“I see the Starbuck Oil has declared its usual dividend,” said Charlie, watching his chief closely. “The boys say it wasn’t earned.”
“I don’t suppose the directors would have paid it if they hadn’t earned it,” said Tamms, sharply. Now Tamms, since they had purchased the control, was one of the directors.
“I suppose not,” said Charlie. “I was merely saying what the boys say.”
“Humph!” was all the reply his host vouchsafed to this; and by this time they were driving into the carefully pebbled avenue of “The Mistletoe,” which was Mr. Tamms’s abode. It was a small hotel, partly surrounded by glass galleries, in one of which three young men were sitting at a lunch-table, over claret and seltzer and liqueurs, though it was after six o’clock. The house was most ornately furnished; a little yellow-haired girl of twelve, dressed in pale lilac silk, with a short skirt, and mauve silk stockings on her long little legs, was standing at the counter talking to the clerk. All the servants were in livery, and Charlie made a mental note that the place was unexpectedly “swell.”
“You want to go up to your room before dinner, I suppose,” said Tamms, as if making a concession to Charlie’s juvenile weaknesses. Charlie found his room a small apartment, with a rather expensive carpet and a most overpowering wall-paper; and it had the unusual luxury of a dressing-room attached. The sea was quite out of sight; but his room looked out upon the dusty street, and a printed placard on the wall informed him that its cost was twelve dollars a day. There was neither view, nor hills, nor country, nor even trees (save a line of petted young oaks that gave the place its name), in sight; but in every direction the eye was met by scores upon scores of wooden houses; and on the clipped grass that struggled with the red-clay plain the sun’s rays still beat mercilessly.
They dined sumptuously; and had champagne, which was, with Tamms, the only alternative for water. A score or so of richly dressed ladies, with their husbands, were at the tables, including the little girl in lilac silk, who drank champagne also. The mother of the little girl—a magnificent woman, with black hair, carefully dressed, like a salad—sat opposite them; and her husband leaned his elbow on the table and his beard upon the palm of his hand, and talked to Tamms, between the courses. Charlie was introduced as “a young man in my office,” and was treated by the lady with undissembled scorn; indeed, she condescended even to Tamms. And Charlie felt all the delight of some explorer landed among savages, who prefer colored beads to diamonds. “Positively,” thought Charlie, “she does not even know that I am Charlie Townley!” Mrs. Haberman certainly did not, and would have refused him her daughter’s hand in marriage, that evening, had he asked for it. And again it occurred to Charlie that wealth was the one universal good, after all.
Tamms certainly thought so; and when they got out on the piazza, began to talk about it. “Mr. Townley,” said he, “I think I have observed that while you are not over-attentive to the business, you can keep a secret.”
“You are very kind, sir,” said Charlie.
“The fact is, the Starbuck Oil Company has proved a very bad investment indeed for the Allegheny Central Railroad Company.”
“Dear me!” said Charlie, sympathetically, but as if inviting further confidence. Tamms looked at him for a moment, and then went on: