CHAPTER III—Mr. Babcock's Last Card
As the feat of riding thirty horses around a circus hippodrome calls for the highest strength and skill, so the task of guiding the complicated affairs of Bigelow & Company through the difficulties that threatened them demanded sound character and experience. For a time the Bigelow ventures had shown a persistent upward tendency, and the head of the firm had then made an imposing figure, but a fair-weather man was hardly adequate now. Kentucky Coal had slumped alarmingly; New Freighters had perhaps been overrated; and booming suburban real estate was discovering unexpected inertia where abnormal growth had been gambled on. But the most disturbing element was the lumber fight. That Higginson & Company could not only hold out until the meeting, but could actually get the better of the Trust, had not been foreseen. Questions would be asked at this meeting: there might even be some tension. And so it was that Mr. Bigelow was not joking much nowadays. And so it was that Mr. Babcock took his grip from behind the door and went to Wauchung.
The air blew keen from the West as Mr. Babcock walked swiftly out toward the Wauchung bridge. It was a crisp, invigorating breeze, with the strength of the lake in it, and a faint odour of pine. Men grow rugged and hardy in this region, whether they follow blaze-marks or mariner's compass. No malaria oozes from the dry white sand; the children rather draw from it the sap that makes the pine tree tall and sound. If you had strayed into the forest in the earlier time of reckless cutting; if you had stood under the tight green roof on a scented rug of needles, finer than ever came from India, and listened to the song of the shanty-boy as he struck his peavey into a bleeding trunk, could you have wondered at the lilt in his melody, at the vigour, even the harshness in his voice? Stand near a mill-race and watch the “boys” racing down, each balanced on a single careening log, and you will have a glimpse of the sort of men G. Hyde Bigelow & Company were fighting.
Mr. Babcock passed the last straggling buildings of Wauchung's main street and found himself in full view of the bridge, the river and the lumber-yards. The sight did not please him, apparently, for he paused with knit brows to take it in. Beyond, showing here and there, lay the harbour, glistening in the cool light—and beyond the harbour the bald dunes and the lake.
The sky was blue, frayed here and there into ends of white clouds—the glorious northern sky, matched only in the air of Naples or Touraine. But Mr. Babcock was not looking at the sky. His soul was tuned to lower things—to lumber, for instance, heaps of it, piles of it, rows of it, stretched for hundreds of yards along the river, and across the peninsula, and along the edge of the harbour. The mills were silent; the watchmen were not to be seen; the only sign of life was the smoke curling from the funnels of the Number One, where Robbie MacGregor was dozing on the engine-room bench and hourly growing fatter. Six million feet of lumber greeted the eye of the man from Chicago, as he looked—and looked. It was new lumber, bought by experts, every stick of it such as would command a good price when the owners should throw it on the market, as they certainly would sooner or later. He shook his head and hurried on.
He found Halloran at the office and shook hands cordially. Crosman heard the name, looked blank, recollected himself, and slipped out.
“Well, you've got a great lot of lumber here, Mr. Halloran,” Babcock began softly, glancing out the window.
“Yes—a good deal.”
“How much can you keep in the yards here?”
“We have about twenty-five million feet in now.”
“You don't say so! Your own cutting?”
“Only part of it.”
“You've been—er—buying in the market, eh?”
“Yes, all we could get.” He could not resist adding, “It's been a good time to buy.”
“Yes, so it has, so it has. I suppose you're holding this lot for a better price?”
Halloran nodded. His eyes were searching the face of his caller. Babcock paused to gather his forces, then settled back in his chair.
“I feel like telling you, Mr. Halloran, that you've done a mighty neat piece of work. To tell the truth, it's been a surprise to us to see how well you've carried this business. Your fame now”—he leaned forward and dropped his voice to a confidential pitch—“your fame now, however, rests even more on the way you've stuck to your employer's interests than on the cleverness of what you've done. There are clever men enough, but down in Chicago we don't see any too many honest ones.”
“No, I suppose you don't.”
“This fight has been expensive, but it's taught us one lesson, I think. When we organized the lumber producers we tried to get all the good firms into it. We succeeded with every one but Higginson & Company. By the facts of the case we were forced to antagonize you, and I'll tell you right here we expected to beat you. But we haven't beaten you. You've shown a vitality that was surprising. And since your owner, we understand, has been dangerously ill for some months, we are forced to believe that you, yourself, Mr. Halloran, are the real head of this business. Isn't that so? Well, you needn't answer. I understand your modesty. But there are the facts. Well, now, sir, here we are, after a hard fight, just where we were when we started. I don't know but what you may be better off. Anyhow, you're the one man that has kept us from doing what we want to do. What we've learned in this experience is, that we can't afford to go on fighting Mr. John Halloran. We need just such a man as you on our side. Mr. Bigelow and I have talked this all over, and I think we have insight enough to know that when a rising man, a really big man, comes along, it's a heap sight better to get on his side. You can't stop a man like that—he's bound to rise—and if you don't keep his good-will and confidence, you lose. Now, we want your good-will and confidence, Mr. Halloran. I've got some propositions to lay before—”
“One moment, Mr. Babcock. If you have come to propose that anybody but M. L. Higginson & Company conduct this business, you'll be wasting your time.”
Babcock looked thoughtful, then nimbly changed front. “We have no concern in this or any business except our own. But we are interested in men. There's no doubt about it, Mr. Halloran—I know how men feel all over Michigan—there's no doubt about it, you're the coming man in the lumber business, to-day. Now, good men, Mr. Halloran, command good positions. Take this place you're in—it's a salaried position, isn't it?”
“Yes.”
“Well, now”—Mr. Babcock's voice had dropped almost to a whisper, but his intensity, his determination to win, trembled in every note of it. He was smiling. “Well, now, what's the use of this, Mr. Halloran; what future have you here? Even if you succeed Mr. Higginson? You can never be more than he is, if you stay here. But once put a man of your caliber in a place that's big enough for him and he'll expand—he'll fill it—he'll reach out and up. In ten years, perhaps, you'd be at the head of the business. But you ought to be at the head now—then, in ten years, you'd be in Chicago or New York, with your finger on the pulse of the financial world. I'm here for a reason. We've started in to organize the lumber business and nothing can stop us. It may take time; we know it will take men. But we aren't bothering about the time; we're looking for the men. That's our way. And you're the man we need to make it go; you're the man that can do it—you have a genius for it. Now—one moment—I told you I had some propositions to make to you, and I'm ready to make them.”
He was playing the last card in the hand of Bigelow & Company, and playing it beautifully. A few short weeks and the meeting would be upon them—the meeting when explanations of the delay in completing the organization would fall upon unsympathetic ears. He was thinking now, for one moment, with his eyes half closed.
“You know, Mr. Halloran, that Mr. Bigelow is the owner of the Pewaukoe Mills. It is a first-class plant in every way—and slightly larger than this, isn't it?”
“A little, perhaps.”
“Now, I could make you other propositions, but you know the lumber business, and I suppose you'd rather stay in it until you've got your hand worked in with something a little bigger. I offer you this: We'll put you at the head of our Pewaukoe business, with entire authority, subject only to consultation with the firm on matters of policy and development. We want you to go in with the idea that your hands are free—that you can stamp your own individuality on the business. Don't you see, Mr. Halloran, it's that individuality, that business character, that we want above all? We want the qualities that have given you your peculiar success here. As to payment, that will be arranged easiest of all. You know best what you ought to have. But I'll name a figure, merely by way of opening the discussion——-” He smiled again. “Suppose I say we'll pay you a thousand dollars a year more than you're getting here, whatever that may be. If that doesn't seem fair, just say so. We want to enter these new relations with the feeling of perfect satisfaction all around—we can't afford to do it any other way.
“One moment————- Don't commit yourself hurriedly. This is a matter for consideration. First of all, let me put that offer down in writing over our signature—then we'll have something to work from. Will you call your stenographer?”
“We have no stenographer here now. But let me say———”
“Well, I'll write it out—here, this letter-paper will do the business.”
“Now, see here, we can't talk along this line. I haven't the slightest intention of leaving Higginson & Company.”
“I know—I know——— Take plenty of time to think it over. I'll go ahead and put this down in black and white———”
“No, Mr. Babcock. I won't consider it at all. I stay right here at this desk.”
Babcock brought up his reserves. “You are inclined to think,” he said, settling back again, “that your place is here with Mr. Higginson?”
“Decidedly.”
“I see. Perhaps we've been working a little at cross-purposes. I haven't been talking with the idea of taking away Mr. Higginson's main support at the time he needs it most. I'm afraid I haven't been looking at that side of it quite enough. You see, Mr. Halloran, we're business men, we of G. H. Bigelow & Company. When we see a big man in our line we want him; and when we try to get him, I suppose we don't always consider the other people who want him, too. We haven't time. But I'm glad you brought the point up. Suppose we go at it from a new point of view. Now, I recognize (and Mr. Bigelow would agree with me if he were here) that this very attitude of yours—this standing by your employer when he's a sick man—is the quality in you we like best. We've seen it before; we've talked about it. If you should go back on Mr. Higginson now—even though, of course, there's not the slightest legal hindrance to your looking out for yourself—how could we know you wouldn't go back on us some day? But you won't go back on him, you see, and that's how we know more than ever that you're the man we're after. Now there's not the slightest need of any immediate change. We could even date your salary from this moment, or back to the beginning of this month, without expecting you to walk right out here———”
“It's no use—I'm not going to leave.”
“No; I'm not suggesting such a thing. I was going to say that—that we're looking ahead. Let me see—you're about thirty, perhaps. Why, man, you haven't begun yet. But if you stay here, and if Mr. Higginson should die within these next few years without taking you into the firm, you'd have nothing whatever to show for your work. Now, one place is as good as another for such a man as you. All you need is to get a footing—but that takes capital. My suggestion would be that you stay right here and buy into the business—get it into your own hands. Mr. Higginson, knowing you as he does, would be only too glad to have it go to you. We can help you with that. Your credit is A-1 with us. We're so sure you're going to see some day the advantages of combination and cooperation in this business that we'll write you a check any day and no questions asked. It———”
“Don't you think,” said Halloran, speaking slowly, with an edge on his voice, “don't you think you've said about enough?”
Babcock flushed. “What do you mean by that?”
“I mean, if your time's worth anything to you you're losing money here.”
“Then you are not interested———”
“Not a bit.”
The junior partner of Bigelow & Company, still flushing, rose. “I've made you a square offer———”
“And I've refused it.”
Babcock stood looking down at Halloran. His eyes were growing smaller; his fingers were restless. For a moment he seemed not to grasp the fact that he had failed. Halloran picked up a letter, then lowered it, and looked up inquiringly.
“Now suppose we leave it this way for the present, Mr. Halloran.” He was rallying. “You'd better just think over what I've said. The main thing is to pave the way toward an agreement, and I think we've done that. I'm glad to have had this talk with you. Don't hurry about deciding. Weigh it carefully. Good-by—glad to have seen you.”
Halloran gave him a nod and he was gone.
It was to be a day rather more than usually eventful. Before he left the office, in the afternoon, Crosman drew him aside.
“Would you———?” he began.
“Well?”
“Will you be home to-night—about eight?”
“I think so. Why, anything special?”
“N—no. You'll be there sure?”
“Sure.”
Promptly at eight the doorbell rang and Halloran was called down to the parlour. Entering, he found Crosman, grinning feverishly; and over in the corner, with her back turned, looking at a picture, was Mamie. He looked from one to the other until Mamie turned around and disclosed a very red face. Still no one spoke. The two now gazed appealingly at each other, and finally it was Mamie who broke the silence with a preliminary giggle.
“I guess—I guess you can congratulate us, Mr. Halloran.”
Coming so suddenly, even this bold statement did not sink at once into Halloran's consciousness. But at last, after a painful pause, he recollected himself and shook hands cordially. And then the story had to be told in detail. It was all a secret, for Mrs. Higginson had not yet learned to understand Harry as she would when she came to know him as one of the family. During the worst of her father's illness Mamie would not consent, but now that the crisis was turned she had—“Well, she had supposed she might as well.”
“We wanted you to know it,” she said. “And it's going to be a secret between just you and us. We thought maybe—you—maybe you'd be glad, too.”
But for some reason it did not have that effect; for an hour later, when Halloran was striding up the beach to the north, heedless of the waves that ran up about his feet, of the west wind that slapped his face and tugged at his coat, he wore a far from glad expression. And not until he had fallen into step with the night patrol from the life-saving station, and had swapped yams of the old Inspector and the Beebe-McClellan boat and the capsize-drill records, and had learned precisely why the Wauchung Station was the most abused and discriminated against in the whole U. S. L. S. S., did he seem a little more composed.