The street was thronged with people when we drove up, and inside the church was such a jam of roses and folk as I had never beheld. Wide was the curious interest in the daughter of Tammany's Chief; and Blossom must have felt it, for her hand fluttered like a bird on my arm as, with organ crashing a wedding march, I led her up the aisle. At the altar rail were the bishop and three priests. And so, I gave my girl away.
When the ceremony was done, we all went back to my house—Blossom's house, since I had put it in her name—for I would have it that they must live with me. I was not to be cheated of my girl; she should not be lost out of my arms because she had found a husband's. It wrought a mighty peace for me, this wedding, showing as it did so sure of happiness to Blossom. Nor will I say it did not feed my pride. Was it a slight thing that the blood of the Clonmel smith should unite itself with a strain, old and proud and blue beyond any in the town? We made one family of it; and when we were settled, my heart filled up with a feeling more akin to content than any that had dwelt there for many a sore day.
CHAPTER XXIV—HOW VAN FLANGE WENT INTO STOCKS
IT was by the suggestion of young Van Flange himself that he became a broker. His argument I think was sound; he had been bred to no profession, and the floor of the Exchange, if he would have a trade, was all that was left him. No one could be of mark or consequence in New York who might not write himself master of millions. Morton himself said that; and with commerce narrowing to a huddle of mammoth corporations, how should anyone look forward to the conquest of millions save through those avenues of chance which Wall Street alone provided? The Stock Exchange was all that remained; and with that, I bought young Van Flange a seat therein, and equipped him for a brokerage career. I harbored no misgivings of his success; no one could look upon his clean, handsome outlines and maintain a doubt.
Those were our happiest days—Blossom's and mine. In her name, I split my fortune in two, and gave young Van Flange a million and a half wherewith to arm his hands for the fray of stocks. Even now, as I look backward through the darkness, I still think it a million and a half well spent. For throughout those slender months of sunshine, Blossom went to and fro about me, radiating a subdued warmth of joy that was like the silent glow of a lamp. Yes, that money served its end. It made Blossom happy, and it will do me good while I live to think how that was so.
Morton, when I called young Van Flange from his Mulberry desk to send him into Wall Street, was filled with distrust of the scheme.
“You should have him stay with Mulberry,” said he. “If he do no good, at least he will do no harm, and that, don't y' know, is a business record far above the average. Besides, he's safer; he is, really!”
This I did not like from Morton. He himself was a famous man of stocks, and had piled millions upon millions in a pyramid of speculation. Did he claim for himself a monopoly of stock intelligence? Van Flange was as well taught of books as was he, and came of a better family. Was it that he arrogated to his own head a superiority of wit for finding his way about in those channels of stock value? I said something of this sorb to Morton.