“Billy told me just before I came down why he had gone away; and I wanted to tell you. I don’t know how much you know about the old man’s reputation, but he was credited with being the hardest master with his men that you could find either side of the water. In the beginning he made his money by screwing down the wages and unscrewing the labor—and no sentiment. That was his slogan. Whether he kept it up from habit or pure cussedness I can’t tell, but that’s the real reason Billy would never go into his father’s business—he couldn’t stand his meanness. The old man’s secretary forged a check for ten thousand; Billy caught him and cashed it himself—to save the man. He shouldered the guilt so his father wouldn’t suspect the man and hound him.”
“I know,” said Patsy, forgetting that she was supposed to know nothing. “But why in the name of all the saints did the secretary want to forge a check?”
“Why does any one forge? He needs money. When Billy caught him the old fellow went all to pieces and told a pretty tough story. You see, he’d been Burgeman’s secretary for almost twenty years, given him the best years of his life—slaved for him—lied for him—made money for him. Billy said his father regarded him as an excellent piece of office machinery, and treated him as if he were nothing more. The poor chap had always had hard luck; a delicate wife, three or four children who were eternally having or needing something, and poor relations demanding help he couldn’t refuse. Between doctors’ bills and clothing—and the relatives—he had no chance to save. At last he broke down, and the doctor told him it was an outdoor life, with absolute freedom from the strain of serving a man like Burgeman—or the undertaker for him. So he went to Burgeman, asked him to loan him the money to invest in a fruit-farm, and let him pay it off as fast as he could.”
“Well?” Patsy was interested at last.
“Well, the old man turned him down—shouted his ‘no sentiment’ slogan at him, and shrugged his shoulders at what the doctor said. He told him, flat, that a man who hadn’t saved a cent in twenty years couldn’t in twenty years more; and he only put money into investments that paid. The poor chap went away, frantic, worked himself into thinking he was entitled to that last chance; and when Billy heard the story he thought so, too. In the end, Billy cashed the check, gave the secretary the money, and they both cleared out. He knew, if his father ever suspected the truth, he would have the poor chap followed and dragged back to pay the full penalty of the law—he and all his family with him.”
Patsy smiled whimsically. “It sounds so simple and believable when you have it explained; but it would have been rather nice, now, if Billy Burgeman could have known that one person believed in him from the beginning without an explanation.”
“Who did?”
“Faith! how should I know? I was supposing, just.”
But as Patsy climbed onto the train she muttered under her breath: “We come out even, I’m thinking. If he’s missed knowing that, I’ve missed knowing a fine lad.”