“A royal gift, Galloway!” he would say, enthusiastically. “You certainly are a king, much more powerful than those European figureheads.”
But he never had the courage to speak the exact sum, the “quarter of a million dollars a year,” that I saw in his hungry, glistening, hopeful, yet doubtful eyes. And I would not take the hint to discuss the gift further, but would put him off by showing how completely I was absorbed in the forming combination. Probably at the time he was letting his greed blind him into believing I would make as big a fool of myself as I had rashly promised and so was fearful of irritating me in any way. Two days before the wedding invitations went out he forced himself on me for lunch. I saw determination written in his face—determination to compel me to something definite about that “quarter of a million a year” for his daughter. So, at the first pause in the conversation, I played my card.
“Matt,” said I, “I really must arrange the formalities for that settlement on our daughter. I’ll have my lawyer—will the latter part of the week do? He’s up to his eyes in the combination just now.”
Bradish looked enormously relieved. He could hardly keep from laughing outright with delight—the miserable old seller of his own children. “Oh, I wasn’t disturbing myself,” he replied; “your word’s good enough, though, of course, you’d—we’d—want the thing in legal shape—before the marriage.”
“Of course,” said I, waving the matter aside as settled, and beginning again on the affairs of the combination. I had let him into it on attractive terms and had put him on my board of directors. He revelled in these favours as the mere foretaste of his gains from the powerful commercial alliance he was making through his daughter.
Out went the invitations—and the first danger point was rounded.
On the following Sunday night I left suddenly in my private car for an inspection of the new properties. Every day of nearly two weeks was full to its last minute. When I returned to New York five days before the wedding, I was utterly worn out. I went to bed and sent for my doctor—Hanbury.
He is one of those highly successful New York physicians who are famed among the laity for their skill in medicine, and in the profession for their skill at hocus-pocus. He is a specialist in what I may call the diseases of the idle rich—boredom, exaggeration of a slight discomfort into a frightful torture, craving for fussy personal attentions, abnormal fear of death, etc. He is a professional “funny man,” a discreet but depraved gossip, and a tireless listener—and is handsome and well-mannered. He has a soft, firm touch—on pulse and on purse. The women adore him—when they want to rest, they complain of nervousness and send for him to prescribe for them. One of his most successful and lucrative lines of treatment is helping wives to loosen the purse-strings of husbands by agitating their sympathies and fears. He never irritates or frightens his clients with unpleasant truths. He doesn’t tell the men to stop eating and drinking and the women to stop gadding. He gives them digestion-tablets and nerve-tonics and sends them on agreeable excursions to Europe. Of all the swarm of parasites that live upon rich New Yorkers none keeps up a more dignified front than does Hanbury. I’ve found him useful in social matters, and, as I’ve paid him liberally, he is greatly in my debt.
“Hanbury,” I said, from my bed, “I’m a very sick man.”
“Nonsense—only tired,” replied he. “A good sleep, a few days’ rest——”