The Web of Life Part 43

Sommers smiled ironically.

"That is the question every one asks. 'What will you do? what will you do?'

Suppose I should say _'Nothing'_? We are always planning. No one is ready to wait and turn his hand to the nearest job. To-morrow, next month, in good time, I shall know what that is."

"It puts out of the question a career, personal ambition."

"Yes," he answered quickly. "And could you do that? Could you care for a man who will have no career, who has no 'future'?"

Sommers's voice had taken a new tone of earnestness, unlike the sober speculation in which they had been indulging. Miss. .h.i.tchc.o.c.k turned her face to the faded landscape of the suburban fields, and failed to reply.

"I have lived out my egotism," he continued earnestly. "What you would call ambition has been dead for long months. I haven't any lofty ambition even for scientific work. Good results, even there, it seems to me, are not born of personal desire, of pride. I am content to be a failure--an honest failure," he ended sharply.

"Don't say that!" she protested, looking at him frankly. "I shall never agree to that."

The people around them began to bestir themselves with the nervous restlessness of pent-up energy. Parker Hitchc.o.c.k came into the car from the smoking-room.

"We can get off at Twenty-second Street," he called out eagerly. "You're coming, doctor?"

Sommers shook his head negatively, and Miss. .h.i.tchc.o.c.k, who was putting on her veil, did not urge him to join them. The Hitchc.o.c.k carriage was waiting outside the Twenty-second Street station, and, as the train moved on, Sommers could see Colonel Hitchc.o.c.k's bent figure through the open window.

When Sommers left the train at the central station, the September twilight had already fallen; and as he crossed the strip of park where the troops had bivouacked during the strike, the encircling buildings were brilliantly outlined in the evening mist by countless points of light. The scene from Twelfth Street north to the river, flanked by railroad yards and grim buildings, was an animated circle of a modern inferno. The cross streets intersecting the lofty buildings were dim, canon-like abysses, in which purple fog floated lethargically. The air was foul with the gas from countless locomotives, and thick with smoke and the mist of the lake. And through this earthy steam, the myriad lights from the facades of the big buildings shone with suffused splendor. It was large and vague and, above all, gay, with the grim vivacity of a city of shades. Streams of people were flowing toward the railroad, up and down the boulevard, in and out of the large hotels. A murmur of living, striving humanity rose into the murky air; and from a distance, through the abysses of the cross streets, sounded the deeper roar of the city.

The half-forgotten note of the place struck sharply upon the doctor's ear.

It excited him in some strange way. Two years had dropped from his life, and again he was turning, turning, with the beat of the great machine.

CHAPTER XII

"Yes, he lost that--what was left when you sold for him," Miss M'Gann admitted dejectedly. "And so we had to start over again. Part of it was mine, too."

"Did he put your savings in?" Sommers asked incredulously.

"It was that Dresser man. I wish we'd never laid eyes on him--he kept getting tips from Carson, the man who owned most of his paper. I guess Carson didn't take much interest in giving _him_ the right tip, or perhaps Dresser didn't give _us_ what he knew straight out. Anyway, Jack's been losing!"

"So you aren't married?" Sommers asked.

"Jack's pride is up. You see he wanted to begin with a nice flat, not live on here in this boarding-house. And I was to leave the school. But I guess there isn't much chance _now_. You've been away a long time--to the war?"

They were sitting on the steps of the Keystone, which at this hour in the morning they had to themselves. Miss M'Gann's glory of dress had faded, together with the volubility of her talk, and the schoolroom air had blanched her high color.

"Jack wanted to go off to Cuba," she continued. "But he got sick again, worrying over stocks, and I guess it was just as well. If he don't keep straight now, and brace up, I'll let him go. I'm not the one to hang around all my life for a silly."

"Perhaps that's what made him try the market again," Sommers suggested.

"No, it was Dresser. He was sporting a lot of money and going with high-toned folks, and it made Jack envious."

"You had better marry him, hadn't you?"

Miss M'Gann moved uneasily on the stone seat.

"He's down there again to-day, I just know. He's given up the Baking Powder place,--they crowded him out in the reorganization,--and Dresser got him a place down town."

"Do you mean he's at the broker's?"

Miss M'Gann nodded and then added:

"Do you remember Dr. Leonard? Well, he made a pile out of a trust, some dentist-tools combine, I think."

"I am glad of it," Sommers said heartily, "and I hope he'll keep it."

"Are you going to stay in Chicago?" Miss M'Gann asked, with renewed curiosity. "We shall be glad to see you at the Keystone."

Sommers got up to leave, and asked for Webber's address in the city. "I may look him up," he explained. "I wish you could keep him away from Dresser.

The converted socialist is likely to be a bad lot."

"Socialist!" Miss M'Gann exclaimed disdainfully. "He isn't any socialist.

He's after a rich girl."

Sommers left Miss M'Gann with a half-defined purpose of finding Webber and inducing him to give up the vain hope of rivalling the editor of _The Investor's Monthly_. He had always liked the clerk, and when he had helped to pull him out of the market without loss before, he had thought all would go well. But the optimism of the hour had proved too much for Webber's will. Carson's cheap and plentiful stocks had made it dangerously easy for every office boy to "invest." If Webber had been making money these last months, it would be useless to advise him; but if the erratic market had gone against him, he might be saved.

On the way to the city he called at St. Isidore's to see if any one in that hive would remember him. The little nurse, whom he recalled as one of the a.s.sistants at Preston's operation, had now attained the dignity of the "black band." There was hardly any one else who knew him, except the elevator boy; and he was leaving when he met Dr. Knowles, an old physician, who had a large, old-fashioned family practice in an unfashionable quarter of the city. Dr. Knowles had once been kind to the younger doctor, and now he seemed glad to meet him again. From him Sommers learned that Lindsay had about given up his practice. The "other things," thanks to his intimacy with Porter, and more lately with Carson, had put him outside the petty needs of professional earnings. Dr. Knowles himself was thinking of retiring, he told Sommers, not with his coffers full of trust certificates, but with a few thousand dollars, enough to keep him beyond want. They talked for a long time, and at the end Dr. Knowles asked Sommers to consider taking over his practice. "It isn't very swell," he explained good-humoredly. "And I don't want you to kill off my poor patients. But there are enough pickings for a reasonable man who doesn't practise for money." Sommers promised to see him in a few days, and started for the office where Webber worked.

Lindsay's final success amused him. He had heard a good deal about Porter and Carson; their operations, reported vaguely by the public, interested him. They formed a kind of partnership, evidently. Porter "financed" the schemes that Carson concocted and talked into being. And a following of small people gleaned in their train. Lindsay probably had gleaned more than the others. It was all the better, Sommers reflected, for the state of the medical profession.

As he sauntered down La Salle Street, the air of the pavement breathed the optimism of the hour. Sommers was amazed at the number of brokers' offices, at the streams of men going and coming around these busy booths. The war was over, or practically over, and speculation was brisker than ever. To be sure, the bills for the war were not paid, but success was in the air, and every one was striving to exploit that success in his own behalf. Sommers pa.s.sed the blazing sign of WHITE AND EINSTEIN; the firm had taken larger offices this year. Sommers stopped and looked at the broad windows, and then, reflecting that he had nothing to do before dining with the Hitchc.o.c.ks except to see Webber, he went in with a file of other men.

White and Einstein's offices were much more resplendent than the little room in the bas.e.m.e.nt, where they had started two years before. There were many gla.s.s part.i.tions and much mahogany-stained furniture. In the large room, where the quotations were posted, little rows of chairs were ranged before the blackboards, so that the weary patrons could sit and watch the game. The Chicago stocks had a blackboard to themselves, and this was covered with the longest lines of figures. Iron, Steel, Tobacco, Radiators, Vinegar, Oil, Leather, Spices, Tin, Candles, Biscuit, Rag,--the names of the "industrials" read like an inventory of a country store. "Rag" seemed the favorite of the hour; one boy was kept busy in posting the long line of quotations from the afternoon session of the Exchange. A group of spectators watched the jumps as quotation varied from quotation under the rapid chalk of the office boy.

The place was feverish with excitement, which Sommers could feel rather than read in the dull faces of the men. From time to time White or Einstein bobbed out of an inner office, or a telephone booth, and joined the watchers before the blackboards. Their detached air and genial smiles gave them the appearance of successful hosts. White recognized Sommers and nodded, with one eye on the board. "Rag's acting queer," he said casually in the doctor's ear. "Are you in the market? Rag is Carson's latest--ain't gone through yet, and there are signs the market's glutted. Look at that thing slide, waltz! Gee, there'll be sore heads to-morrow!"

Sommers leaned forward and touched Webber, who, with open mouth, was following the figures. Webber turned round, but his head went back to the board. The glance he had given was empty--the glance of the drunkard.

"Your young friend's got hit," White remarked apathetically. "He shouldn't try to play marbles with _this_ crowd. Carson is just chucking new stocks at the public. But he has a clique with him that can do anything."

In spite of this opinion "Rag" tottered and wavered. Rumors rapidly spread among the onlookers that Carson had failed to put "Rag" through; that the consolidated companies would fall asunder on the morrow, like badly glued veneer; that Porter "had gone back on Carson" and was selling the stock.

The quotations fell: common stock 60, 59, 56, 50, 45, 48, 50, 52, 45, 40--so ran the dazzling line of figures across the blackboard, again and again.

"There'll be fun to-morrow," White remarked, moving away. "Better come in and see Vinegar and Oil and the rest of Carson's list get a black eye."

Sommers touched Webber, then shook him gently, asking,

"What is it this time? Iron and Distillery?"