The Son of his Father. Cullum Ridgwell
turned to the ordinary 'phone, picked up the receiver, gave the operator the number, and waited.
"Hello! Hello, hello, hello! That you, Charlie? Bully. I wasn't sure getting you. Guess my luck's right in. How are you? Goo—— No, better not come around to-night. Fact is, I'm up to my back teeth packing and things. I've got to be away awhile. Business—important." He laughed. "Don't get funny. It's not play. No. Eh? What's that? A lady? Quit it. If there's a thing I can't stand just about now it's a suggestion of immorality. I mean that. The word 'immoral' 's about enough to set me chasing Broadway barking and foaming at the mouth. I said I'm going away on business, and it's so important that not even my mother knows where I'm going. Yes. Ah, I'm glad you feel that way. It's serious. Now, listen to me; it's up to you to do me a kindness. I'm going to write the mater now and again. But I can't mail direct, or she'll know where I am, see? Well, I can send her mail under cover to you, and you can mail it on to her. Get me? Now, that way, you'll know just where I am. That's so. Well, you've got to swear right along over the wire you won't tell a soul. Not the governor, or the mater, or Gracie, or—or anybody. No, I don't need you to cuss like a railroader about it. Just swear properly. That's it. That's fine. On your soul and honor. Fine. I'm glad you added the 'honor' racket, it makes things plumb sure. Oh, yes, your soul's all right in its way. But—— Good-by, boy. I'll see you six months from to-day. No. Too busy. So long."
Gordon hung up the receiver and turned back to his desk with a sigh. He opened a drawer and took out his check-book, and gave himself up to a few minutes of figures. There was not a great deal of money to his credit at the bank, but it was sufficient for his purposes. He wrote and signed three checks. Then he tore the remaining blanks up and flung them into the waste-basket.
After that he turned his attention to a systematic examination of his papers. It was a long, and not uninteresting process, but one that took a vast amount of patience. He tore up letter after letter, photographs, bills, every sort of document which a bachelor seems always to accumulate when troubled by the disease of youth.
In the midst of his labors he came across his father's private code for cable and telegraph. It brought back to him the memory of his position as one of his father's secretaries. He smiled as he glanced through it. It must be sent back to the office. He would hand it to the clerk who brought him his money in the morning. So he placed it carefully in the inside pocket of his coat and continued his labors.
Half an hour later Harding appeared.
"Beg pardon, sir," he said. "I had some difficulty, but"—he held up an oily-looking cigar with a flaming label about its middle, between his finger and thumb—"I succeeded in obtaining one. I had to take three surface cars, and finally had to go to Fourth Avenue. It was a lower place than I expected, sir, seeing that it was a five-cent cigar."
"That means it cost me twenty cents, Harding—unless you were able to transfer."
Gordon eyed the man's expressionless face quizzically.
"I'm sorry, sir. But I forgot about the transfer tickets."
Gordon sighed with pretended regret.
"I'm sure guessing it's—bad finance. We ought to do better."
"I could have saved the fares if I'd taken your car, sir," said Harding, with a flicker of the eyelids.
"Splendid, gasoline at thirteen cents, and the price of tires going up."
Gordon drummed on the desk with his fingers and became thoughtful. He had a painful duty yet to perform.
"Harding," he said at last, with a genuine sigh, his eyes painfully serious. "We've got to go different ways. You've—got to quit."
The valet's face never moved a muscle.
"Yes, sir."
"Right away."
"Yes, sir."
Then the man cleared his throat, and laid the oily-looking cigar on the desk.
"I trust, sir, I've given satisfaction?"
"Satisfaction?" Gordon's tone expressed the most cordial appreciation. "Satisfaction don't express it. I couldn't have kept up the farce of existence without you. You are the best fellow in the world. Guess it's I who haven't given satisfaction."
"Yes, sir."
"Oh—you agree?"
"Yes, sir. That is, no, sir."
Harding passed one thin hand across his forehead, and the movement was one of perplexity. It was the only gesture he permitted himself as any expression of feeling.
"I'm going away for six months—as a five-cent-cigar man," Gordon went on, disguising his regret under a smile of humor. "I'm going away on—business."
"Yes, sir." The respectful agreement came in a monotonous tone.
"So you'll—just have to quit. That's all."
"Yes, sir."
"Ye-es."
"You will—need a man when you come back, sir?" The eagerness was unmistakable to Gordon.
"I—hope so."
Harding's face brightened.
"I will accept temporary employment then, sir. Thank you, sir."
Gordon wondered. Then he cleared his throat, and held out two of the checks he had written.
"Here's two months' wages," he said. "One is your due. Guess the other's the same, only—it's a present. Now, get this. You'll need to see everything cleared right out of this shanty, and stored at the Manhattan deposit. When that's done, get right along and report things to my father, and hand him your accounts for settlement. All my cigars and cigarettes and wine and things, why, I guess you can have for a present. It don't seem reasonable to me condemning you to five-cent cigars and domestic lager. Now pack me one grip, as you said. I'll wear the suit I've got on. Mind, I need a grip I can tote myself—full."
"Very good, sir. Thank you, sir. Anything else, sir?"
"Why, yes." Gordon was smiling again. "Hand this check in at the bank when it opens to-morrow, and get me cash for it, and bring it right along. That's all, except you'd better get me another disgusting sandwich, and another bottle of tragedy beer for my supper. There's nothing else."
With a resolute air Gordon turned back to his work, as, with an obvious sigh of regret, Harding silently withdrew.
CHAPTER III
GORDON ARRIVES
Gordon Carbhoy sat hunched up in his seat. His great shoulders, so square and broad, seemed to fill up far more space than he was entitled to. His cheerful face showed no signs of the impatience and irritability he was really enduring. A seraphic contentment alone shone in his clear blue eyes. He was a picture of the youthful conviction that life was in reality a very pleasant thing, and that there did not exist a single cloud upon the delicately tinted horizon of his own particular portion of it.
In spite of this outward seeming, however, he was by no means easy. Every now and again he would stand up and ease the tightness of his trousers about his knees. He felt dirty, too, dirty and untidy, notwithstanding the fact that he had washed himself, and brushed his hair, many times in the cramped compartment of the train devoted to that purpose. Then he would fling himself into his corner again and give his attention to the monotonously level landscape beyond the window and strive to forget the stale odor so peculiar to all railroad cars, especially in summer time.
These were movements and efforts he had made a hundred times since leaving the great terminal in New York. He had slept in his corner. He had eaten cheaply in the dining-car. He had smoked one of the delicious cigars, from the box which the