A keen and close observer was the banker—"a student of men," he called himself. He had been tried in many a way and proved equal to every occasion. He had risen from the ranks to the summit. He, too, they said in Chicago, was "sheer grit." Moreover, they did not say he had "made his pile out of others' losings"; but, like most men who have had to work hard to win it, until it began to come so fast that it made itself, John Bonner judged men very much by their power to earn money. Money was his standard, his measure of success.
And this, perhaps, was why John Bonner could never understand his brother-in-law, the colonel, a most distinguished soldier, a modest and most enviable man.
Twenty-five years had Bonner known that now gray-haired, gray-mustached veteran. Twenty-five years had he liked him, admired him, and much of late had he sought to know him, but Hazzard was a man he could not fathom.
"Fifteen years ago," said he to a fellow-magnate, "I told that man if he'd quit soldiering, and bring Carrie and the children to Chicago, I'd guarantee him an income ten times the regular pay he's getting; and he smiled, thanked me, and said he was quite content—content, sir, on two thousand a year, and so, too, was Sis. Now, think of that!"
And Bonner was bubbling over with the same idea to-day, yet beginning to see light. Two prominent senators, men of world-wide renown, held Hazzard long in close conference, and were merely civil to him, the magnate, who, as he said, "could buy the three of 'em three times over." A general whose name was but second to that of Grant seized his brother-in-law by both hands, and seemed delighted to greet him, yet had barely a word for "his millions," him to whom the Board of Trade bowed humbly at home. A great war secretary, whom they had recently dined at the Grand Pacific and whose dictum as to the purchase of supplies meant much to Chicago, but vaguely remembered and absently greeted the man of wealth, yet beamed with pleasure at sight of his small-salaried soldier companion. The secretary drew Hazzard off to one side, in fact, and left the man of stocks and the stock-yards standing.
That evening, after the simple home dinner, with Carrie and the young people and the colonel smiling about the board, Bonner's vexation of spirit found vent. Duties drew the soldier away, and the banker was left with his sister.
"What is your pay now, Carrie?" he abruptly asked.
"A row of threes, John—$333.33 a month," was the amused answer.
"And Hazzard's been through two wars, Heaven knows how many campaigns and vicissitudes, and been serving the United States, night and day, some thirty years, and that's all he has to show for it, every cent of which has to go for living expenses—rearing, feeding, clothing, and educating these youngsters."
"Pretty nearly. We've a little laid by for Jack's college, and the President gives Lou his cadetship, you know, but"—and here the blithe-faced little woman looked archly at "Uncle John," though her look was one that said, "I mean every word of this"—"we don't think that's all there is to it, by any manner of means. Think of his war record! Isn't that a proud thing to leave to our boys? See how he is regarded by the best men in our country, from the President down! He is not yet an old man, but he has 'all that should accompany old age—love, honor, obedience, troops of friends'—and, honestly, John, with health and competence and us, what more should he want?"