Colonel Carter's Christmas and The Romance of an Old-Fashioned Gentleman Part 20

"You haven't her eyes or her hair, Phil," she continued without turning her head, "but you look at me that way sometimes. I don't know what it is--she's happy, and she's not happy. She loved somebody--that's it, she _loved_ somebody and her eyes follow you so--they seem alive--and the lips as if they could speak.

"And now, Mr. Gregg, please show me every one of these beautiful things." She had already, with her quick intuition, seen through Adam's personality at a glance, and found out how thoroughly she could trust him.

He obeyed as gallantly and as cheerfully as if he had been her own age, pulling open the drawers of the cabinets, taking out this curio and that, lifting the lid of the old Venetian wedding-chest that she might herself pry among the velvets and embroideries; she dropping on her knees beside it with all the fluttering joy of a child who had come suddenly upon a box of toys; Phil following them around the room putting in a word here and there, reminding Adam of something he had forgotten, or calling her attention to some object hidden in a shadow that even her quick absorbing glance had overlooked.

Once more she stopped before the portrait, her eyes drinking in its beauty.

"Don't you love it, Mr. Gregg?"

"Yes, but I'm going to give it to your--to Philip."

"Oh! you know! do you? Yes, just say it out. We _are_ going to be married just as soon as we can--next October is the very latest date.

I told father we were tired of waiting and he has promised me; we would have been married this spring but for that horrid copper mine that the deeper you go the less copper----"

"Oh, but Madeleine," protested Philip with a sudden flush in his face, "that was some time ago; everything's all right now."

"Well, I don't know much about it; I only repeated what father said."

And then having had her fill of all the pretty things--some she must go back to half a dozen times in her delight--especially some "ducky"

little china dogs that were "just too sweet for anything"; and having discussed to her heart's content all the details of the coming wedding--especially the part where Adam was to walk close behind them on their way up the aisle of the church as a sort of fairy G.o.dfather to give Phil away--the joyous little bird, followed by the happy young lover, spread her dainty wings and flew away.

And thus it was that two new spirits were added to Adam Gregg's long list of friends: One the young man, earnest, alert, losing no chance in his business, awake to all the changes in the ever-shifting market, conversant with every move of his opponents and meeting them with a shrewdness--and sometimes, Adam thought--with a cunning far beyond his years. The other, the fresh, outspoken, merry young girl, fluttering in and out like a bird in her ever-changing plumage--now in hat loaded with tea-roses, now in trim walking costume fitting her dainty figure; now in her waterproof, her wee little feet "wringing wet" she would tell Adam with a laugh--always a welcome guest, no matter who had his chair, or whose portrait or what work required his brush.

VIII

One afternoon, some days after Philip's return from an inspection of the mines of the Portage Copper Company, and an hour ahead of his usual time, the velvet curtain was pushed aside and the young man walked in. Not only did he move with his most important "bank director's step," but he brought with him an air of responsibility only seen in magnates who control the destinies of corporations and the savings of their stockholders.

"What's the matter, Phil?" asked Adam with a laugh. "Have they made you president of the Stock Exchange, or has the Government turned over its deposits to your keeping, or has the wedding-day been set for to-morrow?"

"Wedding-day's all right; closer than ever, but I've got something that knocks being president of the Exchange cold. Our scheme is about fixed up and it's to be floated next week--float anything on this market--that's better than being president or anything else. Our attorneys brought in the papers this morning, and they will be signed at our office to-morrow at eleven-thirty. The Seaboard Trust Company are going to take half the bonds and two out-of-town banks the balance. That puts us on our legs and keeps us there, and I don't mind telling you"--and he looked around as if fearing to be overhead--"we've got to have this money or--Well, there's no use of my going into that, because it's all over now, or will be when this loan's floated. But I want to tell you that we've had some pretty tough sledding lately--some that the old man doesn't know about."

Adam looked up; any danger that threatened Phil always enlisted his sympathy.

"Tell me about it. I can't follow these operations. Most of them are all Greek to me."

"Well, as I say, we've got to have money, a whole lot of it, or there's no telling when Madeleine and I will ever be married. And the Portage Company has got to have money; they have struck bottom so far as their finances go and can't go on without help. G.o.d knows I've worked hard enough over it--been doing nothing else for weeks."

"What do you float?" Adam was prepared to give him his best attention.

"One million refunding bonds--half to take up the old issue and the balance for improvements. Our wedding comes in the 'improvements,'"

and Philip winked meaningly.

"Is there enough copper in the mine to warrant the issue?" Adam asked, recalling Madeleine's remark about the deeper they went the less copper there was in the mine.

"What's that got to do with it?"

"Everything, I should think. You examined it--didn't you?--and should know."

"Yes, but n.o.body has asked me for an opinion. The company's engineer attends to that."

"What do you think yourself, Phil?"

"I don't think. I'm not paid to think. The other fellow does the thinking and I do the selling."

"What does Mr. Eggleston say?"

"He doesn't say. He isn't paid for saying. What he wants is his six per cent, and that's what we've got to earn. This new deal earns it."

"Does the trust company know anything about the mine?"

"Why, of course, everything. Those fellows don't need a guardian.

They've got the mining engineer's sworn certificate, and they trust to that and----"

"And to the standing of your house," Adam interrupted.

"Certainly. Why not? That's what we're in business for."

"But what do you think of it--you, remember; you--Philip Colton--are you willing to swear that the mine is worth the money the trust company will lend on it?"

"I make an affidavit! Not much! What I _say_ is everybody's property; what I _think_ is n.o.body's business but my own. The mine _may_ strike virgin copper in chunks and it may not. That's where the gamble comes in. If it does the bonus stock they get for nothing will be worth par." He was a little ashamed as he said it. He was merely repeating what he had told his customers in advance of the issue, but they had not returned his gaze with Adam's eyes.

"But you in your heart, Phil, are convinced that it will _not_ strike virgin copper, aren't you? So much so that you wouldn't take Madeleine's money, or my money, to put into it." These search-lights of Gregg's had a way of uncovering many secret places.

Philip turned in his chair and looked at Adam. What was the matter with the dear fellow this afternoon, he said to himself.

"Certainly not--and for two reasons: first, you are not in the Street; and second, because I never gamble with a friend's money."

"But you gamble with the money of the innocent men and women who believe in your firm, and who in the end buy these bonds of the trust company, don't you?"

"Well, but what have we got to do with the bonds after we sell them?

We are not running the mine, we're only getting money for them to run it on, and incidentally our commissions," and he smiled knowingly.

"The trust company does the same thing. This widow-and-orphan business is about played out in the Street. The shrewdest buyers we have are just these people, and they get their cent per cent every time. Don't you bother your dear old head over this matter; just be glad it's coming out all right--I am, I tell you!"

Gregg had risen from his chair and was standing over Philip with a troubled look on his face.

"Phil," he said slowly, "look at me. From what you tell me, you can't issue these bonds! You can't afford to do it--no honest man can!"

The young financier lay back in his chair and broke out into laughter.

"Old Gentleman," he said, as he reached up his hand and laid it affectionately on Gregg's waistcoat--it was a pet name of his--"you just stick to your brushes and paints and I'll stick to my commissions. If everybody in the Street had such old-fashioned notions as you have we'd starve to death. We've got to take risks, everybody has. You might as well say that when a stock is going up and against us we shouldn't cover right away to save ourselves from further loss; or that when it's going down we shouldn't sell and saddle the other fellow with the slump while we get from under. Now I'm going home to tell Madeleine the good news; she's been on pins and needles for a week."

Gregg began pacing the floor, his hands behind his back. His movements were so unusual and his face bore so troubled a look that Philip, who had thrown away his cigar and had picked up his hat preparatory to leaving the room, delayed his departure.

Adam halted in front of him and now stood gazing into his face, an expression on his own that showed the younger man how keenly he had taken the refusal.