“J. Dunlap” had grown financially and commercially in proportion to the growth of the Republic. There was not room on a single line in the Commercial Agency books to put A’s enough to express the credit and financial resources of “J. Dunlap” on this dark November day. Absolutely beyond the shoals and shallows of the dangerous shore of trade where small crafts financially are forced to ply, “J. Dunlap” sailed ever tranquil and serene, neither jars nor shocks disturbing the calm serenity of the voyage.
This dismal November day marked an unparalleled experience in the career of the present “J. Dunlap.” The customary calm was disturbed. J. Dunlap disagreed and disagreed positively with J. Dunlap concerning an important event, and that event was a family affair.
The exterior of “J. Dunlap” may be dark, grimy, dingy and old, but within all is bright with electric light. Behind glass and wire screens long lines of clerks and accountants bend over desks and busy pens move across the pages of huge ledgers and account books—messengers hurry in and out of two glass partitioned offices. On the door of one is painted “Mr. Burton, Manager;” on the other “Mr. Chapman, Superintendent.”
Separated by a narrow passageway from the main office is a large room, high ceiling, old-fashioned, furnished with leather and mahogany fittings of ancient make, on the door of which are the words, “J. Dunlap, Private Office.” This is the sanctum sanctorum in this temple of trade. Within “J. Dunlap’s” private office before a large grate heaped high with blazing cannel coal two old men are seated in earnest conversation. They are “J. Dunlap.”
Seventy-two years before this November day that enfolded Boston with London-like fog there were born to one J. Dunlap and his wife twin boys to whom were given in due season the names of James and John. These boys had grown to manhood preserving the same likeness to each other that they had possessed as infants in the cradle. James married early and when his son was born and was promptly made a J. Dunlap, his twin brother vowed that there being a J. Dunlap to secure the perpetuation of the name, he should never marry.
When the J. Dunlap, father of the twin brothers, died, the twins succeeded to the business as well as the other property of their father, share and share alike. To change the name on the office window to Dunlap Bros. was never even dreamed of; such sacrilege would surely have caused the rising in wrath of the long line of ghostly “J. Dunlaps” that had preceded the twins. Hence on this dark day “J. Dunlap” was two instead of one.
Handsome men were all the Dunlaps time out of mind, but no ancestor was ever more handsome than the two clean cut, stalwart, white haired old men who with eager gestures and earnest voices discussed the point of difference between them today.
“My dear brother,” said the one whose face bore traces of a more burning sun than warms the Berkshire hills, “You know that we have never differed even in trivial matters, and James, it is awful to think of anything that could even be called a disagreement, but I loved your poor boy John as much as I have ever loved you and when he died his motherless little girl became more to me than even you, James, and it hurts my heart to think of my darling Lucy being within possible reach of sorrow and shame.” The fairer one of the brothers bent over and grasping with both hands the raised hand of him who had spoken said with an emotion that filled his eyes with moisture:
“God bless you, John! You dear old fellow! I know that that loving heart of yours held my poor boy as near to it as did my own, and that Lucy has ever been the dearest jewel of your great soul, but your love and tenderness are now conjuring up imaginary dangers that are simply beyond a possibility of existence. While I will not go so far as to admit that had I known that there was a trace of negro blood in Burton I should have forbidden his paying court to my granddaughter, still I will confess that I should have considered that fact and consulted with you before consenting to his seeking Lucy’s hand. However, it is too late now, John. He has won our girl’s heart and knowing her as you do you must appreciate the consequences of the disclosure of this discovery and the abrupt termination of her blissful anticipations. It is not only a question of the health and happiness of our dear girl, but her very life would be placed in jeopardy.”