“It must be very pleasant to be able to bathe so easily,” said Charlie, trying hard to walk on the plank-walk beside her and yet keep out of his fair guide’s drip.
“Yes, it’s ever so much nicer than dressing in the bathing-houses,” said Miss Remington. “Did you drive over from the Branch? I’m told it’s awfully gay there, this season;” and Charlie admitted that it was. They had now reached the main street of the town, and Charlie could not but admire the genuineness of Miss Remington’s constitution, as the hot sun streamed upon her wet face and her salted locks hung heavily behind her. The hotel was now before them, and after indicating the gentlemen’s parlor to her guests, she herself disappeared by a side entrance. The great parlor contained nothing of human interest but a leather-bound Bible on a marble centre-table; and Tamms and Charlie Townley soon gravitated to the piazza, where, feet upon rail, and Tamms (who smoked at all times and junctures) with a cigar in his mouth, they awaited the coming of their host. Soon he appeared, with another young lady, more slender and, if possible, wetter than Miss Sadie, walking nervously, Mrs. Remington steaming hopelessly in their wake. “My wife can’t stay,” said the Deacon, after the first moments of compliment had passed; “she’s got to get ready for dinner. And now tell me all about it, Tamms,” said he, as he drew a chair up beside them. It was curious to watch the contrast between Remington’s evident nervousness and Tamms’s entire self-possession; and Charlie watched it.
“Have a cigar?” said Tamms, politely drawing another black one from his pocket.
“You know I never smoke, Tamms. But what’s this about the Starbuck Oil?”
“Well, you know about all there is about it,” said Tamms, lazily. “It can’t pay interest on the Terminal bonds, that’s all. They never ought to have paid any dividend, in my opinion.” This remark cleverly cut from under his feet the rejoinder Remington had in mind; and he looked at Tamms helplessly.
“This is a pretty state of things,” said he, at last. “I thought the Company had consolidated with Allegheny Central.”
“The Allegheny Central voted to consolidate with Starbuck Oil, but I don’t know that the Starbuck Oil ever consolidated with Allegheny. The Terminal bonds were issued by the Starbuck Oil and properly authorized by the directors; but for the other question, you remember, we never got control.” This was a home-thrust; for, as Charlie now remembered, the Deacon held the balance of power in the stock; and he had always refused to commit himself upon this point. “It looks bad for Starbuck Oil—it does, indeed,” added Mr. Tamms, thoughtfully, stroking his smooth chin and eying Remington closely. “And I tell you what, Remington: I felt that I had more or less got you into this thing, and I came down to tell you about it while there was yet time. There isn’t money enough in the treasury to pay the September coupon; that’s certain. But nobody knows it yet.”
“Well,” said Remington, with an evident effort, “one other thing is certain, and that is that it’s nearly dinner-time. Don’t you gentlemen want to brush up a bit?”
Tamms answered that it was unnecessary, and Remington left upon that pretext. But Charlie noticed that he took the door that led to the hotel telegraph office. “Remington thought that he was doing a very shrewd thing in keeping that stock,” said Tamms, dryly; and he went on smoking, but kept his eyes intently fixed upon an imaginary point in air, about eighteen inches in front of his own nose.
While Charlie was watching him, the young ladies, much transmogrified, came down for dinner. But the dinner was a long and weary meal, made up of many courses; no wine was served, but the hotel made up for this by giving them, at intervals, three glasses of ice-cream.