Aladdin & Co.: A Romance of Yankee Magic

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Aladdin & Co.

A Romance Of Yankee Magic

By Herbert Quick

Author of "Virginia of the Air Lanes," "Double Trouble," etc.

GROSSET & DUNLAP Publishers--New York

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Copyright 1904 Henry Holt and Company

Copyright 1907 The Bobbs-Merrill Company

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Contents.

PAGE CHAPTER I. Which is of an Introductory Character 1

CHAPTER II. Still Introductory 13

CHAPTER III. Reminiscentially Autobiographical 20

CHAPTER IV. Jim Discovers his Coral Island 39

CHAPTER V. We Reach the Atoll 46

CHAPTER VI. I am Inducted into the Cave, and Enlist 55

CHAPTER VII. We Make our Landing 67

CHAPTER VIII. A Welcome to Wall Street and Us 77

CHAPTER IX. I Go Abroad and We Unfurl the Jolly Roger 86

CHAPTER X. We Dedicate Lynhurst Park 96

CHAPTER XI. The Empress and Sir John Meet Again 112

CHAPTER XII. In which the Burdens of Wealth Begin to Fall upon Us 120

CHAPTER XIII. A Sitting or Two in the Game with the World and Destiny 137

CHAPTER XIV. In which we Learn Something of Railroads, and Attend Some Remarkable Christenings 152

CHAPTER XV. Some Affairs of the Heart Considered in their Relation to Dollars and Cents 169

CHAPTER XVI. Some Things which Happened in our Halcyon Days 185

CHAPTER XVII. Relating to the Disposition of the Captives 201

CHAPTER XVIII. The Going Away of Laura and Clifford, and the Departure of Mr. Trescott 214

CHAPTER XIX. In which Events Resume their Usual Course--at a Somewhat Accelerated Pace 231

CHAPTER XX. I Twice Explain the Condition of the Trescott Estate 248

CHAPTER XXI. Of Conflicts, Within and Without 260

CHAPTER XXII. In which I Win my Great Victory 270

CHAPTER XXIII. The "Dutchman's Mill" and What it Ground 281

CHAPTER XXIV. The Beginning of the End 291

CHAPTER XXV. That Last Weird Battle in the West 306

CHAPTER XXVI. The End--and a Beginning 320

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Aladdin & Co

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The Persons Of The Story.

James Elkins, the "man who made Lattimore," known as "Jim."

Albert Barslow, who tells the tale; the friend and partner of Jim.

Alice Barslow, his wife; at first, his sweetheart.

William Trescott, known as "Bill," a farmer and capitalist.

Josephine Trescott, his daughter.

Mrs. Trescott, his wife.

Mr. Hinckley, a banker of Lattimore.

Mrs. Hinckley, his wife; devoted to the emancipation of woman.

Antonia, their daughter.

Aleck Macdonald, pioneer and capitalist.

General Lattimore, pioneer, soldier, and godfather of Lattimore.

Miss Addison, the general's niece.

Captain Marion Tolliver, Confederate veteran and Lattimore boomer.

Mrs. Tolliver, his wife.

Will Lattimore, a lawyer.

Mr. Ballard, a banker.

J. Bedford Cornish, a speculator, who with Elkins, Barslow, and Hinckley make up the great Lattimore "Syndicate."

Clifford Giddings, editor and proprietor of the Lattimore Herald.

De Forest Barr-Smith, an Englishman "representing capital."

Cecil Barr-Smith, his brother.

Avery Pendleton, of New York, a railway magnate; head of the "Pendleton System."

Allen G. Wade, of New York; head of the Allen G. Wade Trust Co.

Halliday, a railway magnate; head of the "Halliday System."

Watson, a reporter.

Schwartz, a locomotive engineer on the Lattimore & Great Western.

Hegvold, a fireman.

Citizens of Lattimore, Politicians, Live-stock Merchants, Railway Clerks and Officials, etc.

Scene: Principally in the Western town of Lattimore, but partly in New York and Chicago.

Time: Not so very long ago.

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Aladdin & Co

Chapter I.

Which is of Introductory Character.

Our National Convention met in Chicago that year, and I was one of the delegates. I had looked forward to it with keen expectancy. I was now, at five o'clock of the first day, admitting to myself that it was a bore.

The special train, with its crowd of overstimulated enthusiasts, the throngs at the stations, the brass bands, bunting, and buncombe all jarred upon me. After a while my treason was betrayed to the boys by the fact that I was not hoarse. They punished me by making me sing as a solo the air of each stanza of "Marching Through Georgia," "Tenting To-night on the Old Camp-ground," and other patriotic songs, until my voice was assimilated to theirs. But my gorge rose at it all, and now, at five o'clock of the first day, I was seeking a place of retirement where I could be alone and think over the marvelous event which had suddenly raised me from yesterday's parity with the fellows on the train to my present state of exaltation.

I should have preferred a grotto in Vau Vau or some south-looking mountain glen; but in the absence of any such retreat in Chicago, I turned into the old art-gallery in Michigan Avenue. As I went floating in space past its door, my eye caught through the window the gleam of the white limbs of statues, and my being responded to the soul vibrations they sent out. So I paid my fee, entered, and found the tender solitude for which my heart longed. I sat down and luxuriated in thoughts of the so recent marvelous experience. Need I explain that I was young and the experience was one of the heart?

I was so young that my delegateship was regarded as a matter to excite wonder. I saw my picture in the papers next morning as a youth of twenty-three who had become his party's leader in an important agricultural county. Some, in the shameless laudation of a sensational press, compared me to the younger Pitt. As a matter of fact, I had some talent for organization, and in any gathering of men, I somehow never lacked a following. I was young enough to be an honest partisan, enthusiastic enough to be useful, strong enough to be respected, ignorant enough to believe my party my country's safeguard, and I was prominent in my county before I was old enough to vote. At twenty-one I conducted a convention fight which made a member of Congress. It was quite natural, therefore, that I should be delegate to this convention, and that I had looked forward to it with keen expectancy. The remarkable thing was my falling off from its work now by virtue of that recent marvelous experience which as I have admitted was one of the heart. Do not smile. At three-and-twenty even delegates have hearts.

My mental and sentimental state is of importance in this history, I think, or I should not make so much of it. I feel sure that I should not have behaved just as I did had I not been at that moment in the iridescent cloudland of newly-reciprocated love. Alice had accepted me not an hour before my departure for Chicago. Hence my loathing for such things as nominating speeches and the report of the Committee on Credentials, and my yearning for the Vau Vau grotto. She had yielded herself up to me with such manifold sweetnesses, uttered and unutterable (all of which had to be gone over in my mind constantly to make sure of their reality), that the contest in Indiana, and the cause of our own State's Favorite Son, became sickening burdens to me, which rolled away as I gazed upon the canvases in the gallery. I lay back upon a seat, half closed my eyes, and looked at the pictures. When one comes to consider the matter, an art gallery is a wonderfully different thing from a national convention!

As I looked on them, the still paintings became instinct with life. Yonder shepherdess shielding from the thorns the little white lamb was Alice, and back behind the clump of elms was myself, responding to her silvery call. The cottage on the mountain-side was ours. That lady waving her handkerchief from the promontory was Alice, too; and I was the dim figure on the deck of the passing ship. I was the knight and she the wood-nymph; I the gladiator in the circus, she the Roman lady who agonized for me in the audience; I the troubadour who twanged the guitar, she the princess whose fair shoulder shone through the lace at the balcony window. They lived and moved before my very eyes. I knew the unseen places beyond the painted mountains, and saw the secret things the artists only dreamed of. Doves cooed for me from the clumps of thorn; the clouds sailed in pearly serenity across the skies, their shadows mottling mountain, hill, and plain; and out from behind every bole, and through every leafy screen, glimpsed white dryads and fleeing fays.

Clearly the convention hall was no place for me. "Hang the speech of the temporary chairman, anyhow!" thought I; "and as for the platform, let it point with pride, and view with apprehension, to its heart's content; it is sure to omit all reference to the overshadowing issue of the day--Alice!"

All the world loves a lover, and a true lover loves all the world,--especially that portion of it similarly blessed. So, when I heard a girl's voice alternating in intimate converse with that of a man, my sympathies went out to them, and I turned silently to look. They must have come in during my reverie; for I had passed the place where they were sitting and had not seen them. There was a piece of grillwork between my station and theirs, through which I could see them plainly. The gallery had seemed deserted when I went in, and still seemed so, save for the two voices.

Hers was low and calm, but very earnest; and there was in it some inflection or intonation which reminded me of the country girls I had known on the farm and at school. His was of a peculiarly sonorous and vibrant quality, its every tone so clear and distinct that it would have been worth a fortune to a public speaker. Such a voice and enunciation are never associated with any mind not strong in the qualities of resolution and decision.

On looking at her, I saw nothing countrified corresponding to the voice. She was dressed in something summery and cool, and wore a sort of flowered blouse, the presence of which was explained by the easel before which she sat, and the palette through which her thumb protruded. She had laid down her brush, and the young man was using her mahlstick in a badly-directed effort to smear into a design some splotches of paint on the unused portion of her canvas.

He was by some years her senior, but both were young--she, very young. He was swarthy of complexion, and his smoothly-shaven, square-set jaw and full red lips were bluish with the subcutaneous blackness of his beard. His dress was so distinctly late in style as to seem almost foppish; but there was nothing of the exquisite in his erect and athletic form, or in his piercing eye.

She was ruddily fair, with that luxuriant auburn-brown hair which goes with eyes of amberish-brown and freckles. These latter she had, I observed with a renewal of the thought of the country girls and the old district school. She was slender of waist, full of bust, and, after a lissome, sylph-like fashion, altogether charming in form. With all her roundness, she was slight and a little undersized.

So much of her as there was, the young fellow seemed ready to absorb, regarding her with avid eyes--a gaze which she seldom met. But whenever he gave his attention to the mahlstick, her eyes sought his countenance with a look which was almost scrutiny. It was as if some extrinsic force drew her glance to his face, until the stronger compulsion of her modesty drove it away at the return of his black orbs. My heart recognized with a throb the freemasonry into which I had lately been initiated, and, all unknown to them, I hailed them as members of the order.

Their conversation came to me in shreds and fragments, which I did not at all care to hear. I recognized in it those inanities with which youth busies the lips, leaving the mind at rest, that the interplay of magnetic discharges from heart to heart may go on uninterruptedly. It is a beautiful provision of nature, but I did not at that time admire it. I pitied them. Alice and I had passed through that stage, and into the phase marked by long and eloquent silences.

"I was brought up to think," I remember to have heard the fair stranger say, following out, apparently, some subject under discussion between them, "that the surest way to make a child steal jam is to spy upon him. I should feel ashamed."

"Quite right," said he, "but in Europe and in the East, and even here in Chicago, in some circles, it is looked upon as indispensable, you know."

"In art, at least," she went on, "there is no sex. Whoever can help me in my work is a companion that I don't need any chaperon to protect me from. If I wasn't perfectly sure of that, I should give up and go back home."

"Now, don't draw the line so as to shut me out," he protested. "How can I help you with your work?"

She looked him steadily in the face now, her intent and questioning regard shading off into a somewhat arch smile.

"I can't think of any way," said she, "unless it would be by posing for me."

"There's another way," he answered, "and the only one I'd care about."

She suddenly became absorbed in the contemplation of the paints on her palette, at which she made little thrusts with a brush; and at last she queried, doubtfully, "How?"

"I've heard or read," he answered, "that no artist ever rises to the highest, you know, until after experiencing some great love. I--can't you think of any other way besides the posing?"

She brought the brush close to her eyes, minutely inspecting its point for a moment, then seemed to take in his expression with a swift sweeping glance, resumed the examination of the brush, and finally looked him in the face again, a little red spot glowing in her cheek, and a glint of fire in her eye. I was too dense to understand it, but I felt that there was a trace of resentment in her mien.

"Oh, I don't know about that!" she said. "There may be some other way. I haven't met all your friends, and you may be the means of introducing me to the very man."

I did not hear his reply, though I confess I tried to catch it. She resumed her work of copying one of the paintings. This she did in a mechanical sort of way, slowly, and with crabbed touches, but with some success. I thought her lacking in anything like control over the medium in which she worked; but the results promised rather well. He seemed annoyed at her sudden accession of industry, and looked sometimes quizzically at her work, often hungrily at her. Once or twice he touched her hand as she stepped near him; but she neither reproved him nor allowed him to retain it.

I felt that I had taken her measure by this time. She was some Western country girl, well supplied with money, blindly groping toward the career of an artist. Her accent, her dress, and her occupation told of her origin and station in life, and of her ambitions. The blindness I guessed,--partly from the manner of her work, partly from the inherent probabilities of the case. If the young man had been eliminated from this problem with which my love-sick imagination was busying itself, I could have followed her back confidently to some rural neighborhood, and to a year or two of painting portraits from photographs, and landscapes from "studies," and exhibiting them at the county fair; the teaching of some pupils, in an unnecessary but conscientiously thrifty effort to get back some of the money invested in an "art education" in Chicago; and a final reversion to type after her marriage with the village lawyer, doctor or banker, or the owner of the adjoining farm. I was young; but I had studied people, and had already seen such things happen.

But the young man could not be eliminated. He sat there idly, his every word and look surcharged with passion. As I wondered how long it would be until they were as happy as Alice and I, the thought grew upon me that, however familiar might be the type to which she belonged, he was unclassified. His accent was Eastern--of New York, I judged. He looked like the young men in the magazine illustrations--interesting, but outside my field of observation. And I could not fail to see that girl must find herself similarly at odds with him. "But," thought I, "love levels all!" And I freshly interrogated the pictures and statues for transportation to my own private Elysium, forgetful of my unconscious neighbors.

My attention was recalled to them, however, by their arrangements for departure, and a concomitant slightly louder tone in their conversation.

"It's just a spectacular show," said he; "no plot or anything of that sort, you know, but good music and dancing; and when we get tired of it we can go. We'll have a little supper at Auriccio's afterward, if you'll be so kind. It's only a step from McVicker's."

"Won't it be pretty late?" she queried.

"Not for Chicago," said he, "and you'll find material for a picture at Auriccio's about midnight. It's quite like the Latin Quarter, sometimes."

"I want to see the real Latin Quarter, and no imitation," she answered. "Oh, I guess I'll go. It'll furnish me with material for a letter to mamma, however the picture may turn out."

"I'll order supper for the Empress," said he, "and--"

"And for the illustrious Sir John," she added. "But you mustn't call me that any more. I've been reading her history, and I don't like it. I'm glad he died on St. Helena, now: I used to feel sorry for him."

"Transfer your pity to the downtrodden Sir John," he replied, "and make a real living man happy."

They passed out and left me to my dreams. But visions did not return. My idyl was spoiled. Old-fashioned ideas emerged, and took form in the plain light of every-day common-sense. I knew the wonderfully gorgeous spectacle these two young people were going to see at the play that night, with its lights, its music, its splendidly meretricious Orientalism. And I knew Auriccio's,--not a disreputable place at all, perhaps; but free-and-easy, and distinctly Bohemian. I wished that this little girl, so arrogantly and ignorantly disdainful (as Alice would have been under the same circumstances) of such European conventions as the chaperon, so fresh, so young, so full of allurement, so under the influence of this smooth, dark, and passionate wooer with the vibrant voice, could be otherwise accompanied on this night of pleasure than by himself alone.

"It's none of your business," said the voice of that cold-hearted and slothful spirit which keeps us in our groove, "and you couldn't do anything, anyhow. Besides, he's abjectly in love with her: would there be any danger if it were you and your Alice?"

"I'm not at all sure about him or his abjectness," replied my uneasy conscience. "He knows better than to do this."

"What do you know of either of them?" answered this same Spirit of Routine. "What signify a few sentences casually overheard? She may be something quite different; there are strange things in Chicago."

"I'll wager anything," said I hotly, "that she's a good American girl of the sort I live among and was brought up with! And she may be in danger."

"If she's that sort of girl," said the Voice, "you may rely upon her to take care of herself."

"That's pretty nearly true," I admitted.

"Besides," said the Voice illogically, "such things happen every night in such a city. It's a part of the great tragedy. Don't be Quixotic!"

Here was where the Voice lost its case: for my conscience was stirred afresh; and I went back to the convention-hall carrying on a joint debate with myself. Once in the hall, however, I was conscripted into a war which was raging all through our delegation over the succession in our membership in the National Committee. I thought no more of the idyl of the art-gallery until the adjournment for the night.

Chapter II.

Still Introductory.

The great throng from the hall surged along the streets in an Amazonian network of streams, gathering in boiling lakes in the great hotels, dribbling off into the boarding-house districts in the suburbs, seeping down into the slimy fens of vice. Again I found myself out of touch with it all. I gave my companions the slip, and started for my hotel.

All at once it occurred to me that I had not dined, and with the thought came the remembrance of my pair of lovers, and their supper together. With a return of the feeling that these were the only people in Chicago possessing spirits akin to mine, I shaped my course for Auriccio's. My country dazedness led me astray once or twice, but I found the place, retreated into the farthest corner, sat down, and ordered supper.

It was not one of the places where the out-of-town visitors were likely to resort, and it was in fact rather quieter than usual. The few who were at the tables went out before my meal was served, and for a few minutes I was alone. Then the Empress and Sir John entered, followed by half a dozen other playgoers. The two on whom my sentimental interest was fixed came far down toward my position, attracted by the quietude which had lured me, and seated themselves at a table in a sort of alcove, cut off from the main room by columns and palms, secluded enough for privacy, public enough, perhaps, for propriety. So far as I was concerned I could see them quite plainly, looking, as I did, from my gloomy corner toward the light of the restaurant; and I was sufficiently close to be within easy earshot. I began to have the sensation of shadowing them, until I recalled the fact that, so far, it had been a case of their following me.

I thought his manner toward her had changed since the afternoon. There was now an openness of wooing, an abandonment of reserve in glance and attitude, which should have admonished her of an approaching crisis in their affairs. Yet she seemed cooler and more self-possessed than before. Save for a little flutter in her low laugh, I should have pronounced her entirely at ease. She looked very sweet and girlish in her high-necked dress, which helped make up a costume that she seemed to have selected to subdue and conceal, rather than to display, her charms. If such was her plan, it went pitifully wrong: his advances went on from approach to approach, like the last manoeuvres of a successful siege.

"No," I heard her say, as I became conscious that we three were alone again; "not here! Not at all! Stop!"

When I looked at them they were quietly sitting at the table; but her face was pale, his flushed. Pretty soon the waiter came and served champagne. I felt sure that she had never seen any before.

"How funny it looks," said she, "with the bubbles coming up in the middle like a little fountain; and how pretty! Why, the stem is hollow, isn't it?"

He laughed and made some foolish remark about love bubbling up in his heart. When he set his glass down, I could see that his hands were trembling as with palsy,--so much so that it was tipped over and broken.

"I'll fill another," said he. "Aren't you sorry you broke it?"

"I?" she queried. "You're not going to lay that to me, are you?"

"You're the only one to blame!" he replied. "You must hold it till it's steady. I'll hold your glass with the other. Why, you don't take any at all! Don't you like it, dear?"

She shrank back, looked toward the door, and then took the hand in both of hers, holding it close to her side, and drank the wine like a child taking medicine. His arm, his hand still holding the glass, slipped about her waist, but she turned swiftly and silently freed herself and sat down by the chair in which he had meant that both should sit, holding his hands. Then in a moment I saw her sitting on the other side of the table, and he was filling the glasses again. The guests had all departed. The well-disciplined waiters had effaced themselves. Only we three were there. I wondered if I ought to do anything.

They sat and talked in low tones. He was drinking a good deal of the champagne; she, little; and neither seemed to be eating anything. He sat opposite to her, leaning over as if to consume her with his eyes. She returned his gaze often now, and often smiled; but her smile was drawn and tremulous, and, to my mind, pitifully appealing. I no longer wondered if I ought to do anything; for, once, when I partly rose to go and speak to them, the impossibility of the thing overcame my half resolve, and I sat down. The anti-quixotic spirit won, after all.

At last a waiter, returning with the change for the bill with which I had paid my score, was hailed by Sir John, and was paid for their supper. I looked to see them as they started for home. The girl rose and made a movement toward her wrap. He reached it first and placed it about her shoulders. In so doing, he drew her to him, and began speaking softly and passionately to her in words I could not hear. Her face was turned upward and backward toward him, and all her resistance seemed gone. I should have been glad to believe this the safe and triumphant surrender to an honest love; but here, after the dances and Stamboul spectacles, hidden by the palms, beside the table with its empty bottles and its broken glass, how could I believe it such? I turned away, as if to avoid the sight of the crushing of some innocent thing which I was powerless to aid, and strode toward the door.

Then I heard a little cry, and saw her come flying down the great hall, leaving him standing amazedly in the archway of the palm alcove.

She passed me at the door, her face vividly white, went out into the street, like a dove from the trap at a shooting tournament, and sprang lightly upon a passing street-car. I could act now, and I would see her to a place of safety; so I, too, swung on by the rail of the rear car. She never once turned her face; but I saw Sir John come to the door of the restaurant and look both ways for her, and as he stood perplexed and alarmed, our train turned the curve at the next corner, we were swept off toward the South Side, and the dark young man passed, as I supposed, "into my dreams forever." I made my way forward a few seats and saw her sitting there with her head bowed upon the back of the seat in front of her. I bitterly wished that he, if he had a heart, might see her there, bruised in spirit, her little ignorant white soul, searching itself for smutches of the uncleanness it feared. I wished that Alice might be there to go to her and comfort her without a word. I paid her fare, and the conductor seemed to understand that she was not to be disturbed. A drunken man in rough clothes came into the car, walked forward and looked at her a moment, and as I was about to go to him and make him sit elsewhere, he turned away and came back to the rear, as if he had some sort of maudlin realization that the front of the train was sacred ground.

At last she looked about, signalled for the car to stop, and alighted. I followed, rather suspecting that she did not know her way. She walked steadily on, however, to a big, dark house with a vine-covered porch, close to the sidewalk. A stout man, coatless, and in a white shirt, stood at the gate. He wore a slouch hat, and I knew him, even in that dim light, for a farmer. She stopped for a moment, and without a word, sprang into his arms.

"Wal, little gal, ain't yeh out purty late?" I heard him say, as I walked past. "Didn't expect yer dad to see yeh, did yeh? Why, yeh ain't a-cryin', be yeh?"

"O pa! O pa!" was all I heard her say; but it was enough. I walked to the corner, and sat down on the curbstone, dead tired, but happy. In a little while I went back toward the street-car line, and as I passed the vine-clad porch, heard the farmer's bass voice, and stopped to listen, frankly an eavesdropper, and feeling, somehow, that I had earned the right to hear.

"Why, o' course, I'll take yeh away, ef yeh don't like it here, little gal," he was saying. "Yes, we'll go right in an' pack up now, if yeh say so. Only it's a little suddent, and may hurt the Madame's feelin's, y' know--"

* * * * *

At the hotel I was forced by the crowded state of the city to share the bed of one of my fellow delegates. He was a judge from down the state, and awoke as I lay down.

"That you, Barslow?" said he. "Do you know a fellow by the name of Elkins, of Cleveland?"

"No," said I, "why?"

"He was here to see you, or rather to inquire if you were Al Barslow who used to live in Pleasant Valley Township," the Judge went on. "He's the fellow who organized the Ohio flambeau brigade. Seems smart."

"Pleasant Valley Township, did he say? Yes, I know him. It's Jimmie Elkins."

And I sank to sleep and to dreams, in which Jimmie Elkins, the Empress, Sir John, Alice, and myself acted in a spectacular drama, like that at McVicker's. And yet there are those who say there is nothing in dreams!

Chapter III.

Reminiscentially Autobiographical.

This Jimmie Elkins was several years older than I; but that did not prevent us, as boys, from being fast friends. At seventeen he had a coterie of followers among the smaller fry of ten and twelve, his tastes clinging long to the things of boyhood. He and I played together, after the darkening of his lip suggested the razor, and when the youths of his age were most of them acquiring top buggies, and thinking of the long Sunday-night drives with their girls. Jim preferred the boys, and the trade of the fisher and huntsman.

Why, in spite of parental opposition, I loved Jimmie, is not hard to guess. He had an odd and freakish humor, and talked more of Indian-fighting, filibustering in gold-bearing regions, and of moving accidents by flood and field, than of crops, live-stock, or bowery dances. He liked me just as did the older men who sent me to the National Convention,--in spite of my youth. He was a ne'er-do-weel, said my father, but I snared gophers and hunted and fished with him, and we loved each other as brothers seldom do.

At last, I began teaching school, and working my way to a better education than our local standard accepted as either useful or necessary, and Jim and I drifted apart. He had always kept up a voluminous correspondence with that class of advertisers whose black-letter "Agents Wanted" is so attractive to the farmer-boy; and he was usually agent for some of their wares. Finally, I heard of him as a canvasser for a book sold by subscription,--a "Veterinarians' Guide," I believe it was,--and report said that he was "making money." Again I learned that he had established a publishing business of some kind; and, later, that reverses had forced him to discontinue it,--the old farmer who told me said he had "failed up." Then I heard no more of him until that night of the convention, when I had the adventure with the Empress and Sir John, all unknown to them; and Jim made the ineffectual attempt to find me. His family had left the old neighborhood, and so had mine; and the chances of our ever meeting seemed very slight. In fact it was some years later and after many of the brave dreams of the youthful publicist had passed away, that I casually stumbled upon him in the smoking-room of a parlor-car, coming out of Chicago.

I did not know him at first. He came forward, and, extending his hand, said, "How are you, Al?" and paused, holding the hand I gave him, evidently expecting to enjoy a period of perplexity on my part. But with one good look in his eyes I knew him. I made him sit down by me, and for half an hour we were too much engrossed in reminiscences to ask after such small matters as business, residence, and general welfare.

"Where all have you been, Jim, and what have you been doing, since you followed off the 'Veterinarians' Guide,' and I lost you?" I inquired at last.

"I've been everywhere, and I've done everything, almost," said he. "Put it in the 'negative case,' and my history'll be briefer."

"I should regard organizing a flambeau brigade," said I, "as about the last thing you would engage in."

"Ah!" he replied, "His Whiskers at the hotel told you I called that time, did he? Well, I didn't think he had the sense. And I doubted the memory on your part, and I wasn't at all sure you were the real Barslow. But about the flambeaux. The fact is, I had some stock in the flambeau factory, and I was a rabid partisan of flambeaux. They seemed so patriotic, you know, so sort of ennobling, and so convincing, as to the merits of the tariff controversy!"

It was the same old Jim, I thought.

"We used to have a scheme," I remarked, "our favorite one, of occupying an island in the Pacific,--or was it somewhere in the vicinity of the Spanish Main--"

"If it was the place where we were to make slaves of all the natives, and I was to be king, and you Grand Vizier," he answered, as if it were a weighty matter, and he on the witness-stand, "it was in the Pacific--the South Pacific, where the whale-oil comes from. A coral atoll, with a crystal lagoon in the middle for our ships, and a fringe of palms along the margin--coco-palms, you remember; and the lagoon was green, sometimes, and sometimes blue; and the sharks never came over the bar, but the porpoises came in and played for us, and made fireworks in the phosphorescent waves...."

His eyes grew almost tender, as he gazed out of the window, and ceased to speak without finishing the sentence,--which it took me some minutes to follow out to the end, in my mind. I was delighted and touched to find these foolish things so green in his memory.

"The plan involved," said I soberly, "capturing a Spanish galleon filled with treasure, finding two lovely ladies in the cabin, and offering them their liberty. And we sailed with them for a port; and, as I remember it, their tears at parting conquered us, and we married them; and lived richer than oil magnates, and grander than Monte Cristos forever after: do you remember?"

"Remember! Well, I should smile!"--he had been laughing like a boy, with his old frank laugh. "Them's the things we don't forget.... Did you ever gather any information as to what a galleon really was? I never did."

"I had no more idea than I now have of the Rosicrucian Mysteries; and I must confess," said I, "that I'm a little hazy on the galleon question yet. As to piracy, now, and robbers and robbery, actual life fills out the gaps in the imagination of boyhood, doesn't it, Jim?"

"Apt to," he assented, "but specifically? As to which, you know?"

"Well, I've had my share of experience with them," I answered, "though not so much in the line of rob-or, as we planned, but more as rob-ee."

Jim looked at me quizzically.

"Board of Trade, faro, or ... what?" he ventured.

"General business," I responded, "and ... politics."

"Local, state, or national?" he went on, craftily ignoring the general business.

"A little national, some state, but the bulk of it local. I've been elected County Treasurer, down where I live, for four successive terms."

"Good for you!" he responded. "But I don't see how that can be made to harmonize with your remark about rob-or and rob-ee. It's been your own fault, if you haven't been on the profitable side of the game, with the dear people on the other. And I judge from your looks that you eat three meals a day, right along, anyhow. Come, now, b'lay this rob-ee business (as Sir Henry Morgan used to say) till you get back to Buncombe County. As a former partner in crime, I won't squeal; and the next election is some ways off, anyhow. No concealment among pals, now, Al, it's no fair, you know, and it destroys confidence and breeds discord. Many a good, honest, piratical enterprise has been busted up by concealment and lack of confidence. Always trust your fellow pirates,--especially in things they know all about by extrinsic evidence,--and keep concealment for the great world of the unsophisticated and gullible, and to catch the sucker vote with. But among ourselves, my beloved, fidelity to truth, and openness of heart is the first rule, right out of Hoyle. With dry powder, mutual confidence, and sharp cutlasses, we are invincible; and as the poet saith,

"'Far as the tum-te-tum the billows foam Survey our empire and behold our home,'

or words to that effect. And to think of your trying to deceive me, your former chieftain, who doesn't even vote in your county or state, and moreover always forgets election! Rob-ee indeed! rats! Al, I'm ashamed of you, by George, I am!"

This speech he delivered with a ridiculous imitation of the tricks of the elocutionist. It was worthy of the burlesque stage. The conductor, passing through, was attracted by it, and notified us that the solitude of the smoking-room had been invaded, by a slight burst of applause at Jim's peroration, followed by the vanishing of the audience.

"No need for any further concealment on my part, so far as elections are concerned," said I, when we had finished our laugh, "for I go out of office January first, next."

"Oh, well, that accounts for it, then," said he. "I notice, say, three kinds of retirement from office: voluntary (very rare), post-convention, and post-election. Which is yours?"

"Post-convention, I'm sorry to say. I wish it had been voluntary."

"It _is_ the cheapest; but you're in great luck not to get licked at the polls. Altogether, you're in great luck. You've been betting on a game in which the percentage is mighty big in favor of the house, and you've won three or four consecutive turns out of the box. You've got no kick coming: you're in big luck. Don't you know you are?"

I did not feel called upon to commit myself; and we smoked on for some time in silence.

"It strikes me, Jim," said I, at last, "that you've done all the cross-examination, and that it is time to listen to your report. How about you and your conduct?"

"As for my conduct," was the prompt answer, "it's away up in the neighborhood of G. I've managed to hold the confounded world up for a living, ever since I left Pleasant Valley Township. Some of the time the picking has been better than at others; but my periods of starvation have been brief. By practicing on the 'Veterinarians' Guide' and other similar fakes, I learned how to talk to people so as to make them believe what I said about things, with the result, usually, of wooing the shrinking and cloistered dollar from its lair. When a fellow gets this trick down fine, he can always find a market for his services. I handled hotel registers, city directories, and like literature, including county histories--"

"Sh-h-h!" said I, "somebody might hear you."

"--and at last, after a conference with my present employers, the error of my way presented itself to me, and I felt called to a higher and holier profession. I yielded to my good angel, turned my better nature loose, and became a missionary."

"A what!" I exclaimed.

"A missionary," he responded soberly. "That is, you understand, not one of these theological, India's-coral-strand guys; but one who goes about the United States of America in a modest and unassuming way, doing good so far as in him lies."

"I see," said I, punning horribly, "'in him lies.'"

"Eh?... Yes. Have another cigar. Well, now, you can't defend this foreign-mission business to me for a minute. The hills, right in this vicinity, are even now white to the harvest. Folks here want the light just as bad as the foreign heathen; and so I took up my burden, and went out to disseminate truth, as the soliciting agent of the Frugality and Indemnity Life Association, which presented itself to me as the capacity in which I could best combine repentance with its fruits."

"I perceive," said I.

"Perfectly plain, isn't it, to the seeing eye?" he went on. "You see it was like this: Charley Harper and I had been together in the Garden City Land Company, years ago, during the boom--by the way, I didn't mention that in my report, did I? Well, of course, that company went up just as they all did, and neither Charley nor I got to be receiver, as we'd sort of laid out to do, and we separated. I went back to my literature--hotel registers, with an advertising scheme, with headquarters at Cleveland. That's how I happened to be an Ohio man at that national convention. Charley always had a leaning toward insurance, and went down into Illinois, and started a mutual-benefit organization, which he kept going a few years down on the farm--Springfield, or Jacksonville, or somewhere down there; and when I ketched up with him again, he was just changing it to the old-line plan, and bringing it to the metropolis. Well, I helped him some to enlist capital, and he offered me the position of Superintendent of Agents. I accepted, and after serving awhile in the ranks to sort of get onto the ropes, here I am, just starting out on a trip which will take me through a number of states."

"How does it agree with you?" I inquired.

"Not well," said he, "but the good I accomplish is a great comfort to me. On this trip, now, I expect to do much in the way of stimulating the boys up to their great work of spreading the light of the gospel of true insurance. Sometimes, in these days of apathy and error, I find my burden a heavy one; and notwithstanding the quiet of conscience I gain, if it weren't for the salary, I'd quit to-morrow, Al, danged if I wouldn't. It makes me tired to have even you sort of hint that I'm actuated by some selfish motive, when, in truth and in fact, I live but to gather widows and orphans under my wing, so to speak, and give second husbands a good start, by means of policies written on the only true plan, combining participation in profits with pure mutuality, and--"

"Never mind!" said I with a silence-commanding gesture. "I've heard all that before. You're onto the ropes thoroughly; but don't practice your infernal arts on me! I hope the salary is satisfactory?"

"Fairish; but not high, considering what they get for it."

"You used to be more modest," said I. "I remember that you once nearly broke your heart because you couldn't summon up courage to ask Creeshy Hammond to go to the 'Fourth' with you; d'ye remember?"

"Well, I guess, yes!" he replied. "Wasn't I a miserable wretch for a few days! And I've never been able to ask any woman I cared about, the fateful question, yet."

We went into the parlor-car, and talked over old times and new for an hour. I told him of my marriage and my home, and I studied him. I saw that he still preserved his humorous, mock-serious style of conversation, and that his hand-to-hand battle with the world had made him good-humoredly cynical. He evinced a knowledge of more things than I should have expected; and had somehow acquired an imposing manner, in spite of his rather slangy, if expressive, vocabulary. He had the power of making statements of mere opinion, which, from some vibration of voice or trick of expression, struck the hearer as solid facts, thrice buttressed by evidence. He bore no marks of dissipation, unless the occasional use of terms traceable to the turf or the gaming-table might be considered such; but these expressions, I considered, are so constantly before every reader of the newspapers that the language of the pulpit, even, is infected by them. Their evidential value being thus destroyed, they ought not to be weighed at all, as against firm, wholesome flesh, a good complexion, and a clear eye, all of which Mr. Elkins possessed.

"It's funny," said I, "how seldom I meet any of the old neighbor-boys. Do you see any of them in your travels?"

"Not often," he answered, "but you remember little Ed Smith, who lived on the Hayes place for a while, and brought the streaked snake into the schoolhouse while Julia Fanning was teaching? Well, he was an architect at Garden City, and lives in Chicago now. We sort of chum together: saw him yesterday. He left Garden City when the land company went up. I tell you, that was a hot town for a while! Railroads, and factories, and irrigation schemes, and prices scooting toward the zenith, till you couldn't rest. If I'd got into that push soon enough, I shouldn't have made a thing but money; as it was, I didn't lose only what I had. A good many of the boys lost a lot more. But I tell you, Al, a boom properly boomed is a sure thing."

"You're a constant source of surprise to me, Jim," said I. "I should have thought them sure to lose."

"They're sure to win," said he earnestly.

I demurred. "I don't see how that can possibly be," said I, "for of all things, booms seem to me the most fickle and incalculable."

"They seem so," said he, smiling, but still in earnest, "to your rustic and untaught mind, and to most others, because they haven't been studied. The comet, likewise, doesn't seem very stable or dependable; but to the eye of the astronomer its orbit is plain, and the time of its return engagement pretty certain. It's the same with seventeen-year locusts--and booms; their visits are so far apart that the masses forget their birthmarks and the W's on their backs. But if you'll follow their appearances from place to place, as I've done, putting up my ante right along for the privilege, you'll become an accomplished boomist; and from the first gentle stirrings of boom-sprouts in the soil, so to speak, you can forecast their growth, maturity, and collapse."

"I must be permitted to doubt it," said I.

"It's easy, my son," he resumed, "dead easy, and it's psychology on the hugest scale; and among the results of its study is constant improvement of the mind, going on coincidentally with the preparation of the way to the ownership of steam-yachts and racing-stables, or any other similar trifles you hanker for."

"Great brain, Jim! Massive intellect!" said I, laughing at the fantastic absurdity of his assertion. "Why, such knowledge as you possess is better than straight tips on all the races ever to be run. It's better than our tropical island and Spanish galleons. You get richer, and you don't have to look out for men-of-war. Do I hold my job as Grand Vizier?"

"You hold any job you'll take: I'll make out the appointment with the position and salary blank, and you can fill it up. And if you get dissatisfied with that, the old grand hailing-sign of distress will catch the speaker's eye, any old time. But, I tell you, Al, in all seriousness, I'm right about this boom business. They're all alike, and they all have the same history. With the conditions right, one can be started anywhere in a growing country. I've had my ear to the ground for a while back, and I've heard things. I'm sure I detect some of the premonitory symptoms: money piling up in the financial centers; property away down, but strengthening, in the newer regions; and, lately, a little tendency to take chances in investments, forgetting the scorching of ten or twelve years ago. A new generation of suckers is gettin' ready to bite. Look into this thing, Al, and don't be a chump."

"The same old Jim," said I; "you were manipulating a corner in tobacco-tags while I was learning my letters."

"Do you ever forget anything?" he inquired. "I have about forgotten that myself. How was that tobacco-tag business, Al?"

Then with the painstaking circumstantiality of two old schoolmates luxuriating in memories, we talked over the tobacco-tag craze which swept through our school one winter. Everything in life takes place in school, and the "tobacco-tag craze" has quite often recurred to me as showing boys acting just as men act, and Jimmie Elkins as the born stormy petrel of financial seas.

It all came back to our minds, and we reconstructed this story. The manufacturers of "Tomahawk Plug" had offered a dozen photographs of actresses and dancers to any one sending in a certain number of the tin hatchets concealed in their tobacco. The makers of "Broad-axe Navy" offered something equally cheap and alluring for consignments of their brass broad-axes. The older boys began collecting photographs, and a market for tobacco-tags of certain kinds was established. We little fellows, though without knowledge of the mysterious forces which had given value to these bits of metal, began to pick up stray tags from sidewalk, foot-path, and floor. A marked upward tendency soon manifested itself. Boys found their "Broad-axe" or "Door-key" tags, picked up at night, doubled in value by morning. The primary object in collecting tags was forgotten in the speculative mania which set in. Who would exchange "Tomahawk" tags for the counterfeit presentment of decollete dancers, when by holding them he could make cent-per-cent on his investment of hazel-nuts and slate-pencils?

The playground became a Board of Trade. We learned nothing but mental arithmetic applied to deals in "Door-keys," "Arrow-heads," and other tag properties. We went about with pockets full of tags.

Jim, not yet old enough to admire the beauties of the photographs, came forward in a week as the Napoleon of tobacco-tag finance. He acquired tags in the slumps, and sold them in the bulges. He raided particular brands with rumors of the vast supply with which the village boys were preparing to flood us. He converted his holdings into marbles and tops. Finally, he planned his master-stroke. He dropped mysterious hints regarding some tag considered worthless. He asked us in whispers if we had any. Others followed his example, and "Door-key" tags went above all others and were scarce at any price. Then Jimmie Elkins brought out the supply which he had "cornered," threw it on the market, and before it had time to drop took in a large part of the playground currency. I lost to him a good drawing-slate and a figure-4 trap.

Jimmie pocketed his winnings, but the trouble attracted the attention of the teacher, and under adverse legislation a period of liquidation set in. The distress was great. Many found themselves with property which was not convertible into photographs or anything else. To make matters worse, the discovery was made that the big boys had left school to begin the spring's work, and no one wanted the photographs. Bankrupt and disillusioned, we returned to the realities of kites, marbles, and knives, most of which we had to obtain from Jimmie Elkins.

"Yes," said he, "it's a good deal the same with booms. But if you understand 'em ... eh, Al?"

"Well," said I, really impressed now, "I'll look into it. And when you get ready to sow your boom-seed, let me know. I change cars in a few minutes, and you go on. Come down and see me sometimes, can't you? We haven't had our talk half out yet. Doesn't your business ever bring you down our way?"

"It hasn't yet, but I'm coming down into that neck of the woods within six weeks, and I guess I can fix it so's to stop off,--mingling pleasure and business. It's the only way the hustling philanthropist of my style ever gets any recreation."

"Do it," said I; "I'll have plenty of time at my disposal; for I go out of office before that time; and I may want to go into your boom-hatchery."

"On the theory that the great adversary of mankind runs an employment agency for ex's? There's the whistle for your junction. By George, Al, I can't tell you how glad I am to have ketched up with you again! I've wondered about you a million times. Don't let's lose track of each other again."

"No, no, Jim, we won't!" The train was coming to a stop. "Don't allow anything to side-track you and prevent that visit."

"Well, I should say not," he answered, following me out upon the platform of the station. "We'll have a regular piratical reunion--a sort of buccaneers' camp-fire. I've a curiosity to see some of the fellows who acted the part of rob-or to your rob-ee. I want to hear their side of the story. Good-by, Al. Confound it, I wish you were going on with me!"

He wrung my hand at parting, reminding me of the old Jim who studied from the same geography with me, more than at any time since we met. He stayed with me until after his train had started, caught hold of the hand-rail as the rear car went by, and passed out of view, waving his hand to me.

I sat down on a baggage-truck waiting for my train, thinking of my encounter with Jim. All the way home I was busy pondering over a thousand things thus suddenly recalled to me. I could see every fence-corner and barn, every hill and stream of our old haunts; and after I got home I told Alice all about it.

"He seems quite a remarkable fellow," said I, "and a perfect specimen of the pusher and hustler--a quick-witted man of affairs. If he is ever put down, he can't be kept down."

"I think I prefer a more refined type of man," said Alice.

"In the sixteenth century," I went on with that excessive perspicacity which our wives have to put up with, "he'd have been a Drake or a Dampier; in the seventeenth, the commander of a privateer or slaver; in this age, I shall not be at all surprised if he turns out a great railway or financial magnate. It's like a whiff of boyhood to talk with him; though he's a greatly different sort of man from what I should have expected to find him. I think you'll like him."

She seemed dubious about this. Our wives instinctively disapprove of people we used to know prior to that happy meeting which led to marriage. This prejudice, for some reason, is stronger against our feminine acquaintances than the others. I am not analytical enough to do more than point out this feeling, which will, I think, be admitted by all husbands to exist.

"That sort of man," said she, "lacks the qualities of bravery and intrepidity which make up a Drake or a Dampier. They are so a-scheming and calculating!"

"The last time I saw Jim until to-day," said I, "he did something which seems to show that he had those more admirable qualities."

Then I told her that story of Jim and the mad dog, which is remembered in Pleasant Valley to this day. Some say the dog was not mad; but I, who saw his terrible, insane look as he came snapping and frothing down the road, believe that he was. Jim had left the school for a year or so, and I was a "big boy" ready to leave it. It was at four one afternoon, and as the children filed into the road, there met them the shouts of men and cries of "Run! Run! Mad dog!"

The children scattered like a covey of quail; but a pair of little five-year-olds, forgotten by the others, walked on hand in hand, looking into each other's faces, right toward the poor crazed, hunted brute, which trotted slowly toward the children, gnashing its frothing jaws at sticks and weeds, at everything it met, ready to bury its teeth in the first baby to come within reach.

A young man with a canvasser's portfolio stood behind a fence over which he had jumped to avoid the dog. Suddenly he saw the children, knew their danger, and leaped back into the road. It was like a bull-fighter vaulting the barriers into the perils of the arena,--only it was to save, not to destroy. The dog had passed him and was nearer the children than he was. I wondered what he expected to do as I saw him running lightly, swiftly, and yet quietly behind the terrible beast. As he neared the animal, he stooped, and my blood froze as I saw him seize the dog with both hands by the hinder legs. The head curled sidewise and under, and the teeth almost grazed the young man's hands with a vicious, metallic snap. Then we saw what the contest was. The young man, with a powerful circling sweep of his arms, whirled the dog so swiftly about his head that the lank frame swung out in a straight line, and the snap could not be repeated. But what of the end? No muscles could long stand such a strain, and when they yielded, then what?

Then we saw that as he swung his loathsome foe, the young man was gradually approaching the schoolhouse. We saw the horrible snapping head whirl nearer and nearer at every turn to the corner of the building. Then we saw the young man strike a terrible blow at the stone wall, using the dog as a club; and in a moment I saw the stones splashed with red, and the young man lying on the ground, where the violence of his effort had thrown him, and by him lay the quivering form of what we had fled from. And the young man was James Elkins.

Alice breathed hard as I finished, and stood straight with her chin held high.

"That was fine!" said she. "I want to see that man!"

Chapter IV.

Jim discovers his Coral Island.

There has long been abroad in the world a belief that events which bear some controlling relation to one's destiny are announced by premonition, some spiritual trepidation, some movement of that curtain which cuts off our view of the future. I believe this notion to be false, but feel that it is true; and the manner in which that adventure of mine in the old art gallery and at Auriccio's impressed my mind, and the way in which my memory clung to it, seem to justify my feeling rather than my belief. Whenever I visited Chicago, I went to the gallery, more in the hope of seeing the girl whose only name to me was "the Empress" than to gratify my cravings for art. I felt a boundless pity for her--and laughed at myself for taking so seriously an incident which, in all likelihood, she herself dismissed with a few tears, a few retrospective burnings of heart and cheek. But I never saw her. Once I loitered for an hour about the boarding-house with the vine-clad porch, while the boarders (mostly students, I judged) came and went; but though I saw many young girls, the Empress was not among them. And all this time the years were rolling on, and I was permitting my once bright political career to blight and wither by my own neglect, as a growth not worth caring for.

I became a private citizen in due time, but found no comfort in leisure. I was in those doldrums which beset the politician when rivals justle him from his little eminence. One who, for years, is annually or biennially complimented by the suffrages of even a few thousands of his fellow citizens, and is invited into the penetralia of a great political party, is apt to regard himself, after a while, as peculiarly deserving of the plaudits of the humble and the consideration of the powerful. Then comes the inevitable hour when pussy finds himself without a corner. The deep disgust for party and politics which then takes possession of him demands change of scene and new surroundings. Any flagging in partisan enthusiasm is sure to be attributed to sore-headedness, and leads to charges of perfidy and thanklessness. Yet, for him, the choice lies between abated zeal and hypocrisy, inasmuch as no man can normally be as zealous for his party as the fanatic into which the candidate or incumbent converts himself.

Underlying my whole frame of mind was the knowledge that, so far as making a career was concerned, I had wasted several years of my life, and had now to begin anew. Add to this a slight sense of having played an unworthy part in life (although here I was unable to particularize), and a new sense of aloofness from the people with whom I had been for so long on terms of hearty and back-slapping familiarity, and no further reason need be sought for a desire which came mightily upon me to go away and begin life over again in a new _milieu_. In spite of the mild opposition of my wife, this desire grew to a resolve; and I came to look upon myself as a temporary sojourner in my own home.

Such was the state of our affairs, when a letter came from Mr. Elkins (in lieu of the promised visit) urging me to remove to the then obscure but since celebrated town of Lattimore.

"I got to be too rich for Charley Harper's blood," said the letter, among other things. "I wanted as much in the way of salary as I could earn, working for myself, and Charley kicked--said the directors wouldn't consent, and that such a salary list would be a black eye for the Frugality and Indemnity if it showed up in its statements. So I quit. I am loan agent for the company here, which gives me a visible means of support, and keeps me from being vagged. But, in confidence, I want to tell you that my main graft here is the putting in operation of my boom-hatching scheme. Come out, and I'll enroll you as a member of the band once more; for this is the coral atoll for me. You ought to get out of that stagnant pond of yours, and come where the natatory medium is fresh, clean, and thickly peopled with suckers, and a new run of 'em coming on right soon. In other words, get into the swim."

After reading this letter and considering it as a whole, I was so much impressed by it that Lattimore was added to the list of places I meant to visit, on a tour I had planned for myself.

In the West, all roads run to or from Chicago. It is nearer to almost any place by the way of Chicago than by any other route: so Alice and I went to the city by the lake, as the beginning of our prospecting tour. I took her to the art gallery and showed her just where my two lovers had stood,--telling her the story for the first time. Then she wanted to eat a supper at Auriccio's; and after the play we went there, and I was forced to describe the whole scene over again.

"Didn't she see you at all?" she asked.

"Not at all," said I.

"You are a good boy," said my wife, judging me by one act which she approved. "Kiss me."

This occurred after we reached our lodgings. I suggested as a change of subject that my next day's engagements took me to the Stock Yards, and I assumed that she would scarcely wish to accompany me.

"I think I prefer the stores," said she, "and the pictures. Maybe _I_ shall have an adventure."

At the big Exchange Building, I found that the acquaintance whom I sought was absent from his office, and I roamed up and down the corridors in search of him. As usual the gathering here was intensely Western. There were bronzed cattlemen from every range from Amarillo to the Belle Fourche, sturdy buyers of swine from Iowa and Illinois, sombreroed sheepmen from New Mexico, and vikingesque Swedes from North Dakota. Men there were wearing thousand-dollar diamonds in red flannel shirts, solid gold watch-chains made to imitate bridle-bits, and heavy golden bullocks sliding on horse-hair guards. It pleased me, as such a crowd always does. The laughter was loud but it was free, and the hunted look one sees on State Street and Michigan Avenue was absent.

"I wish Alice had come," said I, noting the flutter of skirts in a group of people in the corridor; and then, as I came near, the press divided, and I saw something which drew my eyes as to a sight in which lay mystery to be unraveled.

Facing me stood a stout farmer in a dark suit of common cut and texture. He seemed, somehow, not entirely strange; but the petite figure of the girl whose back was turned to me was what fixed my attention.

She wore a smart traveling-gown of some pretty gray fabric, and bore herself gracefully and with the air of dominating the group of commission men among whom she stood. I noted the incurved spine, the deep curves of the waist, and the liberal slope of the hips belonging to a shapely little woman in whom slimness was mitigated in adorable ways, which in some remote future bade fair to convert it into matronliness. Under a broad hat there showed a wealth of red-brown hair, drawn up like a sunburst from a slender little neck.

"I have provided a box at Hooley's," said the head of a great commission firm. "Mrs. Johnson will be with us. We may count upon you?"

"I think so," said the girl, "if papa hasn't made any engagements."

The stout farmer blushed as he looked down at his daughter.

"Engagements, eh? No, sir!" he replied. "She runs things after the steers is unloaded. Whatever the little gal says goes with me."

They turned, and as they came on down the hall, still chatting, I saw her face, and knew it. It was the Empress! But even in that glimpse I saw the change which years had brought. Now she ruled instead of submitting; her voice, still soft and low, had lost its rustic inflections; and in spite of the change in the surroundings,--the leap from the art gallery to the Stock Yards,--there was more of the artist now, and less of the farmer's lass. They turned into a suite of offices and disappeared.

"Well, Mr. Barslow," said my friend, coming up. "Glad to see you. I've been hunting for you."

"Who is that girl and her father?" I asked.

"One of the Johnson Commission Company's Shippers," said he, "Prescott, from Lattimore; I wish I could get his shipments."

"No!" said I, "Not Lattimore!"

"Prescott of Lattimore," he repeated. "Know anything of him?"

"N-no," said I. "I have friends in that town."

"I wish I had," was the reply; "I'd try to get old Prescott's business."

* * * * *

"There's destiny in this," said Alice, when I told her of my encounter with the Empress and her father. "Her living in Lattimore is not an accident."

"I doubt," said I, "if anybody's is."

"She looked nice, did she?" Alice went on, "and dressed well?" and without waiting for an answer added: "Let's leave Chicago. I'm anxious to get to Lattimore!"

Chapter V.

We Reach the Atoll.

So we journeyed on to Duluth, to St. Paul and Minneapolis, and to the cities on the Missouri. It was at one of those recurrent periods when the fever of material and industrial change and development breaks out over the whole continent. The very earth seemed to send out tingling shocks of some occult stimulus; the air was charged with the ozone of hope; and subtle suggestions seemed to pass from mind to mind, impelling men to dare all, to risk all, to achieve all. In every one of these young cities we were astonished at the changes going on under our very eyes. Streets were torn up for the building of railways, viaducts, and tunnels. Buildings were everywhere in course of demolition, to make room for larger edifices. Excavations yawned like craters at street-corners. Steel pillars, girders, and trusses towered skyward,--skeletons to be clothed in flesh of brick and stone.

Suburbs were sprouting, almost daily, from the mould of the market-gardens in the purlieus. Corporations were contending for the possession of the natural highway approaches to each growing city. Street-railway companies pushed their charters to passage at midnight sessions of boards of aldermen, seized streets in the night-time, and extended their metallic tentacles out into the fields of dazed farmers.

On the frontiers, counties were organized and populated in a season. Every one of them had its two or three villages, which aped in puny fashion the achievements of the cities. New pine houses dotted prairies, unbroken save for the mile-long score of the delimiting plow. Long trains of emigrant-cars moved continually westward. The world seemed drunk with hope and enthusiasm. The fulfillment of Jim's careless prophecy had burst suddenly upon us.

Such things as these were fresh in our memories when we reached Lattimore. I had wired Elkins of our coming, and he met us at the station with a carriage. It was one sunny September afternoon when he drove us through the streets of our future home to the principal hotel.

"We have supper at six, dinner at twelve-thirty, breakfast from seven to ten," said Jim, as we alighted at the hotel. "That's the sort of bucolic municipality you've struck here; we'll shove all these meals several hours down, when we get to doubling our population. You'll have an hour to get freshened up for supper. Afterwards, if Mrs. Barslow feels equal to the exertion, we'll take a drive about the town."

Lattimore was a pretty place then. Low, rounded hills topped with green surrounded it. The river flowed in a broad, straight reach along its southern margin. A clear stream, Brushy Creek, ran in a miniature canyon of limestone, through the eastern edge of the town. On each side of this brook, in lawns of vivid green, amid natural groves of oak and elm, interspersed with cultivated greenery, stood the houses of the well-to-do. Trees made early twilight in most of the streets.

People were out in numbers, driving in the cool autumnal evening. As a handsome girl, a splendid blonde, drove past us, my wife spoke of the excellent quality of the horseflesh we saw. Jim answered that Lattimore was a center of equine culture, and its citizens wise in breeders' lore. The appearance of things impressed us favorably. There was an air of quiet prosperity about the place, which is unusual in Western towns, where quietude and progress are apt to be thought incompatible. Jim pointed out the town's natural advantages as we drove along.

"What do you think of that, now?" said he, waving his whip toward the winding gorge of Brushy Creek.

"It's simply lovely!" said Alice, "a little jewel of a place."

"A bit of mountain scenery on the prairie," said Jim. "And more than that, or less than that, just as you look at it, it's the source from which inexhaustible supplies of stone will be quarried when we begin to build things."

"But won't that spoil it?" said Alice.

"Well, yes; and down on that bottom we've found as good clay for pottery, sewer-pipes, and paving-brick as exists anywhere. Back there where you saw that bluff along the river--looks as if it's sliding down into the water--remember it? Well, there's probably the only place in the world where there's just the juxtaposition of sand and clay and chalk to make Portland cement. Supply absolutely unlimited! Why, there ought to be a thousand men employed right now in those cement works. Oh, I tell you, things'll hum here when we get these schemes working!"

We laughed at him: his visualization of the cement works was so complete.

"I suppose you know where all the capital is coming from," said I, "to do all these things? For my part, I see no way of getting it except our old plan of buccaneering."

"Exactly my idea!" said he. "Didn't I write you that I'd enroll you as a member of the band? Has Al ever told you, Mrs. Barslow, of our old times, when we, as individuals, were passing through our sixteenth-century stage?"

"Often," Alice replied. "He looks back upon his pirate days as a time of Arcadian simplicity, 'Untouched by sorrow, and unsoiled by sin.'"

"I can easily understand," said Jim reflectively, "how piracy might appear in that roseate light after a few years of practical politics. Now from the moral heights of a life-insurance man's point of view it's different."

So we rode on chatting and chaffing, now of the old time, now of the new; and all the time I felt more and more impressed by the dissolving views which Jim gave us of different parts of his program for making Lattimore the metropolis of "the world's granary," as he called the surrounding country. As we topped a low hill on our way back, he pulled up, to give us a general view of the town and suburbs, and of the great expanse of farming country beyond. Between us and Lattimore was a mile stretch of gently descending road, with grain-fields and farm-houses on each side.

"By the way," said he, "do you see that white house and red barn in the maple grove off to the right? Well, you remember Bill Trescott?"

Neither of us could call such a person to mind.

"Well, it's all right, I suppose," he went on in a tone implying injury forgiven, "but you mustn't let Bill know you've forgotten him. The Trescotts used to live over by the Whitney schoolhouse in Greenwood Township,--right on the Pleasant Valley line, you know. He remembers you folks, Al. I'll drive over that way."

There were beds of petunias and four-o'clocks to be seen dimly glimmering in the dusk, as we drove through the broad gate. Men and women were gathered in a group about the base of the windmill, as Jim's loud "whoa" announced our arrival. The women melted away in the direction of the house. The men stood at gaze.

"Hello, Bill!" shouted Jim. "Come out here!"

"Oh, it's you, is it, Mr. Elkins," said a deep voice. "I didn't know yeh."

"Thought it was the sheriff with a summons, eh? Well, I guess hardly!" said Jim. "Mr. Trescott, I want you to shake hands with our old friend Mr. Barslow."

A heavy figure detached itself from the group, and, as it approached, developed indistinctly the features of a brawny farmer, with a short, heavy, dark beard.

"Wal, I declare, I'm glad to see yeh!" said he, as he grasped my hand. "I'd a'most forgot yeh, till Mr. Elkins told me you remembered my whalin' them Dutch boys at a scale onct."

I had had no recollection of him; yet form and voice seemed vaguely familiar. I assured him that my memory for names and faces was excellent. After being duly presented to Mrs. Barslow, he urged us to alight and come in. We offered as an excuse the lateness of the hour.

"Why, you hain't seen my family yet, Mr. Barslow," said he. "They'll be disappointed if yeh don't come in."

I suggested that we were staying for a few days at the Centropolis; and Alice added that we should be glad to see himself and Mrs. Trescott there at any time during our stay. Elkins promised that we should all drive out again.

"Wal, now, you must," said Mr. Trescott. "We must talk over ol' times and--"

"Fight over old battles," replied Jim. "All the battles were yours, though, eh, Bill?"

"Huh, huh!" chuckled Bill; "fightin's no credit to any man; but I 'spose I fit my sheer when I was a boy--when I was a boy, y' know, Mrs. Barslow, and had more sand than sense. Here, Josie, here's Mr. Elkins and some old friends of mine. Mr. and Mrs. Barslow, my daughter."

She was a little slim slip of a thing, in white, and emerged from the shrubbery at Mr. Trescott's call. She bowed to us, and said she was sorry that we could not stop. Her voice was sweet, and there was something unexpectedly cool and self-possessed in her intonation. It was not in the least the speech of the ordinary neat-handed Phyllis or Neaera; nor was her attitude at all countrified as she stood with her hand on her father's arm. The increasing darkness kept us from seeing her features.

"Josie's my right-hand man," said her father. "Half the business of the farm stops when Josie goes away."

My wife expressed her admiration for Lattimore and its environs, and especially for so much of the Trescott farm as could be seen in the deepening gloaming. The flowers, she said, took her back to her childhood's home.

"Let me give you these," said the girl, handing Alice a great bunch of blossoms which she had been cutting when her father called, and had held in her hands as we talked. My wife thanked her, and buried her face in them, as we bade the Trescotts good-night and drove home.

"That girl," said Jim, as we spun along the road in the light of the rising moon, "is a crackerjack. Bill thinks the world of her, and she certainly gives him a mother's care!"

"She seems nice," said Alice, "and so refined, apparently."

"Been well educated," said Jim, "and got a head, besides. You'll like her; she knows Europe better than some folks know their own front yard."

"I was surprised at the vividness of my memory of Bill's youthful combats," said I.

Jim's laugh rang out heartily through the Brushy Creek gorge.

"Well, I supposed you remembered those things, of course," said he, "and so I insinuated some impression of the delight with which you dwell upon the stories of his prowess. It made him feel good.... I'm spoiling Bill, I guess, with these tales. He'll claim to have a private graveyard next. As harmless a fellow as you ever saw, and the best cattle-feeder hereabouts. Got a good farm out there, Bill has; we may need it for stock yards or something, later on."

"Why not hire a corps of landscape-gardeners, and make a park of it?" I inquired sarcastically. "We'll certainly need breathing-spaces for the populace."

"Good idea!" he returned gravely. And as he halted the equipage at the hotel, he repeated meditatively: "A mighty good idea, Al; we must figure on that a little."

We were tired to silence when we reached our rooms; so much so that nothing seemed to make a defined and sharp impression upon my mind. I kept thinking all the time that I must have been mistaken in my first thought that I had never known the Trescotts.

"Their voices seem familiar to me," said I, "and yet I can't associate them with the old home at all. It's very odd!"

As Alice stood before the mirror shaking down and brushing her hair, she said: "Do you suppose he thought you in earnest about that absurd park?"

"No," I answered, "he understood me well enough; but what puzzles me is the question, was _he_ in earnest?"

* * * * *

In the middle of the night I woke with a perfectly clear idea as to the identity of the Trescotts! Prescott, Trescott! Josie, Josephine the "Empress"! And then the voice and figure!

"Why are you sitting up in bed?" inquired Alice.

"I have made a discovery," said I. "That man at the Stock Yards meant Trescott, not Prescott."

"I don't understand," said she sleepily.

"In a word," said I, "the girl who gave you the flowers is the Empress!"

"Albert Barslow!" said Alice. "Why--"

My wife was silent for a long time.

"I knew we'd meet her," she said at last. "It is fate."

Chapter VI.

I am Inducted into the Cave, and Enlist.

"Here's the cave," said Jim, at the door of his office, next morning. "As prospective joint-proprietor and co-malefactor, I bid you welcome."

The smiles with which the employees resumed their work indicated that the extraordinary character of this welcome was not lost upon them. The office was on the ground-floor of one of the more pretentious buildings of Lattimore's main street. The post-office was on one side of it, and the First National Bank on the other. Over it were the offices of lawyers and physicians. It was quite expensively fitted up; and the plate-glass front glittered with gold-and-black sign-lettering. The chairs and sofas were upholstered in black leather. On the walls hung several decorative advertisements of fire-insurance companies, and maps of the town, county, and state. Rolls of tracing-paper and blueprints lay on the flat-topped tables, reminding one of the office of an architect or civil engineer. A thin young man worked at books, standing at a high desk; and a plump young woman busily clicked off typewritten matter with an up-to-date machine.

"You'll find some books and papers on the table in the next room," said Jim, as I finished my first look about. "I'll ask you to amuse yourself with 'em for a little while, until I can dispose of my morning's mail; after which we'll resume our hunt for resources. We haven't any morning paper yet, and the evening _Herald_ is shipped in by freight and edited with a saw. But it's the best we've got--yet."

He read his letters, ran his eyes over his newspapers and a magazine or two, and dictated some correspondence, interrupted occasionally by callers, some of whom he brought into the room where I was whiling away the time, examining maps, and looking over out-of-date copies of the local papers. One of these callers was Mr. Hinckley, the cashier of the bank, who came to see about some insurance matters. He was spare, aquiline, and white-mustached; and very courteously wished Lattimore the good fortune of securing so valuable an acquisition as ourselves. It would place Lattimore under additional obligations to Mr. Elkins, who was proving himself such an effective worker in all public matters.

"Mr. Elkins," said he, "has to a wonderful degree identified himself with the material progress of the city. He is constantly bringing here enterprising and energetic business men; and we could better afford to lose many an older citizen."

I asked Mr. Hinckley as to the length of his own residence in Lattimore.

"I helped to plat the town, sir," said he. "I carried the chain when these streets were surveyed,--a boy just out of Bowdoin College. That was in '55. I staged it for four hundred miles to get here. Aleck Macdonald and I came together, and we've both staid from that day. The Indians were camped at the mouth of Brushy Creek; and except for old Pierre Lacroix, a squaw-man, we were for a month the only white men in these parts. Then General Lattimore came with a party of surveyors, and by the fall there was quite a village here."

Jim came in with another gentleman, whom he introduced as Captain Tolliver. The Captain shook my hand with profuse politeness.

"I am delighted to see you, suh," said he. "Any friend of Mr. Elkins I shall be proud to know. I heah that Mrs. Barslow is with you. I trust, suh, that she is well?"

I informed him that my wife was in excellent health, being completely recovered from the fatigue of her journey.

"Ah! this aiah, this aiah, Mr. Barslow! It is like wine in its invigorating qualities, like wine, suh. Look at Mr. Hinckley, hyah, doing the work of two men fo' a lifetime; and younge' now than any of us. Come, suh, and make yo' home with us. You nevah can regret it. Delighted to have you call at my office, suh. I am proud to have met you, and hope to become better acquainted with you. I hope Mrs. Tulliver and Mrs. Barslow may soon meet. Good-morning, gentlemen." And he hurried out, only to reappear as soon as Mr. Hinckley was gone.

"By the way, Mr. Barslow," he whispered, "should you come to Lattimore, as I have no doubt you will, I have some of the choicest residence property in the city, which I shall be mo' than glad to show you. Title perfect, no commissions to pay, city water, gas, and electric light in prospect. Cain't yo' come and look it ovah now, suh?"

"Who is this Captain Tolliver, Jim," I asked as we went out of the office together, "and what is he?"

"In other words, 'Who and what art thou, execrable shape?' Well, now, don't ask me. I've known him for years; in fact, he suggested to me the possibilities of this burg. In a way, the city is indebted to him for my presence here. But don't ask me about him--study him. And don't buy lots from him. The Captain has his failings, but he has also his strong points and his uses; and I'll be mistaken if he isn't cast for a fairly prominent part in the drama we're about to put on here. But don't spoil your enjoyment by having him described to you. Let him dawn on you by degrees."

That day I met most of the prominent men of the town. Jim took me into the banks, the shops, and the offices of the leading professional gentlemen. He informed them that I was considering the matter of coming to live among them; and I found them very friendly, and much interested in our proposed change of residence. They all treated Jim with respect, and his manner toward them had a dignity which I had not looked for. Evidently he was making himself felt in the community.

When we returned to the Centropolis at noon, we found Mrs. Trescott and her daughter chatting with my wife. The elder woman was ill-groomed, as are all women of her class in comparison with their town sisters, and angular. I knew the type so well that I could read the traces of farm cares in her face and form. The serving of gangs of harvesters and threshers, the ever-recurring problems of butter, eggs, and berries, the unflagging fight, without much domestic help, for neatness and order about the house, had impressed their stamp upon Mrs. Trescott. But she was chatting vivaciously, and assuring Mrs. Barslow that such a thing as staying longer in town that morning was impossible.

"I can feel in my bones," said she, "that there's something wrong at the farm."

"You always have that feeling," said her daughter, "as soon as you pass outside the gate."

"And I'm usually right about it," said Mrs. Trescott. "It isn't any use. My system has got into that condition in which I'm in misery if I'm off that farm. Josie drags me away from it sometimes; and I do enjoy meeting people! But I like to meet 'em out there the best; and I want to urge you to come often, Mrs. Barslow, while you're here. And in case you move here, I hope you'll like us and the farm well enough so that we'll see a good deal of you."

I was presented to Mrs. Trescott, and reintroduced to the young lady, with whom Alice seemed already on friendly terms. I was surprised at this, for she was not prone to sudden friendships. There was something so attractive in the girl, however, that it went far to explain the phenomenon. For one thing, there was in her manner that same steadiness and calm which I had noticed in her voice in the dusk last night. It gave one the impression that she could not be surprised or startled, that she had seen or thought out all possible combinations of events, and knew of their sequences, or adjusted herself to things by some all-embracing rule, by which she attained that repose of hers. The surprising thing about it, to my mind, was to find this exterior in Bill Trescott's daughter. I had seen the same thing once or twice in people to whom I thought it had come as the fruit of wide experience in the world.

While Miss Trescott was slim, and rather below the medium in height, she was not at all thin; and had the great mass of ruddy dark hair and fine brown eyes which I remembered so well, and a face which would have been pale had it not been for the tan--the only thing about her which suggested those occupations by which she became her father's "right-hand man." There was intelligence in her face, and a grave smile in her eyes, which rarely extended to her handsome mouth. If mature in face, form, and manner, she was young in years--some years younger than Alice. I hoped that she might stay to dinner; but she went away with her mother. In her absence, I devoted some time to praising her. Jim failed to join in my paeans further than to give a general assent; but he grew unaccountably mirthful, as if something good had happened to him of which he had not yet told us.

"I have invited a few people to my parlors this evening," said he, "and, of course, you will be the guests of honor."

My wife demurred. She had nothing to wear, and even if she had, I was without evening dress. The thing seemed out of the question.

"Oh, we can't let that stand in the way," said he. "So far as your own toilet is concerned, I have nothing to say except that you are known to be making a hurried visit, and I have an abiding faith, based on your manner of stating your trouble, that it can be remedied. I saw your eye take on a far-away look as you planned your costume, even while you were declaring that you couldn't do it. Didn't I, now?"

"You certainly did not," said Alice; and then I noticed the absorbed look myself. "But even if I can manage it, how about Albert?"

"I'll tell you about Albert. I'll bet two to one there won't be a suit of evening clothes worn. The dress suit may come in here with street cars and passenger elevators, but it lacks a good deal of being here yet, except in the most sporadic and infrequent way. And this thing is to be so absolutely informal that it would make the natives stare. You wouldn't wear it if you had it, Al."

"Who will come?" said Mrs. Barslow.

"Oh, a couple of dozen ladies and gentlemen, business men and doctors and lawyers and their women-folks. They'll stray in from eight to ten and find something to eat on the sideboard. They'll have the happiness of meeting you, and you can see what the people you are thinking of living among and doing business with are like. It's a necessary part of your visit; and you can't get out of it now, for I've taken the liberty of making all the arrangements. And, as a matter of fact, you don't want to do so, do you, now?"

Thus appealed to, Alice consented. Nothing was said to me about it, my willingness being presumed.

The guests that evening were almost exclusively men whom I had met during the day, and members of their families. In the absence of any more engaging topic, we discussed Lattimore as our possible future home.

"I have always felt," said Mr. Hinckley, who was one of the guests, "that this is the natural site of a great city. These valleys, centering here like the spokes of a wheel, are ready-made railway-routes. In the East there is a city of from fifty thousand to three times that, every hundred miles or so. Why shouldn't it be so here?"

"Suh," said Captain Tolliver, "the thing is inevitable. Somewhah in this region will grow up a metropolis. Shall it be hyah, o' at Fairchild, o' Angus Falls? If the people of Lattimore sit supinely, suh, and let these country villages steal from huh the queenship which God o'dained fo' huh when He placed huh in this commandin' site, then, suh, they ah too base to be wo'thy of the suhvices of gentlemen."

"I've always been taught," said Mrs. Trescott, "that the credit of placing her in this site belonged to either Mr. Hinckley or General Lattimore."

"Really," said Miss Addison to me, "I don't see how they can laugh at such irreverence!"

"I think," said Miss Hinckley in my other ear, "that Mr. Elkins expressed the whole truth in the matter of the rivalry of these three towns, when he said that when two ride on a horse, one must ride behind. Aren't his quotations so--so--illuminating?"

I looked about at the company. There were Mr. Hinckley, Mrs. Hinckley, their daughter, whom I recognized as the splendid blonde whose pacers had passed us when we were out driving, Mrs. Trescott and her daughter, and Captain and Mrs. Tolliver. Those present were plainly of several different sets and cliques. Mrs. Hinckley hoped that my wife would join the Equal Rights Club, and labor for the enfranchisement of women. She referred, too, to the eloquence and piety of her pastor, the Presbyterian minister, while Mrs. Tolliver quoted Emerson, and invited Alice to join, as soon as we removed, the Monday Club of the Unitarian Church, devoted to the study of his works. Mr. Macdonald, red-whiskered, weather-beaten, and gigantic, fidgeted about the punch-bowl a good deal; and replying to some chance remark made by Alice, ventured the opinion that the grass was gettin' mighty short on the ranges. Miss Addison, who came with her cousins the Lattimores, looked with disapproval upon the punch, and disclosed her devotion to the W. C. T. U. and the Ladies' Aid Society of the Methodist Church. The Lattimores were Will Lattimore and his wife. I learned that he was the son of the General, and Jim's lawyer; and that they went rarely into society, being very exclusive. This was communicated to me by Mrs. Ballard, who brought Miss Ballard with her. She asked in tones of the intensest interest if we played whist; while Miss Ballard suggested that about the only way we could find to enjoy ourselves in such a little place would be to identify ourselves with the dancing-party and card-club set. I began to suspect that life in Lattimore would not be without its complexities.

Mr. Trescott came in for a moment only, for his wife and daughter. Miss Trescott was not to be found at first, but was discovered in the bay-window with Jim and Miss Hinckley, looking over some engravings. Mr. Elkins took her down to her carriage, and I thought him a long time gone, for the host. As soon as he returned, however, the conversation again turned to the dominant thought of the gathering, municipal expansion. And I noted that the points made were Jim's. He had already imbued the town with his thoughts, and filled the mouths of its citizens with his arguments.

After they left, we sat with Jim and talked.

"Well, how do you like 'em?" said he.

"Why," said Alice, "they're very cordial."

"Heterogeneous, eh?" he queried.

"Yes," said she, "but very cordial. I am surprised to feel how little I dislike them."

As for me, I began to look upon Lattimore with more favor. I began to catch Jim's enthusiasm and share his confidence. As we smoked together in his rooms that evening, he made me the definite proposal that I go into partnership with him. We talked about the business, and discussed its possibilities.

"I don't ask you to believe all my prophecies," said he; "but isn't the situation fairly good, just as it is?"

"I think well of it," I answered, "and it's mighty kind of you to ask me to come. I'll go as far as to say that if it depends solely on me, we shall come. As for these prophecies of yours, I am in candor bound to say that I half believe them."

"Now you _are_ shouting," said he. "Never better prophecies anywhere. But consider the matter aside from them. Then all we clean up in the prophecy department will be velvet, absolute velvet!"

"I can add something to the output of the prophecy department," said Alice, when I repeated the phrase; "and that is that there will be some affairs of the heart mingled with the real estate and insurance before long. I can see them in embryo now."

"If it's Jim and Miss Trescott you mean, I wish the affair well," said I. "I'm quite charmed with her."

"Well," said Alice, "from the standpoint of most men, Miss Hinckley isn't to be left out of the reckoning in such matters. What a face and figure she has! Miss Addison is too prudish and churchified; but I like Miss Hinckley."

"Yes," said I; "but Miss Trescott seems, somehow, to have been known to one, in some tender and touching relation. There's that about her which appeals to one, like some embodiment of the abstract idea of woman. That's why one feels as if he had risked his life for her, and protected her, and seen her suffer wrong, and all that--"

"That's only because of that affair you told me of," said my wife. "Since I've seen her, I've made up my mind that you misconstrued the matter utterly. There was really nothing to it."

In a week I wrote to Mr. Elkins, accepting his proposal, and promising to close up my affairs, remove to Lattimore, and join with him.

"I do not feel myself equal to playing the part of either Romulus or Remus in founding your new Rome," I wrote; "but I think as a writer of fire-insurance policies, and keeping the office work up, I may prove myself not entirely a deadhead. My wife asks how the breathing-spaces for the populace are coming on?"

And the die was cast!

Chapter VII.

We make our Landing.

Had I known how cordially our neighbors would greet our return, or how many of them would view our departure with apparently sincere regret, I might have been slower in giving Jim my promise. I proceeded, however, to carry it out; but it was nearly six months before I could pull myself and my little fortune out of the place into which we had grown.

Mr. Elkins kept me well informed regarding Lattimore affairs; and the _Herald_ followed me home. Jim's letters were long typewritten communications, dictated at speed, and mailed, sometimes one a day, at other times at intervals of weeks.

"This is a sure-enough 'winter of our discontent,'" one of these letters runs, "but the scope of our operations will widen as the frost comes out of the ground. We're now confined to the psychical field. Subjectively speaking, though, the plot thickens. Captain Tolliver is in the secondary stages of real-estate dementia, and spreads the contagion daily. There's no quarantine regulation to cover the case, and Lattimore seems doomed to the acme of prosperity. This is the age of great cities, saith the Captain, and that Lattimore is not already a town of 150,000 people is one of the strangest, one of the most inexplicable things in the world, in view of the distance we are lag of the country about us, so far as development is concerned. And as our beginning has been tardy, so will our progress be rapid, even as waters long dammed up rush out to devour the plains, etc., etc.

"In this we are all agreed. We want a good, steady, natural growth--and no boom.

"When a boom recognizes itself as such, it's all over, and the stuff off. The time for letting go of a great wheel is when it starts down hill. But our wheels are all going up--even if they are all in our heads, as yet.

"You will remember the railway connection of which I spoke to you? Well, that thing has assumed, all of a sudden, a concreteness as welcome as it is unexpected. Ballard showed me a telegram yesterday from lower Broadway (the heart of Darkest N. Y.) which tends to prove that people there are ready to finance the deal. It would have amused you to see the horizontality of the coat-tails of the management of the Lattimore & Great Western, as they flaxed round getting up a directors' meeting, so as to have a real, live directorate of this great transcontinental line for the wolves of Wall Street to do business with! Things like this are what you miss by hibernating there, instead of dropping everything and applying here for your pro rata share of the gayety of nations and the concomitant scads.

"I was elected president of the road, and as soon as we get a little track, and an engine, I expect to obtain an exchange of passes with all my fellow monopolists in North America. I at once fired back an answer to Ballard's telegram, which must have produced an impression upon the Gould and Vanderbilt interests--if they got wind of it. If the L. & G. W. should pass the paper stage next summer, it will do a whole lot towards carrying this burg beyond the hypnotic period of development.

"The Angus Falls branch is going to build in next summer, I am confident, and that means another division headquarters and, probably, machine-shops. I'm working with some of the trilobites here to form a pool, and offer the company grounds for additional yards and a roundhouse and shops. Captain Tolliver interviewed General Lattimore about it, and got turned down.

"'He told me, suh,' reported the Captain, in a fine white passion, 'that if any railway system desiahs to come to Lattimore, it has his puhmission! That the Injuns didn't give him any bonus when he came; and that he had to build his own houses and yahds, by gad, at his own expense, and defend 'em, too, and that if any railroad was thinkin' of comin' hyah, it was doubtless because it was good business fo' 'em to come; and that if they wanted any of his land, were willing to pay him his price, there wouldn't be any difficulty about theiah getting it. And that if there should arise any difference, which he should deeply regret, but would try to live through, the powah of eminent domain with which railways ah clothed will enable the company to get what land is necessary by legal means.

"'I could take these observations,' said the Captain, 'as nothing except a gratuitous insult to one who approached him, suh, in a spirit of pure benevolence and civic patriotism. It shows the kind of tyrants who commanded the oppressors of the South, suh! Only his gray hairs protected him, suh, only his gray hairs!'"

"It's a little hard to separate the General from the Captain, in this report of the committee on railway extensions," said my wife.

"The only thing that's clear about it," said I, "is that Jim is having a good deal of fun with the Captain."

This became clearer as the correspondence went on.

"Tolliver thinks," said he, in another letter, "that the Angus Falls extension can be pulled through. However, I recall that only yesterday the Captain, in private, denounced the citizens of Lattimore as beneath the contempt of gentlemen of breadth of view. 'I shall dispose of my holdin's hyah,' said he, with a stately sweep indicative of their extent, 'at any sacrifice, and depaht, cuhsin' the day I devoted myself to the redemption of such cattle.'

"But, at that particular moment, he had just failed in an attempt to sell Bill Trescott a bunch of choice outlying gold bricks, and was somewhat heated with wine. This to the haughty Southron was ample excuse for confiding to me the round, unvarnished truth about us mudsills.

"Josie and I often talk of you and your wife. I don't know what I'd do out here if it weren't for Josie. She refuses to enthuse over our 'natural, healthy growth,' which we look for; but I guess that's because she doesn't care for the things that the rest of us are striving for. But she's the only person here with whom one can really converse. You'd be astonished to see how pretty she is in her furs, and set like a jewel in my new sleigh; but I'm becoming keenly aware of the fact."

We were afterwards told that the trilobites had shaken off their fossilhood, and that the Angus Falls extension, with the engine-house and machine-shops, had been "landed."

"This," he wrote, "means enough new families to make a noticeable increase in our population. Things will be popping here soon. Come on and help shake the popper; hurry up with your moving, or it will all be over, including the shouting."

We were not entirely dependent upon Jim's letters for Lattimore news. Mrs. Barslow kept up a desultory correspondence with Miss Trescott, begun upon some pretext and continued upon none at all. In one of these letters Josie (for so we soon learned to call her) wrote:

"Our little town is changing so that it no longer seems familiar. Not that the change is visible. Beyond an unusual number of strangers or recent comers, there is nothing new to strike the eye. But the talk everywhere is of a new railroad and other improvements. One needs only to shut one's eyes and listen, to imagine that the town is already a real city. Mr. Elkins seems to be the center of this new civic self-esteem. The air is full of it, and I admit that I am affected by it. I have

"'A feeling, as when eager crowds await, Before a palace gate, Some wondrous pageant.'

"You are indebted to Captain Tolliver for the quotation, and to Mr. Elkins for the idea. The Captain induced me to read the book in which I found the lines. He stigmatizes the preference given to the Northern poets--Longfellow, for instance--over Timrod as 'the crowning infamy of American letters.' He has taken the trouble to lay out a course of study for me, the object of which is to place me right in my appreciation of the literary men of the South. It includes Pollard's 'Lost Cause' and the works of W. G. Simms. I have not fully promised to follow it to the end. Timrod, however, is a treat."

That last quiet winter will always be set apart in my memory, as a time like no other. It was a sitting down on a milestone to rest. Back of us lay the busy past--busy with trivial things, it seemed to me, but full of varied activity nevertheless. A boy will desire mightily to finish a cob-house; and when it is done he will smilingly knock it about the barn floor. So I was tearing down and leaving the fabric of relationship which I had once prized so highly.

The life upon which I expected to enter promised well. In fact, to a man of medium ability, only, and no training in large affairs, it promised exceedingly well. I knew that Jim was strong, and that his old regard for me had taken new life and a firm hold upon him. But when, removed from his immediate influence, I looked the situation in the face, the future loomed so mysteriously bizarre that I shrank from it. All his skimble-skamble talk about psychology and hypnotism, and that other rambling discourse of pirate caves and buccaneering cruises, made me feel sometimes as if I were about to form a partnership with Aladdin, or the King of the Golden Mountain. If he had asked me, merely, to come to Lattimore and go into the real estate and insurance business with him, I am sure I should have had none of this mental vertigo. Yet what more had he done?

As to the boom, I had, as yet, not a particle of objective confidence in it; but, subconsciously, I felt, as did the town "doomed to prosperity," a sense of impending events. In spite of some presentiments and doubts, it was, on the whole, with high hopes that we, on an aguish spring day, reached Lattimore with our stuff (as the Scriptures term it), and knew that, for weal or woe, it was our home.

Jim was again at the station to meet us, and seemed delighted at our arrival. I thought I saw some sort of absent-mindedness or absorbedness in his manner, so that he seemed hardly like himself. Josie was there with him, and while she and Alice were greeting each other, I saw Jim scanning the little crowd at the station as if for some other arrival. At last, his eye told me that whatever it was for which he was looking, he had found it; and I followed his glance. It rested on the last person to alight from the train--a tall, sinewy, soldierly-built youngish man, who wore an overcoat of black, falling away in front, so as to reveal a black frock coat tightly buttoned up and a snowy shirt-front with a glittering gem sparkling from the center of it. On his head was a shining silk hat--a thing so rare in that community as to be noticeable, and to stamp the wearer as an outsider. His beard was clipped close, and at the chin ran out into a pronounced Vandyke point. His mustaches were black, heavy, and waxed. His whole external appearance betokened wealth, and he exuded mystery. He had not taken two steps from the car before the people on the platform were standing on tiptoe to see him.

"Bus to the Centropolis?" queried the driver of the omnibus.

The stranger looked at the conveyance, filled as it was with a load of traveling men and casuals; and, frowning darkly, turned to the negro who accompanied him, saying, "Haven't you any carriage here, Pearson?"

"Yes, sah," responded the servant, pointing to a closed vehicle. "Right hyah, sah."

My wife stood looking, with a little amused smile, at the picturesque group, so out of the ordinary at the time and place. Miss Trescott was gazing intently at the stranger, and at the moment when he spoke she clutched my wife's arm so tightly as to startle her. I heard Alice make some inquiry as to the cause of her agitation, and as I looked at her, I could see in the one glance her face, gone suddenly white as death, and the dark visage of the tall stranger. And it seemed to me as if I had seen the same thing before.

Then, the negro pointing the way to the closed carriage, the group separated to left and right, the stranger passed through to the carriage, and the picture, and with it my odd mental impression, dissolved. The negro lifted two or three heavy bags to the coachman, gave the transfer man some baggage-checks, and the equipage moved away toward the hotel. All this took place in a moment, during which the usual transactions on the platform were suspended. The conductor failed to give the usual signal for the departure of the train. The engineer leaned from the cab and gazed.

Jim's eye rested on the stranger and his servant for an instant only; but during that time he seemed to take an observation, come to a conclusion, and dismiss the whole matter.

"Here, John," said he to the drayman, "take these trunks to the Centropolis. We'd like 'em this week, too. None of that old trick of yours of dumping 'em in the crick, you know!"

"They'll be up there in five minutes all right, Mr. Elkins," said John, grinning at Jim's allusion to some accident, the knowledge of which appeared to be confined to himself and Mr. Elkins, and to constitute a bond of sympathy between them. Jim turned to us with redoubled heartiness, all his absent-mindedness gone.

"I'll drive you to the hotel," said Jim. "You'll--"

"Miss Trescott is ill--" said Alice.

"Not at all," said Josie; "it has passed entirely! Only, when you have taken Mr. and Mrs. Barslow to the hotel, will you please take me home? Our little supper-party--I don't feel quite equal to it, if you will excuse me!"

Chapter VIII.

A Welcome to Wall Street and Us.

"Welcome!" intoned Captain Tolliver, with his hat in his hand, bowing low to Mrs. Barslow. "Welcome, Madam and suh, in the capacity of Lattimoreans! That we shall be the bettah fo' yo' residence among us the' can be no doubt. That you will be prospahed beyond yo' wildest dreams I believe equally cehtain. Welcome!"

This address was delivered within thirty seconds of the time of our arrival at our old rooms in the Centropolis. The Captain saluted us in a manner extravagantly polite, mysteriously enthusiastic. The air of mystery was deepened when he called again to see Mr. Elkins in the evening and was invited in.

"Did you-all notice that distinguished and opulent-looking gentleman who got off the train this evening?" said he in a stage whisper. "Mahk my words, the coming of such men, _his_ coming, is fraught with the deepest significance to us all. All my holdin's ah withdrawn from mahket until fu'the' developments!"

"Seems to travel in style," said Jim; "all sorts of good clothes, colored body-servant, closed carriage ordered by wire--it does look juicy, don't it, now?"

"He has the entiah second flo' front suite. The niggah has already sent out fo' a bahbah," said the Captain. "Lattimore has at last attracted the notice of adequate capital, and will now assume huh true place in the bright galaxy of American cities. Mr. Barslow, I shall ask puhmission to call upon you in the mo'nin' with reference to a project which will make the fo'tunes of a dozen men, and that within the next ninety days. Good evenin', suh; good evenin', Madam. I feel that you have come among us at a propitious moment!"

"The Captain merely hints at the truth which struggles in him for utterance," said Jim. "I prove this by informing you that I couldn't get you a house. This shows, too, that the census returns are a calumny upon Lattimore. You'll have to stay at the Centropolis until something turns up or you can build."

"Oh, dear!" said Alice. "Hotel life isn't living at all. I hope it won't be long."

"It will have its advantages for Al," said Mr. Elkins. "This financial maelstrom, which will draw everything to Lattimore, will have its core right in this hotel--a mighty good place to be. Things of all kinds have been floating about in the air for months; the precipitation is beginning now. The psychological moment has arrived--you have brought it with you, Mrs. Barslow. The moon-flower of Lattimore's 'gradual, healthy growth' is going to burst, and that right soon."

"Has Captain Tolliver infected you?" inquired Alice. "He told us the same thing, with less of tropes and figures."

"On any still morning," said Jim, "you can hear the wheels go round in the Captain's head; but his instinct for real-estate conditions is as accurate as a pocket-gopher's. The Captain, in a hysterical sort of way, is right: I consider that a cinch. Good-night, friends, and pleasant dreams. I expect to see you at breakfast; but if I shouldn't, Al, you'll come aboard at nine, won't you, and help run up the Jolly Roger? I think I smell pieces-of-eight in the air! And, by the way, Miss Trescott says for me to assure you that her vertigo, which she had for the first time in her life, is gone, and she never felt better."

As Mr. Elkins passed from our parlor, he let in a bell-boy with the card of Mr. Clifford Giddings, representing the Lattimore Morning _Herald_.

"See him down in the lobby," said Alice.

"I want a story," said he as we met, "on the city and its future. The _Herald_ readers will be glad of anything from Mr. Barslow, whose coming they have so long looked forward to, as intimately connected with the city's development."

"My dear sir," I replied, somewhat astonished at the importance which he was pleased to attach to my arrival, "abstractly, my removal to Lattimore is my best testimony on that; concretely, I ought to ask information of you."

We sat down in a corner of the lobby, our chairs side by side, facing opposite ways. He lighted a cigar, and gave me one. In looks he was young; in behavior he had the self-possession and poise of maturity. He wore a long mackintosh which sparkled with mist. His slouch hat looked new and was carefully dinted. His dress was almost natty in an unconventional way, and his manners accorded with his garb. He acted as if for years we had casually met daily. His tone and attitude evinced respect, was entirely free from presumption, equally devoid of reserve, carried with it no hint of familiarity, but assumed a perfect understanding. The barrier which usually keeps strangers apart he neither broke down, which must have been offensive, nor overleaped, which would have been presumptuous. He covered it with that demeanor of his, and together we sat down upon it.

"I thought the _Herald_ was an evening paper," said I.

"It was, in the days of yore," he replied; "but Mr. Elkins happened to see me in Chicago one day, and advised me to come out and look the old thing over with a view to purchasing the plant. You observe the result. As fellow immigrants, I hope there will be a bond of sympathy between us. You think, of course, that Lattimore is a coming city?"

"Yes."

"Its geographical situation seems to render its development inevitable, doesn't it? And," he went on, "the railway conditions seem peculiarly promising just now?"

"Yes," said I, "but the natural resources of the city and the surrounding country appeal most strongly to me."

"They are certainly very exceptional, aren't they?" said he, as if the matter had never occurred to him before. Then he went on telling me things, more than asking questions, about the jobbing trades, the brick and tile and associated industries, the cement factory, which he spoke of as if actually _in esse_, the projected elevators, the flouring-mills, and finally returned to railway matters.

"What is your opinion of the Lattimore & Great Western, Mr. Barslow?" he asked.

"I cannot say that I have any," I answered, "except that its construction would bring great good to Lattimore."

"It could scarcely fail," said he, "to bring in two or three systems which we now lack, could it?"

I very sincerely said that I did not know. After a few more questions concerning our plans for the future, Mr. Giddings vanished into the night, silently, as an autumn leaf parting from its bough. I thought of him no more until I unfolded the _Herald_ in the morning as we sat at breakfast, and saw that my interview was made a feature of the day's news.

"Mr. Albert F. Barslow," it read, "of the firm of Elkins & Barslow, is stopping at the Centropolis. He arrived by the 6:15 train last evening, and with his family has taken a suite of rooms pending the erection of a residence. They have not definitely decided as to the location of their new home; but it may confidently be stated that they will build something which will be a notable addition to the architectural beauties of Lattimore--already proud of her title, the City of Homes."

"I am very glad to know about this," said Alice.

"Your man Giddings has nerve, whatever else he may lack," said I to the smiling Elkins across the table. "Am I obliged to make good all these representations? I ask, that I may know the rules of the game, merely."

"One rule is that you mustn't deny any accusations of future magnificence, for two reasons: they may come true, and they help things on. You are supposed to have left your modesty in cold storage somewhere. Read on."

"Mr. Barslow," I read, "has long been a most potent political factor in his native state, but is, first of all, a business man. He brings his charming young wife--"

"Really, a most discriminating journalist," interjected Alice.

"--and social circles, as well as the business world, will find them a most desirable accession to Lattimore's population."

"Why this is absolute, slavish devotion to facts," said Jim; "where does the word-painting come in?"

"Here it is," said I.

"Mr. Barslow is some years under middle age, and looks the intense modern business man in every feature. His mind seems to have already become saturated with the conception of the enormous possibilities of Lattimore. He impresses those who have met him as one of the few men capable of pulling his share in double harness with James R. Elkins."

"The fellow piles it on a little strong at times, doesn't he, Mrs. Barslow?" said Jim.

"He brings to our city," I read on, "his vigorous mind, his fortune, and a determination never to rest until the city passes the 100,000 mark. To a _Herald_ representative, last night, he spoke strongly and eloquently of our great natural resources."

Then followed a skillfully handled expansion of our _tete-a-tete_ talk in the lobby.

"Mr. Barslow," the report went on, "very courteously declined to discuss the L. & G. W. situation. It seems evident, however, from remarks dropped by him, that he regards the construction of this road as inevitable, and as a project which, successfully carried out, cannot fail to make Lattimore the point to which all the Western and Southwestern systems of railways must converge."

"You're doing it like a veteran!" cried Jim. "Admirable! Just the proper infusion of mystery; I couldn't have done better myself."

"Credit it all to Giddings," I protested. "And note that the center of the stage is reserved to our mysterious fellow lodger and co-arrival."

"Yes, I saw that," said Jim. "Isn't Giddings a peach? Let Mrs. Barslow hear it."

"She ought to be able to hear these headlines," said I, "without any reading: 'J. Bedford Cornish arrives! Wall Street's Millions On the Ground in the Person of One of Her Great Financiers! Bull Movement in Real Estate Noted Last Night! Does He Represent the Great Railway Interests?'"

"Real estate and financial circles," ran the article under these headlines, "are thrown into something of a fever by the arrival, on the 6:15 express last evening, of a gentleman of distinguished appearance, who took five rooms _en suite_ on the second floor of the Centropolis, and registered in a bold hand as J. Bedford Cornish, of New York. Mr. Cornish consented to see a _Herald_ representative last night, but was very reticent as to his plans and the objects of his visit. He simply says that he represents capital seeking investment. He would not admit that he is connected with any of the great railway interests, or that his visit has any relation to the building of the Lattimore & Great Western. The _Herald_ is able to say, however, that its New York correspondent informs it that Mr. Cornish is a member of the firm of Lusch, Carskaddan & Mayer, of Wall Street. This firm is well known as one of the concerns handling large amounts of European capital, and said to be intimately associated with the Rothschilds. Financial journals have recently noted the fact that these concerns are becoming embarrassed by the plethora of funds seeking investment, and are turning their attention to the development of railway systems and cities in the United States. Their South American and Australian investments have not proven satisfactory, especially the former, owing to the character of the people of Latin America. It has been pointed out that no real-estate investment can be more than moderately profitable in climates which render the people content with a mere living, and that the restless and unsatisfied vigor of the Anglo-Saxon alone can make lands and railways permanently remunerative. Mr. Cornish admitted these facts when they were pointed out to him, and immediately changed the subject.

"Mr. Cornish is a very handsome and opulent-looking gentleman, and seems to live in a style somewhat luxurious for the Occident. He has a colored body-servant, who seems to reflect the mystery of his master; but if he has any other reflections, the _Herald_ is none the wiser for them. Admittance to the suite of rooms was obtained by sending in the reporter's card, which vanished into a sybaritic gloom, borne on a golden salver. Mr. Cornish seems to be very exclusive, his meals being served in his rooms; and even his barber has instructions to call upon him each morning. One wonders why the barber is called in so frequently, until one marks the smooth-shaven cheeks above the close-clipped, pointed, black, Vandyke beard. He is withal very cordial and courtly in his manners.

"James R. Elkins, when seen last evening, refused to talk, except to say that, in financial circles, it has been known for some days that important developments may be now momently expected, and that some such thing as the visit of Mr. Cornish was imminent. Captain Marion Tolliver expressed himself freely, and to the effect that this mysterious visit is of the utmost importance to Lattimore, and a thing of national if not world-wide importance."

"Now, that justifies my confidence in Giddings," said Mr. Elkins, "fulfilling at the same time the requirements of journalism and hypnotism. Come, Al, our bark is on the sea, our boat is on the shore. The Spanish galleons are even now hiding in the tall grass, in expectation of our cruise. Let us hence to the office!"

Chapter IX.

I Go Aboard and We Unfurl the Jolly Roger.

"We must act, and act at once!" said the Captain, his voice thrilling with intensity. "This piece of property will be gone befo' night! All it takes is a paltry three thousand dolla's, and within ninety days--no man can say what its value will be. We can plat it, and within ten days we may have ouah money back. Allow me to draw on you fo' three thou--"

"But," said I, "I can make no move in such a matter at this time without conference with Mr.--"

"Very well, suh, very well!" said the Captain, regarding me with a look that showed how much better things he had expected of me. "Opportunity, suh, knocks once--By the way, excuse me, suh!"

And he darted from the office, took the trail of Mr. Macdonald, whom he had seen passing, brought him to bay in front of the post-office, and dragged him away to some doom, the nature of which I could only surmise.

This took place on the morning of my first day with Elkins & Barslow. I was to take up the office work.

"That will be easy for you from the first," said Jim. "Your experience as rob-ee down there in Posey County makes you a sort of specialist in that sort of thing; and pretty soon all other things shall be added unto it."

The Captain's onslaught in the first half-hour admonished me that a good deal was already added to it. On that very day, too, we had our first conference with Mr. Hinckley. We wanted to handle securities, said Mr. Elkins, and should have a great many of them, and that was quite in Mr. Hinckley's line. To carry them ourselves would soon absorb all our capital. We must liberate it by floating the commercial paper which we took in. Mr. Hinckley's bank was known to be strong, his standing was of the highest, and a trust company in alliance with him could not fail to find a good market for its paper. With an old banker's timidity, Hinckley seemed to hesitate; yet the prospects seemed so good that I felt that this consent was sure to be given. Jim courted him assiduously, and the intimacy between him and the Hinckley family became noticeable.

"Jim," said I, one day, "you have an unerring eye for the pleasant things of life. I couldn't help thinking of this to-day when I saw you for the twentieth time spinning along the street in Miss Hinckley's carriage, beside its owner. She's one of the handsomest girls, in her flaxen-haired way, that I know of."

"Isn't she a study in curves and pink and white?" said Jim. "And she understands this trust company business as well as her father."

The trust company's stock, he went on to explain, ignoring Antonia, seemed to be already oversubscribed. Our firm, Hinckley, and Jim's Chicago and New York friends, including Harper, all stood ready to take blocks of it, and there was no reason for requiring Hinckley to put much actual money in for this. He could pay for it out of his profits soon, and make a fortune without any outlay. Good credit was the prime necessity, and that Mr. Hinckley certainly had. So the celebrated Grain Belt Trust Company was begun--a name about which such mighty interests were to cluster, that I know I should have shrunk from the responsibility had I known what a gigantic thing we were creating.

As the days wore on, Captain Tolliver's dementia spread and raged virulently. The dark-visaged Cornish, with his air of mystery, his habits so at odds with the society of Lattimore, was in the very focus of attention.

For a day or so, the effect which Mr. Giddings's report attributed to his invasion failed to disclose itself to me. Then the delirium became manifest, and swept over the town like a were-wolf delusion through a medieval village.

Its immediate occasion seemed to be a group of real-estate conveyances, announced in the _Herald_ one morning, surpassing in importance anything in the history of the town. Some of the lands transferred were acreage; some were waste and vacant tracts along Brushy Creek and the river; one piece was a suburban farm; but the mass of it was along Main Street and in the business district. The grantees were for the most part strange names in Lattimore, some individuals, some corporations. All the sales were at prices hitherto unknown. It was to be remarked, too, that in most cases the property had been purchased not long before, by some of the group of newer comers and at the old modest prices. Our firm seemed to have profited heavily in these transactions, as had Captain Tolliver also. We of the "new crowd" had begun our mock-trading to "establish the market." Prices were going up, up; and all one had to do was to buy to-day and sell to-morrow. Real values, for actual use, seemed to be forgotten.

The most memorable moment in this first, acutest stage in our development was one bright day, within a week or so of our coming. The lawns were taking on their summer emerald, robins were piping in the maples, and down in the cottonwoods and lindens on the river front crows and jays were jargoning their immemorial and cheery lingo. Surveyors were running lines and making plats in the suburbs, peeped at by gophers, and greeted by the roundelays of meadow-larks. But on the street-corners, in the offices of lawyers and real-estate agents, and in the lobbies of the hotels, the trading was lively.

Then for the first time the influx of real buyers from the outside became noticeable. The landlord of the Centropolis could scarcely care for his guests. They talked of blocks, quarter-blocks, and the choice acreage they had bought, and of the profits they had made in this and other cities and towns (where this same speculative fever was epidemic), until Alice fled to the Trescott farm--as she said, to avoid the mixture of real estate with her meals. The telegraph offices were gorged with messages to non-resident property owners, begging for prices on good inside lots. Staid, slow-going lot-owners, who had grown old in patiently paying taxes on patches of dog-fennel and sand-burrs, dazedly vacillated between acceptance and rejection of tempting propositions, dreading the missing of the chance so long awaited, fearing misjudgment as to the height of the wave, dreading a future of regret at having sold too low.

One of these, an old woman, toothless and bent, hobbled to our office and asked for Mr. Elkins. He was busy, and so I received her.

"It's about that quarter-block with the Donegal ruin on it," said Jim; "the one I showed you yesterday. Offer her five thousand, one-fourth down, balance in one, two, and three years, eight per cent."

"I wanted to ask Mr. Elkins about me home," said she. "I tuk in washin' to buy it, an' me son, poor Patsy, God rist 'is soul, he helped wid th' bit of money from the Brotherhood, whin he was kilt betune the cars. It was sivin hundred an' fifty dollars, an' now Thronson offers me four thousan'. I told him I'd sell, fer it's a fortune for a workin' woman; but befure I signed papers, I wanted to ask Mr. Elkins; he's such a fair-spoken man, an' knowin' to me min-folks in Peoria."

"If you want to sell, Mrs. Collins," said I, "we will take your property at five thousand dollars."

She started, and regarded me, first in amazement, then with distrust, shading off into hostility.

"Thank ye kindly, sir," said she; "I'll be goin' now. I've med up me moind, if that bit of land is wort all that money t' yees, it's wort more to me. Thank ye kindly!" and she fled from the presence of the tempter.

"The town is full of Biddy Collinses," commented Jim. "Well, we can't land everything, and couldn't handle the catch if we did. In fact, for present purposes, isn't it better to have her refuse?"

This incident was the hint upon which our "Syndicate," as it came to be called, acted from time to time, in making fabulous offers to every Biddy Collins in town. "Offer twenty thousand," Jim would say. "The more you bid the less apt is he to accept; he's a Biddy Collins." And whatever Mr. Elkins advised was done.

There were eight or ten of us in the "Syndicate," dubbed by Jim "The Crew," among whom were Tolliver, Macdonald, and Will Lattimore. But the inner circle, now drawing closer and closer together, were Elkins, our ruling spirit; Hinckley, our great force in the banking world; and myself. Soon, I was given to understand, Mr. Cornish was to take his place as one of us. He and Jim had long known each other, and Mr. Elkins had the utmost confidence in Mr. Cornish's usefulness in what he called "the thought-transference department."

Elkins & Barslow kept their offices open night and day, almost, and the number of typewriters and bookkeepers grew astoundingly. I became almost a stranger to my wife. I got hurried glimpses of Miss Trescott and her mother at the hotel, and knew that she and Alice were becoming fast friends; but so far the social prominence which the _Herald_ had predicted for us had failed to arrive.

This, to be sure, was our own fault. Miss Addison soon gave us up as not available for the church and Sunday-school functions to which she devoted herself. Her family connections would have made her _the_ social leader had it not been for the severity of her views and her assumption of the character of the devotee--in spite of which she protestingly went almost everywhere. Antonia Hinckley, however, was frankly fond of a good time, and with her dashing and almost hoydenish character easily took the leadership from Miss Addison; and Miss Hinckley sought diligently for means by which we could be properly launched. As I left the office one day, a voice from the curb called my name. It was Miss Hinckley in a smart trap, to which was harnessed a beautiful horse, standard bred, one could see at a glance. I obeyed the summons, and stepped beside the equipage.

"I want to scold you," said she. "Society is being defrauded of the good things which your coming promised. Have you taken a vow of seclusion, or what?"

"I've been spinning about in the maelstrom of business," I replied. "But do not be uneasy; some time we shall take up the matter of inflicting ourselves, and pursue it as vigorously as we now follow our vocation."

"Wouldn't you like to get into the trap, and take a spin of another sort?" said she. "I'll deposit you safely with Mrs. Barslow in time for tea."

I got in, glad of the drive, and for ten minutes her horse was sent at such a pace that conversation was difficult. Then he was slowed down to a walk, his head toward home. We chatted of casual things--the scenery, the horse, the splendid color of the sunset. I was becoming interested in her.

"I had almost forgotten that there were such things in Lattimore," said I, referring to the topics of our talk. "I have become so saturated with lands and lots."

"I don't know much about business," said she, "and I think I'll improve my opportunity by learning something. And, first, aren't men sometimes losers by the dishonesty of those who act for them--agents, they are called, aren't they?"

Such, I admitted, was unfortunately the case.

"I should be sorry for--any one I liked--to be injured in such a way.... Now you must understand how the things you men are interested in permeate the society of us women. Why, mamma has almost forgotten the enslavement of our sex, in these new things which have changed our old town so much; so you mustn't wonder if I have heard something of a purely business nature. I heard that Captain Tolliver was about to sell Mr. Elkins the land where the old foundry is, over there, for twenty thousand dollars. Now, papa says it isn't worth it; and I know--Sadie Allen and I were in school together, and she comes over from Fairchild several times a year to see me, and I go there, you know; and that land is in her father's estate--I know that the executor has told Captain Tolliver to sell it for ever so much less than that. And it seemed so funny, as the Captain was doing the business for both sides--isn't it odd, now?"

"It does seem so," said I, "and it is very kind of you. I'll talk with Mr. Elkins about it. Please be careful, Miss Hinckley, or you'll drop the wheel in that washout!"

She reined up her horse and began speeding him again. I could see that this conversation had embarrassed her somehow. Her color was high, and her grip of the reins not so steady as at starting. This attempt to do Jim a favor was something she considered as of a good deal of consequence. I began to note more and more what a really splendid woman she was--tall, fair, her tailor-made gown rounding to the full, firm curves of her figure, her fearless horsemanship hinting at the possession of large and positive traits of character.

"We women," said she, "might as well abandon all the things commonly known as feminine. What good do they do us?"

"They gratify your sense of the beautiful," suggested I.

"You know, Mr. Barslow," said she, "that it's not our own sense of the beautiful, mainly, that we seek to gratify; and if the eyes for which they are intended are looking into ledgers and blind to everything except dollar-signs, what's the use?"

"Go down to the seashore," said I, "where the people congregate who have nothing to do."

"Not I," said she; "I'll go into real estate, and become as blind as the rest!"

Jim paid no attention to my chaffing when I spoke of his conquest, as I called Antonia. In fact, he seemed annoyed, and for a long time said nothing.

"You can see how the Allen estate proposition stands," said he, at last. "To let that sell for less than twenty thousand might cost us ten times that amount in lowering the prevailing standard of values. The old rule that we should buy in the cheapest market and sell in the dearest is suspended. Base is the slave who pays--less than the necessary and proper increase."

Chapter X.

We Dedicate Lynhurst Park.

The Hindu adept sometimes suspends before the eyes of his subject a bright ball of carnelian or crystal, in the steady contemplation of which the sensitive swims off into the realms of subjectivity--that mysterious bourn from whence no traveler brings anything back. J. Bedford Cornish was Mr. Elkins's glittering ball; his psychic subject was the world in general and Lattimore in particular. Scientific principles, confirmed by experience, led us to the conclusion that the attitude of fixed contemplation carried with it some nervous strain, ought to be of limited duration, and hence that Mr. Cornish should remove from our midst the glittering mystery of his presence, lest familiarity should breed contempt. So in about ten days he went away, giving to the _Herald_ a parting interview, in which he expressed unbounded delight with Lattimore, and hinted that he might return for a longer stay. Editorially, the _Herald_ expressed the hope that this characteristically veiled allusion to a longer sojourn might mean that Mr. Cornish had some idea of becoming a citizen of Lattimore. This would denote, the editorial continued, that men like Mr. Cornish, accustomed to the mighty world-pulse of New York, could find objects of pursuit equally worthy in Lattimore.

"Which is mixed metaphor," Mr. Giddings admitted in confidence; "but," he continued, "if metaphors, like drinks, happen to be more potent mixed, the _Herald_ proposes to mix 'em."

All these things consumed time, and still our life was one devoted to business exclusively. At last Mr. Elkins himself, urged, I feel sure, by Antonia Hinckley, gave evidence of weariness.

"Al," said he one day, "don't you think it's about time to go ashore for a carouse?"

"Unless something in the way of a let-up comes soon," said I, "the position of lieutenant, or first mate, or whatever my job is piratically termed, will become vacant. The pace is pretty rapid. Last night I dreamed that the new Hotel Elkins was founded on my chest; and I have had troubles enough of the same kind before to show me that my nervous system is slowly ravelling out."

"I have arrangements made, in my mind, for a sort of al fresco function, to come off about the time Cornish gets back with our London visitor," he replied, "which ought to knit up the ravelled sleeve better than new. I'm going to dedicate Lynhurst Park to the nymphs and deities of sport--which wrinkled care derides."

"I hadn't heard of Lynhurst Park," I was forced to say. "I'm curious to know, first, who named it, and, second, where it is."

"Didn't I show you those blueprints?" he asked. "An oversight I assure you. As for the scheme, you suggested it yourself that night we first drove out to Trescott's. Don't you remember saying something about 'breathing space for the populace'? Well, I had the surveys made at once; contracted for the land, all but what Bill owns of it, which we'll have to get later; and had a landscapist out from Chicago to direct us as to what we ought to admire in improving the place. As for the name, I'm indebted to kind nature, which planted the valley in basswood, and to Josie, who contributed the philological knowledge and the taste. That's the street-car line," said he, unrolling an elaborate plat and pointing. "We may throw it over to the west to develop section seven, if we close for it. Otherwise, that line is the very thing."

Our street-railway franchise had been granted by the Lattimore city council--they would have granted the public square, had we asked for it in the potent name of "progress"--and Cornish was even now making arrangements for placing our bonds. The impossible of less than a year ago was now included in the next season's program, as an inconsiderable feature of a great project for a street-railway system, and the "development" of hundreds of acres of land.

The place so to be named Lynhurst Park was most agreeably reached by a walk up Brushy Creek from Lattimore. Such a stroll took one into the gorge, where the rocks shelved toward each other, until their crowning fringes of cedar almost interlocked, like the eyelashes of drowsiness. Down there in the twilight one felt a sense of being defrauded, in contemplation of the fact that the stream was troutless: it was such an ideal place for trout. The quiet and mellow gloom made the gorge a favorite trysting-place, and perhaps the cool-blooded stream-folk had fled from the presence of the more fervid dwellers on the banks. In the crevices of the rocks were the nests of the village pigeons. The combined effects of all these causes was to make this a spot devoted to billing and cooing.

Farther up the stream the rock walls grew lower and parted wider, islanding a rich bottom of lush grass-plot, alternating with groves of walnut, linden, and elm. This was the Lynhurst Park of the blueprints and plats. Trescott's farm lay on the right bank, and others on either side; but the houses were none of them near the stream, and the entire walk was wild and woodsy-looking. None but nature-lovers came that way. Others drove out by the road past Trescott's, seeing more of corn and barn, but less of rock, moss, and fern.

Mr. Cornish was to return on Friday with the Honorable De Forest Barr-Smith, who lived in London and "represented English capital." To us Westerners the very hyphen of his name spoke eloquently of L s. d. Through him we hoped to get the money to build that street railway. Cornish had written that Mr. Barr-Smith wanted to look the thing over personally; and that, given the element of safety, his people would much prefer an investment of a million to one of ten thousand. Cornish further hinted that the London gentleman acted like a man who wanted a side interest in the construction company; as to which he would sound him further by the way.

"He'll expect something in the way of birds and bottles," observed Elkins; "but they won't mix with the general society of this town, where the worm of the still is popularly supposed to be the original Edenic tempter. And he'll want to inspect Lynhurst Park. I want him to see our beauty and our chivalry,--meaning the ladies and Captain Tolliver,--and the rest of our best people. I guess we'll have to make it a temperate sort of orgy, making up in the spectacular what it lacks in spirituousness."

Mr. Cornish came, gradually moulting his mystery; but still far above the Lattimore standard in dress and style of living. In truth, he always had a good deal of the swell in his make-up, and can almost be acquitted of deceit in the impressions conveyed at his coming. The Honorable De Forest Barr-Smith fraternized with Cornish, as he could with no one else. No one looking at Mr. Cornish could harbor a doubt as to his morning tub; and his evening dress was always correct. With Jim, Mr. Barr-Smith went into the discussion of business propositions freely and confidentially. I feel sure that had he greatly desired a candid statement of the very truth as to local views, or the exact judgment of one on the spot, he would have come to me. But between him and Cornish there was the stronger sympathy of a common understanding of the occult intricacies of clothes, and a view-point as to the surface of things, embracing manifold points of agreement. Cornish's unerring conformity of vogue in the manner and as to the occasion of wearing the tuxedo or the claw-hammer coat was clearly restful to Mr. Barr-Smith, in this new and strange country, where, if danger was to be avoided, things had to be approached with distended nostril and many preliminary snuffings of the wind.

There came with these two a younger brother of Mr. Barr-Smith, Cecil--a big young civil engineer, just out of college, and as like his brother in accent and dress as could be expected of one of his years; but national characteristics are matters of growth, and college boys all over the world are a good deal alike. Cecil Barr-Smith, with his red mustache, his dark eyes, and his six feet of British brawn, was nearer in touch with our younger people that first day than his honorable brother ever became. To Antonia, especially, he took kindly, and respectfully devoted himself.

"At this distance," said Mr. Barr-Smith, as he saw his brother sitting on the grass at Miss Hinckley's feet, "I'd think them brother and sister. She resembles sister Gritty remarkably; the same complexion and the same style, you know. Quite so!"

The Lynhurst function was the real introduction of these three gentlemen to Lattimore society. I knew nothing of the arrangements, except what I could deduce from Jim's volume of business with caterers and other handicraftsmen; and I looked forward to the fete with much curiosity. The weather, that afternoon, made an outing quite the natural thing; for it was hot. The ladies in their most summery gowns fluttered like white dryads from shade to shade, uttering bird-like pipings of surprise at the preparations made for their entertainment.

The ravine had been transformed. At an available point in its bed Jim had thrown a dam across the stream, and a beautiful little lake rippled in the breeze, bearing on its bosom a bright-colored boat, which in our ignorance of things Venetian we mistakenly dubbed a gondola. At the upper end of this water the canvas of a large pavilion gleamed whitely through the greenery, displaying from its top the British and American flags, their color reflected in a particolored streak on the wimpling face of the lake. The groves, in the tops of which the woodpeckers, warblers, and vireos disturbedly carried on the imperatively necessary work of rearing their broods, were gay with festoons of Chinese lanterns in readiness for the evening. Hammocks were slung from tree to tree, cushions and seats were arranged in cosy nooks; and when my wife and I stepped from our carriage, all these appliances for the utilization of shade and leisure were in full use. The "gondola" was making, trips from the cascade (as the dam was already called) to the pavilion, carrying loads of young people from whom came to our ears those peals of merriment which have everywhere but one meaning, and that a part of the world-old mystery of the way of a man with a maid.

Jim was on the ground early, to receive the guests and keep the management in hand. Josie Trescott and her mother walked down through the Trescott pasture, and joined Alice and me under one of the splendid lindens, where, as we lounged in the shade, the sound of the little waterfall filled the spaces in our talk. Long before any one else had seen them coming through the trees, Mr. Elkins had spied them, and went forward to meet them with something more than the hospitable solicitude with which he had met the others. In fact, the principal guests of the day had alighted from their carriage before Jim, ensconced in a hammock with Josie, was made aware of their arrival. I am not quick to see such things; but to my eyes, even, the affair had assumed interest as a sort of public flirtation. I had not thought that Josie would so easily fall into deportment so distinctly encouraging. She was altogether in a surprising mood,--her eyes shining as with some stimulant, her cheeks a little flushed, her lips scarlet, her whole appearance suggesting suppressed excitement. And when Jim rose to meet his guests, she dismissed him with one of those charmingly inviting glances and gestures with which such an adorable woman spins the thread by which the banished one is drawn back,--and then she disappeared until the dinner was served.

The green crown of the western hill was throwing its shadow across the valley, when Mr. Hinckley came with Mr. Cornish and Mr. Barr-Smith in a barouche; followed by Antonia, who brought Mr. Cecil in her trap--and a concomitant thrill to the company. Mr. Cornish, in his dress, had struck a happy medium between the habiliments of business and those of sylvan recreation. Mr. Barr-Smith on the other hand, was garbed cap-a-pie for an outing, presenting an appearance with which the racket, the bat, or even the alpenstock might have been conjoined in perfect harmony. As for the men of Lattimore, any one of them would as soon have been seen in the war-dress of a Sioux chief as in this entirely correct costume of our British visitor. We walked about in the every-day vestments of the shops, banks, and offices, illustrating the difference between a state of society in which apparel is regarded as an incident in life, and one rising to the height of realizing its true significance as a religion. Mr. Barr-Smith bowed not the knee to the Baal of western clothes-monotone, but daily sent out his sartorial orisons, keeping his windows open toward the Jerusalem of his London tailor, in a manner which would have delighted a Teufelsdroeckh.

He was a short man, with protruding cheeks, and a nose ending in an amorphous flare of purple and scarlet. His mustache, red like that of his brother, and constituting the only point of physical resemblance between them, grew down over a receding chin, being forced thereto by the bulbous overhang of the nose. He had rufous side-whiskers, clipped moderately close, and carroty hair mixed with gray. His erect shoulders and straight back were a little out of keeping with the rotundity of his figure in other respects; but the combination, hinting, as it did, of affairs both gastronomic and martial, taken with a manner at once dignified, formal, and suave, constituted the most intensely respectable appearance I ever saw. To the imagination of Lattimore he represented everything of which, Cornish fell short, piling Lombard upon Wall Street.

The arrival of these gentlemen was the signal for gathering in the pavilion where dinner was served. The tables were arranged in a great L, at the apex of which sat Jim and the distinguished guests. On one side of him sat Mr. Barr-Smith, who listened absorbedly to the conversation of Mrs. Hinckley, filling every pause with a husky "Quite so!" On the other sat Josie Trescott, who was smiling upon a very tall and spare old man who wore a beautiful white mustache and imperial. I had never met him, but I knew him for General Lattimore. His fondness for Josie was well known; and to him Jim attributed that young lady's lack of enthusiasm over our schemes for city-building. His presence at this gathering was somewhat of a surprise to me.

Antonia and Cecil Barr-Smith, the Tollivers, Mr. Hinckley and Alice, myself, Mr. Giddings, and Miss Addison sat across the table from the host. Mrs. Trescott, after expressing wonder at the changes wrought in the ravine, and confiding to me her disapproval of the useless expense, had returned to the farm, impelled by