“I can't imagine, Mr. Walton.”
“Toby, he said this—he said this, and the words will haunt me to my grave. They will go with me into the very depths of my last abode. He said: 'Oh, father, you have caught me! You have come to take me back! Well, I am ready!'
“Toby Lassiter, talk about your—your hells on earth; talk about your flames of despair, the worm that dieth not, and the like. I had 'em all. I couldn't speak. I didn't even have the sense or power to shake hands, and the poor boy misunderstood even that. He pulled up a chair, shaking like a leaf. Nobody was in the room but us two. Then somehow I managed to say that he was mistaken, and that I hadn't come there for that reason. I wanted to talk to the point and justify myself, but I was worse than a stuttering idiot at a spelling-bee. Like a fool, I started in to say that I had heard a lot about the progress of the town, and he thought I had some speculation on foot and had run on him by accident. I no sooner saw that he thought that than I got tangled up worse than ever. Nothing short of begging his forgiveness would set things straight, and I couldn't have got that out to have saved my soul from perdition.”
“That certainly was awkward,” Toby burst out, like an enthusiast at a play. “It was bad.”
“I reckon we never would have understood each other, Toby, but we started to walk out together, and went along to a side street that run into a park where it wasn't so light. Somehow we went inside, and before I knew it I had laid my hand on his arm. I never had done a thing like that in all my life, and all of a sudden we stopped and he looked right in my face. It was too much for me, Toby. I couldn't hold in any longer. But it didn't do any harm, for I saw he understood me, and that was enough. He was the happiest creature I ever laid eyes on; he laughed and cried and petted me, and said that he loved me a hundred times more than he did old Whipple and his wife. Then we sat down on a bench under the trees and talked it all over. He talked to me more openly than he ever did before. He wanted to come home above all things, but he wanted to put it off awhile. He told me about him and Margaret Dearing. She was the only real sweetheart he'd ever had, he said, and he could never care for anybody else. It seems that they met by accident awhile back in New York, and she gave him to understand that she didn't care any more for him. He said it was because she knew of his shortage at the bank. But I told him how you and me had kept that quiet, and not to let that bother him. But he told me something that we didn't know: he said he had confessed it to her brother the night he left. He said a woman as high and proud as she was never could overlook anything bordering on dishonesty, no matter how much it was atoned for.”
“She wouldn't be so hard on him if that was all, Mr. Walton,” Toby said. “But, of course, she heard about the other thing; in fact, the girl and the child are right there under her eyes.”
“That occurred to me while me and him was talking,” Walton said; “but I simply couldn't bring up a nasty thing like that at such a time. I thought that might as well rest; in fact, it looked to me like he thought his name had never been mixed up with it. You see, Toby, maybe the woman promised that it shouldn't get out, and has kept him from knowing of the report in order to bleed his pocket. At any rate, he don't seem to suspect what folks are saying here at home. I know he wants to keep me in the dark, for he boldly asked me about Dora Barry, among other inquiries. I was astonished at it, but he wanted to know if she'd ever got married, and when I told him no, he went on to say that she was the best friend he'd ever had among the home girls, and that she had a beautiful character, and the like. He went on to say that she was the finest painter of pictures he had ever seen, and that when he left he was sure she would make a great artist out of her turn that way. He asked me if she had put her talent to any use, and I told him if she had I hadn't heard about it. Then he said—he did—that he was going to sit down and write her a friendly letter, and tell her where he was at, now that me and him had made up. I thought he was piling it on pretty heavy, you know, but I never let on.”
“That was best, of course,” Toby opined, reflectively. “Folks are not apt to throw up a thing like that to a man who has turned over a new leaf, and it may be many a year before he discovers how much has really been talked on that line. But you didn't tell me, Mr. Walton. Did you see Fred's—did you see Mr. Whipple?”
“It went powerfully against the grain, but I had to,” the banker said, gruffly. “I was in for making a beeline back home without having to swallow that dose, but Fred wouldn't hear to it. He said the old skunk would feel hurt. I didn't care a dad-dratted cent whether he felt hurt or not; in fact, I felt hurt to have him dragged in at all. I'm glad the boy has landed in such a pile of clover, but I don't like Whipple any too much, and I reckon that dang sign of his was my Belshazzar's warning on the wall. But it is this way—well, you know what I mean. I reckon a body can look at it from any direction—level, sink, or angle—and the fact will still stick out that the boy is divided, and will have to remain divided from now on. That ain't usual, Toby; it is crooked. It sort o' gives the lie to my success as a father. I won't go into it any further. The whole thing out there, though, would have gone off smooth enough if that old cuss hadn't been in it. He had a slobbery way of talking to Fred, and put his hands on him every chance he got. They asked me out to dinner at Whipple's house to meet the old woman, but I drew the line at that. I was sure she'd act the fool as bad, or worse, than Whipple had, and so I wouldn't go. I never was mushy in that way myself, and I can't stomach them that are. Whipple is going to leave him all he's got, and I want Fred to get all he can of the good things in life, but I'll be dad-blamed if I wanted 'em to come exactly that way.
“Whipple set there in his office and made out a list of his possessions, and it looked to me like he was making everything look as big as he could out of pure spite. Not once did he say—Toby, he didn't say a single time that I had any sort of justification in pinning down on the boy like I did. He might have done it, but he didn't. He always cocked himself up and talked in a roundabout, sneaking fashion, like he was giving underhanded digs. Toby, I want the boy back here, that's all. I want him back here in the bank to take my place after I'm gone. I don't think I could stand it to be beat to a cold, dead finish by that old chump in a fight of exactly this kind. Whipple said Fred could sort o' play between the two places—stay awhile here and awhile there, but I want to tie him down good and tight to old Stafford. I've got an idea how to do it, Toby, and it ain't a bad one.”