Old Ebenezer. Opie Percival Read
handsome creature, with a mysterious money grace, with a real beauty of hair, mouth and eyes. The envious said that circumstances served to make an imperious simpleton of her.
It was this man, with these connections, that Lyman crossed the street to see. But to the lawyer it was not so adventurous as grimly humorous. His Yankee shrewdness had pronounced the man a pretentious fraud.
The banker was in his private office, busy with his papers. Lyman heard him say to the negro who took in his name: "Mr. Lyman! I don't know why he should want to see me. But tell him to come in."
As Lyman entered the banker looked up and said: "Well, sir."
Lyman sat down and crossed his legs. The banker looked at his feet, then at his head.
"Mr. McElwin," said Lyman, "we have not met before, though I, of course, have seen you often, but——"
"Well, sir, go on."
"Yes, that's what I am doing. I say that we have not met, but I board at the house of a relative of yours, and I therefore feel that I know you."
"Board with a relative of mine?" the banker gasped.
"Yes, with Jasper Staggs, and I want to tell you that he is about as kind hearted an old fellow as I ever met, quaint and accommodating. He is a cousin of yours, I believe."
"Well—er, yes. But state your business, if you please. I am very busy."
"I presume so, sir, but I am afraid that my business may not strike you in a very favorable way. I want to borrow one hundred dollars."
"Upon what collateral, sir?"
"Mainly upon the collateral of honor."
The banker looked at him. Lyman continued: "I feel that such a statement in a bank sounds like the echo of an idle laugh, but I mention honor first, because I value it most. I also have, or represent, a law library."
"Is it worth a hundred dollars?"
"Well, I can't say that it is, but I should think that the library, reinforced by my honor, is worth that much."
The banker began to stroke his brown beard. "So you have come here to joke, sir——"
"Oh, not at all," Lyman broke in, "this is a serious matter."
"It might be if I were to let you have the money."
"That isn't so bad," Lyman laughed. "But seriously, I am in much need of a hundred dollars, and if you'll let me have it for six months I will pay it back with interest."
"I can't do it, sir."
"You mean that you won't do it."
"You heard me, sir."
"I realize the bad form in which I present my case, Mr. McElwin, and I know that if you had made a practice of doing business in this way you would not have been nearly so successful, but I will pledge you my word that if you will let me have the money——"
"Good day, sir, good day."
Lyman walked out, not feeling so humorous as when he went in. He looked up and down the dingy, drowsy street. At first he might have been half amused at his failure, tickled with the idea of describing it to Caruthers and the newspaper man, but a sense of humiliation came to him. He knew that in the warfare of business his operation was but a guerrilla's dash, and he was ashamed of himself; and yet he reflected that his great enemy might have been gentler to him. He walked slowly down the street, without an objective point; he passed the group of village jokers, sitting in front of the drug store, with their chairs tipped back against the wall; he passed the planing mill, with its rasping noise, and in his whimsical fancy it sounded like the Town Council snoring. He loitered near a garden where plum trees were in bloom; he looked over at a solemn child digging in the dirt; he caught sight of a pale man with the mark of death upon him, lying near a window, slowly fanning himself. He spoke to the child and the wretched little one looked up and said: "I am digging a grave for my pa." Lyman leaned heavily upon the fence; his heart was touched, and taking out a small piece of money he tossed it to the boy. The grave digger took it up, looked at it a moment in sad astonishment, put it aside and returned to his work.
The office was deserted when Lyman returned. Caruthers had not hung a hope on the result of the attempted negotiations.
CHAPTER IV.
Top
A Fog Between Them.
The following afternoon when Lyman went to the office, having spent the earlier hours in the court house, to assure the Judge that he had no motions to make, and no case to be passed over to the next term—he found Caruthers with his feet on the table.
"Getting hot," said Caruthers.
"Is it? I thought we had been playing freeze-out," Lyman replied, throwing his hat upon the table and sitting down.
"Then you didn't do anything with his Royal Flush?"
"Brother McElwin? No. He fenced with his astonishment until he could find words, and then he granted me the privilege to retire."
"Wouldn't take a mortgage on the library?"
"No; he said it wasn't worth a hundred."
"But you assured him that it was."
"No; I had to acknowledge that it wasn't."
"You are a fool."
"Yes, perhaps; but I'm not a thief."
"No! But it's more respectable to be a thief than a pauper."
"It is not very comforting to be both—to know that you are one and to feel that you are the other."
"Lyman, that sort of doctrine may suit a long-tailed coat, a white necktie and a countenance pinched by piety, but it doesn't suit me."
"It suits me," Lyman replied. "I was brought up on it. I think mother baked it in with the beans."
"Watercolor nonsense!" said Caruthers. "My people were as honest as anybody, but they didn't teach me to look for the worst of it."
"But didn't they teach you that without a certain moral force there can be no real and lasting achievement?"
Caruthers turned and nodded his head toward the bank. "Is there any moral force over there? Did you notice any saintly precepts on his wall? I don't think you did. But wasn't there many a sign that said, 'get money'?"
"Caruthers, you join with the rest of this town in the belief that McElwin is a great man. I don't. He is a community success, a neighborhood's strong man, but in the hands of the giants who live in the real world he is a weakling."
"He is strong enough, though, not to tremble at the sound of a footstep at the door, and that's exactly what we sit here doing day after day. The joy of the hoped-for client is driven away by the fear of the collector." He was silent for a moment, and then he said: "I don't feel that there's any advantage in being hooked up with a saint."
"I don't know," Lyman replied. "I never tried it."
"I have," said Caruthers, looking at him.
Lyman laughed and rubbed his hands together. "You are the only one that has ever insinuated such a compliment, if you mean that I am a saint. But I hold that there's quite a stretch between a saint and a man who has a desire simply to be honest. Saint—" He laughed again. "Why, the people where I was brought up called me a rake."
"They were angels. But why don't you say where you were 'raised.' Why do you say 'brought up?' You were not brought up; you were raised."
"Yes, that's true, I guess. But we raised vegetables where I was brought up."
"Cabbages?"