Under the Skylights

by Henry Blake Fuller

"I couldn't bring them within hailing distance of him."

"Where is Roscoe Orlando Gibbons in such an hour as this?"

"I haven't been able to find him."

"I shall find him. Aunt Eudoxia is a large stock-holder in that wretched bank, and he's the only man of taste and refinement on the board. If we have lost Jeremiah, that's all the more reason why we should have Roscoe Orlando. I shall get her and go to his office at once. He can't refuse support to our plan; he won't let this barbarous notion of Hill's make any headway."

Dill looked at Virgilia with mounting appreciation. Where was her equal for resource, for elasticity, for devotion, for erudition? She was at home in Grote and Sismondi, and she was just as much at home in the early local annals of the town itself. She knew about the Parthenon and Giotto's Tower, and she knew about the Succotash Tavern and the Hard-Shell Baptist Meeting-House too. With matchless promptitude and resiliency she began the broad sketching out of an entirely new scheme—a thoroughly local one. Was there not Pere Marquette and the Sieur Joliet and La Salle and Governor D'Artaguette? Was there not the Fort Kinzie Massacre and the Last War-Dance of the Pottawatomies? Was there not the prairie mail-coach and the arrival of the first vessel in the harbour? Were there not traders and treaties and Indian commissioners? "There!" she cried, "you and Stephen Giles just sharpen your teeth on such matters as those! We have almost got the Nine Old Ogres on the run, and we mustn't slow up on them for a single minute!"

Dill stared at her with dazzled eyes. Such vim, such spirit, such knowledge, such loyalty!—and all for him, all in his service! He felt confusedly that he was upon the verge of taking her hand and saying in broken trembling tones that she was his guiding star, his ruling spirit, his steadfast hope—what lesser expressions could fitly voice his gratitude, his admiration, his devotion? Then he caught himself: things were still in the air. His fortune was yet to be made, and who could say but that its making might yet be marred? Let him once come to an understanding with those trying old fellows, let him but have a hard-and-fast agreement with them in downright black and white, and then—who could tell what might be said and done?

XIV

Dill and his coadjutors had two or three more conferences, and a second detailed scheme was sent over to the bank. History in general was decisively thrust aside,—the only history worth recording was the history the Nine themselves had helped to make. "We will go to the libraries for 'ana,'" said Gowan; "they will help us with the earlier years of the last century."

"And to the Historical Association for more," said Giles. "Old Oliver Dowd is an ex-secretary of it, and him at least we can capture beyond a doubt."

"Hurray!" cried Little O'Grady, who had insisted on being present. That very afternoon he threw his "First Coinage of Venetian Sequins" back into the clay-box and started in on a relief of "The Earliest Issue of Wild-Cat Currency."