CHAPTER III—Tightening the Blockade
Mr. Babcock had come in early this morning, depositing a small traveling-bag behind the door of his office, and then looking at his watch to see if Mr. Bigelow were not about due. Somewhat travel-stained was Mr. Babcock, as a glance at the mirror told him; and there was time to wash and change his linen before his senior should arrive.
Shortly entered Mr. Bigelow, pausing within the threshold.
“Good-morning, Mr. Babcock. Did you find Michigan City still on the map?”
Mr. Babcock, giving a last flick at his coat-collar before the mirror, turned, listened, and laughed at his senior's little jest. The stenographer, sitting in her corner by the window, smiled and giggled. Young men at desks in the outer office snickered and chuckled over their books. The round-eyed office-boy tee-heed outright, and then, covered with fright and confusion, disappeared behind the water-cooler as the head of the firm passed on to the inner office.
The arrival of Mr. Babcock with a traveling-bag was, it seemed, to be considered important; more important even than the heap of letters that lay ready opened on the mahogany desk. For now Mr. Babcock had been summoned, the stenographer had been dismissed to some work in the outer office, and Mr. Bigelow, closely attentive, and Mr. Babcock, with much to communicate in that low voice of his, were settling down to consider a problem.
“The price appealed to them,” Mr. Babcock was saying, “but they are afraid of Higginson. They admit it. Higginson, they say, has their written order to cut out the timber at the old price. Higginson, on his part, has agreed to deliver the entire bill, two hundred thousand feet or more, at the wharf at Michigan City, by the fourteenth of this month.”
Mr. Bigelow's eyes strayed to his desk calendar.
“Yes,” went on Mr. Babcock, “to-day's the eleventh. That gives us three days to stop it in.”
At this point there was an interruption. As had happened once before when these two gentlemen were talking, the door opened and the small office-boy appeared, catching his breath hurriedly before getting out the words:
“Lady t' see y'u, sir.”
A decisive utterance was hanging on Mr. Bigelow's lips; a hand was raised to make it more emphatic, but the lips closed and the hand fell.
“You will excuse me, Mr. Babcock?”
“Certainly.”
“I shall be engaged only a moment.”
The discreet Mr. Babcock withdrew, and the head of the firm, with a glance at the heap of letters still untouched, turned, without rising, toward the door. There was a curious expression on his face, the expression of a man who feels himself at last in a position to cut knots, who knows that he commands the situation. A person who might choose to break in on such a weighty conference this morning need not be surprised at summary treatment. And as the woman entered and softly closed the door he leaned a little forward and drew his brows together, his whole appearance saying plainly: “My time is short, madam. Speak to the point.”
The woman faltered and waited for his question. He said not a word. She started to speak, but seemed unable to break through this heavy silence. He waited, his brows coming down more and more. And at last, when the words did pass her lips, they were not at all what she had meant to say.
“I have tried not to come to you again. God knows how it hurts me. But I had to come. I was turned out of the New York Store ten days ago, without warning.”
Once started, she was finding it a little easier to go on; but Mr. Bigelow, carrying the weight of millions on his shoulders, dealing hourly with questions of importance, greater or less, to the whole commercial world, had no time now—kind as he may have been in the more leisurely past—to waste on trivial matters. He had given the woman a chance; was he to blame for her failure? Did “not potential success exist within every human being? Was any man to blame for the shipwreck of another?
“I know nothing about that,” he cut in shortly and finally. “There is no use in bringing your story here.”
She quailed before him. “But I have a right—the law——”
“The law is yours to use. If you think it will help you, use it.” He rose, opened the door, and bowed her out. And she, baffled, humiliated, at the end of her resources, went out without a word, crossed the hall as steadily as any young stenographer, stepped into the elevator with a composed face, and out into the street—and all this while there was nothing to mark her out from a thousand other ill-dressed women; nothing to show that her hopes were gone; simply a plain woman on La Salle Street, quietly walking—where? Where could she walk now? Were there still depths to sound, or had she reached the bottom?
“Mr. Babcock!”
The junior partner came out from his own private office at the sound of his senior's voice.
“You were saying,” said Mr. Bigelow, taking up the thread where they had laid it down, “that Higginson & Company have agreed to deliver the timber by the fourteenth. Now, of course, a blockade, to be effective, must be complete.” This was self-evident to Mr. Babcock.
“And so long as these people are free to deliver lumber the blockade is not complete. What is your plan regarding this?”
“The Michigan City people, as I said, are afraid of Higginson. But they will accept our price the minute we can show them that they're safe in doing it. They received a letter from Higginson's manager yesterday stating that the Higginson steamer, with the timber, will reach Michigan City on the night of the thirteenth or the morning of the fourteenth. That means that it will be ready for loading on the twelfth—to-morrow—and that the steamer will start the morning of the thirteenth. Now, it's not hard to imagine a delay that would keep the Higginson manager from getting the boat off in time. And if he fails to deliver, we are promised the order.”
“How do you mean to do this?”
Mr. Babcock glanced around in that cautious way of' his, leaned forward, and buzzed along rapidly for a few moments, his eyes keen with eagerness. The senior partner listened closely and slowly nodded, to show that he understood. Even Mr. Bigelow, as we have seen, was not wholly free from annoyance. Head of the Lumber Trust was Mr. Bigelow, but not, unfortunately, sole owner of the Lumber Trust. Fighting is expensive; and voting heads of constituent companies are sometimes unreasonable about expenses. Mr. Bigelow was skilful and resourceful; he knew well how to paint rainbows that should dazzle even the hard-headed, hard-fisted old lumbermen of Michigan; he understood how to make it plain that money spent in defeating Higginson would come back threefold when the defeat was over, and the price up where it should be, and the “economies” of the trust in working order; he was shrewd, and he knew that the sooner Higginson could be run out of business the better it would be for him (to say nothing of the trust and its directors). And so it was indeed important that the blockade should be made effective. The railroads were practically closed to Higginson now, his customers were to be had for the buying, but the steamers of the Higginson line were still afloat and ready to deliver Higginson lumber at contract prices. The Michigan City contract was not a matter of money; there was a principle at stake. Higginson must not deliver that lumber on the fourteenth!
“Very good,” he said, nodding again. “Have you the right man for this work?”
Buzz—buzz—from Mr. Babcock. More words from Mr. Bigelow.
“You will have to move quickly.”
“Yes, I am off now,” and the junior partner headed for the traveling-bag, feeling in his pocket for a time-table.