And he had only put things down at par values. The telegraph stock was quoted at a trifle less, just now, but if there had been any Minster Iron-works stock for sale, it would command a heavy premium. The scattering investments, too, which yielded an average of five per cent., must be worth a good deal more than their face. What he didn’t like about the thing was that big block of Thessaly Manufacturing Company stock. That seemed to be earning nothing at all; he could find no record of dividends, or, in truth, any information whatever about it. Where had he heard about that company before? The name was curiously familiar to his mind; he had been told something about it—by whom?
All at once it flashed upon him. That was the company of which the mysterious Judge Wendover was president. Tenney had talked about it; Tenney had told him that he would hear a good deal about it before long.
As these reflections rose in the young man’s mind, the figures which he had written down on the paper seemed to diminish in size and significance. It was a queer notion, but he couldn’t help feeling that the millions had somehow moved themselves farther back, out of his reach. The thought of these two men—of the gray-eyed, thin-lipped, abnormally smart Tenney, and of that shadowy New York financier who shared his secrets—made him nervous. They had a purpose, and he was more or less linked to it and to them, and Heaven only knew where he might be dragged in the dark. He finished his glass and resolved that he would no longer remain in the dark. To-morrow he would see Tenney and Mrs. Minster and Reuben, and have a clear understanding all around.
There came sharp and loud upon his door a peremptory knocking, and Horace with a swift movement slipped the paper on which he had made the figures into the box, and noiselessly closed the cover. Then he opened the door, and discovered before him a man whom for the instant, in the dim light of the hall, he did not recognize. The man advanced a step, and then Horace saw that it was—strangely changed and unlike himself—his father!
“I didn’t hear you come in,” said the young man, vaguely confused by the altered appearance of the General, and trying in some agitation of mind to define the change and to guess what it portended.
“They told me you were here,” said the father, moving lumpishly forward into the room, and sinking into a chair. “I’m glad of it. I want to talk to you.”
His voice had suddenly grown muffled, as if with age or utter weariness. His hands lay palm upward and inert on his fat knees, and he buried his chin in his collar helplessly. The gaze which he fastened opaquely upon the waste-paper basket, and the posture of his relaxed body, suggested to Horace a simple explanation. Evidently this was the way his delightful progenitor looked when he was drunk. It was not a nice sight.
“Wouldn’t it be better to go to bed now, and talk afterward?” said the young man, with asperity.
The General looked up at his son. He clearly understood the purport of the question, and gathered his brows at first in a half-scowl. Then the humor of the position appealed to him, and he smiled instead—a grim and terrifying smile which seemed to darken rather than illumine his purplish face.
“Did you think I was drunk, that you should say that?” he asked, with the ominous smile still on his lips. He added, more slowly, and with something of his old dignity: “No—I’m merely ruined!”