"That's right," said Jeremiah again. "If you had lived here as long as I have, young man, you would understand that there's no need of going outside our own bor-r-ders for anything we may require."
"Yes, a great deal of history has been transacted on this site," said Hill,—"more than enough to meet the requirements of our present purpose. I have here"—he opened a drawer in one side of his desk and drew out a paper—"I have here a list of subjects that I think would do. Mr. McNulty and I drew it up together. Take it and look it over; it might be an——"
A shadow darkened the door. It was another interruption from the Morrell Twins. This time it was not Richard Morrell, but Robin, his brother. His pocket bulged with what seemed to be papers of importance, and his face signalled to Andrew P. Hill to clear the deck of lesser matters.
"—it might be an advantage to you," Andrew concluded. "This about represents our ideas; see what you can do with it."
Andrew passed the paper over to Jeremiah, and Jeremiah passed it on to Daffingdon with an expression of unalterable firmness and decision. "You must do something with this, if you are going to do anything for us at all," his air said. "It's this or nothing. It is our own idea; we're proud of it, and we insist upon it. Go."
XI
The Morrell Twins were among the newer powers. They had rolled up a surprisingly big fortune—if it was a fortune—in a surprisingly short time, and were looked up to as very perfect gentle knights by all the ambitious young fry of the "street." They were the head and front of the Pin-and-Needle Combine. They did not deal with the Grindstone only; they had made their business the business of half the banks of the town,—for how could these institutions be expected to stand out when all the investors and speculators of the street were pressing forward eager to add to their collections a few good specimens of the admirably engraved and printed certificates of the Combine, and more than willing to pay any price that anybody might ask? Some of the banks—the more fortunate among them—were attending to this business during business hours; others of them worked on it overtime, and one or two were beginning to work on it all night as well as all day. They worried. The Twins were not worrying nearly so much,—they knew they must be seen through.
The Twins had been grinding pins and needles for a year or two with striking acumen and dexterity. Sometimes Richard would turn the handle and Robin would hold the poor dull pins to the stone; and then again they would change places. Whichever arrangement happened to be in force, people said the work had never been done more neatly, more precisely. And now the Twins had enlarged their field and had begun to grind noses. They were showing themselves past masters in the art. They had all the legislation of nose-grinding at their fingers' ends; the lack of legislation, too, as well as the probabilities of legislation yet to come. They knew just how fast the wheel might be turned in this State, and just how close the nose might be held in that, and just how loud the victim must cry out before the Rescue Band might be moved to issue from some Committee Room to stop the treatment. They knew where nose-grinding was prohibited altogether, and they knew where enactments against it had thus far completely failed. They knew where the penalty was likely to be enforced, and they knew where it might be evaded. "Learn familiarly the whole body of legislative enactment, state by state, and then keep a little in advance of it,"—such was their simple rule.
No man is to be denied the right to profit by his own discovery, and so, though the glory of the Twins was envied, their right to luxuriate in it was seldom questioned. They were seen in all sorts of prominent and expensive places—at the opera, at the horse-show, on the golf links, and were very much envied and admired,—envied by other young men that were trying to do as they had done, but not succeeding; admired by multitudes of young women who felt pretty sure that to "have things," and to have them with great abundance and promptness and conspicuousness, was all that made life worth living. In this environment Richard Morrell could hardly fail to be fairly well satisfied with himself. To ask and to receive would come to the same thing. And so he spoke to Virgilia one crisp October morning, between the fifth and sixth holes in Smoky Hollow, and awaited in all confidence her reply. But Virgilia quickly made it plain that he would not do—not for her, at least. She was by no means one of the kind to be impressed by tally-ho coaches, however loudly and discordantly the grooms might trumpet, nor to be brought round by country-club dinners, however deafening the chatter or however preponderant the phalanx of long-necked bottles. So his raw, red face turned a shade redder still; and as he sat, later, on the club veranda, hectoring the waiter and scowling into his empty glass, he growled to himself in a thick undertone:
"What's the matter with the girl, anyway? If she doesn't want me, who does she want?"