in the community has ever been honored by a visit from so big a bunch of assets. And when it comes to social prominence their coming will link Kernville right on to Newport where old Walter Scott Campbell owns one of the lordliest villas. Here’s a picture of it I found in ‘Summer Homes of Great Americans.’ We’ll feed in the pictorial stuff from time to time, using this photograph of Mrs. Campbell mother keeps on the upright at home, and that cut of Walter Scott I dug out of your office graveyard. Your record shows you ran it the time the old money-devil was indicted under the Sherman law for conspiracy against the peace and dignity of the United States in a fiendish attempt to boost the price of bathtubs. The indictment was quashed as to the said Walter because he was laid up with whooping cough when the wicked attack on the free ablutions of the American people was planned or concocted, and he denied all responsibility for the acts of his proxy.”
“You’ve got to hand it to that lad,” said Townley ruminatively. “Anything you can do to put me in the way of a soft snap as private secretary for his majesty would be appreciated. I’ve had considerable experience in keeping my friends out of jail and I might be of use to him.”
John rose early on Sunday morning to inspect his handiwork in the section of the Journal devoted to the goings and comings, the entertainments past and prospective and the club activities of Kernville. Townley had eliminated the usual group of portraits of the brides of the week that Mrs. Walter Scott Campbell’s handsome countenance might be spread across three columns in the center of the page. The photograph of Mrs. Campbell had been admirably reproduced, and any one informed in such matters would know instantly that she was the sort of woman who looks well in evening gowns and that her pearl necklace was of unquestionable authenticity.
The usual double column “lead” was devoted wholly to the announcement of the visit of the Walter Scott Campbells of New York and Newport to the Robert Fleming Wards of Kernville, with all biographical data necessary to establish the Campbells in the minds of intelligent readers as persons of indubitable eminence entitled to the most distinguished consideration in every part of the world. Mrs. Campbell, John had learned from “Distinguished American Women,” was a Mayflower descendant, a Colonial Dame and a Daughter of the Revolution, besides being a trustee of eighteen separate and distinct philanthropies, and all these matters were impressively set forth. Mr. Campbell’s clubs in town and country required ten lines for their recital. Any jubilation over the coming of so much magnificence was neatly concealed under the generalization that the horizon of Kernville was rapidly widening and that there was bound to be more and more communication between New York and Kernville. Mrs. Ward, the article concluded, had not yet decided in just what manner she would entertain for the Campbells, but the representative people of the city would undoubtedly have an opportunity to meet her guests.
“The first gun is fired!” John whispered, thrusting the paper through Helen’s bed-room door. “Read and ponder well!”
Mrs. Ward read the announcement aloud at the breakfast table as soberly as though it were a new constitution for her favorite club.
“That Miss Givens who does the society news for the Journal has more sense than I gave her credit for,” she said. “There isn’t a word in that piece that isn’t true. But that portrait of Ruth is a trifle too large; you ought to have warned them about that! When Tetrazzini sang here they didn’t print her picture half as big as that.”
“Well, mother, the Journal simply begged for a photograph. People of note don’t mind publicity. They simply eat it up!”
“Well, the article is really very nice,” said Mrs. Ward, “but I hope they won’t say anything more until the Campbells arrive.”
John, aware that several columns more bearing upon the Campbell visit were already in type in the Journal office, was grateful to Helen for changing the subject to a pertinent discussion of the proper shade of wall paper for the guest-room.
On Tuesday the Journal’s first page contained a news-article on the crying need of enlarged railway facilities, adroitly written to embody the hope of the transportation committee of the Chamber of Commerce, that when Mr. Walter Scott Campbell of the board of directors of the Transcontinental paid his expected visit to the city he would take steps to change the reactionary policy of the road’s operating department. The same article stated with apparent authority that Robert Fleming Ward, the well-known attorney, whose guest Mr. Campbell would be, had pledged himself to assist the mayor and the Chamber of Commerce to the utmost in urging Kernville’s needs upon the great capitalist.
“See here, John, you’ve got to be careful about this Campbell business!” Mr. Ward’s tone was severe. “I know without your telling me you inspired that piece in this morning’s paper. Campbell never saw me in his life and that article gives the impression that he and I are old cronies. It’s going to cause us all a lot of embarrassment. It won’t do!”
“Sorry if it bothers you, father; but there’s nothing untrue in that article. You’ll be the only man in town who can get Campbell’s ear. If he refuses to interest himself in a new freight house and that sort of thing, that’s his affair.”
The stenographer knocked to announce Mr. Pickett.
“Say to him,” replied John, indifferently, “that we are in conference but he can see us in just a moment.”
“Pickett!” exclaimed Ward, senior, as the door closed. “What on earth brings him here!”
“The Campbells are coming,” replied John with a grin. “Pickett’s president of the Water Power Company, and he wants to line us up to get Campbell interested in making a new bond deal.”
“Humph! If that’s what he wants I like his nerve. We don’t even speak when we meet.”
“You’ll be speaking now! Let’s go out and give him the glad hand of brotherly greeting.”
A little diffident at first, Wesley T. Pickett warmed under the spell of the Wards’ magnanimity.
“I’ve regretted very much our little differences——” he began.
“There’s no feeling on our side at all, Mr. Pickett,” John declared and his father, a little dazed, murmured his acquiescence in this view of the matter, and eyed with interest a formidable bundle of documents in Pickett’s hands.
“Fact is,” remarked Pickett, with a sheepish grin as he re-crossed his legs, “you were dead right on that matter of the pollution of the river. Swiggert probably did the best he could with our defense but you were right when you told me I’d save money and avoid arousing hostile feeling in the community by pleading guilty.”
“It’s always disagreeable to be obliged to tell a man he hasn’t a good case,” Ward announced.
“Well, I want you to know I respect you for your honesty. Swiggert encouraged me to think he might get us off on some technical defect in the statute, and it cost me a two thousand dollar fee to find he was wrong.”
“The point he raised was an interesting one,” Ward remarked mildly, “and he might have made it stick.”
“But he didn’t!” Pickett retorted a little savagely. “Now I got a matter I want the God’s truth about, absolutely. It’s a row I’ve got into with a few of my stockholders in the glass company. The fools got the idea of freezing me out! It’s all in these papers, and I want you to give it all the time it needs, but I want an opinion,—no more than you can get on a letter sheet. Swiggert uses too many words and I’ve got to have a yes or no.”
The thought of being frozen out caused Mr. Pickett to swell with indignation. He turned from father to son in an unvoiced but eloquent appeal to be saved from so monstrous and impious an assault upon his dignity.
“Certainly, Mr. Pickett,” said the senior Ward, accepting the papers. “We’ll be glad to take up the matter. It’s possible I may have to ask some questions——”
“That will be all right, Ward! I don’t mind telling you I’m a good deal worried about this thing. I’m at the Elks Club most every noon, and if you’ll just ’phone when you’re ready to see me we can have lunch together. Now, I guess a retainer’s the usual thing. What do you say to a thousand or two?”
John with difficulty refrained from screaming that two would be much more to the taste of the firm, but his father’s gentle and slightly tremulous murmur that one thousand would be satisfactory stilled him. The check written with a flourish, lay on the edge of Ward senior’s desk while Pickett abused the enemies who were trying to wrest from him the control of the glass company.
“I’m familiar with the general question you indicate,” said Ward, senior; “I went into it a while back in a similar case for a client in Newton county; we shall give it our best attention.”
“I got confidence in you!” blurted Pickett. “That’s why I brought the job here.” He thrust a big cigar into his mouth and began feeling in his pocket for a match which John instantly supplied.
“Notice by the paper,” remarked Pickett, “that Campbell of the Transcontinental’s comin’ out. If you could arrange it, I’d like a chance to talk to him about the Water Power bonds the Sutphen Trust’s handled for us. I went to New York a couple of weeks ago to see about refunding and I couldn’t get near anybody but the fourth vice president. Wouldn’t want to bother you, but if I could just get a chance at Campbell and show him the plant——”
“I’m sure that can be arranged very easily,” John answered quickly, noting a look of apprehension on his father’s face. “It will be a pleasure to arrange a meeting for you.”
“I’d particularly appreciate it,” said Pickett, shaking hands with both of them; and John accompanied him to the head of the stairway, where they shook hands again.
“You don’t think,” asked Ward, senior, looking up from Pickett’s papers, which he had already spread out on his desk,—“you don’t really think the Campbells had anything to do with this——”
“Not a thing, dad!” John replied gayly. “I’ll just call up Helen and tell her to go ahead with the redecorating and other things necessary to put our house in order for royalty!”
John had deposited Pickett’s check and was crossing the lobby of the Kernville National when he met Jason V. Kirby leaving the officers’ corner.
“Hello, John!” exclaimed the brick manufacturer affably. “Haven’t seen you round much of late. Funny I ran into you; just going up to see you. You know Taylor’s my lawyer, but he’s in Chicago trying a long case, and I got an abstract of title I’m in a hurry to have examined. Glad if you or your father would pass on it. Farm I’m buying out in Decatur township.”
“Certainly, Mr. Kirby; we can give it immediate attention,” John replied as though it were a common occurrence for him to pick up business in this fashion.
To Kirby’s suggestion that if he didn’t mind he might walk over to the brick company’s office and get the abstract, John answered that he didn’t mind in the least. The abstract was bulky, and John roughly estimated that a report on it would be worth at least a hundred dollars. Kirby explained that the land was needed for the extension of the brick business and that he had taken a ten-day option to keep a rival company from picking it up.
“Look here, John,” remarked Kirby carelessly, as John started off with the abstract in his pocket, “I see that the Campbells are coming out to visit your folks. Don’t let ’em overlook Kirby brick. We’re reachin’ right out for New York business.”
“Certainly, Mr. Kirby. Father has it in mind to take Mr. Campbell for an inspection of all our industries, and I’ll give you the tip so you can be all set to show off your plant.”
“Occurs to me Campbell might make a short speech to our workmen; just a nice friendly jolly, you understand.”
“That will be perfectly simple, Mr. Kirby. Trust me to arrange it.”