Part 17

And, above all, going so fast when he asked the question that he was out of ear-shot before suitable answer could be returned!

Captain Wass revolved those whirling thoughts in a brain which flamed and showed its fires through the skipper's wide-propped eyes.

Then he banged his megaphone across the pilot-house. It rebounded against him, and he kicked it into a corner. He began to whack his fist against a broad placard which was tacked up under his license as master. The cardboard was freshly white, and its tacks were bright, showing that it had been recently added as a feature of the pilot-house. Big letters in red ink at the top counseled, “Safety First.” Other big letters at the bottom warned, “Take No Chances.” The center lettering advised shipmasters that in case of accident the guilty parties would feel all the weight of Uncle Sam's heavy palm; it was the latest output from the Department of Commerce and Labor, and bore the signature of the honorable secretary of the bureau.

Mayo noted that his chief was wholly absorbed in this speechless activity; therefore he pulled the bells which stopped the backward churning and sent the freighter on her way. They passed the fisherman in the Hampton boat; he was bailing his craft.

“That was a rather close call, sir! I am glad that I have been trained by you to be a careful man. You took no chances!”

“And where have I got to by obeying the United States rules and never taking chances, Mr. Mayo? At sixty-five I'm master of a freight-scow, sassed by owners ashore and sassed on the high seas by fellows like that one who just slammed past us! If that passenger-steamer had hit me the lawyers would have shoved the tar end of the stick into my hands! It's all for the good of the hellbent fellows the way things are arranged in this world at the present time. I'll be lucky if he doesn't lodge complaint against me when he gets to New York, saying that I got in his way!” He cut off a fresh sliver of black plug and took his position at the whistle-pull. “You'd better go get an heiress,” he advised his mate, sourly. “Being an old-fashioned skipper in these days of steam-boating is what I'm too polite to name. And as to being the other kind—well, you have just seen him whang past!”

However, as they went wallowing up the coast, their old tub sagging with the weight of the rails under her hatches, Mate Mayo felt considerable of a young man's ambitious envy of that spick-and-span swaggerer who had yelled anathema from the pilot-house of the Triton. It was real steamboating, he reflected, even if the demands of owners and dividend-seekers did compel a master to take his luck between his teeth and gallop down the seas.

XVI ~ MILLIONS AND A MITE

To Tiffany's I took her, I did not mind expense; I bought her two gold ear-rings, They cost me fifty cents. And a-a-away, you santee! My dear Annie! O you New York girls! Can't you dance the polka! —Shanty, “The Lime Juicer.”

Mr. Ralph Bradish, using one of the booth telephones in the Wall Street offices of Marston & Waller, earnestly asked the cashier of an up-town restaurant, as a special favor, to hold for twenty-four hours the personal check, amount twenty-five dollars, given by Mr. Bradish the evening before.

Ten minutes later, with the utmost nonchalance and quite certain that the document was as good as wheat, Mr. Bradish signed a check for one million two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

That amount in no measure astonished him. He was quite used to signing smashing-big checks when he was called into the presence of Julius Marston. Once, the amount named was two millions. And there had been numbers and numbers of what Mr. Bradish mentally termed “piker checks”—a hundred thousand, two and three hundred thousand. And he had never been obliged to request any hold up on those checks for want of funds. Because, in each instance, there had been a magic, printed line along which Mr. Bradish had splashed his signature.

Before he blotted the ink on this check Bradish glanced, with only idle curiosity, to note in what capacity he was serving this time. The printed line announced to him that he was “Treasurer, the Paramount Coast Transportation Company, Inc.” He remembered that in the past he had signed as treasurer of the “Union Securities Company,” the “Amalgamated Holding Company,” and for other corporations sponsoring railroads and big industries with whose destinies Julius Marston, financier, appeared to have much to do. It was evident that Financier Marston preferred to have a forty-dollar-a-week clerk do the menial work of check-signing, or at least to have that clerk's name in evidence instead of Marston's own.

That modesty about having his name appear in public on a check seemed to attach to the business habits of Mr. Marston.

Mighty few person were ever admitted to this inner sanctuary where Bradish sat facing his employer across the flat-topped desk. And men who saw that employer outside his office did not turn their heads to stare after him or point respectful finger at him or remark to somebody else, “There's the big Julius Marston.” In the first place, Mr. Marston was not big in a physical sense, and there was nothing about him which would attract attention or cause him to be remarked in a crowd. And only a few persons really knew him, anyway.

He sat in his massive chair; one hand propped on the arm, his elbow akimbo, and with the other hand plucked slowly at the narrow strip of beard which extended from his lower lip to the peaked end of his chin.

“Very well, Mr. Bradish,” he remarked, after the latter had lifted the blotter from the check.

Bradish rose and bowed, and started to leave. He was a tall and shapely young man, with a waist, with a carriage. His garb was up-to-the-minute fashion—repressed. He was a study in brown, as to fabric of attire and its accessories. One of those white-faced chaps who always look a bit bored, with a touch of up-to-date cynicism! One of those fellows who listen much and who say little!

“Just a moment, Bradish,” invited Marston, and the young man stopped. “I like your way in these matters. You don't ask questions. You show no silly interest in any check you sign.”

Bradish reflected an instant on the check in the restaurant cashier's drawer, and pinched his thin lips a little more tightly.

“I'm quite sure you don't do any broadcast talking about the nature of these special duties.” The financier pointed to the check. “I'll say quite frankly that I didn't select you for this service until I had ascertained that you did no talking about your own affairs in the office with my other clerks.”

Bradish inclined his head respectfully.

“In financial matters it is necessary to pick men carefully. I trust you understand my attitude. These transactions are quite legitimate. But modern methods of high finance make it necessary to manipulate the details a little. Your attitude in accepting these duties, as a matter of course is very gratifying from a business standpoint. As a little mark of our confidence in you, you will receive seventy-five dollars per week hereafter.”

“Thank you.”

Mr. Martson allowed himself a quick, dry smile. “This isn't a bribe, you understand. There is nothing attached to this nominal service which requires bribing. We merely want to make it worth while for a prudent and close-mouthed young man to remain with us.”

A buzzer, as unobtrusive as were all the characteristics of Financier Marston, sounded its meek purr.

“Yes,” he murmured into the receiver of the telephone which communicated with the watchful picket of the Marston & Waller offices. “Who? Oh, she may come in at once.”

“Wait here a moment, if you please, Mr. Bradish. It is my daughter who has dropped in for a moment's word with me. I have something more for you to attend to.”

Bradish walked to one of the windows. He stared sharply at the girl who hurried in. Her hat and face were shrouded in an automobile veil, and the cloistered light of the big room helped to conceal her features. But Bradish seemed to recognize something about her in spite of the vagueness of outline. When she spoke to her father the young man's eyes snapped in true astonishment.

“I couldn't explain it very well over the telephone, papa, so I came right down. Do forgive me if I bother you for just a minute.” She glanced quickly at the young man beside the window, but found him merely an outline against the light.

“Only one of our clerks,” said her father. “What is it, my girl?”

“It's Nan Burgess's house-party at Kingston! There's to be an automobile parade—all decorated—at the fête, and I want to go in our big car, and have it two days. I was afraid you'd say no if I asked you over the telephone, but now that I'm right here, looking you in the eyes with all the coaxing power of my soul, you just can't refuse, can you, papa?”

“I think perhaps I would have consented over the telephone, Alma.”

“Then I may take the car?” Her playful tones rose in ecstatic crescendo. The impulsiveness of her nature was displayed by her manner in accepting this favor. She danced to her father and threw her arms about him. She exhibited as much delight as if he had bestowed upon her a gift of priceless pearls. The exuberance of her joy appeared to annoy him a bit.

“Gently, gently, Alma! If you waste your thanks in this manner for a little favor, what will you do some day for superlatives when you are really eager to thank some-body for a big gift?”

“Oh, I'll always have thanks enough to go around—that's my disposition. The folks who love me, I can love them twice as much. You're a dear old dad, and I know you want me to run along so that you can go to making a lot more money. So I'll just take myself out from underfoot.”

When she turned she glanced again at the person near the window, and this time she got a good look at his face. Even the veil could not hide from Bradish the color which spread into her cheeks. She was so conscious of her embarrassment and of her appearance that she did not turn her face to her father when he spoke to her.

“One moment, Alma! Seeing that my big car is going to have a two days' vacation in the country, I may as well make it do one last business errand for me.”

He called Bradish to the desk by a side jerk of the head.

“I want that check put into the hands of the brokerage firm of Mower Brothers as quickly as possible. My car is at the door, and it may as well take you along. Alma, allow this young man of ours to ride with you to the place where I'm sending him.”

He did not present Bradish to Miss Marston. Bradish did not expect the financier to do so. But this dismissal of him as a mere errand-boy—with the young lady staring him out of countenance in a half-frightened way—did cut the pride a bit, even in the case of a mere clerk. And this clerk was pondering on the memory that only the night before he had clasped this young lady—then a party unknown who was evidently bent upon an escapade incog.—had encircled this selfsame maiden with his arms during many blissful dances in one of the gorgeous Broadway public ball-rooms. And he had regaled her and a girl friend on viands for which his twenty-five-dollar check had scarcely sufficed to pay.

Bradish was pretty familiar with the phases and the oddities of the dancing craze, but this contretemps rather staggered him.

They had asked no questions of each other during those dances. They had been perfectly satisfied with the joy of the moment. She had looked at him in a way and with a softness in her eyes which told him that she found him pleasing in her sight. She had been enthusiastic, with that same exuberance he had just witnessed, over his grace in the dance. They had promised to meet again at the ball-room where social conventions did not prevent healthy young folks from enjoying themselves.

“Good heavens!” she whispered to him, as she preceded him through the door. “You work in my father's office?”

“You are surprised—a little shocked—and I don't blame you,” he returned, humbly. “As for me, I am simply astounded. But I am not a gossip.”

She stole a look at his pale, impassive face, and some of her father's instinct in judging men seemed to reassure her.

“One must play a bit,” she sighed. “And it's so stupid most of the time, among folks whom one knows very well. There are no more surprises.”

As he shut the door softly behind them Bradish heard Marston, once more immersed in his affairs of business, directing over the telephone that one Fletcher Fogg be located and sent to him.

“I apologize,” said Bradish, in the corridor. They were waiting for the elevator.

“For what?” She lifted her eyebrows, and there was no hint of annoyance in her dark eyes.

“For—well—seeing how the matter stands, it almost seems as if I had presumed—was masquerading. I am only a clerk, and—”

“But you are a clerk in Julius Marston's offices,” she said, with pride, “and that means that you are to be trusted. I require no apology from you, Mr.—er—”

“My name is Ralph Bradish.”

“I dodged away from dullness last evening; I was hoping to have a bit of a frolic. And I found a young gentleman who asked no impertinent questions, who was very gracious, and who was a delight in the dance. It was all very innocent—rather imprudent—but altogether lovely. There!”

“I thank you.”

“And—well, after Nan Burgess's house-party, I—”

She glanced up at him, provocation in her eyes.

“But I don't dare to hope, do I, that you will condescend to come again and dance with me?”

“Julius Marston has taught his daughter to keep her promise, sir. If I remember, I promised.”

He did not reply, for the elevator's grille door clashed open for them to enter.

And in the elevator, and later in the car, he was silent, as became the clerk of Marston's offices in the company of Marston's daughter when there were listeners near.

Her eyes gave him distinct approval and her lips gave him a charming smile when he alighted at his destination.

Bradish stood for a moment and gazed after the car when it threaded its way into the Broadway traffic.

“She's a flighty young dame, with a new notion for every minute,” he told himself. “You can see that plain enough. It's probably all jolly on her part. However, in these days, if a fellow keeps his head steady and his feet busy, there's no telling what the tango may lead to. This may be exactly, what I've been paying tailors' bills for.”

Indicating that in these calculating times the spirit of youth in the ardor of love at first sight is not as the poet of romance has painted it.

XVII ~ “EXACTLY!” SAID MR. FOGG

“O I am not a man o' war or privateer,” said he, Blow high, blow low, and so sailed we! “But I'm an honest pirate a-looking for my fee, Cruising down along the coast of the High Barbaree.” —Shanty of the “Prince Luther.”

Mr. Fletcher Fogg privately and mentally and metaphorically slapped himself on the back whenever he considered his many activities.

He was perfectly certain that he was the best little two-handed general operator of an all-around character that any gentleman could secure when that gentleman wanted a job done and did not care to give explicit instructions as to the details of procedure.

The look of grief and regret that the fat face of Mr. Fogg could assume when said gentleman—after the job was done—blamed the methods as unsanctioned, even though the result had been achieved—that expression was a study in humility—humility with its tongue in its cheek.

If Mr. Fogg could have advertised his business to suit himself—being not a whit ashamed of his tactics—he would have issued a card inscribed about as follows:

“Mr. FLETCHER FOGG: Promoting and demoting. Building and busting. The whole inside of any financial or industrial cheese cleaned out without disturbing the outside rind. All still work done noiselessly. Plenty of brass bands for loud work. Broad shoulders supplied to take on all the blame.”

Mr. Fogg, in the presence of Julius Marston, was properly obsequious, but not a bit fawning. He wiped away the moisture patches beside his nose with a purple handkerchief, and put it back into his outside breast pocket with the corners sticking out like attentive ears. He crossed his legs and set on his knee an ankle clothed in a purple silk stocking. On account of his rotundity he was compelled to hold the ankle in place in the firm clutch of his hand. He settled his purple tie with the other hand.

“I'm glad I was in reach when you wanted me,” he assured Mr. Marston. “I'm just in on the Triton. And I want to tell you that you're running that steamboat line in the way an American business man wants to have it run. If I had been on any other line, sir, I wouldn't have been here to-day when you were looking for me. Everything else on the coast prowling along half-speed, but down slammed the old Triton, scattering 'em out from underfoot like an auto going through a flock of chickens, but not a jar or a scrape or a jolt, and into her dock, through two days of thick fog, exactly on the dot. That's the way an American wants to be carried, sir.”

“I believe so, Mr. Fogg,” agreed Julius Marston. “And that's why we feel it's going to be a good thing for all the coast lines to be under one management—our management.”

“Exactly!”

“It's true progress—true benefit to travelers, stockholders, and all concerned. Consolidation instead of rivalry. I believe in it.”

“Exactly!”

“As a broad-gauged business man—big enough to grasp big matters—you have seen how consolidation effects reforms.”

“No two ways about it,” affirmed Mr. Fogg.

“That was very good missionary work you did in the matter of the Sound & Cape line—very good indeed.”

“It's astonishing what high and lofty ideas some stockholders have about properties they're interested in. In financial matters the poorest conclusion a man can draw is that a stock will always continue to pay dividends simply because it always has done so. I had to set off a pretty loud firecracker to wake those Sound & Cape fellows up. I had to show 'em what damage the new deals and competition and our combination would do to 'em if they kept on sleeping on their stock certificates. Funny how hard it is to pry some folks loose from their par-value notions.” Mr. Fogg delivered this little disquisition on the intractability of stockholders with reproachful vigor, staring blandly into the unwinking gaze of Mr. Marston. “I don't want to praise my own humble efforts too much,” he went on, “but I truly believe that inside another thirty days the Sound crowd would have been ready to cash in at fifty, in spite of that minority bunch that was hollering for par. That was only a big yawp from a few folks.”

“Fifty was a fair price in view of what's ahead in the way of competition, but we have made it a five-eighths proposition in order to clinch the deal promptly. I just sent one of our boys around with the check.”

Mr. Fogg beamed. He used his purple handkerchief on his cheeks once more. He allowed to himself a few words of praise: “They'll understand some day that I saved 'em from a bigger bump. But it's hard to show some people.”

“Now, Mr. Fogg, we come to the matter of the Vose line. What's the outlook?”

Mr. Fogg looked sad. “After weeks of chasing 'em, I can only say that they're ugly and stubborn, simply blind to their best interests.”

“Insist on par, do they?”

“Worse than that. Old Vose and his sons and those old hornbeam directors—retired sea-captains, you know, as hard as old turtles—they have taken a stand against consolidation. They belong in the dark ages of business. Old Vose had the impudence to tell me that forming this steamboat combine was a crime, and that he wouldn't be a party to a betrayal of the public. He won't come in; he won't sell; he's going to compete.”