A Certain Rich Man

by William Allen White

The spring sun of 1875 that tanned John Barclay's face gave it a leathery masklike appearance that the succeeding years never entirely wore off. For he lived in the open by day, riding among his fields in three townships, watching the green carpet of March rise and begin to dimple in April, and billow in May. And at night he worked in his office until the midnight cockcrow. His back was bowed under a score of burdens. But his greatest burden was the bank; for it gave him worry; and worry weighed upon him more than work. It was in April—early April when the days were raw and cloudy, and the nights blustery and dreary—that Barclay sat in his office one night after a hard day afield, his top-boots spattered with mud, his corduroy coat spread out on a chair to dry, and his wet gray soft hat on his desk beside him. Jane was with her parents in Minneola, and Barclay had come to his office without eating, from the stable where he left his team. The yellow lights in the street below were reflected on the mists outside his window, and the dripping eaves and cornices above him and about him seemed to mark the time of some eery music too fine for his senses, and the footfalls in the street below, hurrying footfalls of people shivering through the mists, seemed to be the drum beats of the weird symphony that he could not hear.

Barclay drew a watch from, the pocket of his blue flannel shirt, and looked at it and stopped writing and stood by the box-stove. He was looking at the door when he heard a thud on the stairs. It was followed by a rattling sound, and in a moment Adrian Brownwell and his cane were in the room. After the rather gorgeous cadenza of Brownwell's greeting had died away and Barclay had his man in a chair, Barclay opened the stove door and let the glow of the flames fight the shadows in the room.

"Well," said Barclay, turning toward his visitor brusquely, "why won't you renew that accommodation paper for me again?"

The Papins and the Dulangprés shrugged their shoulders and waved their hands through Brownwell rather nastily as he answered, "Circumstances, Mr. Barclay, circumstances!"

"You're not getting along fast enough, eh?" retorted Barclay.

"Yes—and no," returned Brownwell.

"What do you mean?" asked Barclay, half divining the truth.

"Well—it is after all our own affair—but since you are a friend I will say this: three times a week—sometimes four times a week I go out to pay my respects. Until November I stayed until nine, at Christmas we put on another hour; now it is ten-thirty. I am a man, John Barclay—as you see. She—she is an angel. Very good. In that way, yes. But," the Papins and Dulangprés came back to his face, and he shook his head. "But otherwise—no. There we stand still. She will not say it."

Barclay squinted at the man who sat so complacently in the glow of the firelight, with his cane between his toes and his gloves lightly fanning the air. "So I take it," said John, "that you are like the Memorial Day parade, several hours passing a given point!"

"Exactly," smiled back Brownwell. He drew from his pocket a diamond ring. "She will look at it; she will admire it. She will put it on a chain, but she will not wear it. And so I say, why should I put my head in a noose here in your bank—what's the use? No, sir, John Barclay—no, sir. I'm done, sir."