The Greatest Works of Melville Davisson Post: 40+ Titles in One Edition. Melville Davisson Post
wailed the little fat man, "is there no law to keep me from being ruined? Can't I have him arrested, sir?"
"Unfortunately, no," replied the lawyer. "He is committing no crime, he is simply doing what he has a full legal right to do if he so chooses, and neither you nor any other man can interfere with him. If you attempt it, you at once become a violator of the law and proceed at your peril. You are the victim of a grave wrong, Mr. Woodlas. Your security is being destroyed and great loss may possibly result. Yet there is absolutely no remedy except the possible injunction, which, in the absence of the judge, is no remedy at all. It is an exasperating and unfortunate position for you, but, as I said, there is nothing to be done."
The face of Barton Woodlas grew white and his jaw dropped. "Gone!" he muttered, "all gone, five thousand dollars and a stable as security for forty thousand! It is ruin, ruin!"
"I am indeed sorry," said the cold-blooded attorney, with a feeling of pity that was unusual, "but there is no remedy, unless perhaps you could repurchase the property before it is injured."
"Ah," said the little fat man, straightening up in his chair, "I had not thought of that. I will do it. Come on, both of you," and he hurried to the carriage without waiting for an answer.
At the residence in question the three men found matters as Barton Woodlas had last seen them, except that the trench across the lawn was now half completed and the doors and shutters had all been removed from the house and piled up on the veranda.
Sidney Van Guilder laughed at their proposition to repurchase. He assured them that he had long been looking for just this kind of property, that it suited him perfectly, and that he would not think of parting with it. The attorney for Wood-las offered two thousand dollars' advance; then three, then four, but Sidney Van Guilder was immovable. Finally Gordon Montcure suggested that perhaps the city would not allow his stable to remain after he had completed it, and advised him to name some price for the property. Van Guilder seemed to consider this possibility with some seriousness. He had presumably had this trouble in New York City, and finally said that he would take ten thousand dollars for his bargain. Old Barton Woodlas fumed and cursed and ground his teeth, and damned every citizen of the State of New York from the coast to the lakes for a thief, a villain, and a robber.
Finally, when the Italians began to cut through the wall of the drawing-room and the fat old gentleman's grief and rage were fast approaching apoplexy, the lawyer raised his offer to seven thousand dollars cash, and Sidney Van Guilder reluctantly accepted it and dismissed his workmen. The four went at once to the law office of Vinson Harcout, where the mortgage and notes were cancelled, the money paid, and the deed prepared, reconveying the property and giving Barton Woodlas immediate possession.
III.
At nine-thirty the following morning, the two brothers walked into the private office of Randolph Mason and laid down seven thousand dollars on his desk. Mason counted out two thousand and thrust it into his pocket. "Gentlemen," he said shortly, "here is the five thousand dollars which I promised. I commend you for following my instructions strictly."
"We have obeyed you to the very letter," said Gordon Montcure, handing the money to his brother, "except in one particular."
"What!" cried Mason, turning upon him, "you dared to change my plans?"
"No," said Gordon Montcure, stepping back, "only the fool lawyer suggested the repurchase before I could do it."
"Ah," said Randolph Mason, sinking back into his chair, "a trifling detail. I bid you goodmorning."
Woodford's Partner
I.
After some thirty years, one begins to appreciate in a slight degree the mystery of things in counter-distinction to the mystery of men. He learns with dumb horror that startling and unforeseen events break into the shrewdest plans and dash them to pieces utterly, or with grim malice wrench them into engines of destruction, as though some mighty hand reached out from the darkness and shattered the sculptor's marble, or caught the chisel in his fingers and drove it back into his heart.
As one grows older, he seeks to avoid, as far as may be, the effect of these unforeseen interpositions, by carrying in his plans a factor of safety, and, as what he is pleased to call his "worldly wisdom" grows, he increases this factor until it is a large constant running through all his equations dealing with probabilities of the future. Whether in the end it has availed anything, is still, after six thousand years, a mooted question. Nevertheless, it is the manner of men to calculate closely in their youth, disregarding the factor of safety, and ignoring utterly the element of Chance, Fortune, ar Providence, as it may please men to name this infinite meddling intelligence. Whether this arises from ignorance or some natural unconscious conviction that it is useless to strive against it, the race has so far been unable to determine. That it is useless to, the weight of authorities would seem to indicate, while, on the other hand, the fact that men are amazed and dumbfounded when they first realize the gigantic part played by this mysterious power in all human affairs, and immediately thereafter plan to evade it, would tend to the conviction that there might be some means by which these startling accidents could be guarded against, or at least their effect counteracted.
The laws, if in truth there be any, by which these so-called fortunes and misfortunes come to men, are as yet undetermined, except that they arise from the quarter of the unexpected, and by means oftentimes of the commonplace.
On a certain Friday evening in July, Carper Harris, confidential clerk of the great wholesale house of Beaumont, Milton, & Company of Baltimore, was suddenly prostrated under the horror of this great truth. For the first time in his life Fate had turned about and struck him, and the blow had been delivered with all her strength.
Up to this time he had been an exceedingly fortunate man. To begin with, he had been born of a good family, although, at the time of his father's death, reduced in circumstances. While quite a small boy, he had been taken in as clerk through the influence of Mr. Milton, who had been a friend of his father. The good blood in the young man had told from the start. He had shown himself capable and unusually shrewd in business matters, and had risen rapidly to the position of chief confidential clerk. In this position he was intrusted with the most important matters of the firm, and was familiar with all its business relations. His abilities had expanded with the increasing duties of his successive positions. He had done the firm much service, and had shown himself to be a most valuable and trustworthy man. But, with it all, the eyes of old Silas Beaumont had followed his every act, in season and out of season, tirelessly. It was a favorite theory of old Beaumont, that the great knave was usually the man of irreproachable habits, and necessarily the man of powerful and unusual abilities, and that, instead of resorting to ordinary vices or slight acts of rascality, he was wont to bide his time until his reputation gained him opportunity for some gigantic act of dishonesty, whereby he could make a vast sum at one stroke.
Old Beaumont was accustomed to cite two scriptural passages as the basis of his theory, one being that oft-quoted remark of David in his haste, and the other explanatory of what the Lord saw when he repented that he had made man on the earth.
Like all those of his type, when this theory had once become fixed with him, he sought on all occasions for instances by which to demonstrate its truthfulness. Thus it happened that the honesty and industry of young Harris were the very grounds upon which Beaumont based his suspicions and his acts of vigilance.
When it was proposed that Carper Harris should go to Europe in order to buy certain grades of pottery which the firm imported, Beaumont grumbled and intimated