Masterman and Son Part 22

The clerk laughed.

"Parlour A. might suit you. Don't let me see you, that's all."

In Parlour A. he took refuge, and was soon asleep, his head bowed upon the table. He woke from time to time with a strong shudder. "Not that, O G.o.d--not that!" he moaned, for it was of the bread-line he had dreamed.

He was still asleep when a sudden hand was laid upon his shoulder.

He awoke, and looked into the face of Bundy.

XV

THE MILLIONAIRE

He could hardly believe his good fortune. The mist of sleep and weakness was upon his eyes, hysteric laughter shook him. He rose, trembling. He saw the good-natured night-clerk in the doorway, heard him say, "I guess he's been up against it good and hard," and the next moment found himself sinking through an abyss of coloured lights into an unfathomable darkness. The descent lasted but for an instant; when he opened his eyes again it was to protest that there was nothing whatever the matter with him.

"Been out on the bat," said the clerk laconically.

"Been starving," said another voice.

And then the owner of that second voice grew clear to him--a kindly face of inimitable shrewdness, the gray hair neatly parted in the middle, the gray moustache closely trimmed, and a pair of big, dreamy eyes fixed on him in anxious consideration.

"Poor lad!--poor lad!" said Bundy. "It seems I'm just in time. I got your letter--only a week ago. I got one from home, too--trust Mrs.

Bundy for telling a man what his duty is. So I hustled, and came off at once. Now tell me, you aren't ill, are you?"

"I don't think so," said Arthur weakly.

"Case of the last dollar, eh? Well, we'll soon mend that. When you've put yourself outside a sirloin steak ... here, Mr. Squire, send Charlie up at once ... I'll breakfast here--it's my old room.... Now, hurry!"

He bustled round in a furious heat of action, flung his fur-coat from him, talking all the while. "Omelette, steak, and special coffee--that'll do for a beginning, Charlie; ... and see here, Mr.

Squire"--this to the clerk--"my friend is a distinguished Englishman, and don't you forget it."

"Of course," said the clerk. "I knew he was a friend of yours, or I wouldn't have done what I did for him."

"That's all right, Mr. Squire. But you'd better forget what you said about going out on the bat--he's not that kind. Now, are we ready?"

And with the suddenness of a transformation scene in a pantomime, Arthur found himself seated at a laden table, the meats steaming on the dish, the coffee bubbling in the percolator, the very air fragrant with provocation to his appet.i.te. No wonder men stole for food, he thought; his very nostrils quivered with the l.u.s.t of meat. The blood sang within his veins as the first drop of liquid warmth thrilled his palate, and his flesh seemed sweeter to him, his whole house of man renewed. Until that hour he had not known how hardly he had used his body, how great the violence he had offered it. Now he entered into the repossession of his own flesh; this was the moment of his reconciliation, and this the sacramental food of a physical atonement.

"And now," said Bundy, when the meal was finished, "tell me all about yourself."

Arthur told his story from the beginning, Bundy meanwhile smoking and watching him with a curious flicker of suppressed humour in his eye.

It was a little disconcerting to be so watched; it set Arthur wondering what Bundy really thought of him, and at last he broke out with the remark, "I'm afraid you think me something of a fool, Mr. Bundy?"

"Well, I won't pretend to say that I would have done all that you've done," Bundy answered. "I don't quite get your view-point, especially in what you say about your father. But there's one thing in which I see you have been wise--you've left England, and that was the wisest thing you ever did."

"I've sometimes thought it the most foolish."

"Ah! because you've had a hard time. But that's nothing. I've been stony-broke myself a dozen times, and I've lived to think that these were the moments when I enjoyed my life the most. The great point is, you've shown yourself capable of an adventure. That's the spirit I like to see, and I like you the better for it. Now, my boy, I'd recommend you to get a good sleep. I've a pile of business to attend to. Later on we'll talk over your affairs, and I'll have something definite to say to you."

Great is the power of wealth, greater still, perhaps, the power of reputed wealth and the willingness to distribute it. At the waving of Bundy's magic wand Arthur had become at once a person of consideration; he was the tenant of an admirable suite of rooms, waited on by obsequious bell-boys, remarked by admiring chamber-maids, even sought by adroit reporters. He was a friend of Bundy's--that was the sole explanation of the miracle--for it appeared that Bundy's star was once more in the ascendant. When, late in the afternoon, Arthur left his room and went down into the hotel lobby, it seemed to him that it hummed with the name of Bundy. A constant stream of messenger-boys sought Parlour A.; a succession of automobiles discharged at the hotel door fur-coated men with anxious eyes, all bound for the same goal; the evening papers were full of the portraits and exploits of Bundy.

Opening the door of Parlour A., he had a pa.s.sing glimpse of a Bundy he had never seen before--a wild-eyed, gesticulating Bundy, orating behind a barricade of books and papers to a crowded room, rushing at intervals to the telephone and shouting orders, a man glowing with ardour, on springs with energy, intoxicated with success.

"I'll see you presently," he cried, and went on pouring out what appeared to be a Niagara of figures.

Arthur withdrew silently, went up to his room, and ordered all the papers, from which he proceeded to inform himself on the doings of his friend. The story, divested of a vast accretion of shop-soiled adjectives, reduced itself to this--that Bundy had suddenly enrolled himself among the multi-millionaires, at least potentially.

"The story of Mr. Bundy," began the chronicle, "is one of those romances of sudden wealth which are only possible in this country of unlimited and still undiscovered resources. Born in humble circ.u.mstances in the city of London, England, Mr. Bundy has raised himself by his own exertions to a place among the great captains of wealth, whose remarkable careers const.i.tute the epic of human progress, and shed glory on the inst.i.tutions of this free and enlightened country." Here, it appeared, the journalist's well of rhetoric ran dry, and he condescended to laconic statement. It was not to be supposed that a plain statement of fact could support all the amiable exaggerations with which the reporter had adorned Mr. Bundy's personal history; but the facts themselves were sufficiently amazing. From them Arthur gathered that Bundy had discovered fresh deposits of gold in the rivers of the Yukon, of undoubted value, and was about to float a dredging company which promised enormous dividends. "As early as 1898," continued the report, "fine-grained platinum was recognised in the black sand obtained along the Tuslin River, Yukon Territory, but until recently no active preparations have been made to recover it.

This river drains the Tuslin Lake; its gravel-bed carries gold in paying quant.i.ties even by hand-working, throughout its entire length of 120 miles. Mr. Bundy claims that this gravel-bed contains immense quant.i.ties of gold, which may be recovered by the simple process of dredging. For thousands of years the erosion of the hills has precipitated gold into the river; the gold has sunk by its specific gravity into the river-bed, and there it remains in incalculable quant.i.ties. A good dredger costs about five thousand dollars. It scoops up the river-bed in so thorough a fashion that not a grain of gold is lost. Mr. Bundy has proved by actual experiment that from ten ounces of black sand, taken at random, sixty cents worth of platinum is obtainable, and gold in much larger quant.i.ties. Mr. Bundy holds a concession for more than eighty miles of this river. This means that with the most adequate machinery it will take fifty years to dredge the Tuslin. When we reckon the relatively light cost of dredging, it appears probable that Mr. Bundy's proposition means not less than _one thousand per cent._ profit to the fortunate investor."

So this accounted for the wild scene in Parlour A., the rush of automobiles to the door of the hotel, the sudden fame of Bundy. The indefatigable adventurer, who was supposed to be in Texas or Oklahoma, had all the time been scooping gold in handfuls from the lap of the frozen north; Oklahoma had no doubt been used as a blind to cover his tracks; the reports in the papers had been ingeniously engineered; and then, at the precise moment, Bundy had descended on New York in a benignant advent. Arthur's thoughts went back to the shabby house in Lion Row, and he wondered if Mrs. Bundy had heard the news. He saw her preparing for a new apotheosis; fitting on the golden wings, so to speak, which were to waft her to the porticos of palaces; and, remembering her stories of similar hegiras, he wondered how much of truth lay behind this astounding story. Bundy no doubt believed it--it was impossible to doubt his good faith; but Bundy had been deceived before, he might be deceived again. A voice told Arthur that there was something unsubstantial in this glittering edifice; somewhere there was a rotten bolt, which, if plucked out, would result in total ruin. And the same voice told him that his own path did not lie in this direction; that whatever its allurement, it was not for him.

Bundy did not have the promised talk with him that evening, nor all the next day. The man was devoured by his own energy; he ate little, slept not at all, rushed frantically about New York in automobiles, was always the centre of a crowd, himself excited, vociferous, burning with zeal like an apostle. It was not until the third evening that he rushed into Arthur's room, and sank exhausted on the couch.

"I've treated you shamefully," he cried, "but it couldn't be helped.

Lad, I've done it. I've pulled it off. Don't speak a word to me about it yet. I believe I've gone the limit. One more question to answer and I'd have a fit."

It was obvious even to an unpractised eye that he spoke the truth. The blood was congested in his cheeks, his breath came unevenly, his hands trembled, an insane frenzy blazed in his eyes.

"Order dinner," he went on hoa.r.s.ely. "An hour's time--that will do. I didn't know I was so tired. I believe I'll just go to sleep where I am. They won't look for me here."

Arthur turned the lights down, covered him with a travelling-rug, and left him. He might have been a felon hiding from justice rather than a triumphant millionaire, and Arthur could not but reflect upon the strangeness of the spectacle. It was the first time he had looked upon the l.u.s.t for gold. His father had acquired wealth, but not in this way. It had been won by deliberate siege, by steady, patient pressure which called for high qualities of restraint; if it was a gross pa.s.sion, it had elicited certain elements of character that in themselves were worthy. But this mode of winning wealth had no dignity. It was a l.u.s.t. It had the grossness and ferocity of a l.u.s.t.

It took the brain and body of a man and shattered them with its tremendous throb. And it was a l.u.s.t also that had contagion in it. It was impossible to deny that its subtle virus had already touched his own heart. During those three days he had been as a man deafened by the noise of guns; he had stood in the very heart of the explosion, and had recognised something strong and savage in the scene. It thrilled him, fascinated him, made all ordinary modes of life trite and tame, and left him asking, Was not this life indeed?

And he knew it was not. He had only to think of that prostrate, half-demented man, sunk in the sleep of exhaustion on the couch, only to recollect the brave and lonely woman waiting for him in Lion Row, to know that this was not life. Better, better far, the humblest bread earned in quietness and eaten in peace, than this madness of mere possession. "A man's life consisteth not in the abundance of things which he possesseth"--ah no! _things_ are a poor subst.i.tute for life, and to forfeit life in the pursuit of things is man's crowning folly.

An hour later there emerged a Bundy clothed and in his right mind, fresh-shaved, fresh-bathed, smiling, easy, tolerant. Dinner was served in Bundy's rooms, and when the meal was over he began to talk freely of his adventures and affairs.

"You'll never know how good civilised food is till you've gone upon a diet of salt-horse and biscuit for four months," he remarked. Little by little he unfolded the story of his travels, a story full of fierce hazards, Homeric toils, adroit strategies, defeats, despairs, surprising victories, ending in the supreme moment when he held his dearly-won concession in his hand, and knew himself master of incalculable spoil. It was the story of Ulysses, master of men, diplomat and fighter, swift, strong, and infinitely cunning, retold not without pride, but with the laconic brevity of the man who counts past hazards things of no importance.

"Well, I've pulled it off," he cried. "I've paid blood and sweat to do it. And now, do you know, about the only thing I've left to wish for is to go to sleep for a month, and wake up in my old bed at home, and smell the eggs and bacon cooking for my breakfast, and hear the old dog barking in the garden at the kids."

"Mrs. Bundy will be glad to hear the news."

"Yes, I guess she will. I didn't ought to have been away so long.

It's been hard on her. Tell me, now, how was she looking? Older, I'm afraid, eh?"

And then he fell into a train of tender reminiscence. He talked of how brave and patient his wife had been, and of the long separation, and of the boys of whom he had seen so little.

"Sometimes it seems as if it wasn't worth it. It's only a short time folk have to live together any way, and I've been away from home most of my life. I don't know but what I'd have been a sight happier if I'd have lived like other folk, and gone to church Sundays with the kids, and earned my bit of money in the city, and just had a home. That's the thing I've never had--a home."

It was a singular confession for a man to make who had just attained the summit of success. He spoke with an extraordinary simplicity and tenderness, as if unconscious of an auditor, obedient only to some tide of memory that rose and swelled within his bosom.

"It's queer, the way we're made," he went on. "Here am I telling you what I've got by leaving England, and yet, if you're like me, you'll never have a happy day till you get back again. There's a house me and Mrs. Bundy lived in when we were first married: it was out Epping way, and it had a bed of mignonette under the window, and a hay-field just beyond the garden-wall; and I can smell that mignonette now, and the hay, and up there in the Yukon I'd wake in the mornings with that smell in the air, though there wasn't a flower in sight for G.o.d knows how many miles. I don't believe I could bear to see that house again. Yet if I could just go back, and be young again, I guess I'd give all the gold in the Yukon to do it--and then repent my bargain, and go off to get some more. Well, that's the way we're made. We don't know what we want, and with all our trying we get the wrong thing after all, most like."

He ended abruptly.

"I oughtn't to be talking like this. I guess it's mere foolishness.