“Not the slightest, upon my honor.”
“Well, then, let us decide it in the English way. We have had a bet, you and I, before this. I’ll lay you three to one, on any sum you like, that not one-third of these workmen spend more time in drinking-saloons or billiard-saloons than they did before their reduction of hours.”
“Done!” said Kendrick, very sure of his money. “Let it be two hundred dollars.”
“Oh, shocking!” said Mrs. Kendrick. “You are like two dissolute young men. I do not approve of betting.”
“I don’t approve of it either, madam,” said the count, “but this is to establish the honor of the ‘hodden grey;’ and to make the transaction more respectable or excusable in your severe eyes, let us further decide, Kendrick, that whoever wins shall donate the money to your new hospital.”
“Oh, that will be nice!” said Mrs. Kendrick, brightening. She was one of the board of managers, and had in vain tried to get her husband to subscribe anything further than the pitiful sum of fifty dollars at starting. The doctor also, highly approved of this disposition of the money. He had long agitated the subject of a hospital, and Mrs. Kendrick at last had come to be, he said, his “right-hand man.” He was one of the committee to draw up the prospectus then under consideration. He wished especially to have the hospital so organized that not only the poor could avail themselves of it, but those in better circumstances—for the private family, he said, was no place for a sick person. He could not receive the necessary care without feeling himself a burden, which vexed and irritated him, and so retarded recovery.
After arguing upon the method of collecting the facts about the workingmen of Ely & Gerrish, and after calling out the count at some length on the particulars of the working of the Familistère at Guise, the doctor left, and Kendrick and Burnham returned to the charge of the insurance scheme. Burnham insisted that the growing enterprise of Oakdale, and its steady increase of population, made everything favorable for a “big thing” in the insurance line.
“I see,” said the count, “that you are not disposed to take my suggestions about making your insurance a mutual thing among your citizens. Now, the longer I live, the more I am interested in the independence of the people. Your rates of insurance, in private joint-stock companies, are too high for the poor man, who needs insurance infinitely more than the rich do. Now, as for Oakdale enterprises, I see none so worthy of consideration as this well-managed flower business of Dykes & Delano. That is something worth taking stock in.” Here Burnham turned away with ill-concealed impatience, not to say disgust; but Kendrick, anxious to keep on the right side of his rich guest and relative, said, smiling blandly:
“Well, count, one like you might invest in the Dykes-Delano paper, and still have a balance for our little insurance enterprise.” The count did not at all like the covert sneer in this speech. “Kendrick,” he said, “your heart is as dry and crisp as one of your bank-notes. It is not touched at all by the struggle of these women, while to me it is inspiring. You never even told me of it, and I have had to learn the facts outside. They commenced with absolutely nothing but a few plants in a friend’s bay-window. One of them sold her watch and jewels, I hear, to help build the second addition to the hot-house. I tell you, they ought to be encouraged and helped in every way.”
“Pity they couldn’t have kept respectability on their side. That would have been the best help,” said Mrs. Burnham. Old Burnham could have choked her; not that he had more charity than his wife, but more policy.