“Houses Built on Sand! We all remember the Bible parable of the foolish man who built his house upon sand: when the winds blew and the floods came, it fell. Houses built at Sandport are the exception. We have a lower death rate here, etc., etc. OUR HOUSES STAND.”
This was all very well, but several important facts were omitted from the advertisements: that a number of the land lots offered for sale were too inaccessible to be of practical value and that those marked as sold, which connected them up with the town, were actually still on the market; and, again, that many of the immediate and promised developments, which would increase the value of the property, would be indefinitely postponed by lack of capital; and, again, that, in certain cases, building would be impossible by reason of fresh-water springs which undermined the sand.
In the promotion of a shaky enterprise Ocky was in his element. He could not have brought the same cleverness to bear on an honest transaction. The school of life from which he had graduated was one of shifts, evasions and shams. Even his experiences with Jehane kept his hand expert. He was so plausible in his gilding of falsity that he made it appear like the truth itself.
But if Playfair in selecting Ocky had shown his cunning, he had also shown his lack of business shrewdness, for Ocky was not the person to trust with money. And he had to trust him, so that he might make him the scape-goat if any infringment of the law should be found out. Some of the money which Barrington had given Ocky had gone toward the straightening of the Sandport Real Estate Concern’s accounts, before Playfair should discover that they had been juggled. Ocky had not meant to steal; he never meant to do anything improper. He borrowed the firm’s money to support his private speculations. While Jehane’s affection could only be purchased, he was continually tempted to borrow. He fully intended to pay back. He always fully intended.
The angels made three desperate efforts to prevent Ocky from crumbling. They gave him Glory. A curious sympathy had grown up between him and the child of Jehane’s first marriage. Perhaps it was that they both suffered from the unevenness of Jehane’s temper. At any rate, he much preferred her to his own long-lashed, slant-eyed little daughter. Riska, though she was only seven, had learnt to be both vain and selfish; at the same time, when there was anything she wanted, she knew how to be attractive. She was her mother’s favorite and belonged to her mother’s camp. And Madeira Lodge tended to become more and more divided into two silently hostile parties. Ocky had the unpleasant feeling that Riska was amused by the outbreaks which occurred, and turned them to her own profit. Whereas Glory——
Already at ten, Glory was a woman in her forethought for him. She would follow after him, hanging up his coat and hat, rectifying his habitual untidiness, and stamping out the sparks which were so often the beginnings of domestic conflagrations. Her gray eyes were always kind when they looked at him and she was never impatient under his caresses. “Poor little father,” she would whisper, putting her soft arms about him, “I’m sure mother didn’t mean to say that.”
And the angels gave him his baby-girl. Mary they called her, which was contracted to Moggs as she grew older. But Riska called her the M. L. O., which stood for Ma’s Left Over, because she was so small that it seemed as though Jehane had run short of material when she made her. Ocky was very glad of Moggs; Moggs was too young to judge him. Even Eustace judged him, saying, “You’s been naughty, Daddy; Mumma’s vewy angwy.” There was no pity in the little boy’s tone when he said it—only sorrowful accusation.
Sitting by Moggs’s cradle, Ocky would wonder whether the day would come when she, learning what a fool she had for a father, would turn against him. In the midst of his wondering, she would wake and he would see two blue glimpses of heaven laughing up at him. He would take her in his arms, promising her, because she could not understand a word he said, that for her sake he would try not to take so much “medicine.”
“Medicine,” as a means to bolstering up his courage, was a habit which grew upon him.
Peter, who was the third effort of the angels, noticed a change every time he visited Uncle Waffles. On those walks across the lonely sand-hills, Uncle Waffles no longer pretended that he drank the “medicine” for his health.