NEDL TRANSFER
HN 1ELM /
THE SON OF
WALLINGFORD
MR. AND MRS. GEORGE RANDOLPH CHESTER


- KD 9210





THE SON OF WALLINGFORD





THE
SON OF WALLINGFORD
BY
MR. AND MRS. GEORGE RANDOLPH CHESTER

SCIRE QUOD
SSCENDVMS
BOSTON
SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY
PUBLISHERS


To our friend, Albert E. Smith, to
whose insistence we owe the pleas-
ant task of writing the story of the
“SON OF WALLINGFORD”,
we cordially dedicate this book.
THE AUTHORS





CONTENTS
CHAPTER
PAGE
IIO
I. Young Jimmy Wallingford's Ear . . .
II. Young Doc Blinker's Nose . . . .
III. Introducing the Wall Brothers . .
IV. The Birth of the Big Hope .. ..
V. A Kiss for Sweet Patootie . . .
VI. A Boom Comes into Town . .
VII. Jimmy Sees a Stranger . . . .
VIII. The Son of the Mountebank...
IX. Forward the Lollypops! . . . . . .
X. Business is Business . . . . . . 122
XI. The Privilege of Being Good
01 being Good
.
.
. . . . 136
XII. Fawnlake City is Awake at Last. 151
XIII. Kisses for Little Mary. . . . . . 166
XIV. An All-Seeing Eye . . . . . . . 181
XV. Ass! Idiot! Fool! Imbecile! BOY! . .
XVI. Perhaps . . . . . . . . . . 211
XVII. It's Up to Jimmy Now . . . . . .
XVIII. The Mistress of the Situation. . 232
XIX. Fake, Eh? . . . . . . . . . 244
XX. The Fountain of Rubies . . . . . 258





THE SON OF WALLINGFORD





THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
CHAPTER I
YOUNG JIMMY WALLINGFORD'S EAR
As between the winner and the loser in any commercial
transaction, there is a wide difference in the definition
of the word “crook”; but in popular opinion he is a man
gifted with a fatal fascination for other people's money,
a man who springs snarling and sneering from his couch
in the early dawn, rushes immediately out into the high-
ways and byways of life, and, by a sort of magic wand
process, robs all the honest and virtuous of their hard-
gotten wealth; until, in the wee small strokes of night,
sleep overtakes him at his nefarious practices, thus giving
upright folk a couple of hours in which to toil unmolested.
Such may, indeed, be the case; but there are, doubtless,
exceptions; as, for instance, there may be crooks who have
their breakfasts before they start “crooking,” some per-
haps enjoying a bit of melon first, or some preferring
orange-juice, or some even prunes! There may be crooks
who are fond of their families and their families of them,
and who, in many respects, might seem human and
ordinary, even as you and I.
No one, for example, would imagine that the large,
jovial, genial-looking gentleman now bowling along the
pleasantly shaded suburban highway could be any other
than an honorably retired man of honorably gotten means.


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
He drives happily his comfortable car, with his black-
mustached companion at his side, and, if one may judge
by his round pink countenance, his small but bright and
sparkling eye, and his general appearance of well-fed and
well-groomed content, there is nothing on his conscience,
if he has one. Yet, every dollar belonging to this J. Rufus
Wallingford, for such is his name, was once a dollar which
was the property of somebody else! Alas, those of us who
would remain pure dare not inquire too closely into the
history of any dollar. Passed well into the age when he
should be as respectable as he looks is this honey-bee of
commerce and his life path is strewn with the wreckage
of those who were encouraged to take his money from him,
but were beaten to it.
As for this black-mustached other, the same. Every
thing he has was gathered from those who did not wish
to let him have it. The joy of this is in the glitter of his
beady black eye, in the audacious pointing of his straight
black mustaches, and in the gay alertness of his long, lean
figure. Once this Horace G. Daw was but an humble
shell-worker at the county fairs, while his fat friend and
partner just started poor, as must all boys who would
become illustrious and great. Now, prosperity sits on
them both like a benediction, and even repute hails them
as they near their own homes in beautiful Tarryville.
Here, from beneath the wide-spreading trees of a spa-
cious lawn, is a salute from a thoroughly scrupulous food-
staple dealer, who made his fortune by honestly cor-
nering all of a certain food-staple in the market and
bankrupting five of his competitors, thereafter forming a
neat little trust in flourishing defiance of the Sherman act.
Here is a worthy essential-product manufacturer who


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
3
amassed his competence during the great war by securing
an army contract, and every one knows that all war con-
tracts were honest; yet this same benevolent looking
white-whiskered gentleman gives the high sign of good-
fellowship to these business buccaneers, and inquires after
the health of their families, and, with a twinkle in his keen
gray eye, offers illegally to trade a case of illegal Scotch
whiskey for a case of illegal rum; tut, tut! Here, just
turning in at the gates of his Italian villa, is one of those
shining examples of probity, who, starting in life bare-
footed and never having worked a lick nor engaged in
any business, has waxed wealthy through merely having
a genius for guiding, and restraining, the political destinies
of other people; and even to him Get-Rich-Quick Walling-
ford and Blackie Daw are well-respected neighbors! Here
is an eminent judge, a spare, austere looking judge,
strange to say, with his hands behind him as he strolls,
amid the sun-spotted shadows of his vine-clad pergola,
and he would under no circumstances give any recognition
to a crook; yet he beams with pleasure as he sees Messrs.
Wallingford and Daw roll by, for he knows these prominent
and substantial men of the community as persons totally
innocent of all wrong doing, so proved before him in the
case of Seligheim and McCarthy versus Wallingford and
Daw; and, in the judge's rigid code of ethics, a crook is a
man who is convicted of it and sent to jail; otherwise not.
Verily neighbors Wallingford and Daw have been granted
clean slates here; silken-clad matrons give them dignified
acknowledgment, and dancing-eyed young ladies smile at
them, and innocent children at play hail them with delight,
as they do all men who have kindly hearts and pleasant
faces. Small wonder then that neighbors Wallingford


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
and Daw, as they turn in at the former's stately gates, and
drive up a magnificent avenue of trees to the former's
magnificent mansion, which is next estate to the latter's
magnificent mansion, should glow with the perfect peace
of them who have good health and happy circumstances,
and nothing with which to reproach themselves.
On the broad piazza of the magnificent mansion wait
the wives of the crooks. What sort of woman would the
imagination picture a crook's wife to be? Naturally a
hard-faced creature with a glittering eye and an air of
reckless bravado -- or else a furtive, rabbit-like creature
with fear in every line of countenance and figure, and
constantly dripping tepid tears. Such, indeed, may be
the case, but there are exceptions; for instance, the wives
of these.
In the porch swing, amid enough cushions to pad com-
fortably her every luxurious curve, is Violet Bonnie Daw,
with much lavender in the richness of her lace, lavender
lace stockings on her plump legs, lavender bloom on her
buxom cheeks — and in her hand a lavender box, from
which ever and anon she selects a chocolate. And what,
may we ask, is on the mind of this comely blonde person
as with much relish she devours her chocolates? Why,
chocolates. These, and nothing more! Near by is Fannie
Wallingford. Close friends are these two ladies, yet no two
friends could differ more; for Fannie is as dainty as Violet
is flaunting, as modest as Violet is aggressive, as dignified
as Violet is unconventional, as sweet as Violet is piquant.
She is the lily to Violet's rose, as she sits in her frock of
creamy film, rocking placidly while she embroiders.
“Hello wife!”
“Hello husband!”


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
5
e on, Bi; but she's for this, begins
This is the greeting of the Daws, as J. Rufus stops the
blue runabout in the porte-cochere, and the two men jump
out on the piazza; then Violet Bonnie grabs her Blackie
by both ears and shakes his head and gives him a hearty
smack, for Violet's ardent affections always take the form
of violence. Meanwhile the big crook, a husky brute,
takes his wife in his arms and kisses her with marvelous
gentleness.
“There's a surprise for you in the garage, Jim,” begins
Fannie, smiling up at him as she watches for that boyish
eagerness to spring into his face; but she gets no further.
“The new car! Come on, Blackie, and play the part of
envious piker!” J. Rufus is twenty years younger as he
jumps off the piazza, and twenty years older as he lands
on his gouty left foot, and stops to wince.
“Get a crutch and come on yourself, you poor old
whimp,” grins the heartless Blackie, and a shriek and a
giggle from the piazza attest the fact that there is more
friendly heartlessness in this abode of peace.
But covetous admiration is already in the garage. Over
the imported new car, a keenly built, long-nosed, yellow
racing roadster, bend two boys, young men rather, one
of whom, a sturdily built fellow, has his head inside the
hood with the enthusiasm of a terrier at a live rat hole.
The taller one, the one leaning over the hood and smiling
fondly at the mechanical miracle, is Jimmy Wallingford,
the son of the crook! What sort of a son should a crook
have? Well, it is to be remembered that a son must have
a mother as well as a father, and when Fannie Wallingford
is taken into the calculation, with her honesty and good-
ness, you have an offspring for Get-Rich-Quick Walling-
ford who is well worth studying. He is a likeable chap,


6
THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
handsome, athletically built and with the easy self-
possession of those who look well-dressed in any sort of
clothes. His brown eyes are gentle in expression, but
when he narrows them there is revealed an intelligence
keen, thoughtful, shrewd. He is smooth skinned, with a
face which is oval like his mother's, but somehow, too,
suggests the round pinkness of his father's. Clean-cut,
perfect features has Jimmy Wallingford, with one excep-
tion; his ears, otherwise in good proportion, are lobeless,
the rims running down the cheeks and disappearing into
them at a tangent! The ordinary observer would pay
only passing attention to that ear, if any, and would
scarcely consider it a blemish; but to J. Rufus Wallingford
it is the problem of life! Sometime a doctor, who had
been on the losing side of a commercial transaction with
Mr. Wallingford, had told J. Rufus that this lobeless ear,
on the then infant Jimmy, was one of the "stigmata of
degeneracy,” and from that day to this the trifling abnor-
mality has been to the father not only a reproach, as being
a bequeathed symbol of what evil might lie in himself, but
an eternal signpost warning him to look for some develop-
ment of character which even a crook might mourn, in
his capacity of parent. So far as Jimmy himself is con-
cerned, the lobeless ear has no present significance, for he
has not yet had occasion to analyze anything either out-
side of himself or within. Provided with plenty of money,
good health and a happy home, James Wallingford, Jr.,
has passed through his college years care free, interested
so much in everything that he has confined his energies
to nothing, except the sheer joy of life. Just now, as his
attention turns to the deeply padded crimson leather
upholstery of the car, his eyes soften with appreciation;


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
Toad is opening his mouth to reply in like banter when
he happens to catch the eye of young James Wallingford,
and stops bereft of speech. There is a peculiar smile on
young Jimmy's lips, a musing smile, which begins with a
slight wreathing at the corners, spreads a little, then
straightens abruptly, while the shrewd eyes are suddenly
veiled beneath his long lashes as his father glances in his
direction.
“Thanks,” says Jimmy heartily, and Blackie Daw,
clambering out of the car, suddenly pauses to give him a
hawk-like “once-over,” and, with a wink at the puzzled
Toad, twirls at his pointed black mustaches and
observes:
“Baby runs on gasoline, but its Uncle Horace needs
something stronger. Come on, Jim.”
Scarcely have the men left the garage when Toad turns
to Jimmy with a shrilly whispered:
“What's it? What's the big idea?”
“Baby," grins Wallingford, Jr., unveiling now the
sparkle of diabolic intention which had hidden beneath
his long lashes. “Oh sweet Sweet. Patootie!” and as his
broad shoulders heave in a chuckle, he is very like his
father; very like.
With no further explanations he takes Toad by the arm,
and that young man, who seldom questions Jimmy except
on what to do next, and who seldom includes a “why" in
any of his questions, goes with him. They slip quietly to
the house and wait until they hear the friendly quartette
congregate in the library, the room furthest removed from
the porte-cochere, and they peer through the windows
of that comfortable apartment devoted to literature, where
they witness a sight soon to be hidden from mortal eyes.


IO
THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
There is a bowl of cracked ice on the library table, some
glasses, some bottles; and the master of a soon-to-be lost
art, with his broad back beneath the imposing statue of
Pallas Minerva, Goddess of Wisdom, is preparing to com-
pound a cocktail with the care of a chemist and the skill
of an artist, while the others whet a thirst by simply
watching him. All clear; no danger of an interruption
now, so the boys push the plenty-good-enough blue run-
about off on the grass and down across the noiseless turf
to the garage, where Toad pauses to stifle a roar, for he
has seen the dawn of a beautiful light. Then, with equal
caution, they push Sweet Patootie up under the porte-
cochere, and stroll into the house, casually and nonchal-
antly, where Jimmy sits on the arm of his mother's chair,
slipping his arm around her shoulders for a moment and
laying his cheek against hers, while Violet Bonnie grabs
Toad, pulls him on the arm of her chair, gives him a bear-
like hug and a shove which sends him sprawling; for she is
very fond of Toad. In the first lull, Jimmy observes
quietly, as if by passing thought:
"By the way, Dad, you meant it when you gave Toad
and me a car, didn't you?”
He has chosen his moment carefully. The master of
the disappearing art is dripping, drop by drop, some deep-
tinted liquid into the bottoms of four crystal glasses, so,
without turning his head or removing his gaze from the
dripping process, he answers:
“Yep.”
“Thanks, Dad,” says the son of Wallingford, very
quietly, and aware that the hawk-like eye of Blackie is
fixed on him, steadily. “May we have the one out in the
porte-cochere?”


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD II
II
“Three, four, five,” counts J. Rufus, his eye on every
drop. “Yep.”
“Thanks, Daddy Jim!” explodes Toad. “Hit 'er up,
Jimmy!” And as the boys dash out through the hall,
snickering, Blackie lets loose loud laughter.
“Stung, you big fish! It's a wonder that boy of yours
isn't a dummy, with such a boob for a father!"
For just an instant Wallingford looks at his partner
stupidly, then, a deep red replacing the pink in his round
countenance, he slams down glass and bottle and starts
for the door. Too late! Just as he reaches the piazza,
followed by the happy family, there is the whirr of a
motor, the slip of a brake, the click of a clutch, the crunch
of gravel, and Sweet Patootie is headed out the drive;
and Sweet Patootie's purchaser raises his voice in mad
protest:
“Here, where are you young devils going with my new
car?”
“Our car!” corrects Jimmy at the wheel, pink with joy.
“And we're going after a load of peaches. Now say
'what was that!""
Thereupon he steps on the energy and Sweet Patootie
leaps out into the wide, wide world!
Blackie and Fannie and Violet are in huge enjoyment
of the trick, but the face which J. Rufus turns on them is
sober and serious. Saying nothing, he stalks into the
house and thoughtfully resumes his unfinished occupa-
tion; but the pleasure of creation is gone. He tilts the
deep-tinted liquid by guess into the remaining glasses,
fills them up, tosses on the garnishings, then passes around
the mixture, without pride.
“What's the grouch?” demands Blackie. “Be a proper


I 2
THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
sport and grin. You can get another car like that without
borrowing a cent from Fannie."
"I don't mind the loss of the car, though that's a lie,
too,” somberly considers J. Rufus, twirling his untasted
drink in his hand, “but I don't like the morals of Jimmy's
trick —and of course it was Jimmy's trick."
“Great heavens, Jim Wallingford, when did you dis-
cover morals!" blazes Violet Bonnie. “What have you
got to judge morals with? And yet you have the nerve to
criticize a fine, pure kid like Jimmy!”
"Really, Jim;" the gentle voice of Fannie, and there
is worry on her brow as she studies her husband's frown-
ing countenance, “I don't see why you should distress
yourself. It was only a boyish prank, a good joke.”
"A twenty-five thousand dollar joke don't get me a
laugh any place. It didn't take Jimmy more than two
minutes to figure on switching those cars and trapping me
into a gift which, on general principles, is so near like a
swindle that I'm afraid for his future.”
“You're sane in everything except your brains, Jim,”
is the verdict of Blackie. "The only thing I can find
against Jimmy's character is you.” This is a pleasantry,
but the wince it gives J. Rufus is so far from humorous
that Blackie hastens to add:“At that, Jim, you're not so
worse. You see, the world is full of simps who are trying
to get something for nothing, and your specialty is in
slipping them nothing for something. And I'll tell the
world for you, Jim, that your graft is as legitimate as any
form of the now universally popular profiteering. So buck
up, old pal, and face the worst.”.
"Oh, take away the bull,” growls J. Rufus, rousing
impatiently from his despondent lethargy. “I'm an


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
honest grafter, am I? Well — there aren't any!” He
speaks with a quite apparent effort, and, his elbows on
the arms of his chair, he clasps his hands together and
interlaces his plump fingers. A most unusual gesture for
him in that it tells of the repression of a deep emotion.
His knuckles are white with the pressure his grip puts on
them. “I may as well admit,” he finally blurts, "that the
only thing I'm afraid of in Jimmy is the fact that the boy
is my son!”
The confession is wrung out of him, through the agony
of fear in the heart of this crook that his son might grow
up to be like himself! Fannie Wallingford turns startled
eyes to her husband, and her face is pale, and she half
puts out her hand as if to touch and comfort him; but
Fannie Wallingford is gifted with a wisdom which lets
her see the value of a great many things not to do. Blackie
and Violet are serious, too, and uncomfortable under it,
and it is Vi who breaks the silence, hotly.
“It's Jimmy's ear again! You're nuts on the subject!”
She jerks up the well-thumbed book on J. Rufus' pet end
of the table. It is Lombroso's “Abnormal Man," and it
opens naturally to the part about the lobeless ear. The
back of the book is broken at this point, and these pages
are grimed with much study. She doesn't look at the
thing; she hasn't picked it up for that purpose, but to
throw it down for emphasis, which she does emphatically.
“I don't believe a word of it! I suppose because a man has
squint eyes he likes pickles, or if he has a mole on his neck
he grows up to be a wife-beater! Look at your ears, Jim!
Perfect! And yet you admit you're an old reprobate!"
She powders her nose automatically. It always turns red
under excitement. “Of course I'll admit that you can't


14
THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
1
grow peaches on a lemon tree, but you can get somethi:
else that's good! Look at grapefruit; it's cultivate
Everything's in the cultivation! And I'm here to tell yoii
that there's nothing finer than the cultivation Jimmy
Wallingford has had!” And being near enough to Fannie
for the purpose, she gives that quiet figure a warm-hearted
and impulsive hug, and powders her nose again. “Why, a
boy couldn't go wrong with his training!”
“Oh yes he could,” responds J. Rufus, now calm.
“They're doing it every day. It's a matter of percentages
in each case. If there's more bad than there is good in
Jimmy, all the training in the world won't save him when
the big test comes; and the big test will come, of course,
when he's away from the influence which has protected him
from having the big test. My love for the boy doesn't
blind me to the fact that he has done tricky little things
like this automobile turn ever since he was a baby. He's
too shrewd, and shrewdness is a knife so sharp and shining
that a fellow just has to use it; to cut with!”
A gloomy philosophy this, and a despondent one, from
the depression of which none of them can escape, much less
Fannie Wallingford, for down in her heart there are darkly
secret corners which she would not open even to her own
gaze, and Jim has rudely swung wide the doors. She
remembers in this moment how she had first learned, while
she was making the baby clothes for the coming Jimmy,
that her husband's business operations were tricky, and
how she had consoled herself that her love, aided by the
clutch of soft baby fingers, could remodel him — but she
had failed! Trickiness was in him, was a part of him, wa
inseparable from him; and all her love, all her loyalty, a
her honest influence had not altered him one whit. T!


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
hy of wielding the shining blade had been too strong for
Im to overcome, the tang and the zest of matching wits
4gainst stupidity too keen a pleasure. And it was true
about Jimmy. He is like his father, so like him!
01
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nie
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Im.
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She
ile


CHAPTER II
YOUNG DOC BLINKER'S NOSE
“SHIMMIE” Devere was a roly-poly little girl with
dimples, and eyes which had a roguish upward roll, and
there was nothing on her mind but her beautiful brown
curls; a shrug of the left shoulder, a jerk of the right, a
cute little shiver from the waist up, and a giggle — that
was Shimmie. Miss Cleo Patra was a dangerous young
vamp, as you could tell by her crimson gown and her
crimson lips, her interesting pallor, her long, slanting,
oval, black lashes and brows, and her blue-veined eyelids;
and she didn't care for men; they were her prey! Floradora
Sexton was a stately miss, dignified and languid, with
large round eyes as stupid as she could make them; passing
through on her beauty alone, was Floradora, and if she
had anything else she'd consider it a detriment. Maria
Theresa Plomps, she of the eyes which seemed eternally
half-closed in merriment, was frankly fat, with the creamy
complexion and the full curved lips of the fat when they
are pretty; a lusty coon shouter and a vigorous hoe-down
artiste, Maria Theresa, who should have been placid but a
was always perturbed. The McCabe twins, Dottie and
Lottie, were dainty and demure, and they had a wonderful
trick; they always wore complementary colors; if Dott
wore mauve, Lottie wore cerise; pretty girls both, 1 st
together they had four times as much admiration as eit!
would singly — inseparable, the McCabe twins. Thes'.
were six, and as they stood in dingy Pie Alley at the stage


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
17
entrance of a just-off-Broadway theatre, they were
watching “Lanks” Anderson with half envious amuse-
ment. “Lanks,” named Evelyn till she grew up and grew
up and grew up, was practicing the difficult side slip in
her lean-legged, lean-armed, lean-bodied dance, which
Lrl with she called “The Rubber Tree.” The leader of the seven,
coll, an was Lanks, and the seven were the “lollypops,” members
1 brow of the “On With the Jazz” Company, now ready to seek
right, 2 fame and fortune in the high-brush circuit; and they were
-- tha all unspoiled by Fortune's favors, because so far Fortune
s youn hadn't given them any favors, except youth and good
and he looks and such abilities as beginners might have.
slanting, Into the wait came the perturbed voice of Maria Theresa
eyelids Plomps, who, palpitating with a sudden panic-stricken
lorador: thought, placed her hand eight inches from her heart,
id, wit which was as near as she could get.
passin. “My heavens, suppose they shouldn't come!”
d if sh Lanks Anderson, never stopping the industrious growth
Mari of her "Rubber Tree" dance, glowered down at Maria
eternall, Theresa:
- cream “Somebody stop her! She's off again, and the world is
hen the dead.”
De-dow "Well, but listen!” insisted Maria Theresa; “if they
acid but don't come, we're stuck!”
Etie and “Oh let mother wash the dishes, I'm polishing my
onderful nails,” sang Shimmie, and finished with a giggle and gave
Dott' ſ little shiver. She should wither and pine o’er carking
oth, 1 e, should Shimmie.
as eitl “But the last train that would get us to Tamford in
Thes cime is gone!” persisted Plomps, now reaching the moist
che stage stage of apprehension, and daubing the beads of sudden
perspiration from her smooth brow. “And there isn't


18
THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
enough money in this crowd to hire a car and if the show
opens without us —”
"It can't,” considered Dottie McCabe, in coral today;
Lottie was in apricot. Sensible girls, the twins, and Lottie
added: “There is a way you can get up to Tamford, by a
chain of trolleys.”
“Oh, hear our canary warble,” retorted Lanks. “A
friend of mine started up to Tamford by trolley once, to
enlist with his home regiment, and now they're trying to
get word to him, en route, that the war's over. I pin my
faith to Snookums and Spots, who never yet deceived!”
"Don't use a safety clutch on your pin, dearie," drawled
Cleo, the dangerous young vamp; "you might want to
unpin it quick. Snookums and Spots are but males,
remember.”
“Anyhow I wish they'd come!” mourned Maria Theresa,
looking to Florodora for sympathy, for Plomps worshipped
the divine Florodora, most beautiful of her sex; but
Florodora only smiled vaguely. She never worried about
anything; she was beautiful, that was enough.
A wild honking at the entrance to Pie Alley; then, in
among the trucks and push carts which cluttered that
sunbaked canyon of fire escapes and dingy red brick,
there dashed and weaved a long-nosed, yellow racing
roadster.
“Oh pipe the gold-plated equipage!” shouted Maria
Theresa every care swept away and her eyes half shut,
with twinkling merriment.
There was a concerted rush for the “gold-plated
equipage” as it was twisted deftly in at the curb by
“Snookums," alias Jimmy Wallingford, and simultane-
ously the doors were thrown open by "Spots,” otherwise


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
19
Toad Jessup, every freckle of whose square countenance
was incandescent with pride.
"Just room enough for four, but it'll carry nine,"
explained Jimmy urbanely, his pride taking the form of
such cat-like gratification that he almost seemed to purr.
“Who is missing a car of this description?” inquired
Lanks perfunctorily, and her question brought a shout of
glee from both the boys; which glee was shared by the
seven lollypops when, with shriek upon shriek and peal
upon peal, they heard the tale of Sweet Patootie; but this
was as they were speeding up Fifth Avenue, brightening
that busy thoroughfare with a bouquet as gay and as
fragrant as could be plucked in any garden. They were
plastered all over Sweet Patootie, sticking out so much
in various directions that it was necessary to count both
heads and legs to figure that they were nine. Many an
amused and admiring glance was cast on them and many
an old heart beat young again, for here were youth and
gaiety and thoughtless companionship, and freedom from
cares which would come plenty soon enough.
It wasn't necessary to go through Tarryville, and pass
the magnificent Wallingford estate, but somehow they
were impelled so to do, and, as they whizzed beneath the
tall old trees of the spaciously shaded highway, they gave
the quartette on the pillared piazza the grand honk and
whoop of good fellowship; also triumph!
“What was that?” snorted Blackie, and Fannie laughed
with Vi, but there was only a momentary grin from the
glum J. Rufus, even when Violet Bonnie added:
“Chorus girls! Thank God our boys are safe!”
Safe enough they were, for their thoughts were too busy
for guile. Only one thing was on the minds of the occu-


20
THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
pants of the gold-plated equipage as they spun on; the
car wasn't utilizing its full capacity! There was a vacant
hang-on atop the spare tires, and there was an empty
fender! To prevent this ghastly waste, Sweet Patootie
was stopped with a thud and three honks in front of the
Whickham Medical Academy, which was an absolutely
reliable place for the purpose, as proved by the fact that
immediately a quite available supply of freshmen dropped
a football and came rushing down to the curb in flying
wedge formation, each and every one of them ready, at a
moment’s notice, to sing a song, dance, mix a drink, drink
it, run a foot race, play poker, fight, or fall in love.
“Room for two fellows!” called Jimmy Wallingford.
“Who comes?”
In the next instant the car was buried by the muscular
avalanche, and out of the struggling football pile-up there
piped a thin, high-pitched, childish treble:
“Oh! Oh! Please boys! My hat!” It was Florodora
Sexton, and a most amazingly infantile voice to come
from so stately a creature.
Thereupon, out of the melee there emerged two snake-
like arms, splitting a thin passage, then one long, lean leg
protruded over the side of the car, another long lean leg
followed, and Lanks Anderson slid down to the sidewalk.
“Shoot for it, ruffians,” she ordered. “Here are the
bones," and with a little twist of her wrist she rolled a pair
of dice on the pavement.
Ring formation instantaneously, with all the embryo
doctors on their knees around the two little cubical
arbiters of fortune, and all of the girls piled out of the car
to watch the momentous contest, except Florodora, who
sat fixing her hat in self-centered content.


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
21
Yowee! Amid the groans of the losers, a sawed-off little
runt who was as agile as a flea, jumped up out of the ring
and sprinted across the campus in his track athletics to
get his clothes, shrilling his joy as he ran. Yippee! The
which spread dangerously near his ears, and with loose-
jointed legs which were born since the dancing craze
could become hereditary, jumped into the circle, scooped
up the dice, and, as an expression of his thankfulness,
began to “pat juba” in such perfection of rhythm that
the bubbling Shimmie Devere could not resist the chal-
lenge. Prancing opposite “Reddy” Plickens with a
shrug of her left shoulder, a jerk of the right, a shiver, a
giggle and that devilish uproll of the eye, she let down
a patter of twinkling feet which, when Shimmie should
learn to put that dance on the stage with the same abandon
and fervor, would make her reputation for life. Whoop!
The party was on! Two score hands joined in the patting,
and the fat student, who had tried harder than any one
to win and "grouched” harder when he lost, whipped out
a harmonica, and added just enough music to blend the
mad syncopation. Reddy Plickens was right there with
the wriggle; a shrug of the left shoulder, a jerk of the
right, a shiver of the torso, a falsetto imitation of Shimmie's
giggle, and an absurd mimicry of her devilish uprolled eye,
which filled that sedate old campus with such peals of
laughter as it had not heard for many a day.
Out of the college came sedately the Professor of Biology
and the white-whiskered Dean, and no sooner had they
come in sight of the activity, with its dottings and bobbings
of gay color, than, with unspoken accord, they turned
their backs to it and paced the other way.


22
THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
“Have you ever noticed,” said the Professor of Biology,
gravely and scientifically, “that the chemical attraction
between the opposite sexes never seems more nascent and
effervescent than between college youths and young ladies
of the stage?”
“I have not,” returned the Dean gravely, but with a
twinkle of his eye. “I am near-sighted, after class time;"
and a close observer, one who had sympathy for syncopa-
tion, might have noticed that the business-like Professor
of Biology and the white-whiskered Dean had adjusted
their pace to that enticing jazz, and were stepping lightly.
Not so the two seniors who now came out of the college,
and viewed the disgraceful pagan orgy from afar. Within
a week these two spare-bodied and spare-minded young
gentlemen would have their degrees, could write M.D.
after their names and print “Doctor” on their doors, and
the dignity of that awe-inspiring potentiality governed
their every breath. One was cultivating professional
burnsides, as being the first whiskers he could acquire,
and he was called “Blinkers” thereby. It was he who
felt that, in the absence of the faculty, they should do
something about this, and started down there to do it.
The other, a young man whose face was composed exclu-
sively of knobs and who wore goggles, had not stamped
his individuality enough on the place to be called by a
name, but he was a person with much interest in other
people; knew all about them; anything he could find out.
Said he:
“Do you see that tall young man with the two girls
hanging on him in such brazen intimacy? Jimmy Walling-
ford!” And while they walked down across the campus'
to give Doc Blinkers' Obvious Duty its exercise, the


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
23
goggled young man delivered a highly embellished thesis
on the notorious father and the spendthrift son.
Meanwhile Jimmy Wallingford looked on the pagan
orgy in smiling enjoyment of it all. A curious person,
Jimmy Wallingford; so often in, but not frequently of,
the hilarity which he occasioned and led; largely a spec-
tator at his own revels, and a studious spectator, with
always some vague purpose beneath, a thoughtfulness
which he did not himself understand. Something queerly
impersonal, too, in his treatment of these girls. When the
McCabe twins presently undraped themselves from him,
and with faint stirrings of professional jealousy edged
into the widening circle around the performers, it made
no difference to him, apparently, that Lanks Anderson
took their place, and, wrapping both snaky arms around
his neck from behind, leaned against “Jimmy dear” to
watch the proceedings. He was as disinterested as if he
had been a hitching post, though he patted the elbow
which clutched around his neck.
“We're off !” shouted a jubilant voice, and past the
mob there flew a sawed-off figure which gave a flying leap
astride the spare tires, and loudly demanded that they go
some place! A hasty glance at watches broke up the
specialty of the McCabe twins, their whirlwind dance of
fluff and flying legs, and the mob surged to the car, where
those embryo physicians and surgeons who had the good
fortune to know Jimmy and Toad found time at last to
notice the gold-plated equipage, and to inquire into its
antecedents. Nine voices told the exultant tale of Sweet
Patootie, to which the goggled young senior and Blinkers,
now at the rear of the throng, listened, shocked in every
one of the finer sensibilities which infest humanity. The


24
THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
party was in and on the car before the applause had sub-
sided enough for Blinkers to exercise his Obvious Duty.
“Wait a minute!” he called in his sternest tones, and
stepped in front of the car.
“You're too late, Blinkers; all full,” returned Reddy
Plickens easily, bending his back over the circumference
of the fender as one preparing for peaceful slumber.
Ignoring that loathsome suggestion, Blinkers stiffened
his neck, already stiff enough by virtue of his virtues.
He was a heavy-boned young man, who might have been
good looking in spite of his sharp nose, had it not been
for the lines around his eyes; austerity or avarice, or both.
“I want you freshmen to understand,” said he, “that
if there is a repetition of today's desecration of our campus,
I shall report the matter fully to the faculty, with all
names!”
“Well, now that's finished," shrilled the runt from the
saddle on the spare tires, “drive on!” and all agreed,
vociferously.
“It is not finished!” insisted Blinkers, aggravated into
more of his Obvious Duty. “I have now made up my
mind to report this affair also in full, and I fancy that the
faculty will take into account the questionable character
of the persons who —"
“That will be about all!” interrupted a quiet but very
firm voice. It was Jimmy Wallingford, whose eternal
principle, gathered from association with his mother and
Violet Bonnie, was that a lady is anybody who wears a
dress. “Whatever else you were about to say, I'd advise
you not to say it."
Doc Blinkers turned to resent the reproof, and suddenly
his nose hooked down and the crow's feet around his eyes


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
25
deepened as he caught sight of a genuine stigmatum of
degeneracy.
"I've only this to say to you, young Get-Rich-Quick
Wallingford;" he observed, with the pompous assurance
of a medical man, who may say anything; “from the way
in which you secured this car, I should advise you to
watch out for that lobeless ear!"
Appalled silence. Jimmy took that stupefying blow
without a physical wince, but his face went set and pale
as he started grimly to rise from the wheel. At that
instant, however, a square, hard-angled figure, surmounted
by a red face with greenish. freckles, came hurdling across
the hood of the car. The action was so instantaneous that
almost in the same breath Toad Jessup's broad hand
gripped Doc Blinkers' shoulder, swung him facing, and
pushed him slightly away into exact range. Not a word
was said. Instead, a hard fist suddenly shot out, caught
Blinkers directly under the chin, and knocked him up over
the curb and on the pavement, sprawling; all this amid
wild applause, in which “Lanks” Anderson fell out of the
car through sheer excess of enthusiasm.
“See here, see here!” protested the goggled senior, but
Lanks, whose bodily contortions were of incalculable ease,
set her foot against the goggled one's stomach as she rose,
straightened her leg, and so violently catapulted the
astounded friend of Blinkers that he ran half a block
backwards before he was seated.
Meanwhile the pleased spectators made a wide ring
around the fallen Blinkers, they not wishing to interfere
with the work of an expert, and with tense approval
watched Toad pick up the enemy to avoid hitting him
when he was down.


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
“This for yours!” savagely husked Toad, while he
jockeyed around the savagely plunging senior for an
opening. “Talking of ears and things, suppose you keep
your dang nose out of other people's business!” Where-
upon he smashed it, and this time left the fellow to pick
himself up.
“Our hero!” cried Lanks, and wrapping her snake-like
arms a couple of wraps around Snookum's champion,
smacked him the meed of a conqueror on the freckled
forehead; while Cleo Patra, then and there, made up her
mind not to vamp “Spots.” He was too nice a boy!
“Oh when do we eat or anything!” shrilled the runt
from the rear. “Or have we no gas!"
Automatically Jimmy reached for the brake, and looked
to see if all were in their places. His face was still pale,
and there was a hurt in his eyes which had never been
there before, the hurt of the first deep humiliation he had
known as a man. But he smiled back genially at the
cheering freshmen as Sweet Patootie moved off — for he
had a gift of great value from his father; the control of
all his faculties under all circumstances!
It was two o'clock in the morning when the boys came
home, and the lights were still blazing in the Wallingford
library, evidence of one of those casual inter-family poker
games, which might be played for a penny a chip or ten
dollars; it didn't matter, since no one cared who got the
money. The whirr of the incoming motor apparently
broke up the game, for as Jimmy and Toad walked up
from the garage the piano was rattling under the well-
known touch of Blackie, and that effervescent gentleman's
voice was ringing out, clearly and heartily, a parody of
his own:


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
Hush-a-bye baby, I'll tell you a joke,
We bought us an auto, and now we are broke.
Your daddy's quit working, he's got a new stunt,
We've no use for money, we live on our front.
Hush-a-bye,
Don't you cry,
We can't pay our rent,
Because whiskey's so high.
Inspired by this flippant ditty, Toad burst in on the
gathering with his usual point-blank high spirits, and
proudly announced:
“Say, we made ninety in our new whizzer! We'd have
pushed her up past that, but Doc Plickens fell off. Lucky,
too, it was in front of a hospital, so we took him right in
and had him patched up. Say! Doc wants to quit medi-
cine and double up with Shimmie Devere in a new turn."
“Yes,” laughed Jimmy. “Plickens believes that his
talent is not from the eyebrows up, but from the hips
down.”
Everybody laughed but J. Rufus. He cleared his throat,
and Jimmy, who had been conscious of his father every
moment since he came into the room, now turned and
looked at him fully for the first time. It was a clear,
steady gaze which would have disconcerted most people,
but not a man to whom contests of will and of wits was a
profession.
"It seems to me, Jimmy,” said he, “that the friends
with whom you spend most of your time are not a very
helpful outfit.”
· Painful silence followed that remark. There was a


28.
THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
startled feeling in the room, a depressing sense that they
were all intruders on a vital private scene which concerned
but two people in the world, both strong.
“Possibly not,” admitted Jimmy, then there followed
his quiet little smile. “Although I wasn't aware that I
needed any help.”
"I won't have any tricks of language!” suddenly
exploded J. Rufus, placing his fist on the table and pressing
it there, a much more significant demonstration than if
he had pounded; and his own face went white.
Jimmy's eyes roved to his mother. Her lips were
quivering, though she strove to hold them firm, and the
slender fingers of her two hands were clasped together in
her lap. The hour had come! Jimmy sat easily on the
arm of his mother's chair and without looking at her,
put his arm around her. From now on, he never removed
his clear gaze from his father, and the two men looked
steadily at each other. They were very much alike,
especially in this one particular, that each, to this moment,
had held himself superior to all the world, in regard to
his own will concerning his own affairs. From a boy,
young Jimmy had quietly planned and executed what he
would, usually without arousing antagonism, usually by
getting around opposition rather than fighting it down,
and suddenly each of them realized that the other knew
no law except himself.
Blackie, for the first time in his life, felt panic stricken.
His impulse was to make a diversion, to jump into this
scene and “break it up,” and his fingers had automatically
poised over the piano. That impulse resulted in one feeble,
half-recalled note, for Blackie realized that this moment
of tragic tensity in the lives of these whom he loved could


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
29
only be delayed, not avoided; so he lit a cigarette and
looked at the floor, while Violet Bonnie Daw powdered
her nose like a flurried automaton, not knowing what
else to do. Fannie did not move. The silence became
intolerable. It was J. Rufus who broke it again.
“I am not satisfied with you, Jimmy," he went on,
clearing his throat again and again. There was a huskiness
in it which had never come to him in his most critical
commercial moments, when failure might attend the
slightest wavering of his voice. “I have given you every
advantage. I have supplied you with money without
stint, and I have frequently tried to encourage your
ambition along whatever line you might choose, whether
the arts, the sciences, the professions. You do not seem
to have shown an interest in anything, except the idle
pursuits of a rich man's son — and you have today shown
a tendency which I have noticed before in you, a trickiness
in the achievement of your ends which cannot be excused
by any necessity on your part. I must confess that your
ethical and moral bents are such as to cause me great
uneasiness; since it has been the dream of my life that my
son should occupy an honored and respected place in the
world.”
There was another silence, in which the only audible
sound was the rasping of Toad's stiff hair as he brushed
it back from his forehead, over and over. When the voice
of Jimmy replied, it was quiet, clear, even gentle, and
unmarred by any huskiness or waver whatsoever.
“Quite so," he said, rising and standing very straight;
and still he had never removed his eyes from his father!
“It seems to me, Father, that if you had wanted your son
to become an honored and respected citizen, you begi.n


30
THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
about one generation too late. We'll let that pass, how-
ever. Nothing which now exists between us can be altered
by argument. But I have made up my mind to find out
for myself what is in me. Your study of these books,”
and he picked up and dropped the one on the corner of the
table, “has aroused more curiosity in me, perhaps, than
it has in you, so I am going away, in the morning, and see
what will happen to me when I am thrown on my own
resources, and not —” He paused for an instant, hesitated
then came that little straightening of the lips which had
in it a slight suggestion of cruelty, “and not as the son of
Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford!”
J. Rufus took this blow motionlessly, as his son had
taken that other blow. His face had been white; now
there seemed a wave of extra pallor to sweep over it and
harden it. He might have been a marble statue, with his
lack of blood and his lack of change in that set and rigid
expression. The thumb of the fist on the table presently
unfolded and clasped itself down against the under side
of the table edge; then the color began to sweep back into
his face, and he rose. Blackie, regarding his old partner
with that keenness of intuition which had become absolute
knowledge with the passing of the years, relaxed. His
knowledge of J. Rufus Wallingford was more perfect even
than Fannie's, or perhaps it was that his acceptance of
facts was more philosophical than hers, for she rose when
J. Rufus did, and was about to step between the two men
when Violet Bonnie, herself as keen of intuition as any
of these extraordinarily intuitive people, held Fannie by
the arm. J. Rufus paused a moment. There was a queer
little jerk in his knee, as if it had wanted to let him down
again, then he walked over to his son, and held out his hand.


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
31
“The best of luck, kid,” he said, and that was all. The
old familiar smile wreathed again his round countenance,
and Jimmy looked into a pair of small bright eyes which
twinkled jovially — as nearly as they could. Whatever
of stiffness there had been in the boy melted instantly.
“Thanks, Dad.” A trace of a gulp in his voice as he
held out his hand, and the two Wallingfords, father and
son, stood there in a firm handclasp for a moment, still
gazing steadily into each other's eyes; and neither man,
they were proud afterwards to reflect, had weakened.
“Say Jimmy!” The voice of Toad, with its usual blurt
of suddenly found enthusiasm. “We take the new car
with us, don't we?”


CHAPTER III
INTRODUCING THE WALL BROTHERS
It having come exactly that time of late afternoon for
Mr. Gander to cross the road, he quite naturally pro-
ceeded to cross the road. He quacked once, and once only,
a short, deep-throated peremptory quack in significance
of his lordly intention; and so justifiable was his com-
placency in the obedience of his harem, that, when he
emerged upon the highway, the three Mrs. Ganders were
waddling after him in precise file, the favorite first. The
blue sky arched above them and the waning summer sun
was warm, and at the bottom of the hill spread toylike
Fawnlake City, at the edge of its patch of shimmering
water, which is always good for a goose to look upon; and
the world was right. As the plump and slickly preened-
procession neared the center of the road, however, a long
nosed, yellow racing roadster loomed above the brow of
the hill and set up an imperative honking.
Why should the goose have been so maligned in history
and literature, and made to seem a ridiculous figure? There
is nothing so majestic as a goose, nothing so dignified,
nothing so insistent upon a principle, Mr. Gander had
been crossing the road from the Waite's spring run to the
Curtis place, at this particular spot and at this particular
time of day, ever since he had ceased to be a gosling, and,
secure in his scared rights as a pedestrian, he quacked his
answer to that honking impertinence and waddled
straight on across the road, looking neither to the right
32


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
nor to the left, and disdaining to quicken his pace by even
one heart beat lest his females think him less ganderly; and
such was the beautiful faith of the Mrs. Ganders in the
leadership of their lord and master, who had always
protected as well as chastened them, that, suppressing
any feminine inclinations they might have had for panic
or flight, they waddled straight on after him in unbroken
procession while the vast destroying monster came bear-
ing swiftly down on them!
More honks, yells, the wild screech of brakes and the
smell of burning rubber; and Sweet Patootie stopped with
a jerk not two feet from the geese, while Jimmy Walling-
ford dropped both arms limply and Toad Jessup sank
back to exhale all the breath he had been holding in his
capacious lungs. Upon this, as the oldest of the Mrs.
Ganders serenely swished her tail through the Curtis fence,
a silvery laugh rang out near by.
Now Nature, doubtless for reasons of her own, has put
into young men intense curiosity concerning a silvery
laugh, so both tourists looked! There, where the trumpet
vines arched over the gate of Talbot Curtis's beautiful
old-fashioned place, the boys beheld a most interesting
contest between Mary Curtis and the scenery. Tall old
trees, a high-pillared old white house with honeysuckles,
green lawn, flowers, shrubbery, a background of rock
strewn brown hill, flecks of lazy white fleece in the blue
above; that was the scenery — you know, exquisite stuff
which an artist might put in a picture. As a rival to all
this, was just a slender slip of a girl in a simple white dress
and a floppy leghorn hat, yet she won the contest immedi-
ately and unanimously. There is no use to describe shining
dark hair, delicately tinted oval cheeks, curving red lips,


34
THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
pointed chin, well arched brows, large soft eyes, slim white
neck or well poised head and all such things, for the same
might be said of many another girl — only — and here is
the vast difference — this was Mary Curtis!
Now Nature, doubtless for reasons of her own, had
implanted in Jimmy Wallingford a keen interest in pretty
girls, and when he saw this one he promptly forgot all the
other pretty ones in the world. Moreover, he so frankly
betrayed his stupefied admiration that Mary Curtis
stopped laughing and lowered her eyes in confusion. Mark
you, she did not turn indignantly back to the house, or
look indifferently down the hill, or otherwise indicate that
she was mortally offended by this admiration; she merely
lowered her eyes in confusion, whereupon Jimmy Walling-
ford, impelled by some impulse for which also Nature
doubtless had a good and sufficient reason of her own,
grabbed a spouted water can, leaped lightly from the car
and approached the gate, doffing his cap.
“Our car is thirsty,” he stated, in his smooth and easy
tones. “May we give it a drink?”
The prettiest girl in any town cannot be in entire igno-
rance of the ways of young men, so Mary Curtis, demure
as she was, knew, as well as this audacious young stranger
knew, that there was enough water in that radiator to
run the car for fifty miles, if need be; yet she did not refuse
the water. Instead, she swung open the gate, and said:
"Certainly. You will find the well right back at the
side of the house.”
He knew it! He had been positive that her speaking
voice would be as beautiful, as soft and as sweet as her
silvery laugh; and while he was pondering how to hear it
again, she suddenly raised her long lashes and let him see


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
35
the dancing devils in the depths of her velvet brown eyes;
whereupon Snookums was shocked into unbelievable
silence. Adroit as he was, and ready as he was, he was
suddenly handicapped. He had been used to the sort of
girls he had met carelessly in his college days, the sort to
whom he could say: “Well, little one, how goes it?" and
mean no offense, and none taken; but this wasn't that
kind of a girl, and he pondered this so long, for him, that
there was nothing to do but go on in and get the water.
He went just in time to save Mary from panic, for she was
demure, really, and her assurance was by no means equal
to her knowledge. As Jimmy curved around the barberry
bush, however, some of the faculties he inherited from his
brilliant father returned to the aid of his bewildered senses,
and he gave Toad the high sign, indicating with one swift
jerk of the finger that the attraction must be held at the
gate.
No trick at all for Toad. He was not a lady's man,
They had no effect on him whatsoever, so he stood in no
awe of their blandishments. Shimmie Devere, or Lanks,
or any of 'em, might hang on him all they liked; he merely
shook them off when he was ready to move or change
position; consequently he walked straight up to Mary
Curtis and observed, politely enough and cap in hand:
“Beg pardon, what town is this?”
Strange, Mary wasn't at all embarrassed or confused as
she looked this ingenious young chap frankly in the frank
eye. Oh! Lieutenant Freckles acting as orderly for
Captain Smooth; and suddenly she laughed.
“This is Fawnlake City, the town the signboards have
been telling about for thirty miles.”
“Couldn't see 'em,” declared Toad, unabashed, and he


36
THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
put an elbow comfortably on the gate post. “This little
old car just refuses to be slowed down for a signboard, so
all we can do with her is pick the best looking road and let
her whizz till we get some place. Say! Do you want to see
the dandiest little engine ever hidden under a hood? Come
on, and I'll treat you to a look.”
He led the way out so confidently, and his enthusiasm
was so contagious, that Mary Curtis, smiling at herself for
doing it, found herself looking at the inwards of the
imported miracle. What she saw was a number of surfaces
with grease on them, and knobs and brass pipes and
screws and nuts and things; and it was very edifying!
When “Captain Smooth” returned, “Lieutenant
Freckles," who was not a flowery describer though graphic,
was most volubly explaining the bore of the cylinders, the
stroke of the pistons, the gasoline consumption, and all
those things which seem to so mysteriously thrill every
ardent motorist. Quietly Jimmy filled the radiator, and
as he did so the little smile came on his lips. The attrac-
tion had not looked at him, but she was wandering slightly
in her attention to Toad's description of the talented
carburetor! Her hand lay on the front fender. It was a
long, splendidly formed hand with pink nails, tapering
and well kept; a beautiful hand. She moved it. She was
distinctly conscious that it was being admired, warmly.
There was a click. Jimmy was screwing on the cap of the
radiator. Why she should have an unconquerable curiosity
to see anybody screw on the cap of a radiator she could not
have told, but she had. Her entire system seemed to be
insanely interested in the mystery of how a radiator cap
is screwed on; so much so that her neck muscles acted
independently of her will, and they, not she, turned her


38
THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
cious, though interesting thereby. Meanwhile Talbot
Curtis put down his market basket, and pulled off his
Panama hat as if he couldn't wait any longer to get rid of
it, and revealed a face which was as guileless as a baby's, an
impression accentuated by the white curls which clustered
round his neck. He surveyed the tall, clean-cut young
man with approbation, for there was that in the smiling
countenance of Jimmy Wallingford, and his genial eye,
which begat confidence.
“Well,” Tal drawlingly considered, “They claim it to
be somewhere around fifty thousand.”
“Thank you. What is the principal industry?”
“Sleep,” was the instant return, and then Mary's
daddy laughed till his curls bobbed.
Toad Jessup was now ranged solidly alongside Jimmy,
and where Jimmy had been business-like, Toad was eager.
“The reason we're asking,” he broke in, “Is that we're
looking for a good town where we can locate and start in
business.”
“Well, well.” Tal Curtis surveyed both boys with a
new and a critical interest, as did the startled Mary; but
Tal's eyes softened as he said, conscientiously: “I don't
believe I could recommend this town to a couple of live,
bright young fellows like you are. Lord knows, we need
’em, but it wouldn't be fair."
Something seemed wrong about this situation. Ordi-
narily two bright, live-looking young men hunting for a
business location would have been grateful for such blunt
facts, and would have shown it, but these young men
seemed amused by the answer..
“It might be," considered Jimmy, his eyes narrowing
shrewdly, "that a more or less unprogressive town would


40
THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
loving imagination of her son Tal had rested many times
in as many minutes.
“And maybe,” suggested Tal finally, as a result of all
this fond imagining, "maybe I might be able to tell you
more about the town if I just show it to you. I reckon
there's time before supper."
Fine, oh very fine! The boys rose with alacrity, but
while Jimmie resisted, diplomatically, the impulse to peer
in through those fluttering curtains of the parlor window,
Toad frankly obeyed the impulse. Nothing moved în
there, although there was the faint suggestion of a sup-
pressed laugh, like the far-off tinkle of a silver bell. There
seemed to be nothing to do but lead the way to the car,
so Jimmy did it; and Grandma Curtis, inspecting the gold-
plated equipage with a capacity for joy as unfading as her
eyes, looked around at them so glowingly that Jimmy came
right over to her with that gentle smile which his mother
knew so well.
“Won't you come along? It's very comfortable, and
we'll promise not to drive fast.”
“My, my, I don't mind how fast you drive,” laughed
Grandma, her foot already on the runningboard.
Immediately Toad was on one side of her and Jimmy
on the other, placing her amid the crimson cushions as
carefully as if she had been a precious bisque; and no words
can express the disapproval on the face of Mother Curtis
as she stood at the front gate and watched Grandma,
representative of the oldest family in the community,
driving away with strangers; while Mary — she stood by
her mother - was indignant, with herself that she found
so much longing in her! Nor can any words express the
delight which beamed from the wax-like countenance of


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
41
Grandma as the long-nosed car slipped swiftly and easily
down the hill, the breeze whipping at the curls around the
nape of Tal Curtis's neck, up there in front with Jimmy.
Fawnlake City consisted primarily of Main Street.
That's where they had the boulevard lighting system with
the opalescent globes of four different shapes, spherical,
acorn, cylindrical and square, four blocks of each, repre-
senting the varying artistic tastes of four successive city
councils. The leading motion picture houses, the Palatial
and the Einstein, were on Main Street, down where the
town was active, and lent the glitter of their much
belighted fronts to the night life of the place. The Metro-
politan Opera House, given over to vaudeville, was also
in this district, together with the Emporium, the Fair, and
the Big Store; and at the foot of Main Street, where it
ended ornately in a little park and a bandstand and the
beach of a ten acre lake with a dam and a mill, stood the
Hotel Splendide. Rather a pretty town, was Fawnlake
City, and prosperous looking, its citizens comfortably
clad if not stylishly, and mostly moving with the
untroubled ease of Tal Curtis. There were rather preten-
tious residences along the near side of the lake, though
not such dignified old places as those at the upper end of
Main Street, beyond the boulevard lighting system, where
the staid first families had held aloof, in their tree clad
acreage, from the glitter and grime of the encroaching
“city.” A most attractive place, this, and as they started
back up the hill, and the boulevard lights began to glow
softly, like great smooth pearls, in the gathering twilight,
it seemed a pity to both Jimmy and Toad that they had
not already found some brimming opportunity into which
they might plunge and fill it to the splashing point;


42
THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
particularly was this true when they reached again the
gate with the over-arching trumpet vines. The tree toads
and the crickets were beginning to accentuate with their
strident voices the twilight peacefulness, and the bull
frogs in some distant marsh were croaking out their bass
accompaniment to the evening paean, and the fragrance
of the jasmine was in the air, and a slender white figure
sat amid the dimness on the great white portico. A beauti-
ful town, Fawnlake City!
“I think we'll stay long enough to investigate,” observed
Jimmy Wallingford to Tal, as briskly businesslike as pos-
sible, while he turned to help Toad lift Grandma tenderly
out.
“Good!” exclaimed Tal Curtis heartily. “And if my
business experience can help you any, you must feel free
to consult me, although I'm not much of a business man.”
“Oh, yes, do come out!” added the excited high-pitched
voice of Grandma. “We'll be glad to see you any time,
Mr. — Mr. — "
Jimmy hesitated, his gaze turning up there towards the
dimness, then he said to Grandma:
“Wall is the name, James Wall; and this is my brother
Edward!”
The deed was done. The Wall brothers were definitely
committed to their new names, not merely on hotel regis-
ters as in the past week of touch-it-and-hop prospecting,
but with real people who had a home, and a porch, and
big trees out in front- as in Tarryville! To Toad Jessup
the change of name meant very little, as did his memories
of his one ancestor, his “old man,” long since deceased
and not much use when living. Indeed, Toad had only
retained his original name because his two adopted fathers


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
43
could not agree on a substitute, neither Wallingdaw nor
Dawlingford seeming to quite fit the boy. With Jimmy
the case was different. His family, he began to find, had
meant a great deal to him, and he felt like a traitor; as if
he were somehow setting up a life which other folk might
share, and casting his own people out of it - forever!
Perhaps it was the dimness of the big lawn back there
which made it like any other dim lawn one chose to remem-
ber, or perhaps it was the loneliness of having heard the
front gate click behind Tal and Grandma, but at any rate
Sweet Patootie, as she shot down towards the boulevard
lights, contained a solid dead weight of homesickness which
no soft purring could lighten. Or, perhaps again, it was
telepathy, for on the big porch at Tarryville, some hun-
dreds of miles away, at this very hour the friendly quar-
tette sat in the poignant silence of homesickness, while the
crickets and tree toads accentuated the stillness with their
strident voices, and the bull frogs in some distant marsh
croaked unceasingly.


CHAPTER IV
THE BIRTH OF THE BIG HOPE
If a man were to enter business in Fawnlake City at,
say, the age of twenty-four, and if he were diligent and
patient, he could amass a big white house and a lawn,
a decent bank account and three or four children by, say,
the age of forty-four; but there was that in the blood of
the son of Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford which refused to
thrill at this comfortable prospect. In brief, a week of
earnest investigation had shown conclusively to James
Wall that the only glittering inducement offered by this
town was Mary Curtis. This inducement he had studied
under every possible circumstance; on portico, lawn and
shaded hill; in Sweet Patootie, in a rowboat on the little
lake, and afoot; by sunlight, twilight, electric light, star-
light and moonlight; and he had found the inducement
flawless. Man alive, he had to stay in Fawnlake City!
So behold him, in his shirt sleeves in his room at the
Splendide, entirely surrounded by statistics covering the
business prospects of the town better than the inhabitants
thereof knew themselves; and thus Toad found him when
he burst into the room with:
“Say! Jimmy! What do you think?” His pompadour
quivered and his eyes snapped and his very freckles seemed
to dance as he threw on the writing table a couple of grimy
rocks. “There's oil on the Curtis farm!”
“Oil!” and in a high state of excitement Jimmy jumped
to the door and closed it. “Who said so?”
44


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
“I say so! There's oil down there some place or the
hundred per cent mark I got in geology was a dang lie!”
“Then I'll say there's oil,” agreed Jimmy, but curbed
his enthusiasm. “Are you certain enough of it to gamble
our eight hundred dollars? It's all we have, remember.”
“Well, I'm sure of the oil, but you have to be sure of
the gamble. There might be only a spoonful when we
got it, or we might have to dig so far down that we'd have
legal complications with the property owners at the other
end in China, but I'll say oil! Look at those rocks!”
“Hunh!” Jimmy picked up one of the rocks and
dropped it and brushed off his fingertips, then he looked
at Toad speculatively. “Have you told Tal about it?”.
“Certainly not. I hit it straight up for here. I wouldn't
tell anybody about anything till I'd seen you. Now listen,
Jimmy. We have eight hundred dollars, and I'll bet we
can make an arrangement with Tal to sink a well on his
place, and divide fifty-fifty.”
"And if we don't strike oil we're broke,” drawled Jimmy.
Moving over to the window he lounged against the jamb
and looked out musingly. They were cleaning the lake.
The sluice gates were open the full length of the dam, and
a cataract was pouring through with a mighty roar. He
watched the process curiously, as if that alone interested
him. The water was lowering in the lake at a remarkable
rate, and the one little motorboat which Fawnlake boasted
was streaking it for the dam to avoid being left in the
mud. Suddenly Jimmy turned from the window, and his
eyes were narrowed and a smile was on his lips. But
Toad was gone - down to the drug store for some chem-
icals to analyze those rocks. Jimmy, still smiling, began to
sort and bunch together certain of his statistics, the details


46
THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
of the one big possibility which he had discovered but
had not found any way to make himself a part of. He
looked at himself in the mirror as he put his tabulations
in his pocket, and studied himself critically. The son of
Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford was going after big game,
and he wondered if his trigger finger would be steady
when he sighted his buck. It had to be, doggone it! There
was a Mary Curtis in the world. An hour later he was
in Fillamore, forty miles away, and calling on the president
of the A. I. and E. Railroad! That gentleman was a
mighty satisfied looking party, large, solid, iron gray, and
sitting easily in his big chair without lolling. He surveyed
his visitor with pleasure, as he surveyed all things which
were agreeable to gaze upon, and observed heartily, while
glancing at the clock:
“Well, young man, speak up. My car will be down
from the siding in thirty-five minutes.”
“I'll try to hurry," said young James Wall pleasantly.
“Mr. Burrowes, I've come to see you about running a
branch line into Fawnlake City."
“It's a dead issue. Fawnlake City knocked at the door
a long time ago, and we decided that the amount of busi-
ness we'd get there wouldn't pay interest and depreciation
on the cost of building the branch.”
“Well,” smiled Jimmy, “when a fellow wants to accom-
plish anything, he's got to start planning with the idea
that the first answer will be 'no'; so now we're past that
point.”
Mr. Burrowes laughed, and looked at Jimmy with
somewhat more of interest; nice looking boy, clear-eyed,
smooth-cheeked, healthy, bright and snappy. He didn't
look like Fawnlake City, however.


47
“Are you a committee of one from the Boosters’ Asso-
ciation back there, or what?”
"I'm a private interest,” grinned Jimmy. “I may as
well tell you that if your road should come through there,
it will probably make me a lot of money.”
“Good,” laughed President Burrowes. “That's better
than having a patriotic fervor for your town, or merely
having a friendly regard for my welfare, because now I
know that your arguments are sincere. What are they?”
He glanced at the clock, but his gaze shot right on past.
So long as he was amused, it didn't matter if they had
to hold his private car awhile. They could run Number
Four around it.
"Well,” went on Jimmy, drawing a long breath as he
prepared to plunge, and producing a mass of pocket size
card board memorandum slips. "Perhaps you haven't
kept actual track of the more recent growth of Fawnlake
City. Here is the increase of bank deposits, year by year
for ten years.” He laid down a pink card. “Here the
increase of tax valuation in the county.” A blue card.
“Here the increase of commercial investment.” A yellow
card. “Here the increase of natural output from the
surrounding territory, crops, cattle, hides and the like.”
A green card. “Here the increase of population.” A white
card. “Here the increase of shipping over the G. and W.
road.” A purple card. He spread them out, in order, in
front of President Burrowes. He was proud of this job.
His own father couldn't have done better. “And here,
a combined tabulation of the other reports, showing the
estimated percentage of Fawnlake City's advancement
as a commercial center, and its attraction for a common
carrier.”


88
THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
President Burrowes glanced at the larger size orange
card with a highly trained professional eye; glanced at the
others perfunctorily, wiped his glasses carefully and
replaced them in his pocket, stuck a cigarette in a long
holder, lit it, and smiled paternally at his eager young
visitor.
“Looks good,” he admitted. “I must compliment you
on the thoroughness and compactness of your commercial
report, and I have no doubt that, on this showing, if it is
correct, and I assume it to be from the earnestness of
your bright brown eye, my road could earn a more or less
profit on a branch run into Fawnlake City; but the induce-
ment is not enough.”
“Now we're past that point,” laughed Jimmy, Jr., in
no wise cast down. President Burrowes, looking at his
keen self-confidence, felt for the first time a trace of irri-
tation. He despised to be forced into anything, and he
laid his cigarette down carefully across his pen rack, to
state with impressiveness:
"Look here, young man, there's one thing you don't
understand, I have a fine country place, I have a house
here in town, I have apartments in New York, I have a
yacht, all my children are married and doing well, and
I go fishing two months in the year and hunting two
months in the year. I own nearly the total stock in the
A. I. and E. Railroad, and it earns dividends enough to
let me do all these things which I have mentioned. I'm
as placid and contented as a jellyfish in a warm pool, and,
believe me, I have no dream of empire! If a man were to
bring me control of the entire combined railroad systems
of the United States, and tell me that he could make me
own them and run them, I'd shoot him.”


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
49
Ouch! The business expert of the Wall Brothers had
not figured on this possibility, and for the first time he
began to feel his youthful, self-confident assurance slip-
ping. He began to feel that he had artificially braced him-
self to talk and act like, and to be, a regular business man,
instead of an amusing amateur, a precocious kid who
could get a good laugh by asserting that he could lick the
policeman on the corner! But even while this depression
rose ferociously out of his heart and made a clutch at his
weazand, he happened to notice certain little lines around
President Burrowes' eyes, and that the eyes themselves
were the only part of his face which did not display sati-
ated satisfaction. They could still be eager! Jimmy now
began to reflect that the man who had built up the A. I.
and E. Railroad into a fine dividend paying proposition,
and had managed to obtain most of the stock for himself,
must have been open, at one time, and for a good long
stretch of time at that, to the little item of personal
advantage, to the lure of profits, and to the pleasure of
extending his money-making capacity. As Jimmy
reflected, unconsciously his own eyes narrowed with
shrewdly constructive thought; and President Burrowes
noted it and said abruptly:
“Now, what's the jolly idea? Your time's up.”
“Well, I've just decided that you'll listen after all to
the next point,” said Jimmy briskly. “Maybe you have
no dream of empire, but you do want to keep what you
have. I can tell you some news about an old-time com-
petitor for your southern trade - the G. and W. Rail-
road.”
. “The G. and W.?” Mr. Burrowes picked up his cigar-
ette again, took one puff, threw it away vigorously, and


50
THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
blew the smoke out of the holder. “What's new about the
G. and W.?”
Jimmy nonchalantly tossed down a little blank book.
"I may have a lot of presumption in suggesting what
I am going to, because you no doubt are more familiar
with the situation than I am; but I happened to learn the
other day in the G. and W. station master's office at Fawn-
lake City that there was talk of throwing that road into
the hands of a receiver, which means new management.
So I got together all the available statistics concerning
it and those figures, boiled down to a couple of glances
worth, are in this little book. The controlling stock can
be had for a song, and if you were to secure the G. and W.
and run a branch through my town, making a junction
between the A. I. and E. and the G. and W.-"
He stopped abruptly because, quite as abruptly, Presi-
dent Burrowes had risen from his seat, pushed back his
chair with the straightening of the crook of his thick legs,
and strode to his map; and Jimmy, looking at that stodgy
back, relaxed in his chair and took a moment's breathing
space. As abruptly as before, President Burrowes turned
from his map, grabbed for the evening paper on his desk,
looked at that day's stock quotations, and wheeled briskly
to Jimmy.
“By George, young man, I'll do it!” he said. He was no
longer satisfied, but he was happy. “I've been watching
that situation like a lazy dog watching a fly, but now I'll
have to snap!"
“Thanks,” drawled Jimmy, his weazand clear of that
threatened clutch, old man Depression gone from his
heart, and a little bird singing there. Then he hesitated.
“Now, Mr. Burrowes, I have a little favor to ask of you."


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
51
“Naturally,” laughed the President.
“And it's this. Would you mind not announcing your
plans for a while?" Before he began, he had known just
as well as now that he would see that alert, darkening look,
that suspicion of the experienced man, that on-guard ex-
pression. “I may as well tell you just why. I'm about to
dig an oil well there; and I wish you to take note of the fact
that I did not use the probability of striking oil as an argu-
ment for your putting your branch into Fawnlake City."
“Smart boy! It would have weakened your case,
because I would immediately have said that you couldn't
know whether you would strike oil or not."
“I suppose that was the reason,” admitted Jimmy with
his quiet smile. “But you can readily see, also, Mr.
Burrowes, that if your plans are announced before I know
whether or not we'll strike oil, it will make quite a differ-
ence in certain property values; just on the pure psychol-
ogy of it.”
President Burrowes looked at young James Wall with
still another degree of interest, then he shook hands with
him warmly.
"I'm with you. And now, turn about's fair play. If
you mention my plans to a living soul, I'll be held up for
that G. and W. stock; so mum's the word between us,
eh?” and they shook hands on it. Such twinkling-eyed
shrewdness passed between them with that handshake,
that Burrowes' attention was arrested by it, and he patted
Jimmy's hand in quite a fatherly manner, beaming on him
affectionately as he added; “My boy, I hope you won't
take offense at what I'm going to say. I think you're
about the smartest kid I've met — and you want to
watch out for it.”


52
THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
Jimmy felt the color coming up into his face. He won-
dered if Burrowes had noticed those lobeless ears; and
down in him burned deep resentment.
“I'll try to, sir,” he said, and he was half way back to
Fawnlake City before he discovered that he was running
at top racing speed — as if there had been certain things
which could be merely outrun!
When the perplexed and gloomy Toad returned from the
Einstein Picture Palace, he found Jimmy at the table in
his shirt sleeves, collar and tie thrown aside, shirt open at
the neck, a cigar between his fingers; and on his round
pink face, as he studied maps and figures, was the con-
tent of constructive abstraction. Toad was startled.
Except for the weight and bulk he might have been look-
ing at J. Rufus himself!
“Oh, hello Toad!” and Jimmy's quiet musing gave
way instantly to youthful enthusiasm. “I have it! The
oil well is on!”
“That was a cinch!” returned Toad, in no wise sur-
prised. He sat down impatiently, and lit his pipe.
“What's the rest of the story?”
“Railroad! Toad, since I saw you, I've secured a new
railroad for this town, and the only way it can logically
come into Fawnlake City is through that gap in Tal
Curtis's hills.”
“Oh, fine!” That didn't seem a sufficient expression
for Toad's amazement and delight, so he straddled a chair
and said it again; “Oh fine, fine, fine!” He laughed and
then he stared and then he laughed again. “Why, say!
Jimmy! Why a railroad coming through there would make
Tal Curtis a rich man again! You know Tal has about
gone broke paying taxes on that farm. It won't grow


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
anything but rocks and pennyroyal, and he only keeps it
because he can't sell it, and because his grandfather used
to shoot deer there, when the Curtises were the only aristo-
crats in the county and owned most of it. I'd like to see
Talbot Curtis rich again!”
“Yes.” There was a slight straightening of the smile on
Jimmy's lips, a slight twinkle in his eyes. “But of course,
Toad, if we're the means of making him rich, I should
think we might have a right to be in on it. With your oil
well we can, I think, get a half interest in that land.”
“That is, if we strike oil,” amended Toad, nodding
sagaciously.
"If we'd strike oil, we wouldn't need it,” corrected
Jimmy. “What we do need is some way to get back our
eight hundred if we don't strike oil; hence the railroad to
give Tal's property a worthwhile value. And here's how
we get our share. If we form a stock company, and get
Curtis to pay for his stock with his land, we paying for our
stock with digging the oil well, then the property will
belong to the company from that minute, and we, owning
half the stock, will consequently own half the land, oil or
no oil.”
“Great gosh!” Toad stared long and silently, and there
was discomfort in the manner with which he tamped and
tamped at the tobacco in his pipe. “Say, Jimmy,” he
blurted at last, “don't throw anything, but that sounds an
awful lot like your dad.”
“Doesn't it?” Jimmy was distinctly disturbed, then
he turned back to his figures and his maps and his musing;
but finally he looked up with a quiet smile. “It would
make it straight, I know, if I could tell Mr. Curtis about
the railroad; but I can't. I'm under promise not to. So


54
THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
I've decided for Mr. Curtis. He takes the gamble! We'll
go right over.”
“Anyhow there's oil there!” declared Toad, his brow
clearing. “And say! I've dug out the name of our well.
It's the Big Hope.


CHAPTER V
A KISS FOR SWEET PATOOTIE
“My, my, don't I hear Sweet Patootie?” quavered
Grandma Curtis, to whom Sweet Patootie was now, and
ever, the crowning event of an interested lifetime; and
Mary Curtis pushed back her coffee cup and rose hastily,
for the Wall brothers were usually later at dinner than
the Curtises were at supper, seldom arriving on the hill
before the dishes were cleared away. What could it be?
Good-bye? And little Mary paled! But no, it couldn't
be good-bye with all that excitement in the footsteps
which clattered up on the portico, and into the house and
straight back to the dining room. No, not good-bye, as
Mary saw instantly from the face of Jimmy, and her pallor
gave way to a wave of delicate color as she lowered her
eyes. How different Jimmy was tonight! There was
something exultant in him, something triumphant, some-
thing of proprietorship, too, as she felt by a sort of quiver-
ing telepathy when he came and stood by her, while Toad
vociferated, almost yelled:
“Say! We've come to form a company! There's oil
on your property!”
No bomb shell could have created more havoc in the
placid peace of this tall old colonial dining room. Even
the cut crystal chandelier and the delicate Venetian glass-
ware on the enormous mahogany sideboard seemed to
share the thrill of the astounding news; for immediately
55


56
THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
they began to tinkle and to ring in sympathy with the
excited commingling of voices, all talking at once, after
the first instant of stupefaction. Oil! There was magic
in the very word that so smacked of riches, and, smacking
so, held forth a promise of the rehabilitation of the Curtis
fortunes, a restoration into the good graces of that fine-
featured old face which had so long looked down at them
accusingly from the gold frame over the buffet; Great-
Grandfather Curtis, who had builded this house, when
his broad acres had made him wealthy, and stocked it
with the sort of furniture and rugs and paintings and
books and silver and glassware which a gentleman of his
breeding should have in his home. Happiness, nothing
but happiness in the excitement of the three born Curtises,
but in the excitement of the Curtis who had been born
Bozzleweed, there was a tremor much like pathos. It
had been so difficult for Talbot's wife to preserve the
unbending backbone which was the Bozzleweed idea of
what the Curtis pride should be, while, year after year,
she had seen the Curtis possessions drift away through
Tal's good-natured incompetence, until now there was
only left this homestead, mortgaged, and the ridge strip
which could not be mortgaged; happily. Oil! Magic in
the word, with its smack of riches, and though Mother
Curtis bended not one joint of her neck, she did, when
none observed, surreptitiously place a straight finger to
the corner of an eye and remove a hint of moisture which
threatened to become a drop.
Out of this pulsating moment The Big Hope Oil Com-
pany sprang into existence full grown, and was led into
the stately old library by the business expert of the Curtis
family, his face beaming with infantile delight and his


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
57
white curls bobbing; for it transpired that Talbot Curtis
was by profession an attorney, though seldom working
at it, except to administer the estates of a few deceased
testators, friends. Out of one of the tall mahogany book-
cases Tal brought down a yellow-backed book on corpo-
ration law, and nothing in all this world could exceed the
gusto with which he engineered the prospective incorpo-
rators and stockholders of The Big Hope Oil Company
through the preliminary stages of its being! What a thrill
there was in that process to all these amateurs who had
never before incorporated! How awe-inspiring to select
officers, and become used to official titles! Offices, of
course, for every one:Talbot Curtis, president; James Wall,
secretary; Edward Wall, treasurer; Emily Curtis, vice-
president; Mary Curtis, second vice-president; Grandma
Lucy Curtis, third vice-president! All settled, all in apple
pie order, with one hundred shares of stock of no par
value, James and Edward Wall twenty-five shares each,
Talbot and Emily Curtis twenty-four shares each, Mary
and Grandma Curtis one share each; fifty-fifty, the Walls
and the Curtises, and no advantage on either side, every-
body satisfied, everybody happy, though Toad Jessup
rasped his wiry pompadour when it was breathlessly over.
Now they owned half of the Curtis property! Oh well,
dang it all, the thing was perfectly right! Tal's worthless
land wouldn't have had the prospect of a railroad except
for Jimmy, so what was wrong? Nothing; only, somehow
or other, Toad liked openness; secrecy in itself seemed
crooked — especially when Jimmy's morals were at stake.
Toad hadn't said anything about it, but probably no
member of the Wallingford and Daw families was more
concerned about Jimmy's morals than Toad Jessup!


58
THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
Oh, well, dang it all, there was oil there anyhow, and that
would straighten everything out!
When he reached this comforting conclusion, which
should now last him for good and all, Secretary Jimmy,
Treasurer Eddie and Second Vice-President Mary stood
at the gate, with the crickets and tree toads creaking here,
and the bull frogs croaking yonder, and the stars twinkling
in the sky overhead, and the fragrance of the jasmine
all about them, and Fawnlake City spread out below them
like a fairyland at the verge of its moonlit lake. It was
here that the Second Vice-President said softly and happily
in her voice which was like a silver bell:
“So you're going to stay in Fawnlake City!”
“You said it!” vociferated, almost yelled, Toad, and
gave the arm of Mary, which was hooked in his, a frank
and sturdy squeeze. She scarcely noticed it, for she was
distinctly conscious that Jimmy was looking down at her,
and smiling; and there was some exquisite telegraphy
between them, a telegraphy with thrills and quivers in
place of dots and dashes. So, on this wonderful, this
marvelous, this miraculous night began the new life of
the young man who had come out into the world to find
for himself what was in him, whether honest or not, away
from the influences which had protected him from the
“big test,” and away from the influences which might
affect the known son of Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford; and
the beginning seemed good.
Next morning the dawn had to step lively to get out of
the way of The Big Hope Oil Company, for when the
Secretary and Treasurer thereof removed themselves bag
and baggage from the expensive Hotel Splendide the night
clerk was still on duty; and the first clerk on duty in the


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
59
sporting goods department of the Big Store sold them a
tent, two cots, four pairs of overalls, and a camp cooking
outfit. The President and First, Second and Third Vice-
Presidents were up in the oil district, selecting a spot in
the deepest hollow for a place to dig when the Secretary
and Treasurer arrived, and not more than two hours after
this, Fawnlake City knew that Jimmy and Eddie Wall,
who had been chasing around the country in their fancy
car with the Curtis family, were sinking an oil well on
Tal's farm. Immediately Fawnlake City strolled up there
to see about it, found Jimmy and Eddie erecting the resi-
dent headquarters of the company, and President Tal
Curtis watching them with untiring industry from a seat
on a rock ledge which nature had obligingly fitted with a
footstool and an elbow rest. Its duty performed, Fawnlake
City went away, impressed but not excited. No one had
ever heard of oil existing around Fawnlake City, and if
there should be any, it wouldn't be found on Tal Curtis's
place! It was just like two kids to think all they had to do
was dig a hole somewhere and strike oil, and just like
Tal to be in for such a wild-cat scheme. Much more inter-
esting was the “case” between Mary Curtis and Jimmy
Wall! They were smitten, not a mite of doubt about it!
And what would Bertram Beegoode have to say when he
came back, to find his pretty Mary, the most popular girl
in town, nabbed up by a city stranger? He! he! Bertram’s
father, Henry, was the richest man in town, and he went
up to Tal's right after he had closed his bank for the day;
for Henry owned the mortgage on Tal's homestead, and
though Henry was never willing to take a chance, he was
always eager to investigate a possibility, so that he should
know exactly what to do if the possibility ever became an


60
THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
actuality. President Burrowes, too, having motored over,
as if casually, to pursue certain secretive investigations,
paid a little visit to the Curtis hill and shook hands with
his mum young friend Jimmy, and gazed with pleasure on
the honest freckles of Jimmy's brother Edward; then the
excitement died down, and the Big Hope Oil Company
was left alone to dig. Day by day the stalwart young Wall
brothers, looking wholesome and happy in their overalls,
bent their backs and knotted their muscles at the hand
winch of their hand-made derrick, for far be it from these
young men just starting life to disdain manual labor, a
resolution mightily approved by President Talbot Curtis
as he unflaggingly watched operations, palm leaf fan in
hand. So, inch by inch and foot by foot, and dollar by
dollar, that long rope and the expensive casings were
swallowed by the dust-dry earth — till it was all in!
A thousand feet down, and no oil! — and no more
money! The six incorporators and stockholders stood
around the hole in thoughtful silence. You could wind
that drill a thousand feet up and let it drop a thousand
feet down, as often as you liked, and it wouldn't hit any-
thing, for the drill had gone as far as it would go with that
length of rope.
"My, my!”.quavered the soft voice of Grandma. “Isn't
it a pity, because just at any time any one foot more
might strike the oil! Can't we attach a few more feet of
rope?”
“Can't be done, Grandma,” promptly answered Toad,
and rasped his pompadour, “because we couldn't work
this hand winch with another pound of rope, if we had
it. We'd need a donkey engine. That costs money.
Dang!”


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
61
Another silence. The Big Hope Oil Company had
much food for thought.
“Well, I'll declare," said Talbot Curtis, shaking his
head till his curls bobbed and danced, “if I had a dollar
I could lay my hands on, I'd put it in, I declare I would!”
“Yes, Tal, I declare you would,” stated his wife, with
grim conviction.
“Yes, mother,” agreed Talbot, meekly, but there was
no shade of annoyance or any other unpleasant thing, not
even regret, on his guileless face. “Never mind, Honey,”
this to Mary, whose eyes were swimming with disappoint-
ment, “sumpin'll happen yet.”
Mary smiled, and out of the smile came a little half-
hysterical giggle. For two solid weeks now with every
thump of that drill she had hoped that the next thump
would bring the golden flood of oil to enrich her father and,
— well, The Big Hope Oil Company in general; and now
it was all over!
Jimmy dropped the towel with which he was mopping
his brow and neck and arms, and studied gravely the
blisters in his palms.
"Anyhow,” said he, cheerfully, “now we won't have to
winch up that rope by hand any more.” He smiled his
quiet little smile, and turned to Toad. “Still think there's
oil there, Spots?”
“I said there was oil down there,” stoutly maintained
Toad, “or else I don't know a dang thing about geology.”
“Then I'll say there's oil,” maintained Jimmy, “and
we'll have to get an engine and dig for it. I suggest we
hold a meeting, and vote an issue of stock, and I'll go out
and try and sell it. I think I can get somebody to buy it."
: “Isn't that wonderful, mother!” marveled Talbot


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
you, and I did agree that the land should belong to the
company. We're not cheating them any, mother."
“Not you,” agreed mother with equal enthusiasm.
"Just the same, if they don't strike oil, we're out our land.”
“My, my, Emily!” murmured Grandma.
“Well, you have to give something for a chance to get
rich, haven't you?” countered Tal, and suddenly remem-
bering that he was President, he pounded on his rock seat,
called the meeting to order and they formally agreed to
issue the stock.
That aiiernoon Jimmy dressed himself in his flawless
business suit and went into town, to arrange for the sale
of the stock as soon as it should be authorized by the
secretary of state; whereupon the natural course of all
things financial in Fawnlake City gravitated him to
Henry Beegoode in the dingy plastered private office of
the Fawnlake Bank. Henry was a small, oldish-looking
man with dried, mutton-chop whiskers, with pendulous
lobes on his wrinkled ears and with greenish eyes like
chilled steel gimlets; his fingernails, if he had let them
grow, would have curled right over and become talons,
the front joints of all his fingers and thumbs bent inwards,
his nose hooked down, his head hooked forward, and
altogether he was formed by nature to grasp anything
which came his way, and to hold it. He was like one of
those desert spiders which can wax fat on anything or
nothing, find juice in a dried cactus leaf or meat on a dried
sand gnat, and there was something of that hungry search
about him when he gazed on the nice plump form of
young Jimmy, and he listened with keen interest to the
ingratiating arguments of the financial member of The Big
Hope Oil Company as if searching for somewhere to insert


64
THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
a proboscis into this dry husk of opportunity and suck its
blood.
“So you think there's oil on Tal Curtis' rock farm,
eh?” he said, with a chuckle which was more like a cough.
“Maybe so, maybe so. Tell me; how is your company
formed?”
Jimmy told him, and managed meanwhile to take stock
of everything in Henry Beegoode's dingy old office and
on his dingy old desk.
“So! Pretty shrewd for a boy. You've got Tal's whole
farm in for his share, not just the oil claim. And the whole
farm belongs to the company! Oh, I suppose I'm a foolish
old man. In spite of the fact that there hasn't been any
oil found within two hundred miles of here, I believe in
giving bright young fellows a chance; so, if you'll make
the price right, I don't mind buying that stock," and he
drew toward him a sheet of paper and uncorked a fountain
pen.
“Thank you.” Jimmy's quiet eyes had been resting
contemplatively on Henry Beegoode throughout the
latter's entire speech, and now they followed the hand
which reached for the paper and the hand which uncorked
the fountain pen. Some sixth sense stirred in Jimmy,
something which kept him from being properly joyous
over this unexpectedly easy victory.
“Now let me understand, young man,” went on Henry.
“This is preferred stock you're offering me, and it's the
only issue, and the entire issue, and there won't be another
without my sanction.”
“Yes sir.” Jimmy's tone was less troubled now, and
his inspection of certain objects on Henry's desk more
leisurely.


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
ars should be
I have to file operations.” W
“All right, I'll take the whole issue then. What price
shall we say? A couple of thousand dollars should be
sufficient to complete your operations.”
“I think I'll have to figure it over,” responded Jimmy,
rising, and the slight shade of disapproval on Henry
Beegoode's countenance confirmed him, not only in his
intuitive feelings, but in the deductive conclusion drawn
from these intuitive feelings.
“Three thousand anyhow ought to send you down far
enough to strike oil, or give up the job. But that's the
limit! And I'll tell you, young man, you won't get another
offer as good as that in the town, for I know every dollar
that's here, and what the owner dares to do with it!”
“Three thousand is better, but before I conclude any
definite arrangements I'll have to see my partners.
Good day, Mr. Beegoode," and striding toward the door
Jimmy put on his hat.
“I'll tell you something, young man!” shrilled Henry,
half rising in his seat; and even his arms curved as he
rested them on the desk, and his legs curved, and one
more pair of legs and a pair of antennæ would have made
a spider of him indeed, with his round fat paunch and his
lean extremities. “I'll make it thirty-five hundred, but I
won't promise to hold this offer open! I'm liable not to
be so generous by the time I cool off!"
“ I'm sorry, Mr. Beegoode, but I must consult my part-
ners,” and Jimmy closed the door after him, gently.
Down at the curb stood the beautiful, beautiful car!
Its half-owner cast loving eyes along its clean lines and into
its comfortable cushions, and as he took his seat he patted
it affectionately on the wheel; then he whizzed out to the
headquarters of The Big Hope Oil Company, plunged into


66
THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
the tent with no answer for the torrent of questions which
Toad poured at him, dug out Tal's book on corporation
laws, leafed rapidly through it until he found a certain
paragraph, read it and looked up with eyes which pinched
almost shut and burned in the center.
“I thought so!” he snapped. “That preferred stock
would constitute a first mortgage lien on our farm, and if
we fail to find oil and pay dividends, the holder of the
preferred stock could take possession of this whole prop-
erty. I was a dummy! And another thing! On Henry
Beegoode's desk I saw a prospectus map of the future
Fawnlake City, showing a railroad coming from the west
right through this gap! It's a certainty that Beegoode saw
Burrowes! Where's Mr. Curtis?”
"Oh Tal!” yelled Toad, poking his head out of the
tent. “Hustle up, Jimmy wants to see you!"
President Tal, out in the garden digging his potatoes,
one at a time, straightened up instantly and with pleasure
slipped off the apron which he wore to protect his pongee
trousers. He came over the hill with the happiness of a
boy relieved from the chores.
“Tal, call a meeting of the company,” ordered Jimmy.
“We're going to rescind that resolution to issue new stock."
Tal obediently nodded, thus illustrating that there are no
communistic organizations or any other than one-man
governments. “I'm too ignorant to monkey with business
intricacies, so Eddie and I will finance this company out
of our own resources.”
“You're goana write home!” immediately guessed
Toad, with exultation. He was not above sacrificing any
fool principles of pride and independence where they
interfered with practical results.


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD 67
“No, I'm not! We're going to sell the car.”
“Ah, pshaw! Oh, pshaw! Isn't there any other way?”
Tal pondered miserably, then hope suggested the method
by which he had lived at ease so long as the Curtis ances-
tral estates had lasted. “Can't you mortgage it?”
A laugh greeted that idea.
"Hardly. So far as I've been able to judge, a mortgage
is the best plan ever devised for selling property at the
least possible price, and at the same time still owing the
money.”
“Mother ought to hear you say that," chuckled Tal
whom God had blessed with a disposition to find happiness
under any circumstances.
“Aw, Jimmy,” worried Toad, “Grandma will miss that
car! She likes it better than any of us, I think, especially
when we strike a straight stretch and hit it up to about
eighty! And say, Jimmy, listen! That's the dandiest
engine ever put under a hood!”
The son of J. Rufus turned on him savagely.
“Look here, do we have a car or do we have an oil well?
If you think I'm giving up this racer because I hate it,
you're mistaken! And by the way.” He paused a moment.
“I've been thinking. This is no market for a high-priced
car like ours. We'd never get the money for it.” He
looked up with a start as the entrance darkened. Mary
stood there, smiling in at them, and Jimmy gulped. “So
we'll have to drive the car back east to sell it.”
“Whoop!” yelled Toad. “Home!” Then he suddenly
grabbed for his handkerchief and blew his nose — so
violently that he had to wipe his eyes.
“Well, yes,” and Jimmy grinned. “My ethical stand
won't keep me from selling this property where we can


68
THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
get the highest price for it; and I know how fond of Sweet
Patootie a certain large, plump party is. We're going to
take a little trip home, Mary,” and walking straight out
of the tent, he took Mary's arm and strolled with her
down the hill. At the ditch behind the big rocks where he
always helped her across, though she was lithe and agile
and did not need help when she was alone, they were both
nervous, and her foot slipped when he set her down. He
was forced to catch her in his arms, and her head rested
on his shoulder for a moment — accidentally! Of such
accidents are the steel and tinder of youth, and the sparks
that fan into flame. Jimmy hadn't struck oil yet, he
hadn't made good, and wasn't in position to tell his right
name; but mortal young man would be but a feeble crea-
ture indeed were he able to resist such a fate-flung oppor-
tunity! His arm tightened around little Mary, and drew
her yielding body closer. Slowly she raised her eyes as
his head bent down, and there was great tenderness in
their velvety brown depths; and that tenderness stopped
him. He must deserve it! Suddenly, as he hesitated,
Jimmy had the shock of his life, for the little devils sprang
into Mary's eyes, and raising her head swiftly, she pressed
her warm lips on his.
“That's a kiss for Sweet Patootie,” she breathlessly
informed him, and laughing, sprang away and ran down
the hill.


CHAPTER VI
A BOOM COMES INTO TOWN
As the Wall brothers left Fawnlake City, headed east
around the lake and across the sandy waste on the other
side, there came in from the west, over the hill past Curtis's
and down the road which became Main Street, a plenty-
good-enough blue runabout in which sat a large and
portly glum gentleman and a tall, lean man with black
mustaches who was in a high state of irritability; and
said the latter, as they speeded down toward the boulevard
lights:
“The next time I go out on a pleasure trip I'll do my
sight-seeing in company with a mad bull or a hyena with
the hives! Get it, you? Get it?”.
No answer. J. Rufus Wallingford gazed straight ahead,
with lack-lustre eyes and a set droop in his usually smiling
countenance. If he had only known that this was Jimmy's
town! But he didn't, and not even the glint of the lake,
shimmering away there beyond the green trees of the
park at the foot of Main Street, aroused any sparkle in
him, usually a quick observer of beauty of any sort.
"Oh shut up!” went on Blackie presently, exasperated
past measure by the big fellow's silence. “If you can't
answer civilly don't talk at all! If I had the gout I'd be
sport enough to stand the pain by myself, and not take
my temper out on my friends!”.
Wasted. Not any amount of abuse would arouse
J. Rufus from his deep set despondency, and Blackie
69


70
THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
began to relent. He knew it wasn't the gout; it was
conscience! Big Jim Wallingford had sailed through life
serenely under the impression that he had no conscience,
and now when it hit him hard enough for him to discover
that he had one, he was developing the sensation to its
fullest capacity; pampering it, steeping himself in it,
straining it! He had a conscience. Oh, ye gods, he had a
conscience! Curses! Also, deep satisfaction. Just as
there is no zealot like an old ex-sinner, no temperance
fanatic like an ex-drunkard, no prude like a woman who
in youth was gaily the reverse, just so there could be no
one more extravagant with secret remorse than this
unscrupulous rascal! And it was all Jimmy! Where was
he? Where! J. Rufus had driven that boy from home,
forced him out into the temptations of a world of which
none knew the temptations better than this same J. Rufus!
On every hand there were pitfalls for the clever, glittering
enticements for the shrewd, irresistible allurements for
the strong! At any instant some simp might cross Jimmy's
path with more money than the boy could resist, at any
moment some boob might drag Jimmy into a dark corner
and force the boy to rob him of his bank roll! If Jimmy
had been reasonably stupid he might be considered safe,
but he wasn't. J. Rufus was the father of that son, and
knew him well. He was a bright boy, a clever boy, a
shrewd boy, a boy with a fine brain and quick wits, with
good looks and pleasant manners, with an ingratiating
smile and a frank eye which would gain the confidence of
any one; and there was no hope for him! In all Get-Rich-
Quick Wallingford's imagination he could not see how a
young man, gifted as Jimmy was gifted, could go into a
universe so thronged with fools who had money, and stay


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
71
straight! And it was all J. Rufus's fault! He had bestowed
on his offspring those brains, that ingratiating manner,
that handsome exterior; and woe it was!
“Nice looking town, Jim.” Friend Blackie, really con-
cerned about Wallingford's state of mind, was now trying
another bait. “Prosperous place; everybody seems to
have money."
No answer.
“Money just rolling around loose here.”
No answer.
“Money! I said money! MONEY! What's the matter
with you, you fat crab! Oh, see little cutie!” “Little
Cutie,” who had suddenly attracted the sarcastic attention
of Blackie, was a long, skinny, vigorous-faced woman of
certain and positive age; a spinster, by all the signs, and
an embittered one, who was now snipping, as if spitefully,
at a rose bush on the lawn of the biggest and most resplen-
dent and newest white house on Main Street, just before
the beginning of the boulevard lights. Caroline Beegoode,
eldest child of Henry; and to her, by way of vindictiveness,
Blackie flaunted a gay wave of the hand, an exaggerated
leer, an eye-tight wink, and lastly a gracefully blown kiss.
He had expected, nay hoped, that this would call forth at
least a glare or a frown, to say nothing of a brick, so he
was astounded when Caroline, after the first instant of
incredulous stare, bridled and simpered, and holding up a
rose twirled it coyly at the devilishly handsome stranger
- then, for the first time in those days of dull driving,
J. Rufus Wallingford gave signs of human animation.
As they shot on past the Beegoode mansion and struck
the smooth pave his broad shoulders heaved, and a chuckle
welled up in his throat and his round face grew pink,


72
THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
“You damn fool,” he laughed.
“Thanks, old pal,” responded Blackie, delighted. Now
if he could only get him to wink! “Say, lamp the wealth.
It's seldom you see three cast iron dogs and a cast iron
deer on the same lawn. Looks to me like one of those
angora towns; you know; wool so long that they'd be
happier if it was sheared.”
“No, Blackie, there isn't a fleece fat enough, or soft
enough, to tempt me. I'm out of the shearing game for
good, and I've thrown away the shears. If ever I do any
business at all, it will be straight!”
“Well, what did you think I meant?” demanded
Blackie indignantly. “I'm not proposing that we invest
in a dark lantern and a crow bar, and make an arrangement
with the chief of police. I'm willing to spend the rest of
my life out of jail. Only hear me this, Brother Amen;
if you were ever to start a straight business, you'd get
skinned.”
"It's a well-padded town all right,” judged Wallingford
with the care of a connoisseur as he inspected the neat,
prosperous fronts of the shops on Main Street, and the
heavy watch chains and fobs on the well-filled belts of the
untroubled inhabitants, and the copper dome on the court
house, and the spic and span spires of the churches, and
more particularly the gutters. Clean as a whistle, those
gutters; plenty of money in the city treasury, and no doubt
a good sinking fund in the chamber of commerce. The
judgment of a connoisseur, true, but the aloof admiration
of a retired one. “Yep. The soft currency is here like a
feather bed, but they may keep it, bless them one and all.”
Hope died. Jim meant it in spite of the “kidding"
phrase. Blackie stepped on the accelerator as he caught


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
73
sight of the Hotel Splendide sign, up against the blue sky
over that imposing building.
“Oh, let's eat!”
A remarkable hotel for so small a town; a big tiled lobby
with tiled columns; palms and clean white napery yonder
in the dining room; snappy service everywhere, and back
of it all, moving about briskly, a nervous, black-whiskered
Italian at the sight of whom animation once more came
into the eyes of J. Rufus, not that he knew the proprietor,
but that he knew his kind. A suave head waiter, with the
indefinable accent which comes only to a five-language
man, offered his services at sight of these experienced
looking travellers, and ventured to recommend for lunch-
eon a rhum omelette aux truffe. The very tone of his voice
warmed something dormant these days in the large bon
vivant, and with a smile which wreathed his pink face
like an auriole he passed a five dollar bill over his shoulder.
“We like every word you say, Oscar. Bring anything
you fancy.”
“And whatever you think goes with it, Oscar,” added
Blackie, passing him another bill.
A lucky accident, the finding of Oscar, and thereby it
was a different J. Rufus Wallingford who walked out into
the lobby, chose a large, leathern chair beneath some palms
at the wide windows, lit a huge black cigar, and looked
across the park and shimmering lake and shining yellow
sands to where the bluish haze of late summer noonday
blended the distant trees into the horizon. The world was
a delightful place, and life was easy, and everything which
he touched was soft! Blackie Daw, more restless, sat in the
adjoining chair and lit a cigarette, and picked up a rail-
road folder and threw it down, and smiled at an impudent


74
THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
bare-legged urchin who offered him a paper through the
window, and paid a quarter for a copy of The Morning
Gazelle when the newsy brazened his way past the door-
man, and leafed through the paper and yawned.
"Some town, Jim; right up on its tippy toes. Rumors
of a new railroad.” He turned to the next column, while
J. Rufus gazed dreamily out across the shimmering lake.
“The Wall brothers have gone east to buy machinery for
their prospective oil well.” Blue wreaths of smoke curled
lazily up from the cigar of the contented gourmet. “A
shake-up in the G. and W. Railroad. Entire directorate
thrown out, and control taken by President Burrowes of the
A. I. and E. Thrilling, eh Jim?” J. Rufus comfortably
crossed one big knee over the other. “Henry Beegoode
predicts a real estate boom for Fawnlake City in the
near future.”
At last a movement of the placid ruminant creature in
the soft leathern chair. He knocked the ashes from his
cigar, he covered a yawn with his big palm, he uncrossed
his legs, and said he, dreamily:
“It's a shame. Everything ripe, and nobody to pick
the dripping peach!” He stifled another yawn. “I wonder
who owns that stretch of brindle-colored drear on the
other side of the lake.”
Blackie controlled with an effort the thing which leaped
within him, and disinterestedly replied:
"I don't know, how should I.” Lazily rising, he strolled
over to the desk, and presently strolled back, leaned over
the chair of his partner and announced: “Henry Bee-
goode.”
"Huh?” Wallingford looked up with a start, and here
was a thing to note; he was chewing the end of his cigar,


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD 75
all come on. What
the curb to Croj. Rufus's
which he had heretofore smoked delicately without even
a tooth dent in its smooth roundness!
“Henry Beegoode owns that dun desert. He's president
of the Fawnlake Bank, right here on the opposite corner,
and Henry's in his office now, and the local estimate on
the value of that sand is nothing per acre, minus, and none
to carry. You might get it cheaper.”
J. Rufus gazed across the lake, and no man might know
what his small but sparkling blue eyes erected there, but
certain it is that they erected something, and peopled it
with busy persons passing rapidly to and fro and making
noises. His was the mind which can but create; so he rose,
chuckling
“Oh, well, come on. What's the use?”
They were just stepping off the curb to cross to the
Fawnlake Bank when Blackie suddenly grabbed J. Rufus's
arm, and with a grin pointed down the street.
“As we live, Onion Jones and a human mattress!”
Towards them toiled with shuffling gait two ragged
wanderers, becindered and begrimed. One was a short,
squat, stoop-shouldered man, with so full a growth of
kinky red whiskers that they seemed to be a nest for his
face; and bushy red eyebrows protruded over his narrowly
squinted eyes which turned from side to side so furtively
that one might speculate on whether they had not been
trained to keep watch while the man slept. The other
wanderer, as bald as an arc light globe was Onion Jones,
so called because of his striking resemblance to that
vegetable when peeled; and he hurried forward as fast
as his battered feet would allow. When he spoke his voice
had in it the husk of many a hard night.
“So help me, Blackie, if we'd 'a' missed you in this


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
77
“What's your friend's specialty," Wallingford wanted
to know, “arson or mayhem?”
“He's an engineer! He can do anything you want done
to an engine, anywheres!”
“That makes it easy,” chuckled Wallingford. “When-
ever we need an engine mutilated or disabled, we'll know
where to have it done.”
“Excuse me, gentlemen," objected Petrograd Pete.
“I am an under-dog, and a passionate man when my rights
are trampled on — I was an anarchist once, but they
wouldn't let me work with them because I was too radical
— but I'm gentle with an engine.”
“That's something anyhow,” grinned Backie. “A
Bolshevik now, I suppose?”
"No. The Bolsheviki tossed me out. I'm too violent,"
and suddenly, as Pete cast his furtive eyes upward at
Wallingford, his whiskers were parted by a smile so child-
like that it belied all the craftiness in his face.
Both upper dogs burst into a loud laugh, and started
across the street, Blackie calling back:
“See you later, Onion. Stick around, you and your
passionate under-mutt.”
“Well Pete, what do you think of 'em?" husked Onion.
“Ain't they the princes!”
“I hate 'em!” asserted Pete vindictively, as he took his
“split” of the money. “They're rich! It's the injustice
of life! I'm as much of a crook as this man Wallingford,
ain't I? Yes! Well, who's got all the money out of it?
Him! Is that equality? No! I hate 'em."" He ended with
that astoundingly childlike smile, and Onion's round flat
eyes rested on him in stupefaction. He had remained
startled ever since the moment he met the thrilling Pete.


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
“Aw, you're just a nut," was his comforting conclusion,
and it was at this moment that Wallingford turned on the
steps of the bank and looked at the frowsy pair with
disapprobation.
“Why did you tell those yeggs to stick around?” he
demanded. “Look here, Blackie, I want you to distinctly
understand that everything we do, for amusement or
whatever purpose, is to be strictly on the level!”
“I'm glad to know it.” Horace G. Daw smoothed his
mustaches straight out. “I've always been sorry for your
corrupt tendencies, Jim, and it pleases me to know that
you've at last —”
“Oh, break it off; you have enough to tie your knot,”
interrupted J. Rufus. “My intention is this. We'll start
the boom which this neat little metropolis should have,
and we'll make a reasonable profit to pay our expenses
and it will be good for the town.”
“That's right, do the town good,” cheerfully acquiesced
Backie. “Do it good and see if I care.”
"Can't you take anything seriously?" complained the
man of sudden virtue, and opening the door he strode into
the bank and inquired for Henry Beegoode, and was
admitted to the private office on his impressive appearance
alone; but no sooner had he laid eyes on Henry then he
was attacked by a professional sensation so keen as to
almost amount to a stomach cramp. Never, in all his
career, had Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford beheld a mean
human being who so roused in him the impulse to despoil
of all his goods and chattels! Yet, such was the mighty
strength of J. Rufus's noble resolutions, and so complete
his reformation, that he sat down, put his hat on the desk,
and stated his errand so meekly that he felt like a “sucker!”


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
“Oh yes, that property on the other side of the lake,”
said Henry, drawing in the moisture which had gathered in
the corners of his lips at sight of these prosperous looking
strangers. “That's mighty valuable property, gentlemen,
for it's the only direction Fawnlake City can expand.
What did you propose to do with it?” and his nose hooked
down.
It wasn't temptation which now assailed Mr. Walling-
ford, it was just habit, to wish to tell Mr. Beegoode a clever
this or that or an adroit so and so; but the instinct was
promptly squelched; Mr. J. Rufus Wallingford reminded
himself that today he was a man with a conscience, an
honest man proceeding about a straightforward transac-
tion, and as such it was compulsory and workmanlike to
tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
And he did it, covered with such visible virtue that Blackie
Daw, looking around as if to find some intelligent eye to
share the joke, happened to meet the simpering gaze of
“Little Cutie!” There she stood in the doorway in all
her fleshless blandishment, and Horace G., caught with
that smile on his face, hadn't the presence of mind to take
it off! It was distinctly a smile for Caroline, thereby, and
roguishly she met it. Discerning, however, that there
was bargaining afoot, she retired modestly into a corner
where, as she listened, she became as alert, as eagle-eyed
and as spider-like as her father.
A fine bargainer, Henry, far better at it than any
“crook” could be; for a man who plans to get all the
property of all his neighbors by strictly honest methods,
as Henry had, must have a pickled walnut where his
heart belongs, and must never mind the blood which drips
when he takes his pound of flesh. With every crow's foot


80
THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
pinched and every talon curved, he probed and probed
into Wallingford's subdivision idea until he knew it all,
and could see, so far as his imagination could expand, the
last dollar of possible profit; then his way was clear. He
wouldn't option that land, he wouldn't sell; he'd just let
the suavely capable Mr. Wallingford and the smoothly
glittering Mr. Daw go right ahead with their splendid
plan and pay all the boom expenses, and he'd lend them
his local influence and allow them to keep all the profits —
except the first ten thousand dollars they took in!
Ten thousand! Holy smoke! Why if J. Rufus hadn't
indulged in the luxury of the truth he could have had that
whole tract for a thousand — and welcome!
“Thanks for the Christmas mittens," he observed
dryly, and rose to go; then he was suddenly attacked by a
panic of ignorance. He remembered that, in starting
to be honest, he was entering on a game with the details of
which he was unfamiliar, and that perhaps to a straight-
forward, bona-fide promoter this would seem like a
reasonable proposition. He glanced dubiously at Blackie,
who was sullen and helped none. This conscience thing
was all Jim's; not his! Not his!
“How much is there of this unclad Eden of yours?"
Wallingford irritably demanded.
“Fifty acres. It's worth — it's worth — "
“What's the use? Yesterday it wasn't worth anything,
but today suppose we hand each other a dollar, and draw
up the agreement -- or I'm on my way!”
“I'll ring for my lawyer,” hastily returned Henry, and
punched a button repeatedly.
“I think I'll be running along now, papa, and come
back later," broke in Caroline, and swished over to the


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
81
desk, girlishly, to bid her papa good-bye; also, she raised
her eyes coyly toward the dashing Daw. “I know you'll
be wanting to discuss details with your new partners.
Tee-hee!”
Henry Beegoode looked at his child in astonishment,
and then he snickered. For twenty-five of her forty-five
years, Caroline had been thrusting herself forward for
introductions which had come to naught, and she was the
family joke.
“This is my daughter Caroline, Mr. Wallingford and
Mr. Daw,” obliged her father; then he snickered again.
“You don't happen either one of you to be a bachelor,
do you?”
“Oh papa!”
Diabolic glee snapped in the small blue eyes of Mr.
Wallingford, and he thrust forward the dashing Daw.
“This is the bachelor, Miss Beegoode!”
“Tee-hee, I don't see how it's possible!” tittered the
skittish Caroline, and rushed to the door in youthful
flustration, followed by the snicker of Henry Beegoode;
and in that instant, during which Henry's head was
turned away, there came an agonized “ouch" from
J. Rufus and a tensely polite “I beg your pardon” from
the bachelor who had, with hissing vindictiveness, ground
his heel on the toes of his big friend and partner!
Then came in Mr. Beegoode's ever handy lawyer,
Ebeneezer Terwixter, a scrawny-necked and hook-nosed
old man who seemed like a reflection of his more acute
master; and for half an hour they set forth and whereased
and hereinbefored, and the deed was done. Fawnlake
City's boom was on its way — and the Wall brothers
were headed east!
by the
which
red “o
ngs from


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
83
hors
,
among cautious strangers. And say, the Wall brothers
bought their engine, and everything needed for the digging
of a sure-enough professional oil well! The ladies were
vastly thrilled by that. The boys, their boys were actually
drilling an oil well, and suddenly the oil business took on
a dignity and majesty which must have been surprising
to it. Nothing could be more important than The Big
Hope Oil Company; nothing. But one evening Fannie
Wallingford, struck by some indefinable change in her
son as he slid his arm around her shoulder and drew her
to him, suddenly wheeled on him with the miraculous
knowledge that he was in love! Then, oh then, the thrill
of the oil well paled into watery insignificance. Jimmy
was in love! Jimmy had a regular girl, a girl he wanted to
marry; and he was a grown-up man!
Home! Only wanderers who have been to the old home
and are returning to the new, can know the thrill of that
magic word! If Jimmy's heart had beat high when he
had turned into the shade of the stately trees of Tarryville,
it beat high again when a bend of the road revealed the
Curtis ridge up there. Two weeks! Why it seemed years
since he had gone away, and as Sweet Patootie leaped up
over the hill and honked wildly in front of the Curtis place,
the quiver of his eagerness and of Toad's was commun-
icated to the mothers. Oh yes, they were along. It was
their duty to give Mary Curtis the “once over" and see
if she would do!
But what was the matter? A chill sensation seized
Jimmy, derived from his apprehension of all the impossible
things which might have happened during his absence,
for no answering signal came; the doors and windows were
tightly closed, the blinds were drawn, and the house was


84
THE SCN OF WALLINGFORD
dead! Back there stood the derrick; the boys pointed to
it; but the derrick wasn't what they wanted to see, so very
slowly Jimmy released his brake and threw in his clutch
and let Sweet Patootie slip down the hill; and something
in him was cold. What was the matter? Devastation
seemed to have settled on all Fawnlake City, for Main
Street, too, had that lifeless, deserted feeling. Not a soul
to be seen anywhere! Not a wagon rumbled or a motor
whirred; yet, in spite of the silence and the desolation,
there seemed to be a pulse of something ominous in the
air. Suddenly, the blare of distant music! Ah! Yonder
were people, way down town, two blocks this side of the
park, where narrow Washington Alley crossed broad
Main Street. Yes, here were people a-plenty, packed
solidly along the sidewalk, overflowing the curb and out
into the middle of the street, where the police by strenuous
exertions kept open a shifting lane which elbowed out of
the old alley, and ran straight down to the bandstand in
the park.
Such excitement! Fawnlake City hadn't been so much
on the qui vive since the local ball team had won the inter-
county penant. Whoo-ee! Just everybody was there, the
town and all its suburbs and all the farmers from miles
around. But what a strangely bedecked and bedizened
assemblage for sober Fawnlake City! Red Turkish fezzes
were dotted thickly among the crowd, paper ones, true,
but still fezzes — ten cents apiece plain or a quarter with
a gold tassle. Red-fezzed vendors had them everywhere,
long cylinders of them, and were darting hither and thither
all through the crowd, selling fezzes like hot cakes; and
there were balloon vendors, and popcorn peddlers, and
peddlers of “hot dogs”; and peanut stands shrieked, and


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
85
the excitement quivered and throbbed all the way out
Washington Alley to where it disappeared up Nanny Goat
Bluff! What, what had happened to the town! What
mighty force had set up all this mad commotion! What
or whom had been potent enough to jar awake this lazy,
somnolent community and set it into such a surge of
fevered activity! Why look at Washington Alley! That
once dingy thoroughfare, narrow and cobbled, was like
the bazaars of Cairo or Bagdad or Damascus in its flaunt-)
ing gaiety of color, while from every window and every
balcony there hung a rug or a shawl or a length of cretonne
or anything which might by any possibility be construed
into an Oriental flavor! And look! There was an “On
With the Jazz” poster! Just everything was happening!
“Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!” A bare-legged urchin with
a tattered straw hat in his hand came running down
Washington Alley half a block ahead of three other urchins,
all aching to tell the news. “Hey, hey! The parade's left
the ball grounds!”
Instantly, while the urchins dashed away again, the
excitement which had hitherto been general now became
specific. Everybody who had been standing any place
immediately moved to some place else, squirming and
jostling and perspiring and craning their necks to the full
extent of their cartilaginous accommodation. The cordon
of police, all twenty-eight, who had been called in for this
great occasion, leaving the rest of the town free to the
burglars, now made a thorough job of pushing people back
to the curb from one end of the course to the other, and
then doing it all over again.
“Look out there! Gosh!”
A woman with a baby buggy who had been in the thick


86
THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
of the crush all this time had suddenly darted from the
perfectly secure shelter of a set of steps, just in time to
collide with the push cart of a hokey-pokey man who was
being driven off the street. Mad excitement! A dog fight
broke out right at the bend of the elbow, and instantly a
solid mass of humanity flowed from every curb and packed
in a circle around those leaping, yelping animals. A
scream! The woman with the baby buggy was caught in
the very midst of the crush, and it took four policemen to
get her out! Somebody turned a hose on the dogs and
soaked half the crowd, but stopped the fight. A change
of wind brought a blare of music clear and harsh down
Washington Alley, and it was hailed by a concerted shout
of “Here they come! Here they come!” and the perspiring
police pushed the crowd back to the curb, and the wind
changed again and the blare of music died away to noth-
ing, and a hush fell on the assemblage.
“And the next time your dog jumps my dog, I'll let
my dog kill him!”
“He can't do it, Jed Purvit!”
“You're a liar! You're a doggone liar!”
Smack!
The man fight between the owners of the fighting dogs,
delayed but inevitable! A solid mass of humanity flowed
from all the curbs, and packed in a solid circle around the
man fight. A scream! The woman with the baby buggy
was in the thick of it, and had to be extricated by a living
wedge of policemen, while purple-faced men who had no
earthly personal interest in either combatant or his
quarrel, shook their fists and yelled:
“Soak him, Jed!” “Hammer him, Ben!” “Shut up or
I'll bust your face!”


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
87
Hurray! The blare of music suddenly burst out again,
right on them now, and over the edge of Nanny Goat
Bluff came flying the bare-legged urchin, then a battalion
of urchins, leaping, prancing, swarming narrow Washing-
ton Alley from wall to wall or from fence to fence; then
the tall white shako of Bill Laportin, the drum major of
the Fawnlake City Concert Band, then Bill himself,
swinging and twirling his long silver-topped baton, throw-
ing it high in the air and catching it without the loss of a
single twirl. Six foot six was Bill Laportin, and with a two
foot shako on his head he was some drum major, believe
us! Say! Right in the midst of the marching he could slip
that baton around him like it was a living snake, then
he'd wrap himself around the baton like he was a living
snake, then Bill and the baton would both twine and twirl
together. How's that, huh? How's that! Right after
Bill came the peerless band leader, Sylvester Simmons,
with the most expensive cornet listed in the catalogues,
real silver, hand-chased in a grape-vine pattern, and with
a gold-plated bell! And listen, when Sylvester was tooting
good and right on that cornet, he could blow a blast so
shrill that for hours afterwards your ears would buzz like
you'd been taking quinine! Oh he was some tooter! Then
the band itself — four B-Flat cornets abreast, four altos,
four slide trombones, four baritone French horns, four
tubas, four snare drums and two bass drums. Some band,
some band! And look at 'em march, and hear 'em blast
out the inspiring strains of “America Forever, We'll Fight
for Her and Die!” Sylvester Simmons' own composition,
and equal to Sousa any minute, we'll say!
But oh mercy what have we here! What is this gigantic
monster looming over the edge of Nanny Goat Bluff!


88
THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
Why it's an elephant! A real, live elephant, swinging its
trunk and lumbering along from side to side! Richly
caparisoned with red embroidered cloth of gold is this
majestic monarch of the jungle, and on its back a hoodah,
in which reposes some magnificent potentate of the Orient!
Now indeed the on-lookers bulged back to the buildings
without the aid of the police as that mountainous beast
waddled down Washington Alley and to the bend, while
the magnificent potentate of the Orient, beaming genially
on the populace, turned from curb to curb his round, pink
face wreathed in smiles.
“For the love of Mike,” gasped Violet Bonnie Daw,
as their car was stopped in the crush at the elbow, “if it
isn't your fat fool of a husband! Now where's mine?”
Not visible yet, but near by, they knew. Meantime
there was no mistake about this gaudy personage on the
elephant being J. Rufus Wallingford in all his flesh and
in the very midst of his natural element, like a fish in a
sequestered ocean nook where the sun basks on jeweled
rocks! There he was in the resplendent robes of the fabled
East, with a yellow turban bedecked by a glass ruby the
size of a doorknob; and none in all the world could beam
so well as he! Oh joy! Here was the mighty force which
had set up all this mad commotion, here was the personage
potent enough to jar awake this peaceful place and set it
into such a.surge of fevered activity; here he was, Get-
Rich-Quick Wallingford, in full possession of Jimmy's
town! Well, Jimmy had wanted to see his dad, and here
dad was!
A hiss from Violet Bonnie interrupted Jimmy's clammy
reverie, and if ever there was spite and venom on any
woman's face, that woman was Violet Bonnie Daw!


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
“The worm!” she gasped. “The miserable crawling
insect!” And, indeed, the incense-clouded float which
followed the elephant carried a far-eastern fantasy of
waggling palms and matting sand and poetic passion well
calculated to inflame any wife who had claims to pride
and pulchritude! Blackie Daw by all the powers, in a
purple Mother Hubbard and a green turban!. And he
drank from a jug of wine, and he ate from the end of a
three-foot loaf of bread, and he played to Thou a soulful
Persian love ditty, not on a lute, for he had none such, but
on his trusty saxophone; and at such moments the scrawny
bird of paradise to whom he luted would slap him coyly
on the long lean cheek, and he would give her a kittenish
slap in return on the braceletted wrist, and she would titter
and giggle and coquette, and show positively to the
populace that there was more to this than appeared on
the surface! Swathed in polychrome chiffon and tulle
was “Thou,” laden with many savage jewels, eyelids
darkened and cheeks well-carmined; but even through the
applique one could detect the hooked nose and the pinched
mouth and the crow's-footed eyes of Caroline Beegoode's
well-advanced spinsterhood - and she was a shrimp-
faced cat if you left it to Violet Bonnie Daw, who saw no
more of the parade than this, watching apoplectically the
bobbing and jerking of the palms down Main Street toward
the park.
“Why Jimmy! Eddie! Jimmy!”
None less than the Queen of the Orient was now waving
frantically at them, from beneath her silken canopy atop
a camel as gaily costumed as if he had stepped out of a
cigarette advertisement! Fannie Wallingford did not
need to be told that the beautiful queen of the Orient was


90
THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
Mary Curtis. She had only to look at Jimmy's face, and
at Mary's, to know the truth. Luck favored them just
then, for the woman with the baby buggy had a sudden
mad impulse to cross the parade, and in the very middle
of the open space was seized with a panic and couldn't
decide whether to go on or turn back! They had to stop
the parade to extricate her, and amidst the hubbub the
Queen of the Orient's well-blacked slaves and fan-bearers
obligingly edged her reptilian steed over close enough to
Sweet Patootie for her to bend down a blushing face and
reach down a slender hand, and bid a happy “welcome
home” to the Wall brothers. For the moment Jimmy
Wallingford forgot the mighty potentate on the elephant,
forgot everything except those emotions nearest at hand,
and proudly he announced:
“This is Mary, mother!”
At the risk of her neck Fannie Wallingford climbed up
on the seat to shake hands with Mary, and instantane-
ously, as their hands touched and they looked into each
other's eyes, there sprang into them both a warm affection
which is a splendid thing to exist between a mother-in-
law and a daughter-in-law.
“I am happy to meet you!” exclaimed Mary in her soft
voice, still holding the hand of Jimmy's mother.
“And I'm his Aunt Vi!” heartily announced the plump
lady in the lavender motoring outfit, reaching up to
claim her share of the slender hand.
“I've heard a lot about you, too,” smiled Mary, happy
in the quite visible approbation of Aunt Vi. “You and
Mrs. Wall will come up to the house just as soon as pos-
sible, won't you, Mrs. — Mrs. —"
"Wall; Mrs. Wall!” supplied Violet Bonnie, promptly


92
THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
the other orientals gathered, and the town and county
packed around the bandstand, and away on the outer
edge of the crowd an irate plump woman in a lavender
motoring outfit began to worm her way determinedly in
toward the proceedings, followed by the three other Walls.
The gravest of the lot was Jimmy. In the boy there was
rising a dull anger at that big mountebank up there on
the bandstand, in his flaunting red robe and yellow turban.
That was his father! Why had he come here — here of all
places, where Jimmy was trying to answer the crook's
mawkish prayer for an honest son by building a flawless
future? And now Jimmy's decent work in his chosen
town, and his standing with the girl he loved, must be
soiled by this same father, with a gaudy scheme which
could not but be a fraud with his brazen ballyhoo man
at the head of it! His own father, the mountebank, but
in this guise he was a stranger to Jimmy, and with sud-
denly straightened lips which had in them the trace of
cruelty, Jimmy made up his mind to fight him as a
stranger. Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford should not “pull”
any crooked game in Fawnlake City! This was Jimmy's
town! The crowd pressed forward as J. Rufus made ready
to speak, and Jimmy pressed forward with them.


CHAPTER VIII
THE SON OF THE MOUNTEBANK
OPULENCE! That was the text of the potentate's dis-
course to the ladies, the gentlemen, and, might he not
now call them, fellow citizens! Opulence pure and simple,
rich, golden opulence, opulence for one and all within the
sound of his voice, opulence so abundant and so cornu-
copious that it could only be expressed in the glittering
gaudiness of the opulent Orient with which this grand
civic demonstration had been staged! Opulence, oh ye
brothers and sisters, dreamers of auriferous dreams, human
moths! Opulence, otherwise wealth, otherwise riches,
otherwise money! Oh thou greatest of all the gifts of the
gods, money! By jinks, to hear this man Wallingford talk
for fifteen honey-dripping minutes on no other theme
whatsoever than the various ways of wording an extolment
of money darned near put it in your pocket; and as his
mellifluent voice rolled on and on, rising and falling in
dulcet cadences, unconsciously all the men in that vast
crowd were jingling the silver in their pockets, and all
the ladies were nervously snapping and unsnapping their
handbags; while Henry Beegoode, sitting in the band-
stand behind Wallingford, all but squeezed himself shut
like a crab. Money, magical money! Ah, paeans of love
may thrill as may appeals to patriotism, and a touching of
the tender tendrils which twine about home and fireside,
kith and kin, may tingle to the heart's core; but for down-
right, solid, breathless, abiding interest, give us money!


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
95
A mighty cheer went up from the populace as the smoke
began to curl from the automobile factory, the aeroplane
factory, the furniture factory, the biscuit factory, the
canning works, the meat packing concern, and all the
other canvas representations of gigantic industry. Why,
that rolling smoke almost made it real, as if already the
wizardry of J. Rufus Wallingford had set those imaginary
dynamos to whizzing and the wheels to turning in their
endless, deathless, night and day grinding out of money,
money, money, money! Wealth! Riches! Golden opu-
lence for every inhabitant of Fawnlake City! Behold,
ladies and gentlemen and fellow citizens! There it was,
the New Bagdad, emblem and symbol and oracular ori-
flamme of their future prosperity! There it was, and —
Blast the thing! His voice suddenly stopped with his
mouth open and his round pink face paled with consterna-
tion, for at that instant the guy ropes which had held the
painted New Bagdad proudly erect snapped under the
strain of the wind, and the whole town, with an end to end
heaving roll like a plough furrow, fell flat on the sands,
its factory chimneys still smoking! There was the emblem
of their prosperity, the symbol of their future — and a
laugh went up which grew and grew and circled round and
round the bandstand in waves and gusts and gathered
intensity and reverberated, until the park, and the whole
universe, seemed one vast, hysterical roar! This while
Henry Beegoode writhed in ten thousand agonies, a
separate agony for each lost dollar, and the yellow tur-
baned potentate wiped the back of his neck and glowered
up at the swiftly moving clouds which were turning the
molten gold edges of the wavelets to lead. He felt a drop
of rain on his nose and grabbed at the fluttering robe which


96
THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
revealed his prosaic modern pants and suspenders! In
that dire moment, too, the poet Daw, aghast at the sudden
blight on their promising harvest, was trying to extricate
his fingers from the flirtatious clutch of Caroline, curse
her; in so doing he happened to turn to the near edge of
the bandstand, and found his beady black eyes gazing
stupidly into the viperous blue flambeaux of Violet Bonnie
Daw! Oh my brothers, and amen! His countenance froze
and sorrow sank deep into his soul; for Violet Bonnie
loved him, fervently and fiercely, and she'd make his life
a hell upon earth every time she happened to think of
Caroline Beegoode, in all the years to come! With a
hopeless sigh the poet Omar lay the bejewelled hand of
Caroline on her lap, lay across her hand the peacock fan,
and, taking up the giant megaphone, set it down over his
head like an extinguisher, remaining motionless, dead to
the world, but hidden, thank God, from those flaming
blue eyes!
For just one instant the yellow-turbaned potentate
had lost his head, and then, surveying that sea of laughing
faces, he essayed a stentorian remark which no one heard;
they only laughed the more. He tried another, but this
time while he delivered it, he backed up, and with his heel
smote his extinguished partner on the shin; a hard crack!
In answer to that gentle S. O. S. the extinguished poet
snapped right out and became Blackie Daw. He found
J. Rufus facing the crowd and making oratorical motions
with his arms while his mouth moved.
“Say Jim!” husked Blackie into Wallingford's ear.
“Beat it for the hotel!” mumbled Wallingford out of
the corner of his mouth, still making oratorical motions
with his arms for the benefit of the howling crowd. “Hire


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
97
the ballroom! Doll it up! Order all the sandwiches and
cold stuff in the kitchen.”
“Say Jim! Just turn your lamps —”.
“Don't yammer, you jackass! Beat it!”
“Beat it,” he did. Attempting no more to post Jim on
the presence of the family, he poised on the rear edge of
the bandstand long enough to gather his purple Mother
Hubbard around his waist and give his long legs a chance,
hopped over the rail, grabbed the four still smoking
censers from the Omar Khayam float, and streaked it for
the hotel; while back in the park the laughter still rose
and fell and surged and reverberated.
Oh-ho-ho! There was the symbol of their prosperity,
flat on the ground! There was the emblem of their opu-
lence, flat on the ground! There was the canvas sham
which had been supposed to invite their investment in
Henry Beegoode's worthless sand patch, and it was flat
on the ground! Ah-ha-ha-ha, ladies and gentlemen and
fellow citizens! Ah-ho-ho-ho, you eager seekers after
opulence! Like many another golden dream it was only
a gauzy cheat, a smoking joke; and flat on the ground!
There was one spectator who was oddly touched by this
accident, stirred deep down by throbbing sympathy for
the stranger mountebank! With something keenly akin
to pain Jimmy Wallingford realized the completeness of
the disaster, realized the overwhelming defeat in that
laughter which would not down; and with the shared shame
of one who must look on at another's humiliation, he
watched his father. Why, the yellow-turbaned potentate
was now laughing with the crowd! His shoulders were
heaving in hilarity, his eyes were half closed in mirth, and
every inch of his huge broad-chested bulk and his round


98
THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
pink countenance seemed to radiate genial joviality!
He cracked jokes about the fall of New Bagdad! Then
he made an analogy of the fact that, as flimsy emblems
of things must give way to cold facts, so the disappearance
of the painted New Bagdad was but a symbolism that
now the dreams were dreamed, and that, on the spot where
now smoked these counterfeit chimneys, there should
forthwith be reared substantial structures of stone and
brick which should pour forth for them all golden streams
of opulence!
Agape, Jimmy Wallingford listened, saw those nearest
the bandstand stop laughing by and by and pay attention,
then those a little further away, in an ever widening ring;
and then the boy suddenly thrilled through and through
with something near to exultation as he saw that his
father was getting them! No, by George, he had them!
As the orator's mellifluent tones rolled on and on, rising
and falling in musical cadences which again wove dreams
of gold and wealth and limitless opulence, men's hands
went into their pockets and jingled their coins, and women
snapped and unsnapped their handbags! He had them!
He had them and he held them, even though the skies
darkened and the leaves of the trees flaunted up their
fish-white undersides, and the wind blew chill and the rain
drops began to fall! Oh, it was marvelous! It was magical,
the way this mesmeric big fellow held and swayed these
people; and the son of the mountebank's heart beat high
and his eyes were moist. This was the first time Jimmy
had ever seen his father at work, the first time he had had
even a distant inkling of the warm gift his father possessed,
- and Jimmy's mother, standing beside him, herself
under the spell of this master emotion which her husband


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
was able to instill into the hearts of humanity, looked at
Jimmy and at his swelling sympathy with the wizardry
of his father, and her heart sank within her and her face
blanched; for Jimmy was so like his father, so like!
There was a smart pattering of raindrops, and umbrellas
began to go up. As one awakening from a trance Jimmy
looked over at Mary, angelically sweet in her white
chiffon and white roses; and she smiled at him. That
smile was a stab, under the circumstances, a stab which
cut deeply, for Jimmy could not, must not see her until
he had talked with his father! He waved his hand to
Mary, and, taking his mother's arm, began to edge out of
the crowd with her, followed by Toad and Violet Bonnie;
and they hurried across to the hotel where all was in an
uproar. Every employee of the Splendide was scurrying
hither and yon at the beck and call of Blackie Daw; for the
four incense burners were already replenished and smoking
away along the side walls of the big ballroom, and, at the
far end of it, waiters were making a long buffet table out
of a lot of little square ones; on the platform two bell
boys were spreading over the speaker's table an Oriental
rug from the ladies' writing room, and Blackie himself was
in the musician's balcony with two porters, hanging a big
Afghanistan from the rail. That looked like an excellent
place for an interview, so, as the porters came down the
Wall family went up, where Blackie hailed the ladies and
the long lost boys with vast apparent joy, and tried to give
Violet Bonnie an enthusiastic kiss of welcome; but nay,
nay!
“Touch me one touch and I'll whistle for the police!”
she hissed. “I never met you before! I'm Mrs. Wall!"
“Wall?” That name had a ring to Blackie so familiar


100 THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
that Violet Bonnie's rage was wasted. He knew he'd
have time to “square" her, and would need time; but
this proposition was different. “Where do you get that
Wall stuff?”
“We're the Wall brothers!” blurted Toad, his freckles
black. “And that's our oil well on Curtis's place! And
this is our town! Say! What are you and Daddy Jim
doing here?”
“Well, I'll be — " and Horace G. Daw could get no
further.
“You bet you will be!” raged Violet Bonnie. “You're
a fine pair of poison pills! Do you know Jimmy has a girl
in this town; a girl he wants to marry!”
“Jimmy, put it there!” exclaimed Blackie, grabbing
the boy's hand in delight and patting him on the shoulder.
Then he noticed a slight lack of enthusiasm on Jimmy's
part, and, in fact, on the part of the entire Wall family.
He scratched his head in perplexity, and brightened.
Now he knew what was the matter! “Oh, about J. Rufe
and me. You see he was so lonesome for Jimmy, and so
cut up about what had happened, that I just had to put
him to work to keep him from going dippy; but he wouldn't
touch a thing unless it was upright, legitimate business.
So you can bank on it that this is right!”
“What is it?” asked Fannie, reserving her opinion until
she should be able to use her own ethical judgment.
“Ordinary real estate boom. We get a worthless piece
of land, work up a civic pride ballyhoo, and sell 'em back
their own property.”
“For more than it will ever be worth,” quietly com-
mented Jimmy, his lips straight. He knew now that there
was nothing he could do about this, or would do — except


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
101
tell Mary everything. He was, after all, the son of the
mountebank, and could neither control his father, nor
repudiate him. Each must lead his own life.
“What I want to know is this!” demanded Toad.
“In a year from now, will the people in this town be glad
you came here?”
“Hold on, cub.” Blackie was beginning to be very
uncomfortable. “If this deal of ours isn't clean commerce
I'll eat it! You buy a thing for as little as you can pay for
it, and sell it for as much as you can get! It's as legitimate
as peddling potatoes, and what's your holler!”
Fannie's apprehensive glance at Jimmy told her nothing.
Toad rasped his pompadour, and even Violet Bonnie was
at a loss for an answer to this, for to her it was bible good.
“Unless you've lied about it!” she added, as a spoken
conclusion to all her thought.
"I don't lie at home, and you know it!” retorted Blackie
indignantly, and glancing over the rail he saw Onion Jones
and Petrograd Pete come damply in and gaze wonderingly
around. “I have to hustle now. You stay right where you
are, and you'll have reserved seats for the party; and as
soon as Jim comes and we separate these fawns from their
money, we'll have a family reunion!”
“There's just one thing more!” Violet Bonnie stopped
him as he was for skipping down the little spiral stairs,
and she powdered her reddening nose energetically. “Who
was that cat-faced shrimp?”.
“Why that - er — my dear — she — "
“Don't lie to me!” his wife fairly shrieked at him, and
gave him a push from the impetus of which he caught
himself half way down.
There came a sudden strong blast of wind and a flurry


102
THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
of raindrops, and turning to the little high windows over
the musicians' balcony, the Wall family saw the yellow-
turbaned potentate leading his laughing and cheering herd
across the park, Henry Beegoode, in his cerise wrapper,
trotting alongside the potentate and carrying a little black
satchel for the money! In another instant here they came,
pell mell, and thronged through the doors of the Hotel
Splendide's grand ballroom, and snapped up the celery
and olives and pickles in the first grand rush, and waited
for more. The genuine sandalwood incense was going
good by now; and my, how you could smell it! That was
the trick which transformed this big bare room into a
caliph's divan of truly effete luxury! Oh, it was some
Oriental fete, without the shadow of a doubt; and as the
populace stood on each other's toes, and sniffed the
glorious incense, and waited for the buffet lunch, and
craned its necks to get a good view of those rainbow clad
members of the pageant who were seating themselves on
the rug-covered davenports on the dais, why the populace,
one and all, thrilled with the thought that this was them!
It was they who were part and parcel of this great civic
movement toward opulence and individual and collective
plutocracy! Where, where indeed, except in Fawnlake
City, could you find a gathering so representative? That
was the favorite word, representative! No one stopped
to question whether representative of who or what-
it was enough that they were a thoroughly and absolutely
representative gathering! And all they had to do was
put their shoulders to the wheel, give a collective heave,
and there you were! The prevailing and perfectly simple
idea seemed to be that if everybody bought lots in New
Bagdad and just got together and pushed, something was


104
THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
what they had before, minus their money! I see it quick
now! Tell me. Does anybody know yet that the boys are
connected with us?”
“Not a soul!”
“Then it's off! We'll choke the deal, and duck and
give 'em the town! Where are they?”
Up there. There was the boy, safe, sound, healthy and
hearty! But as Wallingford beamed his relief and his
affection to Fannie and Toad and Vi and his son, he found
an expression in Jimmy's eyes which made him pause and
catch his breath. There was no indignation in Jimmy, no
blazing resentment, just a sense of overwhelming hurt
which expressed itself in smiling quietness. There was
such telepathy between father and son, since their awaken-
ing to each other, that J. Rufus felt himself trembling; and
at that unpropitious instant Henry Beegoode, quivering
with the birth-throes of money in his system, bustled up
to Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford with:
“You know your business, of course, Mr. Wallingford,
but I know this town; and I'd suggest that you wind up
real quick, while they as good as have their money in their
hands!"
J. Rufus pulled himself together with a jerk, and his
emotion passed off in a chuckle as he looked down at
Henry Beegoode; while joy was in his soul!
“It's a great idea,” he admitted. “Just listen a minute,
and you'll hear me wind this up so quick it'll make your
head swim.” Whereupon he commanded the populace to
silence with a lift of his hand, and the populace hushed in
an instant like an infant getting its bottle; and in that
instant Petrograd Pete slipped the snippings of his
whiskers into the incense!


106
THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
“Perfectly simple,” the ex-potentate suavely returned,
grabbing off his turban to protect his nose. “It's off!”
“Well, my part of it ain't off!” twanged Henry, his
nose pinched shut by his gnarling fingers. “If you won't
sell, I will!”
“Oh, no you won't! Our contract places the exclusive
sale of this property in my hands, and not a cent is to be
taken from these people!”
“Then I want my ten thousand dollars!” shrilled
Henry, absent-mindedly removing his fingers from his
nose to shake his fist, but replacing them in a hurry.
“You'll buy that land for ten thousand dollars, out of
which you cheat me by stopping this deal, or I'll sue you
as soon as my lawyer can get out the papers! So help me!"
“How about him, Jim?” intoned Blackie at J. Rufus's
shoulder, his nostrils pinched shut with his nose glasses.
“There's a window handy, and there's a garbage wagon
just below the window!”
J. Rufus contemplated Blackie sadly, as he reflected
what a lawsuit might do to young Jimmy Wall's citizen-
ship and matrimonial designs in this town.
“Blackie, old pal, this petrified porcupine is the first
man who ever stung me with my consent, but I have to
fall. Mr. Beegoode, I'll give you ten thousand dollars
for your property tomorrow morning as soon as the bank
opens.”
"If I don't get it by ten o'clock you'll have a summons!"
gasped Henry Beegoode as he rushed for the door; and
ex-poet and ex-potentate rushed out the other door to
surreptitiously hunt the Wall family, whom they dared
not claim as their own, nor even openly greet.
The Wall family, however, had found their way out of


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD 107
the musicians' balcony to the lobby mezzanine, and were
now coming down the grand stairway. At the landing
Jimmy paused. There was Mary, under the stained glass
dome of the rotunda, still angelically sweet in her white
chiffon and white roses, and with her were Tal and Mother
Curtis and Grandma, and Caroline and Henry Beegoode,
and a heavy set young man with his back turned to the
stairway. They were all in excited conversation about
something or other, the break up of the land boom no
doubt, but that amusing speculation didn't interest
Jimmy. He was too much occupied with the strange
young man! Who was he? What right had he to hold
Mary so intimately by the arm while he talked! What
right had he to lean down so close to her? The big stiff!
Hot jealousy burned in Jimmy, and out of that acid-sharp
emotion came the necessity of seeing Mary right away.
He had a lot of things to tell her, important things, and
they wouldn't keep! He excused himself, raced down the
stairs with a nod to his father and Blackie who rounded
the newel post just then, and hurried straight for Mary.
He was within eight feet of his goal and full in the range
of Mary's smiling welcome when suddenly there rushed
upon him a lean, lanky, loose-jointed young woman with
a cerise hat, a green sport's jacket, and an abnormally
short plaid skirt which revealed her calves in all their
straight severity; and she screamed with delight:
“Why Snookums, old kid! How lucky is your little
Evelyn! The show's broke and so am I, darling! Dig!”
Whereupon she wrapped her snakelike arms around
“Snookums” and gave him a hearty smack, then rattled
on about how she had to get back to New York, and if
her old pal Jimmy was headed that way he could buy an


108
THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
extra ticket; if not, he could have over the cash — and
there were the lolly pops also! Suddenly Lanks stopped
her jabber, struck by the stupefaction in Jimmy, and
following his numb gaze she saw standing there a pretty
girl so pallid that she seemed all of a piece with her white
chiffon and white roses, except for her dark eyes wide with
horror; and panic clutched at the heart of the ungainly
Lanks, for she had a more tender regard for Jimmy than
he would ever know.
“What have I done!” she whispered. “Jimmy! What
have I done!" but Jimmy did not hear her, did not know
that she had stepped back from him; the strange young
man had turned. It was “Doc Blinkers!” It was the
medical student who had warned the son of Get-Rich-
Quick Wallingford to watch out for his lobeless ear!
Too late now for Jimmy to make a confession to Mary;
“Blinkers,” Henry Beegoode's son, told it all, his nose
hooked down and an ugly snarl on his lips. And those who
loved Jimmy had to stand by, helpless, and watch him
take this bitter lashing with never a physical wince,
though his face was set and his lips quivered in the deadly
hurt of it; for he was unable to offer a word in his own
defense - it was all true.
“Mary!” Toad confronted her as Tal patted her hand,
and Toad's honest face was aglow with loyalty. “Jimmy
was on his way to tell you all about it, to explain every-
thing!"
Slowly Mary Curtis found herself amid the wreckage
of her humiliated love, and it was a very straight-necked
and a very stiff little Mary who looked coldly at Toad.
“With more lies? He came here under an assumed name,
didn't he; won my friendship under an assumed decent


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
III
ing trumpet vine. Her cheeks flamed. That was where
she had stood when she had flirted with Jimmy, the son
of Get-Rich Quick Wallingford, “Snookums,” the chorus
girl's pet; and almost a shrill shriek escaped her as she
came to this phrase in her angry self-revilement. Up the
hill yonder, and visible through the high pillared perspec-
tive of the portico, was the big rock where she had kissed
him, unasked! Oh ye flaunting trumpet vines, oh ye
flamboyant peonies and ye dark red roses, how pale your
colors as contrasted with the crimson hue in little Mary's
cheeks! What must he think of her, this gay young
roisterer of the city, who had spent his careless time with
girls among whom kisses were cheap! Another startling
thought came out of that, a thought which gave her a bit
of pallor again and a grip at her heart. How many girls
had pressed their warm lips against his, how many girls
had his arm encircled and drawn strongly closer? Suddenly
this girl of wholesome ancestors and high ideals felt soiled,
degraded, common by having grouped herself with these
others, and unconsciously she rubbed her lips with the
back of her hand, rubbed them harshly, roughly, as if by
that she could have taken off the contamination of the
kiss which had lingered there, a sweetly quivering thing,
these whole two weeks. In the nights she had felt the
tingle of that kiss, and now she hated him for it! Snookums,
the chorus girl's pet! Why wasn't it possible that bad
people should show their badness in their faces, so that
decent folk might take warning and stay away? Then up
rose before her thought the face of young Jimmy, a smooth
oval face with smiling lips and gentle eyes; rose before her
the tall form of Jimmy, with its easy poise and muscular
grace, and a sharp pain was in Mary's heart and a knowl-


I I2
THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
.
edge which sickened her; that throughout her, from head
to foot, she had been in sympathy with the tall Jimmy;
and she hated him for it; hated him! And in her something
mourned.
The caste of a family is shown by when it begins its
arguments after a public humiliation. Those of primitive
layer begin their quarrel where they are; those a stratum
above begin it as soon as they are outside; others as soon
as they come in sight of home; and the more reserved wait
until they are behind their own doors. Such last were
the Curtises. Except for Grandma's constantly quavered,
“My, my! I can't seem to believe it! My, my!”, no one
spoke a word until they had entered the house and thrown
up the blinds and opened the windows, and disposed of
their hats and various impedimenta, and selected their
favorite places in the corner of the portico, where Tal,
his mind distressed by the face of Mary whom he had
covertly watched all the way up the hill, said:
“Well, well, I'll declare, if this hasn't been a day!”
Absolutely nothing ensued on this remark, except that
Emily Curtis cast a marblized eye briefly in his direction,
and folded her thin hands lengthwise in her lap, one on
the other. Tal mopped his brow and rumpled the curls
at the back of his neck, as if that might give him some
idea for fixing matters which seemed in such crying need
of fixing. Mary sat on the porch rail, motionless, staring
up over the hill toward the top of the ugly derrick.
“You know, maybe after all we're wrong,” Tal ventured
bye and bye, being careful to speak to no one in particular.
“Maybe we should have given Jimmy a chance to explain;
maybe he could have shown us a good, straight, honest
reason for everything he's done. Maybe — "


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
113
“Tal!” The voice of Emily Curtis was as stiff and
rigid as her backbone, and Tal visibly wilted. “I should
think you'd consider your family before you defend those
young criminals! All the town knows that we have been
associating with swindlers and thieves! Mary has been
made ridiculous for life!” A slight movement from Mary,
but she did not turn, as her mother went on with rising
voice and growing aggravation. Emily Curtis's wrath
was one of those which grows by what it feeds on, and
was usually a crescendo affair. “All Fawnlake City knows
that Mary was as good as engaged to young Wall -
Wallingford! — or ought to be, and she has that to thank
you for!”
“Oh, well, now mother, see here!” broke in Tal, rubbing
the curls at the nape of his neck most vigorously.
“Talbot!” This was worse than “Tal,” more severe.
“The less you say the better. It's your easy-going weak-
ness that got us into this! You brought those strangers
off the road into your family, you jumped head fore-
most into their swindling trap, and now we've lost our
land!”
“My, my, I just can't seem to believe it!” quavered
grandma, rocking to and fro in her little rocker; “My, my!"
but no one paid any attention to her.
“It isn't father's fault,” said Mary, very evenly, without
turning her head. “You mustn't blame him for it. It was
my fault, altogether mine!”
“Why, Honey!” Tal couldn't bear to see that bitterness
in his little Mary. “You mustn't say that! Lord knows
you didn't do anything you oughtn't to have done, honey.
They asked you for some water for their engine, and you
gave it to them; then I came along and talked with the


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
115
Sweet Patootie and asked me to take a ride, I declare
I'd go.”
An explosive laugh came on this, and it came from Mary.
She laughed and she laughed, dropping her arms by her
sides limply, and Tal beamed with delight at this change
in Honey, until bye and bye the laughter had a queer
sound, and he hurried over to her; and she came into his
arms and sobbed until she stopped from exhaustion, while
he smoothed and smoothed at her pretty brown hair, and
called her his baby! Grandma looking on in deep approval,
for Tal had always been such a comfort to her, decided
on just the delicate moment when Mary might be better
off alone, and took her son into the house.
The wisdom of the aged only comes with age, and youth
cannot absorb it. The things which had changed little
Mary still existed. There was the ugly derrick, reminding
her of the swindle she had brought on them, there was
the trumpet-vined gateway to remind her of her "flirta-
tion,” there was the big rock on the hill where she
had kissed him, unasked! Round and round she came
to that kiss, and every time she came to it the hot
blood of shame flamed in her cheeks, and her hands
gripped; and in the years to come shame would overtake
her when she thought of it. She had thrown herself at
him, had been bold, had been forward, had exposed
herself to whatever he might choose to think of her, and
she hated him for it.
Suddenly into her turgid reverie there broke a babble
of voices, feminine voices, and turning swiftly toward the
gate she beheld six of the seven lollypops flocking through,
in a kaleidoscope of colors which made the grand oriental
pageant seem like a faded dream. Mary's first instinct


I 16
THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
was for flight, but something held her there, red eyes and
all; she was too proud to run away, with Lanks hurrying
up the walk and calling:
“Miss Curtis! Oh Miss Curtis!”
Mary even faced them, especially Lanks; and let them
see her red eyes; and took their sympathy standing straight
and stiff, but very small alongside the huge portico pillar.
They had a purpose, however, far more businesslike than
sympathy, as was clearly evident in them.
“I hope you'll excuse us for intruding, Miss Curtis,"
said Lanks, with unusual seriousness as she considered
how very pretty Jimmy's girl was; while the actress in the
other girls took careful note of Mary's poise and under-
studied everything she did. She was real gentlefolks.
The seventh lollypop, Maria Theresa Plomps, turned in
at the gate puffing and gasping for breath, and, expending
her last ounce of energy in a rush for the portico, dropped
in the big armchair and began fanning herself. The
McCabe sisters, in lemon and orange today, sat side by
side at one end of the broad porch settle, and Cleo Patra
sank languidly in the other end and disposed herself in
crimson voluptuousness. Shimmie Devere flung herself
on the steps with all the abandon of a boy; and Florodora
Sexton chose Mother Curtis's straight backed chair and
sat picturesquely posed with her hands atop the long
handle of her parasol. Lanks remained standing. “We
think it's only right to tell you,” she went on with some
difficulty, “that you probably have Jimmy Wallingford
all wrong."
“I'll say she has!” seconded Shimmie Devere vigorously,
a trace of resentment in the glance she cast at Mary.
“Snookums is an all right kid, about the best there is,


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
117
and I wouldn't be afraid to let him take my little sister
to a wine supper, if I had a little sister."
Mary's level eyes turned only a moment to Shimmie,
and then they turned away. She waited for Lanks; Lanks
was the one she felt.
"Jimmy and Ed have been good pals to all of us,” went
on Lanks quietly. “I heard that his father was in town,
we girls were broke, and I went there to introduce myself
to Mr. Wallingford, knowing that he would help us to get
back to New York, for he is a very generous man.”
Mary's expression plainly conveyed that this didn't
matter, and Lanks paused for a moment. She felt an
indefinable antagonism between them, and the instant she
was aware of it she smiled at Mary ingratiatingly. “Then
I saw Jimmy in the lobby, and — well you'll never know
what it means to lay eyes unexpectedly like that on an old
friend, because you'll never be broke in a strange town.”
“So what does she do,” burst in Maria Theresa Plomps,
“but rush up to old friend, wrap a wing around him, buss
him a kiss, and touch him for carfare — and take it from
me, sister, he don't think any more of Lanks than he does
of any of us!”
“Right,” agreed Lanks; and she smiled; cheerfully.
“Let me tell you the facts,” drawled a sibilant voice.
Cleo Patra, holding her willowy languor superbly. “Your
sweet friend, the gentleman with the sidewhiskers, did a
neat bit of meowing, down at the hotel. A couple of
months ago he butted into a crowd which didn't know he
was on earth, and without an excuse called Jimmy the
son of a crook, and handed him a slam about his lobeless
ear; and before Jimmy could do anything about it, my
pet friend, Spots, gave him a flat nose.”


118
THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
“And it was a lovely piece of work!” added Maria
Theresa Plomps with sturdy enthusiasm.
“We were all seven there, Miss Curtis, and saw it,"
corroborated Dottie McCabe; and since Mary seemed
unimpressed, Lottie added: “That's why we all seven of
us came up, after Lanks, Miss Anderson, I mean, told us
what had happened. We all want you to know the truth
about Jimmy!”
“So you see, Miss Curtis,” resumed Cleo the vamp,
“when your friend with the side whiskers saw Jimmy today
and knew that he was a - a friend of yours, why that
was the chance to get even; and if a girl pulled the kind of
play Blinkers Beegoode did, everybody'd say how catty
women are!”
"I beg your pardon!” broke in a pedantic voice, and
they all turned to find Dr. Bertram Beegoode standing
on the portico steps. It was wonderful to see the glare
of masculine severity with which Dr. Bertram Beegoode,
conscious of his own impeccable rectitude, surveyed those
moral lepers, the seven lollypops; equally wonderful to
see the instantaneous and unanimous venom with which
they returned his glare and watched him cross to take the
hand of Jimmy's girl! “Mary,” said he, “I have my side
of that story to relate. Young Wallingford was corrupting
the freshmen of my college, and — "
"It's quite all right, Bert,” interrupted Mary, and this
was the first word she had spoken. “I don't need any
defense for you. I have known you for years, and have
known you always to be a gentleman.”
“Gentleman!” flared Cleo, losing for the moment her
languid poise, and stiffening from her willowy vampiness.
“Well, where we come from, gentlemen don't insult ladies!"


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
119
“Which he sure did!” vociferated Plomps. “Then
Snookums called Blinkers, and Blinkers opened up on
Snookums, and Spots smashed Blinkers! We're honest
girls working for a living, we are, and your side-sluggered
friend called us questionable characters, meaning - "
"Don't get rough, Plomps!” piped the babylike voice
of Florodora.
Again Mary stopped Dr. Bertram Beegoode with a
tightening of her clasp on his arm, as he filled his lungs for
an indignant dissertation on his views of virtue and their
views of vice, or perhaps his views of vice and their views
of virtue.
“I think I have heard all that young Mr. Wallingford
sent you to tell me.” Mary now turned fully on Lanks,
and thereby stopped the impetuous denial which she had
felt, rather than seen, welling up in that angular person -
for Jimmy hadn't sent them! “Your errand is wasted,
for I am not interested in anything concerning him. He
and his friends look at right and wrong so differently from
Dr. Beegoode and myself and our frends, that we could
not have anything in common. You may tell him that,
if you like. Will you come into the house, Bert?”
The lollypops had risen in a row, and Florodora laid a
restraining hand on Plomps whose elbows were squared
as if for action. The rest remembered that they were
ladies, and that there was but one thing to do, not be
found on the portico when the door closed! They were
stopped by a parting shot from "Blinkers.”
"And if you want to carry a message to young Walling-
ford from me,” he stated with the severity of a Puritan
father, "you may tell him that the sooner he leaves this
town, the better."


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THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
“All right, dearie!” yelled Plomps, half way down the
path. “And here's a little message from me to you. Go to
hell!” Grabbing up a clod from beneath the lilac bush,
she slammed it in his general direction so vigorously that
it splattered against the screen door, and cast a cloud of
dust over all that part of the portico.
Feeling that they had done their best for Jimmy, the
seven lollypops then “beat it” for the Hotel Splendide,
where they bulged into the sumptuous third floor front
suite, relieving a silence which had been painful. Words
had not seemed to fit the tragedy which had fallen on
Jimmy! With seven voices the lollypops explained, while
being introduced, just where they had been, and what they
had been trying to do and what they had done, and not -
relating everything circumstantially, except the message of
Plomps.
“So Jimmy boy, I'm afraid it's a frost,” confessed
Lanks, putting her hand on his shoulder as he sat in the
window looking out over the park, and gazing down at
him so compassionately that Fannie Wallingford, watch-
ing this as she watched everything which concerned
Jimmy, divined something which Lanks did not intend
to reveal. “I can't tell you how sorry I am, old kid, but
it looks to me like this town's spoiled for you.”
Jimmy didn't answer, but looked motionlessly out
across the park. His recent fellow citizens were scurrying
to and fro down there, and the birds were flitting from
bough to bough, piping up in their clear voices about how
fresh and beautiful the world was since the rain had
stopped, and the chimney tops of New Bagdad over there
on the sand were still smouldering and casting up their
black smoke to dirty Jimmy's whole horizon. Fannie


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
121
Wallingford unclasped her hands, and clasped them
again. J. Rufus looked at Jimmy, troubled. He felt, and
correctly, that any word of advice from him, at this junc-
ture, wouldn't sound right, could be picked to pieces and
turned inside out, and reflected back against him with a
dull sickening thud.
“And all the wreck was wrought by a puerile party
with sideburns!” suddenly blazed Violet Bonnie Daw.
“I couldn't write a book full of scientific splush about the
different parts of the human map, but if I know anything
about faces, as I studied 'em on Broadway and back stage,
I'd say that husky side-whiskered simp could be made the
fall guy for any kind of disgrace that'd look exciting in
the papers — and he's got lobes on his ears at that!”
Two people suddenly looked up at Vi; they were father
and son; and on the round pink face of the one, and on the
oval pink face of the other, there came the musing twitch
of a smile, in the eyes of both a studious light which
presently grew into a sparkle. There was something
exhilarating now in the look which passed between father
and son, something like a tonic in the quickness of intellect
with which each mind understood the other; and Blackie
Daw smoothed at his pointed mustaches with cat-like
precision, grinning contentedly.


CHAPTER X
BUSINESS IS BUSINESS
PROMPTLY at nine A.M., Messrs. Wallingford and Daw
emerged from the wide portals of the Hotel Splendide,
and presented themselves to the quivering inspection of
downtown Fawnlake City. In all the world there was no
topic, which, on this next day after the grand Oriental
fizzle, so interested and agitated Fawnlake City as the
topic of Messrs. Wallingford and Daw! There they were,
the tall broad fellow and the tall lean fellow, side by side,
in even step, their silk hats and their patent leather shoes
glistening in the sun, and them resplendent from head to
foot in the best of tailoring and the best of haberdashery,
and the best of everything. Rascals! That's what they
were. Crooks! Grafters! Fawnlake City didn't exactly
understand what had happened, but it had a vague impres-
sion that somehow or other the town had been providen-
tially saved from some vast devastating swindle, which
would have pauperized them all. Terrible people, Messrs.
Wallingford and Daw, people to shun, people to despise;
and people to excite marvel by their brazen effrontery.
Why, they hadn't even left town yet! If they didn't go
pretty soon they should be run out! Gray-whiskered
Dan Ayers, always loafing in front of his cigar store, was
just thinking this when the two smooth frauds turned in
his direction, and the round pink face of J. Rufus bright-
ened at sight of Dan, and Blackie grinned and gave the
high sign of the grand United Order of Kidders, which
122


124
THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
suggested: “Your check will do just as well, Mr. Walling-
ford, and also I have Mr. Terwixter in my office now, if
you'd like to conclude the transaction at once.”
Sulky defiance was right. That was the entire spirit
animating Messrs. Wallingford and Daw this morning,
and Henry enjoyed himself quite well as the big culprit
growled:
“I'll have nothing more to do with your lawyer! He
drew up the contract that's costing me ten thousand
dollars. What you'll do, Beegoode, is this. You'll come
over to my hotel with me and take your pay in cash, and
give me a straightforward bill of sale which I'll write
myself, or you don't get my ten thousand!”
“It isn't regular," objected Mr. Beegoode. “I'm only
proposing the lawyer and the usual legal forms for your
protection, Mr. Wallingford; though of course, so long as
I get the ten thousand dollars, I don't mind walking across
the street. I'll fetch my hat.
“And another thing!” snapped J. Rufus. “I don't
want this hold-up snickered about until I can get my
family out of town, so bring along a witness you can trust
to keep his mouth shut!”
It might have been noticed by a shrewd on-looker that
into the eyes of both Mr. Wallingford and Mr. Daw there
came a sort of waiting expression after this demand, then
the waiting expression gave way to one of satisfaction as
Henry Beegoode's frowning face was lightened by a
perfectly normal conclusion:
“I'll bring my son Bert. He's right back in the office.”
The cornered culprits affected to take the suggestion of
Dr. Bertram Beegoode most unpleasantly. As a matter of
fact, however, before they had started from the hotel


126
THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
to, you wouldn't have two fountain pens to pay for,"
snapped Henry, who began to feel that he was losing
interest on that pile of one thousand dollar bills which
lay so temptingly before him.
“Will this do, Mr. Wallingford?” inquired Mr. Daw
respectfully, and he produced a gold-mounted pencil.
Mr. Wallingford shook his head at it, but young Dr.
Beegoode said sharply:
“It will do as well as ink.”
“Good in any court,” snapped Henry. “Write your
bill of sale.”
“Better anyway,” suddenly decided Wallingford as
with a bright idea. “With a pencil I can take a carbon of
it, and the two copies will be identical.” He took from a
drawer a carbon sheet, interposed the carbon between the
third and the fourth sheets of his big writing pad, rapidly
wrote the bill of sale and offered it for signature. Nose-
glasses held to his eyes and paper in hand, Henry Beegoode
scanned every comma and period of that bill of sale, then
appended his signature with the pencil. It was a hard
pencil and he had to press firmly to make a mark. Young
Dr. Beegoode inspected the document by period and by
comma, and appended his signature as a witness. Mr.
Horace G. Daw, twirling his sharply pointed mustaches
so that they drooped straight down and were forlornly
ragged, inspected that paper by period and comma, and
appended his signature as a witness. Then Mr. Walling-
ford handed over the money, and while the side-burned
Henry Beegoode greedily counted it under the equally
greedy surveillance of the equally side-burned Dr. Bertram
Beegoode, both hook-nosed and crow's-footed, Mr. Wal-
lingford folded, right on the pad, the two copies of the


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD 127
bill of sale legal fashion, and folded with them the next
blank sheet, which was number five from the top of the pad!
“Here's your copy,” gruffly proferred J. Rufus; then
slipping from the inside of the packet the two copies
together, both the original and the carbon of the bill of sale,
he handed them, as if they were one paper, to Henry Bee-
goode, and at the same time he placed sheet number five,
the blank page folded like the others, in his breast pocket.
Without much care Henry Beegoode put his copy of
the bill of sale in his long pocket book. It had little value
to him. Wallingford was the one to whom the document
meant something. The money was the only thing of inter-
est or value to Henry, and as he tucked that carefully
away, he observed:
“Well Mr. Wallingford, leaving ten thousand dollars
in a town, in place of taking money out, ought to be a
lesson to you — he, he, he!”
"He, he, he,” echoed young Dr. Beegoode. “And I
suppose you and your family will be going elsewhere as
rapidly as possible.”
“Well, no," returned Mr. Wallingford, with such a
sudden dropping of his nervous funk, and such a sudden
resumption of his twinkling-eyed suavity, that Henry
Beegoode, also Doc, stared at him, perplexed. “I'm not
going to leave town. I intend to remain here; with my
family.”
Henry and Doc cast glances at each other; slow, linger-
ing glances.
“You're — you're going to remain!” repeated Henry,
incredulously. “After all that's happened?” and he
was annoyed to observe that Blackie Daw, who had now
twisted his mustaches straight up, was lightly fingering


128
THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
the keys of his saxophone, and humming a playful air
as if making sure of the notes he would presently toot.
“Why, yes, Mr. Beegoode, in spite of all that or which
has happened,” returned J. Rufus, his eyes half closing
now and his round pink face wreathed in a smile, while
his chest and his broad shoulders heaved a silent chuckle.
“I'm going to stay here, for the same reason that yesterday
I refused to sell any share of that New Bagdad site; which,
as you may soon have occasion to remember, was at that
time part yours; he! he! he!” and allowing his chuckle to
come forth, jovially and genially and freely, he signifi-
cantly tapped the breast pocket where he had put his
supposed copy of the bill of sale, led the way to the door,
opened it and bowed out his visitors with various thoughts
struggling in them, startled thoughts, thoughts unpleasant
to men who loved money. Already Henry Beegoode began
to fear that he had made a mistake!
“You'd better not pull any hocus-pocus on me, Get-
Rich-Quick Wallingford!” he warned, and then the door
was closed; from the inside. From the inside also, there
came a disquieting dual peal of laughter.
“Now if they don't find that they have both copies
before they get on the street we're safe,” speculated J.
Rufus. “Where's that hot water, Blackie, and the fish
platter?”
From the bath room Blackie brought the platter full of
hot water, and in a moment more their sheet of blank
paper was face downward in the dish. A long time they
bent over it, and then they breathed mutual signs of
relief as through the wet paper they could see the violet
letters slowly taking form. Sheet five from the top of the
pad; the chemically treated sheet, and now a copy of that


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
129
bill of sale, as enduring as the paper itself; complete;
signatures of witnesses, and all!
“Lobes on their ears, eh?” commented J. Rufus with
savage vindictiveness, “nice, pretty well-formed lobes!”
He watched the completion of the chemical miracle, and
frowned. “There's one thing we hadn't thought of,
Blackie. Now that we have the blasted desert, how do we
make Henry wish he had it back?”
“That's up to you, Jim,” grinned Blackie. “Any fool
can grab an opportunity, but a wise guy makes 'em.”
They were interrupted by a loud “clucking” out in
front, as if a particularly active barnyard had been moved
into Main Street, and J. Rufus grabbed his hat.
“The chicks are flocking to the chicken farm," he
guessed. “Far be it from me to stay out of any party
which can laugh.”
Down at the curb stood Sweet Patootie and the hotel
bus, and into the latter were thronging the seven lollypops
when Blackie sprang among them. It was Cleo the vamp
who captured Toad and added him to the bus party, and
as they rolled away with Jimmy and J. Rufus and Fannie
and Violet Bonnie following in Sweet Patootie, downtown
Fawnlake City once more quivered with thrills. At last
the hordes of vice and the minions of evil were on their
way! Fawnlake City was to be rid of their presence, to be
surged, to be clean!
Something was the matter, however. They were not
going downcast, as they should in defeat, but gaily, even
as conquering heroes, and singing on their way! And say,
something else was wrong! They didn't turn off at Wash-
ington Street for the depot, and they didn't turn off at
Hamilton Street nor Tyler Street! B' jinks, they weren't


130
THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
going to the station at all! They were going right up Main
Street, insulting that respectable thoroughfare with shout-
ing and laughter and such ungodly ditties as “How Dry
I Am” and “We Want More Lager Beer” and “Where's
Your Father, Mine's in Jail”! Scandalous! Perfectly
scandalous; but George Prince the best dressed young man
in town, and better known as Prince George Prince, and
Sam Hecket, the leading “sport” of the city, and Frank
Gippert, the swift-moving son of Gippert & Son, Boots
and Shoes, and gray-whiskered Dan Ayers, and a lot more
reflected that they were a fine and dandy lot of lookers!
From the windows of his offices above the bank Dr.
Bertram Beegoode watched them pass, and his nose
hooked down and his lip snarled, for through and through
him Doc did despise the unrighteous and the frivolous,
them and all their ways. They were corrupters of the
world! Caroline Beegoode, sister of Bertram, eldest child
of Henry, was on her lawn snipping roses when the ribald
roisterers came by, now singing “Hail, Hail, The Gang's
All Here,” and as Blackie Daw audaciously blew Caroline
a kiss, she snipped her finger in place of a rose, and threw
down her shears in a rage, and, dashing straight into the
house, took a dose of bitters to ward off a bilious attack.
She was poisoned for life, was Caroline, and Horace G.
Daw had better never sit at her feast if she were Queen of
Egypt! On up the hill they rolled, and turned with a wide
circle in front of the Curtis gate with its over-arching
trumpet vines, and stopped at Mrs. Waite's across the
road, and startled into giddy foolishness the staid and
respectable old echo which dwelt in the Curtis hills.
Mrs. Waite and her spinster sisters-in-law, Patience and
Prudence, afraid and yet thrilled over the splendid bargain


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
131
they had made last night with Mrs. Daw and Mrs. Wall-
ingford, came hurrying out to greet them and the young
ladies who were to be "rested"; then down tumbled the
lollypops from the bus, helter-skelter, with such a reckless
display of lingerie and hosiery and garters and bare knees
as made the Waites, particularly the Misses Waites, gasp
so violently that never again would they have the normal
control of their lungs. Into the house the chicks rushed,
and there was a great bustle and flurry of taking in luggage
and sorting it; and all the blinds of the second story
windows popped up, and out of all the windows popped
heads with hair curly and wavy and straight, black, red,
yellow and brown, and head yelled to head, and laughter
such as the rambling old Waite house had never known
resounded through it.
Life, vigorous, bounding life had come up on the hill
where the Gander family crossed, and the tang of it might
have gripped any one who watched; but not little Mary
Curtis, leaning against the big pillar on the side portico,
concealed amid the honeysuckles. What did it mean?
Something unpleasant and aimed at her, she was sure.
How could the Wallingfords and the Daws be so brazen
after their exposure? How could they carry themselves
with such cheerful effrontery? How could they be so
apparently happy in bringing those young women up here,
across from her home! Hadn't they done enough? Hadn't
Jimmy She stopped herself abruptly. There were no
tears in Mary now, she had shed them all during the night;
but where she leaned against the big pillar, the honey-
suckles trembled.
The party on the other side of the road ignored the
Curtis place, except for Toad who looked over constantly,


132 THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
rasping his stubborn hair. Jimmy came out of the house,
where he had escorted his mother and Aunt Vi, and as he
joined his father and Blackie and Toad in Sweet Patootie,
out of the various windows there welled a chorus of
affectionate goodbyes to “Snookums," also “Spots” and
“Pops” and “Legs,” which last was the name most in
favor for B. Daw. Then Sweet Patootie trundled down
to the corner and through the gap which had been made
for it in the Curtis fence, and wound round the hill to the
oil well, the Big Hope!
"The Big Hope" chuckled J. Rufus, and slapped Jimmy
on the shoulder to ease the sting of that taunting reminder.
"All right, kid, if you want to, but there's oil down
there!” flared Toad indignantly, his freckles beginning to
glow.
“Maybe, maybe,” grinned Blackie, looking into the
little round black hole, a solid cylinder of emptiness one
thousand feet down. “Maybe, maybe, maybe. And dust
down there no doubt, and chunks of rock, and bugs and
other things.”
Both young oil prospectors disdained any further tech-
nical conversation and clattered into their tent to pack
for moving back to the expensive Splendide while Blackie
amused himself by dropping the drill and winding it up
again with prodigious effort, and Jimmy's father sank into
troubled thought. The boy's acumen in forming this
company, with the railroad joker in it, was entirely too
professional to put at ease one who knew that profession
all too thoroughly!
The boys had finished their packing when the resident
stockholders of The Big Hope Oil Company marched
solemnly up the hill in the wake of their natural leader,


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
133
Talbot Curtis. Talbot was forcibly fortified with honest
indignation that these smooth strangers should have tried
to make a dupe of him, and when he came upon the four of
them clustered near the unproductive hole in the ground,
he walked straight over to them and said:
“Well, well, I declare, here you all are, together! Good
morning gentlemen.”
“Hello Tal!” Toad turned swiftly and gripped his hand
like a long lost brother; while Tal felt the piercing eyes of
Ma Curtis boring into the back of his neck. He cleared
his throat. This hadn't been at all the sort of a start he
had expected to make, which, in fact, he'd have to make.
He screwed up his entire determination, and avoiding the
beaming eye of J. Rufus and the friendly grin of Blackie
Daw, he took a firm grip of the lapel of his pongee coat
and said, not to anybody in particular, but just generally:
“Gentlemen, I'm sorry to say that we are compelled to
ask for a dissolution of the corporation heretofore com-
prised of my family and young misters — misters —"
He trailed off in confusion, while he debated whether to
use the new names or the old ones of Jimmy and Toad.
“Business is business, Mr. Curtis,” Jimmy's quiet
gaze swept straight past the pallidly silent Mary, and
rested on Tal with the impersonal directness of a com-
mercial man. “We have a perfectly valid agreement as
to this enterprise, and a properly organized company
legally sanctioned. There has been nothing to invalidate
our transaction so far, and we shall continue with the
work. The engine will be here tomorrow or day after."
“Will it?” Tal's voice rang with eagerness.
“Talbot!”
“Of course, mother," returned Tal hastily, and he


CHAPTER XI
THE PRIVILEGE OF BEING GOOD
DOCTOR BERTRAM BEEGOODE had chosen his profession
and his location with the fine commercial perspicacity
characteristic of the Beegoodes, for no sooner had he
“hung out his shingle” in his suite of dignified offices over
the bank, than various sedate matrons, who had eligible
daughters, obligingly discovered ailments about which to
consult, professionally, the richest young man in town.
In consequence, it was no shock to the newly fledged
physician to have his door open in office hours, but it was
a shock to look around and discover the McCabe sisters;
Dottie in blue today and Lottie in pink, both fluffy and
dainty, and as sweetly redolent as a sun-baked field of
new-mown hay. At the first sight of these ungodly persons,
Doctor Bertram Beegoode, M.D., frowned in resentment,
then he reminded himself that a healer must know no
personalities; so he received the McCabe sisters with due
gravity and asked what he might do for them, though
coldly.
"I think I've sprained my ankle, Doc,” explained Dottie
walking with a quite perceptible limp; and she went
straight into his consultation room, where she seated her-
self and looked up at the doctor with charming expectancy.
"Oh, I see,” said he profoundly, and drawing a chair
in front of her he stared at her neat little round-toed
patent leather slippers. From the slippers upward went
a pair of sheer blue stockings, encasing a pair of extremely
136


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
137
neat ankles. In spite of his well-cultivated professional
solemnity Dr. Beegoode felt a slight trace of embarrass-
ment, which came because he thought this young woman
to be the sort of young woman he thought her to be -
and she therefore flaunted sex, in place of merely having
gender as all circumspect females should. He fought down
his embarrassment, intensely aggravated that he should
have had to do so, and gruffly inquired: “Which ankle?”
“The Methodist,” laughed Dottie, holding her left
foot forward. “The other one's a heathen and dances
without any training, but this one always has to be
taught."
Since the Methodist ankle was poked upward at him
he caught hold of it, uncomfortably conscious that Lottie
was flirting from his office window with some one across
the street. He twisted the ankle forwards and backwards
and sidewise, and Dottie winced. He gazed at it some
little time.
"Perhaps we'd better – er - er —” He stiffened and
his tone gruffed down a couple of notes. “Remove your
shoe and stocking, please.”
Quite dexterously Dottie's hand went up under her
skirt, revealing far less of lingerie and limb than if she'd
just been sitting smoking a cigarette, and the stocking
slid down, with a ruffled blue garter dangling its coral
beads and edged in coral satin, and the slipper somehow
came off when the stocking did, and Doc found thrust
into his hand a beautiful white foot with a baby pink sole
and exquisitely polished pink nails. She did barefoot
dances, did Dottie, and that foot of hers had been several
times sculped. To the artists it had been a beautiful bit
of nature with which art might well dignify itself; but to


140
THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
again as she laid her hand on her chest, and shivered
it.
“Sit down, please.” Twenty-four hours had enabled
Dr. Beegoode to take himself severely to task for his
unethical embarrassment of yesterday, and he was now
able to grab a stethoscope and methodically stethoscope
Shimmie's chest, right, left, front and back, without
noticing her dimples, her piquant chin, her full red lips,
or the dancing light in her eye. Her chest was mere
anatomy- and she herself mere female gender! Only,
the infernal stethoscope told him nothing! Very well,
sometimes it didn't. Sometimes the human ear was better,
and he proceeded to apply it; but as he approached his
human ear to the gender's anatomy, the anatomy suddenly
shivered! Nervousness, no doubt, and nervousness doubt-
less accounted also for that giggle. He raised his head
and waited an instant, then he applied the human ear
again. Again the shiver of the torso and the giggle, but
Doc hesitated no more; he pressed the side of his head
firmly to Shimmie Devere's chest, and held it firmly there
but all he could detect was a marvelous velvety softness
and an agreeable warmth, no out-of-the-way sound at all,
except a rushing, constant and increasing, such a sound
as he had never before heard in a living chest; but when it
at last dawned on him that this rushing sound was in his
own ear, he was furious with himself! He raised abruptly
and turned to his desk to hide his temporary complexion.
"It's nothing," he said. “Nothing. The bronchial
tubes are not affected in even the remotest degree, and
you have no cold! The slight pain of which you complain
is most likely a touch of pleurisy. I'll give you a prescrip-
tion for it.”


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
141
“Thank you,” gurgled Shimmie sweetly, and he was
conscious, was Doc, though he was looking the other way,
that her left shoulder shrugged and her right one jerked,
that her dimples were dimpling, and her eyes were snap-
ping, and her lips were red; red; red as cherries, red as rose
petals; and curved!
He stayed in his seat at his desk after Shimmie had left
the office, and very energetically opened his set of books.
He'd started a day book on the first day, and now he
started a ledger. He would not go to the window; and yet,
in about two minutes and twenty seconds or thereabouts
he did go to the window, automatically, while he was
trying to remember some item he had not entered, and,
being at the window, he looked out, and looking out he
saw Shimmie across the way. She nodded gaily to young
Frank Gippert, of Gippert & Son, Boots and Shoes -
She'd bought a pair of shoes there yesterday, and Frank
watched her as she swung lightly up Main Street, watched
her with a pained and puzzled expression until she was
out of sight; and Doc Beegoode watched her with a pained
and puzzled expression until she was out of sight.
Mrs. Primson and her fragile daughter Jaqueline were
in Dr. Beegoode's office next morning consulting the doctor
about daughter's interesting lack of appetite, and arousing
in him, if possible, a sympathy for Jaqueline which should
be both professional and personal, when lanky Evelyn
Anderson came in with Miss Cleo Patra and Floradora
Sexton. A figure like the Venus de Milo had Floradora,
the manners of a perfect lady, a Fifth Avenue outfit of
well-repressed stylish dignity, and large, melting eyes
which never seemed to deliberately rove in search of
admiration but just happened to rest on one, and melt
lorac
Aven,
and


142
THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
and melt and melt. As for Miss Cleo Patra, oh! To say
that she was a crimson vamp today is putting it crudely
and mildly indeed. She was got up, within and without,
expressly to lure and wile, and if there was any feminine
enticement she possessed which she had not put into the
most effective use, it was because she hadn't discovered it
as yet; and she was a deep searcher. “Lanks" displayed
today a red jacket, a sand-colored skirt, black shoes, white
stockings and red garters. It was she who led the way,
and the three of them sat decorously enough in the outer
office; but from that instant Doc Beegoode was miserably
aware that the anæmic Primsons froze. Waiting only
long enough for a prescription, they sailed out, drawing
their skirts tightly about them to keep any edge of their
garments from touching the scarlet-lined, dove-grey
summer cloak of the terrible Cleo!
"Save me, doctor, save me!” invited “Lanks,” gangling
in immediately to the consultation room, followed by the
divine Floradora and the sinuous Cleo, oh! “I'm a nervous
woman, doctor!” Lanks tossed her snaky arms aloft.
“I'm near the verge of a hysterical breakdown! Ha, ha,
ha, ha, ha!” and flopping into a chair, she crossed her legs
and wrapped one long, lean foot around the fleshless calf
of the other leg. “Sometimes I laugh like this: 'he, he,
he, he,' and sometimes like this: 'ho, ho, ho, ho'.” She
trailed this last illustration off into a fit of apparently
uncontrollable mirth, slapping her hands on her knees and
rocking her body to and fro.
“There, there, dearie,” soothed Cleo the vamp in those
low drawling tones which so lulled the senses, and she
patted Lanks on one bony shoulder, while the statuesque
and smoothly moving Floradora patted her on the other


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
143
bony shoulder. “She's like this ever since we came here,
doctor," went on Cleo; "you see, at home Miss Anderson
lives within a block of Times Square, and where we are
now it's so still.”
"It's the cursed katy-dids!” shrieked the patient, and
the tears were trickling over her cheeks; so the doctor, as
in such cases directed by the professors, took her wrist
and said in his most calming manner:
“My dear young lady, we'll have to see what's the
matter; we'll have to see what's the matter.”
The effect of his voice and of his touch was magical!
Lanks' hysteria stopped immediately.
"Oh doctor, you are so soothing,” she murmured, and
leaned her head against the shoulder of the crimson vamp,
smiling up at him so very sweetly that he turned hastily
aside. He met the seductive gaze of Cleo, who rolled her
eyes at him. Turning away from those languishing orbs,
Bertram met the large melting eyes of Florodora resting
on him, and he turned back to the patient for escape.
"Oh doctor, I'm so miserable!" then moaned Lanks, and
suddenly twining her arms around Bertram's neck, she
threw herself on him and burst into heart-breaking sobs!
Wrestle as he might, the appalled young M.D. could
not free himself from those snake-like arms nor stop that
wild sobbing, and both Florodora and Cleo had to help
untwine her. In doing so, Cleo got herself in between,
and for a moment was crushed against the doctor's chest,
her face quite near to his; and he had the full benefit of
one of those exquisite perfumes overlooked by the prohibi-
tion laws, an intoxication more destructive to the mascu-
line mental equilibrium than any alcoholic stimulant!
“Really,” said Dr. Beegoode, passing his hand across


144
THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
his forehead and eyelids, and shaking his head vigorously
as if to clear his hearing and jar his other faculties awake,
“this young lady should be put to bed!”
"I quite agree with you, doctor,” piped a childish voice,
and Bertram, hearing it for the first time, turned to the
haughtily possessed Floradora in astonishment, and again
found himself swimming in those melting eyes. “We shall
take Evelyn straight home; and don't you think you had
better come and see her this evening?”
“I think not, I think not,” hastily decided the doctor,
hunting through all his pockets and nine pigeon holes for
his prescription pad, which was lying on the desk in front
of him. “What she needs is sleep. Report to me in the
morning, and in the meantime I'll give you a prescription
for Miss— Miss — " He looked up, and this time,
lingered in the seductive orbs of Cleo, who smiled vaguely
and in those low lulling tones said — what was it she seemed
to be saying: There's a silken couch 'neath the canopy of
stars, and across the moonlit sea there wafts the spiced
breeze of Araby; there's the sound of a lute from the
flowering shrubs, and the madness of wine lies upon your
lips. No, that wasn't it, confound it!
“Beg your pardon. What name did you say?" inquired
the poor, dazed doctor.
"Miss Evelyn Anderson,” drawled the crimson vamp
with her misty smile, and slowly her eyes veiled themselves
beneath her long silken lashes.
Presently Doc Beegoode realized that his visitors were
gone. He walked to the window as a somnambulist might.
They were not visible on the street. He went back, and
paused automatically in front of his bookcase where were
arranged the yellow and green-backed books of his four


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
145
years of hard study. They were deficient, those books,
woefully deficient! They had told him, it is true, a million
facts about women, but not one word about femininity!
And that accursed perfume still hung in the air like all the
sense-alluring rhythm from out some rose-leafed volume
of old Persian love poems! Suddenly angry, Bertram
threw all his windows and his doors wide open, and burnt
a wicked-scented disinfecting pastile to clear his rooms —
and his brain!
Filled still with the sort of rage that inspired the naive
zealots of old, they who tried to conquer temptation by
destroying everything innocent or guilty which could
tempt, Doc went home to lunch, where he found an ally
of hate in that sterling virgin, sister Caroline. Leave it
to Caroline Beegoode, and the dungeon and the rack, the
red hot pinchers and the burning stake were but mild
torments for the brazen hussies who went trapesing up and
down Main Street, dressed gaudily at any time of day as
for the evening, ambrosial of soap and scented talcum,
and corrupting the pure minds of the men of Fawnlake
City with their disreputable youth and beauty! Moreover,
and here spake a still small voice within Caroline, were
they not friends of that arch deceiver, Horace G. Daw,
the married man! Where Doc had the rankling rage of
the righteous, Caroline had the spewing venom of the
spurned, and nothing would do her but to go straight up
on the hill and purify the moral atmosphere.
The moral atmosphere on the hill at this particular
hour fairly tingled with what might be termed moral
ozone, which to breathe was more than exhilarating if the
lungs could stand it. Inside the long disused Waite parlor
somebody was thumping the old square piano, at such a


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
147
swing, stretched herself there in the warm sunshine, and
closed her eyes in the ecstacy of perfect physical comfort.
In her warm pink tinting and her scant black sheath, she
might have been a rare sculpture in alabaster and ebony
wrought by some inspired Pygmalion; but to the Beegoodes
brother and sister, the beautiful figure in the porch swing
was no tinted Venus, but a plain hussy! Filled with the
wrath which only the flawless can enjoy, Caroline turned
to Bertram, and her wrath was inflamed the more that
she found him staring, as in stupefaction, at the spectacle
from which he should have turned his shocked eyes
immediately.
"Bert,” she snapped; “go right over to the Curtis's
and wait for me!” So saying, Caroline jumped from the
car, strode to the Waite porch, caught the wide porch
swing by a corner rope, gave it an angry jerk and said:
“Go into the house and put on some clothes, you shame-
less young woman!”
Florodora opened her lustrous eyes, gazed on the acrid
countenance of Caroline in astonishment, smiled lazily,
and piped in her baby voice:
“Why, you sweet old thing! Won't you sit down and
have a cup of tea?”.
A slam of the screen door was the only answer to this;
then Caroline discovered the three Waite ladies in the
kitchen washing the luncheon dishes and fired at them this
Big Bertha of browbeating:
“I came in to give you a word of warning and advice,
Mrs. Waite. If you don't get rid of these loose-charactered
young women, I'll see that you are ostracised by all the
respectable people in the town!”
Mrs. Waite turned, dish-cloth in hand, and the two


148
THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
Misses Waite turned with her, and together they faced
Caroline.
“I'll have to give you a word of warning and advice,
Miss Beegoode,” said Mrs. Waite coldly. “You have too
much money to say scandalous things about independent
young women unless you can prove it!”
Bang! Caroline flounced out of the kitchen, but just
the same the Beegoode weakness had been touched upon
and not in vain. A libel suit threat did to Caroline what
no appeal to human sympathy could possibly have done!
It sheathed her claws so far as an open attack on the lolly-
pops or the Waites was concerned. She flounced past the
sleeping Galatea without a glance, she swept down to the
gate without a glance at the noisy preparations for the
“three-round go” on the croquet court and stalked
straight across to the Curtis's, where she found Bert and
Mary on the side portico, and let them have the benefit
of the temper which boiled stinging hot out of her failure.
“It's disgraceful!” she shrilled, her gaunt cheek bones
white with fury. “We can't get rid of them; we have to
keep them right under our noses; and we can't even speak
our minds about them!” and this last was so much the
climax of her complaint that her shrill raise of voice ended
in a flasetto crack.
“Sheep can't defend themselves against wolves!”
replied Mary with unusual warmth for her. “Father's
suit to dissolve our company will not hold. Judge Chelsing
told him last night that these Wallingfords are too clever
to put themselves in any danger of the law.”
“Then they should be lynched!” blazed Caroline, and
stalked into the house to exchange indignation with Emily
Curtis.


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
149
A shout from across the road attracted the attention of
Mary and Bert. “Snookums” and “Spots” had come
down from the “oil well” to referee a boxing bout on the
croquet court between Shimmie and Plomps, and were
of course hailed with joy. Cleo the vamp in her red bath-
ing suit draped herself sinuously on Spots, and Lottie
and Florodora, the latter's scandalous one-piece bathing
suit now reinforced by a picturesque black cloak, hung
themselves comfortably on Jimmy's broad shoulders.
How stalwartly he loomed over there; and suddenly Mary
saw menace in him! Something which she could not com-
prehend was puzzling her, anyhow; the Wallingfords,
father and son, seemed to possess some uncanny power to
have and to hold anything they might desire; and it was
a power so evil, so selfish, that it left good people, honest
people, helpless!
“How is it," she suddenly asked Bert, “that the
unscrupulous can secure the best of everything and seem to
have happiness besides? What do the upright have to
compensate them for it?”
“The privilege of being good,” replied Doc, "and the
pleasure of being with other people who are good." He
had been watching with widened eyes that free pro-
pinquity of Jimmy with those girls who to Doc were but
aggravated sex, had seen the tall grace of the pink-tinted
Florodora, the alluring sinuousness of Cleo, "the plump
cuddliness of Shimmie with the curving lips; and now
he turned to look at Mary. How white and round was her
slender neck, how delicate the color in her cheeks. “You
still have that little curl in front of your ear,” he said,
apropos of his thoughts, rather than of anything which
had been said before, and there was a curious moistening


150
THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
of his dry lips as he added: "Mary, all through college
I remembered that curl.”
Oh Jimmy Wallingford, Jimmy Wallingford! You
threw them into this close bond of mutual defence
against your plans, and. you would have worried, as you
stood there amid the lollypops, one with them but still
so aloof, if you could have seen the deepening of the deli-
cate color in Mary's cheeks as she dropped her eyes in
confusion under Bert Beegoode's burning gaze!


CHAPTER XII
FAWNLAKE CITY IS AWAKE AT LAST
“WHERE do you suppose that rusty old spur track
leads?” speculated J. Rufus, rising in the car to look down
eagerly into the next county; and the car was Sweet
Patootie, now his.
“It leads back to a main line somewhere, you big fat
simp," returned Blackie, despondently. They had been
driving for three days, and in all the county they had
found no natural resource, possibility or hint through
which they might make Henry Beegoode want back New
Bagdad. At this moment they were eighteen miles from
Fawnlake City on a rocky road, and it was near lunch
time!
“Suppose you drive down and see where the other end
goes, crab,” suggested the big fat simp without rancor.
The words were scarcely out of his mouth when Sweet
Patootie leaped forward, and he was thrown to his seat
and hanging on for dear life while Blackie shot down the
twisting hill and bumped into the dangerously rutted
side road which was overgrown with weeds and cluttered
with branches; and it was characteristic of J. Rufus
Wallingford that, though his face went pasty white when
the car swerved and twisted he clung fast, for he would
rather be killed than walk, and, coward though he was,
he would rather go deliberately into danger than overlook
an opportunity.
They reached the spur track. Apparently it had been
151


152
THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
in disuse for many years, and now they had to desert the
car to follow the red rails into the deep concavity of the
hillside. Branches hung low over the tracks, saplings had
grown up between the ties, and, at the end, underbrush
almost blocked their way into a clearing where cinders and
ashes and gravel and general debris had forbidden any
vegetation to ever grow on that spot again. Yet, as the
explorers entered the place of dead and forgotten indus-
try, they stopped and gaped in astonishment, for there,
beside two iron pipes which yawned forlornly out of the
hillside, was a weather-beaten hut, on the weather-beaten
porch of which sat a weather-beaten man whittling a
wooden spoon. He looked up at the intruders as non-
chalantly as if they had been a pair of squirrels, swung his
foot comfortably, and went on whittling. The intruders,
after a moment of astounded contemplation, came on up
to the porch; and said J. Rufus inanely:
“Hello, do you live here?”
“I reckon so.”
Blackie grinned as he asked what seemed to him the
next normal question.
“Why?”
“ 'Cause it's my place I reckon. Besides, I ain't got
any other place to go, and there you are."
Wallingford chuckled and sat on the edge of the
porch.
“What are those pipes?”
“Natural gas.” The man looked at the pipes himself
now, shoving back his battered old felt hat and revealing
a forehead which was as polished and as leathery brown
as his glistening face. “I was the superintendent of the
gas well and the company deeded me this two acres and


154 THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
a dozen cigarettes from his own, he crumbled them all into
a blend, observing meanwhile with a sidelong glance that
J. Rufus was quite busily engaged within those gas mains;
so he mixed and mixed, while the ex-superintendent of the
ex-gas well watched interestedly until the process was
completed. Then he packed his pipe, accepted Blackie's
proffered light, puffed his first couple of puffs with the
careful attention of a connoisseur, nodded that it was
good, and swung his foot in contentment.
“Who owns that system of gas pipes now?" presently
asked J. Rufus, and this time his question was brisk and
businesslike.
“Nobody, I reckon. Anybody. Company's busted
long ago.”
“Is this property in the same county as Fawnlake City?”
“Nope, next county. County seat's Fillamore."
“Do you want to sell your two acres?”
“Reckon I might, if the price was good enough.”.
"If you were to sell it, would you agree to go out of this
state and not come back?”
“I don't know what I'd come back for."
“You're on. Suppose you come over to Fillamore with
us, deed us the property, take two thousand dollars and
let us put you on a train.”
"Just make yourself comfortable," invited the man,
and rising with entirely unflurried ease he went into the
shack.
In scarcely more than five minutes he came out with a
small oil-skin bag, a willow cage with a red bird in it, a
cat and two hounds.
“Come on,” he said, as he clamped the padlock on the
door and handed J. Rufus the key.


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
155
Then, and then indeed, Fawnlake City began to awaken
to the presence of Messrs. Wallingford and Daw; and
what those two energetic gentlemen had done heretofore
was of but mild interest compared with what they began
now to do; for anybody can understand a boom, but
nobody can understand a mystery. First off, those hereto-
fore smooth and glistening gentlemen came out of the
Hotel Splendide early in the morning in overalls. Sensation
number one. At the curb they were joined by the bald-
headed helper and the whiskered helper, both of these
also in new blue overalls, and jumping into their long-nosed
yellow racing car with saws, hammers, hatchets, axes and
sledges, they all drove around the lake to New Bagdad.
Sensation number two. As many of the citizens as could
conveniently leave their affairs, and some who could not,
followed over when they saw the canvas presentment of
New Bagdad being hauled from the spot which should
have been its last resting place; and what do you think!
Why, Messrs. Wallingford, Daw, Jones and Villicksknapf-
ski erected, a little way from the lake, a four-sided canvas
enclosure quite obviously designed to keep the interested
citizens of Fawnlake City from looking in! Now what did
that mean? Loads of lumber arrived on the site, but no
outside workmen were engaged, and that meant secrecy!
All Fawnlake City was thrilled to the core, and from the
core outwards, as within that enclosure the sounds of
hammer and saw were heard. Constant relays of those
who couldn't stay any longer and had to go back to their
business kept those who couldn't get away informed of
the progress of things, hour by hour. A rough wooden
building of some sort was being built within the canvas
enclosure. It was a high building, as high as three stories


156
THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
but without any ,stories, and no windows; and no board
was sawed and no nail driven, except by the hand of
Messrs. Wallingford or Daw, or Jones or Villicksknapfski.
There wasn't to be any roof! Probably nothing about the
mysterious enclosure excited more profound agitation than
the fact that there were no preparations apparent for a
roof. There the building towered, straight up and bare,
and 'wide open to the sky! Ah! The rim of a big wooden
wheel was visible on the third day above the top of the
structure, and it was a grooved wheel, with a rope running
in the groove. On the same day, various mysterious
machineries were taken inside the structure and uncrated
away from the scrutiny of any human eye but those of
Messrs. Wallingford and Daw and Jones and Villicks-
knapfski; and barrow-loads of sand began to be hauled
out, and every once in a while the rim of the big wooden
wheel visible above the top of the structure turned, either
slowly or rapidly, sometimes in one direction and some-
times in the other. And on the very next day there arrived
men who began to put up enormous circular tanks, ten of
them, tanks with gauges on the sides to mark the depth
of the contents. Tanks for what? Nobody knew, not
even the men who were putting them up. They were tank
builders sent by the tank company, and they had their
money every pay day, and their expenses allowed, and
they really didn't know what the tanks were for, neither
did they give a hoot.
What did all this mean? The thing was almost past
endurance! It was mighty strange that a couple of men,
reputed to be grafters, should come into town and work
up a boom, get, everybody ready to buy this property,
then suddenly refuse the money and start mysterious


158
THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
enter the care ne to all
onion Jone
big gas engine pump and a dozen huge tank cars of crude
oil!
Ah! That was the heart of the scheme, that pulsing
engine which at last one morning began to throb away
under the care of a much whiskered engineer, who, what-
ever he might be to all else, was gentle with an engine.
Spell and spell about with Onion Jones, Pete was to pump
the heart of the scheme, and the arteries of the schemewere
those two iron pipes which had protruded from the side
of the mill, and the blood of the scheme was the oil, and
the nerve center of the scheme was that mysterious struc-
ture in New Bagdad where now, within the dim high
enclosure, sat the flesh and bones of the scheme, J. Rufus
Wallingford in his large, broad-chested pinkness repre-
senting the flesh, and Horace G. Daw in his lean longness
representing the bones — and both in their blue overalls.
A simple thing they had done, after all. Provided with a
map of the ancient natural gas system, they had located
the ends of those two pipes in New Bagdad where the
pipes had stopped when the gas gave out, connected the
pipes with a three-way valve and a tanking main, and now
they were waiting. Up aloft, at the top of the derrick
erected inside their wooden well, hung the big wooden
wheel with nothing attached to it except the rope which
one of them pulled now and then, for the edification of the
townsfolk. Always there were townsfolk about, never less
than fifty, and in the late afternoons running into the
hundreds. All, all was ready except the oil!
“What's the matter with the blasted stuff?” growled J.
Rufus, chewing nervously at the now mop-like end of a
huge black, un-lighted cigar. “I can't even get a smell
out of that pipe!”


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD 159
“Well, you ought to be able to smell it, for there've
been four tank cars pumped into it,” worried Blackie.
“They'd started on the fifth when I left the hole-in-the-
hill, and I was less than thirty minutes on the way. But
say, Jim, not a drop had come back in the return pipe for
repumping. If your calculation is correct that it would
take only two tank cars to fill that pipe from the hole-in-
the-hill to here, we must have a leak. It might have
occurred to anybody with the intelligence of an egg to
pump water through this pipe before —”
the intellid
fough this
Oh shut
“All right, Jimmy. I suppose now we can trot out and
hunt the leak. There's only eighteen miles of pipe, at
depths varying from seven feet to thirty-five. And do we
locate it with our noses or a plumber's torch?”
"Sometime, my emaciated friend,” said Wallingford,
turning to Blackie from his interesting sniffing process but
holding himself in readiness for another sniff, “sometime
you'll really irritate me and -- and—” Suddenly J.
Rufus spluttered and gurgled and stood dripping of oil,
for with scarcely a warning rush the golden black liquid
had begun to surge out of that pipe, a thick stream two
feet high. “Hurray!” gasped Wallingford, grinning
through his oleaginous disguise. “She’s here!”
“You don't say,” retorted Blackie, and dashed for the
valve lever which, by a simple turn, sent the oil back to
Pete to pump again. Both men looked out through the
cracks of their high wooden well, and in all four directions
there were fellow citizens, all gazing upward and each
wearing the community crease which the great scheme had
put on the brow of Fawnlake City.
“Go to it, Blackie,” chuckled J. Rufus. “Stage the


162
THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
half a ton of rocks into a galvanized iron garbage barrel;
and outside the Fawnlakers stood like a forest of petrified
men.
For a full two minutes nobody moved, and the first
man who made a sound was instantly hushed by his
passionately agitated neighbors. They were all of one
mind; oil, that's what it was! These fellows had struck
oil! No use for them to say they hadn't, because they had!
Anything they said was camouflage, for they were crooks,
and everybody knew it! Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford,
that was enough! If he had said he had struck oil, they
would have suspected him, but since he had said he hadn't
struck oil it was proof positive that he had! Anyhow,
look at it! There it was! And they wouldn't ask any
help; ah no, not they! Like crooks, they wanted to keep
it all to themselves, didn't want to even tell anybody
about it! And it never occurred to one of the populace
that an honest man might also have wishes to keep such
a find to his own exclusive benefit.
Suddenly the populace realized that it had a duty to
perform, and, turning in its tracks, scattered back to the
various portions of Fawnlake City, by foot, by catboat,
row-boat, motor boat, auto, buggy, mule and pony cart,
Oil! Oil had been struck in New Bagdad! And now they
knew why Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford and Blackie Daw
stopped the boom and wouldn't sell! Oil! Riches! Opu-
lence! Particularly opulence, all the fabled opulence of
the Orient! Within an incredibly short space of time that
news had flashed by phone and word of mouth, and almost
by telepathy it seemed, to the uttermost confines of
Fawnlake City; and it cramped Henry Beegoode with
such a cramp as he hadn't experienced since he was a boy


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
163
and ate green apples. Great governor, he had been stung,
after all! He had sold that invaluable oil-bearing tract of
land for a paltry ten thousand dollars!
Tal Curtis sat on the front porch with Ma and Grandma
when the news hit the outward end of Main Street, and
as the news passed on, headed for Dick Wheatstone's farm
and the outlying district, Tal turned around from the last
advertisements on the last page of the Morning Gazelle,
and just looked at Mother; and even the curls at the back
of his neck seemed to wriggle with the intense satisfaction
which was reflected on his infantile countenance.
"Well, I'm not saying a word,” retorted Ma Curtis
to his torrent of unspoken words. “Goodness knows
nobody would be happier than I if oil were to be struck
on our place, so why you look at me that way I don't
know!”
"My, my! So Mr. Wallingford and Mr. Daw have
struck oil,” excitedly quavered Grandma. “I'm very glad,
for their sakes. I don't care what anybody says, Emily,
I like Mr. Wallingford and Mr. Daw; and Jimmy and
Eddie!"
“Why, Grandma!” and Ma Curtis turned to her in
astonishment. “Do you hear what she says, Tal?”
“Yes, Emily,” responded Tal. Rising he strolled non-
chalantly around to the side portico as if he were going
nowhere in particular. Ma Curtis knew exactly where,
but she pretended not. After all, if there was oil -
Talbot Curtis's step was brisk the instant he stepped
on the grass, and he scrambled straight up the hill to
where the new donkey engine was panting away and the
long coils of new cable lay waiting to snake themselves
down into that apparently depthless hole which yielded


164
THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
nothing but dust. The boys heard the gravel rattling as
he came, and Toad was ready with his always hearty:
“Why, here's Tal! Hello, Tal!” then he stopped, for
Tal's face bore the portent of the great news he carried.
"Well, well, boys, I'll declare!” he began, when he was
still so far away that he had to shout: “If your daddies
haven't struck oil on their sand lots across the lake!”
“Oil!” Both boys blinked, then, as with a mutual
thought they turned to each other inquiringly. “Oil!”
“Oil! There isn't any doubt about it, because it was
seen flowing out of the well, by fifty or sixty people, or
maybe two or three hundred by this time, although both
your daddies deny it!”
“Oh,” commented Jimmy, and now the looks which he
and Toad exchanged bore a new and a grim significance.
Jimmy was the first to recover, and to have a knowledge
of what his actions should be under the circumstance.
“Hurray, Toad!” and he threw up his hat. “I guess that
proves you were right in your geological instinct!”
“Just the same I know there's oil down here,” sullenly
declared Toad, not throwing up his hat or anything.
“Of course there is!” exulted Tal. “Nobody disputes
it! Nobody's going to dispute it from now on! Hurray!”
and Tal threw up his hat.
“Cheer up, Toad!” cried Jimmy, slapping his freckled
partner on the back. “Don't be so grumpy because the
dads beat us to it. Hurray!”
“Hurray!” yelled Toad, getting his cue at last, and he
threw up his hat. “Hurray! Hurray! Hurray!” Being
started he was now more enthusiastic than any of them.
He pounded Jimmy on the back, he pounded Tal on the
back, and grabbing their hands he did a wild circle with


CHAPTER XIII
KISSES FOR LITTLE MARY
OSCAR, of the Hotel Splendide, was in no wise interested
in the ethics or the morals of J. Rufus Wallingford and
his entourage. Sufficient was it for Oscar that Mr. Walling-
ford was a man for whom nature ripened her choicest
fruits, a man for whose exquisitely sensitive palate the
greatest artists of the world might mix a sauce, a man who
came to the table clean and glistening as one purified for
some sublime ceremonial; and if he had struck oil that
day, as all the town so agitatedly proclaimed, why, very
fine, if it pleased the gentleman to have struck oil and put
him in cheerful appetite — for there was to be a goose
prepared by Oscar's own dexterous hand, with orange
sauce and stewed olives!
In cheerful appetite indeed was the large oil striker
this evening, pinker than usual, more beaming than
usual, more twinkling of eye, and every now and then, as
he stood by the mantel of the third floor front suite draw-
ing room in his broad expanse of white shirt front, an
explosive chuckle welled up in him and was answered by
an explosive snicker from the long slim gentleman in the
narrow expanse of white shirt front at the other end of the
mantel; and Oscar, tiptoeing from the room after seeing
to it himself that the table was arranged just so, was
charmed, for the goose would be enjoyed! A buxom, fair-
haired lady in a skin-tight emerald evening gown came
166


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
167
into the red drawing-room, and viewing the happy gentle-
men at either end of the mantel piece observed:
“What ever you do, don't let the police see you looking
like that! What have you two buzzards been putting
across on this innocent town?” and the laugh they gave
her confirmed her suspicions, whereupon, being a wise
lady, she refrained from making herself acquainted with
any facts which might be embarrassing on a witness stand.
Fannie and the two boys entered the room together, the
latter in their dinner suits, and Fannie so stately and digni-
fied in her low-cut black gown that now, as always, her
husband was proudly conscious that she added respecta-
bility to the "front” he put up, and was therefore a
decided asset which he was ashamed to use at its full value.
“Say.” Naturally it was Toad who took the bull by
the horns, though hoping against hope. “Did you fellows
really strike oil?”
Under the level gaze of his wife and his son, J. Rufus
merely beamed and twinkled as he informed his adopted
half son:
“You'll see in the morning by the Morning Gazelle,
my good lad, that we are denying it.” Both he and
Blackie stood in pompous gravity for a moment after this
ambiguous announcement, and then they exploded into
another loud, prolonged and aggravating laugh as they
remembered the gravel gun, the organ pipe, and Henry
Beegoode.
Perhaps never was a chef-d'oeuvre enjoyed with more
tang and zest than Oscar's goose, particularly by J. Rufus
and Blackie, and Violet Bonnie and even Toad; but
Fannie Wallingford sat throughout the meal in a troubled
state of mind as she watched the quiet worry in her son.


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
169
she was putting the finishing touches to her toilette in
front of the mirror in her dainty pink and blue and white
bedroom. It was rather a serious little Mary who looked
back at her out of the mirror, for somehow the careless
bubble seemed to have gone out of life these past days.
There comes always a time when we feel that, no matter
how much we may do to keep things exactly as they were
a change of everything impends and cannot be stayed.
Such a time had come to Mary, and she was vaguely con-
scious of it as she automatically arranged the wayward
curl which dangled in front of her ear. Oh, bother! Why
think, when thinking leads to no comfortable thought?
She gave an angry shake to the flounces of her slim white
frock, and tripped almost gaily downstairs and out on the
portico, which, without mention of Doc on the part of
any one, was not being used by the balance of the family
these evenings!
Across the way some unusually festive occasion seemed
in preparation, for “the chickens”, always gay with color
and decked in extremes of design, were especially bizarre
tonight in their flimsy gowns, short in the sleeves, short
in the skirts, and as short as possible from the waist up,
front and back. Mary regarded them with a wondering
speculation which she had at no moment lost since the
day of their arrival, for they were always doing nearly
everything which Mary had been taught not to do. Espe-
cially they seemed not to know that there were such things
as legs or lingerie or skirts, particularly skirts, and even
as she thought Mary unconsciously pulled hers primly
down, there in the seclusion of her own honeysuckle vine.
From the earliest moment she could remember, she had
been made painfully aware of skirts. Whatever else she


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
171
stinging lash to Mary. The lollypops, those other girls
whom Jimmy fondled! Shame overwhelmed her, the
shame tenfold which had followed that unasked kiss on
the hill. She strove to free herself from him— but he
held her more tightly.
“I won't let you go!” There was a change in him as
widely divergent as the change in her; the pleading was
gone, and there was a savage ring in his voice. “I love
you, and you love me! There's no use to deny it!” Now
he covered her face with kisses, her cheeks, her brow, her
lips, kisses that burned, until at last he found her limp in
his arms, crying; and he knew that love and passion are
things of contempt unless they are glorified by free accept-
ance. "Mary, forgive me! Forgive me!” he begged over
and over, humbling himself in a panic of abasement, for
he was a boy still and gentle, and had not a man's over-
riding will to carry him through. But when Mary drew
back from him, he saw that the tears on her cheeks were
the tears of angry humiliation.
“I am not the sort of girl that I have apparently led
you to believe I am,” she told him. “Go back to your
own kind — across the way.”
Across the way, Plomps was at the piano, big jolly
Plomps, with a color of blonde hair never known until the
world-war gave American chemists a chance, and she was
swaying and jolting herself in time to her own vigorous
music, and Shimmie Devere was giving a grotesque
burlesque of the dance which bore her name, and all the
other girls were in convulsions of most undignified hilarity.
And – Why, there was Dr. Bertram Beegoode, on the
horse-hair sofa with Lanks Anderson at one side of him,
and at the other the seductive Cleo Patra leaning a willowy


172
THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
lean toward him as she rolled her enticing eyes up at him;
and Doc was passing the back of his hand slowly across
his forehead and across his eyes, as the intoxication of the
crimson vamp's perfume invaded his senses.
In spite of the serious new breach which widened
between them, Jimmy grinned, and his oval pink face
turned pinker, and his eyes narrowed and twinkled as he
turned and in his quiet drawl observed:
“He has his medicine case with him, Mary.”
The idiot! Had he hunted all through the Fool's Dic-
tionary he could not have found a more superbly assinine
thing to say; for instantaneously he was alone on the side
portico, with no company but the honeysuckle vine and
the katy-dids and the tree toads creaking away near by
and down yonder in the marsh the bull frogs croaking.
Oh well- but Jimmy couldn't remember any satisfactory
bit of philosophy to comfort him in his need. All he could
think of at this particular moment was how pretty Mary
had been in her anger as she flounced into the house!
So, naturally, he lit a cigar, tossed the match into the
grape arbor, stuck his hands in the pockets of his dinner
coat, lounged across the road to the Waite house and sat
in the porch swing to gloom it all over. Blessed be nicotine,
friend of mortal man!
In the meantime, Plomps and Lanks, during a grotesque
wrestling bout obligingly staged by the McCabe twins,
had hurried upstairs with the promptness of a vaudeville
team doing five a day in two houses. Dashing into the
bathroom where the statuesque Florodora reposed at full
length in the tub, they simultaneously thrust their right
hands in the water, and as simultaneously remarked:
"That isn't hot enough!”


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
173
“It is too!” piped Florodora, beginning to whine.
“Ouch! You brutes, you'll scald me!”
“Hold her in, Plomps!” ordered the masterly Lanks,
as she gave the hot water tap still another twist; full
force. “Shut up, Flo! Stuff a towel in her mouth!”
“Ow!” shrieked Florodora, fighting away the towel.
“Ow! Ow! Ow!” But though she might fight away a
corner of that towel, she could not get so much as one
shoulder free from the stalwart clutch of Plomps.
“Don't you think that's enough, Lanks? worried the
hearty Maria Theresa. “Look at her, how red she is!”
“She's got to be purple,” decided Lanks, viewing the
reddening statue critically. “This girl's got to have a
fever that'll bust Doc's thermometer! It's a shame
that nobody in this bunch can get a legitimate ailment!
I never saw such a cussed healthy lot!”
“I'm afraid she'll get stewed and turn brown on us.
Take it from me, I think she's done!”
“All right, Plomps. Lift her out and shoot her into her
nightie, and feed her the hot pepper broth.”
“I won't drink it!” sobbed the victim. “If you rough
necks come near me again I'll tear you apart, damn you!”
and even those who had known her so well stared at the
erstwhile ladylike Florodora in astonishment, for she was
like a harpy unchained, and her large melting eyes were
pools of flaming fury.
"Fine, Flo. Keep your temper at a hundred and six
and we're right,” grinned Lanks, and left.
Down in the parlor Cleo still clung to her post, leaning
her willowy lean towards Doc and making sure that he
had the full benefit of her insidious perfume, and Shimmie
Devere was pulling Doc's head on her chest, and making


174
THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
him listen to the fact that since his prescription her pain
was all gone, the while she curled his hair and threw in
her funny little shoulder wriggle for good measure; and to
save his life, the Doc, when she drew away from him, could
not resist looking up at the red, red lips which were set
between her dimples, and to save his life could not keep
out of his cold gray eyes a something which made them
seem darker and brighter. Red, her lips were, red! And
just then Lanks came into the parlor with sedate mien and
an air of deep concern, and said she solemnly:
“Sorry to have kept you waiting, Doctor. Poor dear
Flo is ready for you now.”
Thereupon Lanks led the young physician up the stairs
and into the big west wing bedroom, where the fever
patient lay in all the fluffy state which the lollypops could
command! Never was a gayer sickroom; flowers every-
where in all the wealth of the wild Waite gardens, and
laces, and silks and satins in the deepest dyes obtainable.
Cleo's precious Spanish scarf softened and made rich the
hard head-board of the bed; across the foot-board certain
mysterious pieces of intimate lingerie were equally soft
and delicate and designed to cause sentimental specula-
tion in the masculine mind, and these were Lanks Ander-
son's trousseau set, which she had kept unworn now for
two years, ready for the great emergency; across the foot
of the bed in generous breadth spread Plomps' purple
velvet bath robe, her one treasured bit of Babylonian
voluptuousness; from under the bed peeped Shimmie
Devere's gold boudoir slippers; beneath Florodora's
wealth of shining golden-brown tresses were the highly
ribbon-bowed embroidered silk slumber pillows carried
by the McCabe twins, pink and blue. Florodora wore her


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
175
own nightie, a demure thing which proclaimed persist-
ently that it was modest and ladylike and even shy, but
which winked as it said it, revealing here an exquisite
shoulder line, and there a glimpse of velvety surface now
deep red, and here a hint of swelling charms beneath; for
the jewel in all this elaborate setting was Florodora, and
there were tears, real tears in her large, lustrous eyes as
she turned them toward the doctor, and piped in her baby
voice:
“Oh doctor, I'm so glad you've come! I'm burning!”
Gravely the physician sat by the bedside, and took the
patient's pulse, which he found at the end of an arm so
exquisitely sculptured that even he, to whom arms should
be anatomy, noticed its beautiful long contour. A frown
came on the doctor's brow as he took hold of her pulse,
then Lanks, bending solicitously over his shoulder, told
him all about Florodora's sudden attack and symptoms,
ending with:
"I think her fever began to break about five minutes
ago, doctor. She's turning moist, isn't she?”
The doctor scarcely heard. As he finished counting the
patient's pulse, he happened to glance into the patient's
eyes and lost himself in those large pellucid orbs, still
swimming with the tears of her truly painful fever. How
pathetically they gazed up at him! Automatically he
put his watch in his pocket. With the same hand he pro-
duced his thermometer from another pocket, then he
needed another hand to take the thermometer from its
case, and looking about him discovered that hand still
clasped around the patient's wrist. He abruptly released
the pulse, frowning, for frowning was the easiest method
of asserting professional gravity, and he put the ther-


176 THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
mometer in Florodora's pepper-blistered mouth. As he
took his hand away the patient clasped it, and closed soft
fingers about it and clung there; poor, weak, helpless
girl! A conscientious physician must do anything which
will soothe a patient, especially a fever patient; and Dr.
Bertram Beegoode allowed her to hold his hand, until he
was as moist as she. That was an anxious moment for the
three friends of Jimmy Wallingford, a moment which
reached its climax of anxiety when the doctor removed the
thermometer and looked at it and frowned, genuinely this
time, frowned with concern. Ah! The pepper broth had
had done its deadly work!
“How exhausting,” piped the patient, lying back
with outspread arms after the thermometer had been
removed; and her neck was a graceful neck, and her
shoulder a graceful shoulder, and her face a beautiful
face, and her waving hair was a shining golden brown
glory as it rippled out upon the be-ribboned baby pillows;
and she was well calculated, as she lay there a vision
of entrancing beauty, to melt the hardest heart. “Hold
my hand, doctor, please. Maybe then I can go to
sleep.”
He gave her his hand, and he bent nearer to make it
more comfortable for her as she closed her glorious eyes;
and Lanks and Plomps slipped out of the room with that
considerate hush which friends use in a sickroom. Deeply
and regularly breathed Florodora, the filmy lace on her
breast rising and falling with fascinating monotony, and
slowly the beautiful head relaxed and the clutch of the
soft warm fingers lost their tensity, and all was silent in
the west wing bedroom; while through the keyhole came a
delicate spray of insidious perfume! Then slowly in the


178 THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
“That was a nice little nap, and it should do you good.
Suppose we take your temperature again.”
Strictly professional was Doc when Plomps and Lanks
returned, and strictly professional his instructions as he
left the house; but he was so much in deep communion
with that goat-eared demon within him that he did not
notice the glowing cigar point in the Waite porch swing
as he hurried past. Jimmy half rose as Bert swept by.
He had noted those staccato footsteps, knew of the trick
being played on the fellow that night by the lollypops,
and had caught a glimpse of Bert's face and of the gleam
which still darkened his usually cold eye; had seen the
moisture at the corner of his lips — the symptom of the
elder Beegoode when he contemplated his own greatest
desire, money. All this would have been a grim joke to
Jimmy Wallingford, except that now, and with those
stirrings in the sediments of Doc's murky ancestral blood,
Doc was going across the road to Mary! Doc had clicked
the Curtis gate behind him before Jimmy came to a full
realization of this, and the cigar point held very still, then
dropped to the floor and rolled over and over to the edge
of the porch where it tumbled into the grass; while Doc
hurried up to the honeysuckled portico, and Mary met
him there. Tensely Jimmy watched, a mad commotion
beating in his heart and singing in his ears, as Doc greeted
Mary with a circumspection which must have cost him a
great effort, while that dark sediment surged so strongly
through his veins that it was strange he did not break out
with some virulent rash. Some little time they talked,
standing there in the dim light which came out from the
Curtis parlor, then presently Doc put his arm around
Mary, and for a minute, it might have been two, Jimmy


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
179
stood as one in whom life had been suspended while he
waited for Mary to draw away from a contamination
which she must surely feel! But when she did not, and
when she turned up her face to Doc slowly, and he kissed
her on the lips, Jimmy started back as if he had been
struck.
“Buck up, old kid!” said a sympathetic voice at Jimmy's
elbow. It was Lanks, and her hand was on his arm, and
in her gray eyes as she turned them on him there was pity
- and something else as inscrutable as the Sphinx.
“Buck up, old kid. The battle's never over till the referee
says ten.”
As if even the voice and the touch of Lanks in some
way interfered with his vision, which could not see enough
yet saw too much, Jimmy put her hand from his arm and
moved slightly away from her. Another kiss over there,
more ardent than the first, then something which he did
not get from his gifted father sent Jimmy across the road
in a blind fury. In blind passion, too, Bert Beegoode had
torn himself from Mary, not daring to kiss her again lest
he reveal himself too plainly to this wholesome girl. Inside
the gate the two young men met, and the blood of both
was aboil this night. There was not a word as they came
together in berserker rage, and there was the impact of
flesh on flesh and blow on blow until the screams of Mary
brought Tal Curtis down to thrust himself persistently
between them.
“Well, well, I'll declare, boys!" protested Tal, staunch-
ing the blood from a chance blow which had grazed his
cheek. “This is no way for young men to act!”
“I – I am sorry, Tal!” stammered Jimmy, and stopped
abruptly in his lame apology; for Mary stood among them,


CHAPTER XIV
AN ALL-SEEING EYE
As dry and as withered of grace as Henry Beegoode
himself was his ugly library, outward expression of Henry
Beegoode's within. It was a small room, as fitted Henry's
closely secretive character. Everything in it was like
him; the scaly old fireproof safe, the dusty and ravelled
horsehair couch and chairs, the clumsy-legged library
table built in the days when varnish was honest and a
quarter of an inch thick and sticky in hot weather, and the
tall bookcase “secretary,” which, with its sharp-pointed
fret-sawed ornaments, was uglier than anything in the
room, unless it were Henry himself, sitting motionlessly
before it. A single dim light, a converted old student's
lamp which had been wired for electricity at a cost of
seventy-five cents, shed its hard rays down on him from
under its green translucent shade, and brought out every
greedy, crabbed feature in him, and showed him to be in
a highly suppressed state of excitement as he gripped a
folded document in his claw-like hand.
In great travail of soul was honest Henry, for between
his fingers he held a fortune, a larger fortune than any
he had been able to accumulate in all his grasping, griping
years. Only, and here was the fly in the ointment, the
fortune was not his! Though it could be, it could be.
The document was Henry's bill of sale to Wallingford;
both copies! Up in the dimmest corner of the room,
between the top of the fret-sawed secretary and the dingy
181


182
THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
plastered ceiling, stretched a spider web inhabited by a
hoary old pot-bellied spider with incurving legs, and he
could have told as well as Henry why Wallingford's copy
had not been sent back. A wide spider never lets any
edible bug out of his web, whether he be hungry or not;
and a wise man, particularly an old wise man with a down-
hooking nose and crow's feet of avarice about his eyes,
never relinquishes an advantage of any sort. Why had
Henry kept secret, after his discovery of this extra paper,
the fact that he had sold that land to J. Rufus Walling-
ford? The spider might have been at a loss to answer that,
for it was outside the range of any knowledge for which
he had practical use, but J. Rufus had a something on the
spider. He had detected in Henry a tendency which he
knew better than Henry knew himself. Why did the man
sit here so motionlessly, as he had done night after night,
after everybody had gone to bed, holding this paper until
now it was all grimy? Bert Beegoode could have told him
that, in one word; fear! Fear! that was the master which
held Henry cowering in the corner of his moral cage; that
was the pinchers and the red-hot iron which made him
behave; and he had called that behavior honesty! Here
he held a fortune in his fingers, and it was not his fortune.
All he had to do was burn these papers, or hide them, or
merely deny their existence, and the fortune would be his
fortune; his! Henry Beegoode's eyes wrinkled nearly shut,
and his mouth curled up under his nose, and there came
moisture at the corners of his lips, and his whole body
seemed to curve inwardly toward his stomach, arms and
legs and back and head, until the hoary spider up in the
corner might almost have called him “Grandpap.”
The outer door clicked, and at that instant the hoary


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD 185
property. Now that's swindling! Isn't it? Well they
over-reached themselves, and haven't got any proofs of
their trick; and by the living jingo I'm man enough to
trick 'em back!”
The younger Beegoode felt tenderly of his swelling nose.
“They're offering crazy prices all over town for that
land now," he speculated, and the inherent greed in him
hooked down his nose and set wrinkles around his eyes;
and it was strange in that moment how nearly alike they
were; so like. “I can see where you're right! I don't find
anything dishonest in getting back a fortune which was
taken from you through trickery, by Get-Rich-Quick
Wallingford!”
"I thought you'd say that, Bert,” returned his father
in relief, and leaning back in his chair he took a long breath.
“You see I had to put it up to you, because you'll have
to swear with me that you or me never signed this paper!”
You can't make two hounds look each other in the eye
after they have stolen the meat from the smokehouse.
The Beegoodes peered not into each other's souls nor in
the general direction of such, Bertram gazing down at the
linoleum which had once borne a pattern and Henry
gazing up at his colleague in the dim corner. Presently
the silence became nerve wearing, and the elder Beegoode
took to cracking his knuckles and pursing his lips, and
bye and bye he even tried to whistle a poor tattered frag-
ment of an old air, as if all the important business were
concluded, and now they were down to merely the trivial
details.
“How — how about that ten thousand dollars?" sug-
gested Doc, at last raising his eyes — to the green shade.
“The Beegoodes are, and have always been, and will


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
191
merely to watch the climb of the gauge on the outside of
tank number two which showed how many hundreds of
gallons of golden oil were pouring into it. Tank one was
full to the top, as far as the gauge was concerned, for the
gauge was provided with a concealed pawl which let it
go up but never down — so that it had stayed at the top
when the oil from tank one began to be pumped back to
the hole-in-the-hill, eighteen miles away, for repumping
into tank two.
With the pride of good showmen who have staged a
successful spectacle, the oil strikers locked themselves in
the dim high enclosure and took down their lounging suits
of clean blue denims, and sat in the crude but comfortable
armchairs they had made of boards, to smoke and enjoy
the Morning Gazelle, which, column by column was about
nothing but Wallingford and Daw and oil, from front page
leaders to editorials! Once in a while there was a noun
in the Morning Gazelle, but mostly it was adjectives and
exclamation and interrogation points; for this public
mirror but reflected in quivering agitation all the mad
the end of his second huge black cigar when the lean
partner stopped reading and listened, suddenly aware of
a cessation, long since, in the sound of aeration, a simple
process consisting merely of pumping the oil in at the top
of the tank and letting it drop to the bottom. Startled,
he glanced at the meter.
“Say Jim, what did you say became of our three tank
cars of expensive oil before the first flow started yester-
day?"
J. Rufus looked up with a grin from his perusal of an
editorial on “Why Aerate Oil Where There Is No Oil, And


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
193
malevolent triumph. “It's more than just a walkout,
Wallingford. I've started a world revolution with Onion
and me for the nucleus, and my new party is called the
Cataclysm! We believe that everything that was has to
to go, and the underdog takes the upper hand. Now
listen. Without us you can't go through with your scheme,
and if you try to we'll expose you, because we got the
upper hand. Now tell us how much you're goana clean
up, Wallingford, on this oil pumping deal, and we'll tell
you what share we'll give you of it.”
J. Rufus stopped his astonished contemplation of the
glistening headed Onion, who was twirling his hat round
and round in his hands and grinning stupidly, and he
turned to study acutely Petrograd Pete; but suddenly he
chuckled and his shoulders began to heave.
“All right, Cataclysm, you get the total profits of this
deal — because there won't be any!”
The head of the Cataclysm glared at the head of the
Oil Aerating Company his entire disbelief of that state-
ment, then he turned slowly to Onion, and Onion, feeling
himself looked at, shifted to the other foot and reversed
the direction of his hat twirl.
“If he says it, there won't,” he mumbled to Pete, in an
aside which everybody could hear. “I told you if we'd
come here lookin' for the best of it, we'd get the worst of it.”
“No profits, eh?” said Pete, his furtive eyes glancing
up at J. Rufus for an instant, then lowering until they
rested on Wallingford's feet. “We'll find out about that
afterwards, for the eye of the Cataclysm never sleeps!
But anyhow, you still want that pumping done, and want
it kept secret. Well then — " and with a smile which was


194
THE SON OF WALILNGFORD
thumb, forefinger and middle-finger, with that significant
rubbing of the fingertips known the world over, under
every clime and to every race and in every language, as a
demand for money. “Five hundred apiece, extra, payable
before we pump!”.
J. Rufus whipped out his pocketbook, and promptly
put a five hundred dollar bill into the hand of Pete and
into the hand of Onion. Onion was highly grateful. He
smiled his old smile of feudal servitor to feudal master as
he tucked the money in his pocket, and ducked his head,
and indicated by every wag of his body that all was now
well between them; but Petrograd Pete's gleaming eyes
narrowed as he looked down at the money and at Walling-
ford's thickly stuffed pocketbook, and suddenly he thrust
out his fingertips again and rubbed them.
An abrupt change in J. Rufus, and the usually genial
eye turned to marble as he whipped his pocketbook back in
his pocket,
“Get him, Blackie!”
Mr. Daw, with great joy in the moment, pushed up his
sleeves and advanced toward the whiskered nucleus with
his long lean fingers ready.
“See here, you whiskered lizard!” he hissed as Pete
backed into the corner and could shrink no further. “The
Cataclysm is disbanded!” He grabbed the five hundred
out of Pete's hand, and thrust it behind him to J. Rufus.
“You're going back to the hole-in-the-hill and pump, and
if you blab a word, or if that pump stops pumping till we
say so—"
"My God, Pete, he'll get you!” suddenly yelled Onion.
“I know Blackie when he's mad! And my God, you take
it from me, he's mad!"


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
195
“Help, help, murder!” shrieked Petrograd Pete as
Blackie jumped for him; but J. Rufus was ready for those
outside, and with the first syllable of Pețe's shriek he was
banging the pipe tongs in a tin pail; and under cover of
that clattering din Blackie's lean fingers clutched Pete
by the throat and reduced his next vocal efforts to a mere
gurgle.
“You ought to join the Cataclysm,” Pete stated with-
out rancor or malice when he was free. “If you'll let me
out of here, I'll go back and pump. One of the first
principles of the Cataclysm is that you got to have the
patience to be the under-dog until you can take the upper
hand.”
A knock at the door, an insistent, continuous knock,
interrupted this satisfactory conclusion, and as Blackie
went to the door Wallingford good-naturedly handed back
to Pete his five hundred dollars; then immediately real-
ized by the gleam in Pete's eyes that he had made a
mistake. Blackie returned from outside, and announced
loudly:
“A gentleman to see Mr. Wallingford, and he says no
one else will do!” He lowered his voice: “It's the sum-
mons, Jim. If I know a bailiff, and I think I do, it's the
summons!”
Both of them grinned, looking each other deep in the
eyes with that sympathetic telepathy which develops
between old comrades; then J. Rufus, straightening his
countenance to becoming gravity, went to the door,
stepped outside, re-opened the door, and came in with two
folded papers in his hands.
“Run along and pump, you under-dogs," he ordered,
and let them out. Then, when the oil strikers had care-


198
THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
strangers, and not known to be honest and — the town
might draw its own conclusions! Mr. Daw, interviewed,
said that the climate of Fawnlake City was the most
salubrious he had ever enjoyed, that playing the saxophone
had increased his lung expansion from one inch to seven,
and that the whole Beegoode family had lobes on their
ears which proved them to be what he thought them to be!
Great Scott, but the town was excited, and in the mean-
time those tanks, a dozen of them, were being filled with
liquid opulence at the rate of so many fabulous gallons
per day, no per hour, no per minute! Extra! Extra!
Extra!
Messrs. Wallingford and Daw heard that clarion cry
in their dim high enclosure, and they snickered in excellent
unison. Henry Beegoode heard it in his dingy little office
at the bank, and he listened motionlessly, there alone
with his guilty fear. Dr. Bertram Beegoode, making an
easy diagnosis from Ma Curtis's recital of her complicated
symptoms - she had indigestion - heard the excited
proclamation on the streets, and it wiped out of his mind
all thoughts of stomachs! He had committed himself
openly and definitely to a pointblank lie, a pointblank
theft, and a pointblank legal perjury; and, somehow, he
felt that every human eye must read that guilt which was
on his soul, every human ear he attuned to that still small
voice within him. Moreover, to add to his distraction,
while those shrill cries of “Extra!" went ringing up and
down Main Street, there came in Dottie and Lottie
McCabe, Dottie in apple green today with an apple
blossom summer muff, and Lottie in blossom pink with
an apple-green summer muff; and Dottie was limping
again, limping with that trim little ankle, limping with


200 THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
she'd be able to report a swelling of the ankles within
forty-eight hours! “Let me see, it seems to me that while
I was on that trip to Chicago, or was it when we went to
the St. Louis World's Fair-" Then Bert let her talk on
and on, for out there he heard the door open, then the
voice of Shimmie Devere, Shimmie with the dimples and
the red, red lips; and when she laughed, with that laugh
which seemed to have a dimple in it too, poor Bert Bee-
goode's stout resolutions fell, under the very eye of Ma
Curtis, now regarding him with dawning disfavor; for he
was but a he-person after all, and frail! He had intended
to turn these distracting young patients over to old Doc
Wright, who was a hard-boiled egg when it came to
feminine blandishments and got along with the sex by
abusing them, but as he ushered out his prim and proper
mother-in-law-to-be, and saw those three faces smiling up
at him in that congenial heart-warming way they had,
why —
“Well, old dear, how are you?” hailed Shimmie, in time
for Ma Curtis to hear it — just before she slammed the
door! “I'm first, Doc. You'll have to lean on my chest
again; I think it still hurts."
Dimpling, she led the way to the consultation room
where she slipped a soft arm around Doc's neck and drew
his head on her soft chest, and suddenly the timorous
restraint in Bert Beegoode's warp and fibre broke and he
became bold! He had taken out his watch automatically,
but he let the second hand go round and round. How could
a fellow count with this girl's soft little hand resting on
his head, and holding it there! Dottie and Lottie McCabe
rose very silently, smiling at each other, and very silently
they tiptoed to the door and looked in, stuffing their hand-


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
201
kerchiefs in their mouths as Shimmie, over Doc's head,
gave a correct imitation of a wiggle dance with her eyes,
while Doc, pillowed on her warm bosom and looking up,
at her red red lips, shamelessly and positively leered,
though not expertly; for he was using a set of facial muscles
which had never before been exercised. Splendid! Dottie
and Lottie coughed in unison, and something clicked
behind the ornamental glass eyes in the apple-green and
the blossom-pink muffs.
Extra! Extra! Extra! Jimmy Wallingford and Toad
Jessup heard the call upon their hill where the donkey
engine was now at work, and Toad ran down to the road
and bought a paper from the bare-legged urchin who had
the enterprise to run out so far with them. He read the
headlines and passed the Gazelle to Jimmy, and that
young man, reading it doggedly through and through,
sat down and gave himself over to bitter reflection. This
was Jimmy's thin hour. Only one savage determination
buoyed him up; the solitaire diamond must disappear
from Mary Curtis's finger! But even as he set his jaws
on this determination, something smarted in his eyes like
acid. Just going down the hill was Mary in her pretty
fluffy white chiffon frock, and with the leghorn hat which
she had worn on that first day; and something gripped at
his heart, and something swelled the Adam's apple in his
throat, and something made him sick! As for Toad
Jessup, at the levers of the donkey engine, he doggedly
raised that drill and dropped it, and raised and dropped it.
He was digging for oil, was Toad!
He was not the only one. It had occurred to a great
many people by this time that digging was a highly inter-
esting occupation, and that the erection of a derrick was


202
THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
the only natural and normal use for lumber. Everybody
who had a front yard or side yard or back yard was pre-
paring to dig in it for oil; from every vacant lot the rub-
bish was being cleared; the trustees of the Baptist Church
voted to use the cemetery annex for a temple-fund well,
and Jed Purvit even sold his pigs because their sty was the
only place he had in which to seek his fortune. On Mon-
day three derricks had reared their angular tops above
Fawnlake City's tree-softened skyline; and on Tuesday
there were half a dozen; and on Wednesday Henry
Beegoode was advertising that within a week, when his
case was to be tried and the courts would remove the
trespassers from his property, he would sell allotments of
oil land in New Bagdad; and on Thursday an artesian
well which many declared tasted of oil was struck on
Timothy Hollywood's farm; and on Friday over in Titus-
ville the progressive town council, sealing firmly their
re-election, gave over the town commons to oil pros-
pectors; and on Saturday the Wallingford-Daw well
apparently got from under control and kept up the excite-
ment to fever heat by spreading not less than a hundred
gallons of the precious fluid out on the sands and the sur-
face of the lake; and on Sunday everybody laid off to talk
oil! There didn't seem any other topic worth while –
except in the park-side-front rooms of the third floor of
the Hotel Splendide. The turkey-red mutual parlor of
the Wallingford suite, the Daw suite and the Jimmy and
Toad suite, was conspicuously free from the echoes of oil
— for the least said the soonest mended! There was a
strain in the family gathering, united though they were ,
in sympathy and affection. A crucial time was come into
the life of Jimmy, and the five people who loved him had


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD 203
little else in their minds. Of them all, perhaps the hardest
situation was endured by Fannie Wallingford. She had
borne this boy, and during all the time in which he had
been coming into the world she had known of the defect
in his heredity, had known of the father's moral oblique-
ness, and had worried over that moral warp her child
might develop; against her will! She had loved her hus-
band steadfastly, in spite of the turpitude in him, and that
had made her problem more difficult in the protection of
her child. Now, by a train of accidents, everything was in
a muddle, the whole question of moral tendency and of
strained ethics had been dragged into the open, and they,
as a family, were engaged in a complicated enterprise,
which, as she knew her men folks, consisted of two sides;
what seemed to be, on the one hand, and the truth on the
other! Whatever was being done was full of trickery and
deception, and the mother in Fannie Wallingford, and
the wife in her, and the good woman in her, all three
independent selves, were at such triangular war as to
keep her constantly, by day or by night, in silent grief, in
silent apprehension; for the only way in which she could
hold herself in readiness for wise help was by silence. The
things which had been set in motion had far too much
momentum to be stopped by a word.
No such depression weighed on the soul of Violet Bonnie
Daw, however. She was one whom silence could kill and
gloom make mad; so it was fortunate for Violet that there
was one topic on which she could freely dilate. Chickens!
Doc Beegoode and the feathery fluffs under her wing
were the delight of her soul and the burden of her song.
It was she who devised, and set in motion, all the tricks
and wiles by which Doc Beegoode in this past week had


204
THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
been pushed from the path of virtue into the range of
concealed cameras! In spite of the fact that he had pledged
his entire male integrity to the sweetest and the purest
and the prettiest girl in town, he stole the thing he had
pledged and scattered it recklessly amid the lollypops at
every secret opportunity. A born sneak, was Doc, and
you couldn't coax him on a bet to do an indiscretion where
any human eye might behold! When he kissed Cleo the
crimson vamp, it was behind the door; and when he was
inveigled into trying a can-can dance with the McCabe
twins you may be sure it was behind drawn blinds; and
when he put his arm around the divine Florodora, in her
one-piece bathing suit, it was behind the leafy screen of
the alder bushes bordering the pool; and when he met
any of the girls on the street it was with the austere
dignity of a professional man, which, strange to say, they
seemed to respect. No gossip was rife with the fair name
of Dr. Bertram Beegoode, no tongues wagged, and no
fingers of scorn were pointed anywhere in his direction.
Yet he was laying up for himself a tumble which would
make Humpty-Dumpty's fall look like a ride in a rocking
chair; for the chief industry of the lollypops, when not
vamping Doc, was to print copies, hundreds of them, of
every fool photograph they had taken of him! Would
gossip wag and scorn point and sides shake with laughter,
and a certain solitaire diamond jump off a tapering white
finger when that flood of comic cuts was let loose to drench
the town with joyous mirth? Oh yes, verily it would!
And good-night doctor!
Something of the grimness of this coming triumph was
in Jimmy, when, on the morning of the day before the
great Beegoode-Wallingford trial, he started for the hill


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
205
some half hour after the restlessly industrious Toad.
As he came out of the hotel he met Mary, face to face.
Nothing new in this. At some time or other every day he
met her, but she never met him. On this occasion, how-
ever, as she turned indifferently away from him, she
happened to glance across towards Dr. Bertram Beegoode's
office, and at the same instant somebody up in the sun
parlor of the Hotel Splendide opened a swinging window
which shot the reflection of the morning sunlight straight
into Bertram's consultation room, and revealed the
doctor slapping Maria Theresa Plomps on the plump
shoulder, receiving in return therefor an affectionate slap
which made all hearty between them — then the flash of
sunlight was gone, and in Mary's eyes there was a piteous
look as if she had been struck a blow by some ruthless
hand. The color came up in Jimmy's face, for he, too,
had seen this tableau, and by the poignant sympathy
which was in him for her he shared Mary's humiliation;
but she set her pale lips and raised her pretty head and
turned to Jimmy with all the dignity and pride which the
Curtis family had inherited, and could use easily when
occasion arose.
“That is your doing!” she told him, addressing him so
unexpectedly and so hotly that he was shocked into stupid
silence. “What do you hope to gain by it? I shall marry
Bert no matter what happens, for I have given him my
promise, and my promise is sacred! Don't you suppose
I've seen through your elaborate scheme? Bert was with-
out a single bad habit until you set these young women to
corrupt him!”
“And you thought he was too good to be a human man!”
blazed Jimmy. “He's a sneaking cur, a thief and a girl


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
207
oil at the present bottom of that well, and no indication
that there was further down; and the lollypop photograph
gallery was of no earthly use except to inflict pain on Mary.
He had made a mess of things. At no time in his whole
life had he delved so deeply into himself, or found so much
within himself to hold in profound contempt as he plodded
miserably up Main Street hill, his hands in his pockets
and his head drooped — and yet it was characteristic of
him and of the blood he had from his father's veins, that
even in this moment he found one segment of his brain
twisting and turning and contriving to find some shrewd
way to wrest victory out of all this defeat. Hopeless,
altogether hopeless! There was no way except the way
of honor; to relinquish his hold on Tal Curtis's land, to
leave this town, and to forget Mary; and down deep
amidst all his self-abasement the thing cried out which
would not be still, which would not let him accept this
honorable finish. He loved her! He wanted her!
He was in this warring mood when he reached the
Curtis place, and he stopped abruptly at the sound of
shouts from up there. Toad and Tal were yelling and
he could hear the shrill quavering voice of Grandma Curtis,
and, as he hurried up the hill, Ma Curtis was the first to
see him. That stiff and haughty lady actually came run-
ning toward him, shouting hysterically:
“Oil, Jimmy! We've struck oil!”
Tal and Toad were on him next, pounding him on the
back and telling him all about it, but he scarcely heard,
for there before him he saw the miracle spouting into the
morning sunlight, a black column ten feet high, splashing
into a fountain of rich, deep amber!
It wasn't much of a gusher, that oil well, just a com-


208
THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
fortable, steady spouter which surged up a thick stout
stream of the precious fluid and rolled in a turgid brook
down the hillside and through the ravine to a depression,
where it began to form in a viscid lake, and the spouter
gave such trouble in being capped and restrained from
its waste, that its lustiness was a marvel of joy.
Oil! Oil! Oil!
The news was over the town like wild fire, and if there
had been a thrill before, now there was madness! Oil
had been struck on the Curtis place, and, as if the magic
carpet of Arabia had transported them thither, the popu-
lation of the town seemed to suddenly spring up around
the Big Hope well. Fawnlake City swarmed the Curtis
farm, it came through the Curtis garden, around by the
road, across the fence, up over the hill from the other side,
and in wild abandon it gesticulated and whooped and
shouted and gabbled and looked; with all its eyes it
looked! There it poured, rich, golden oil! Mad dreams
of wealth fulfilled! Riches! Money! The opulence of the
Orient!
Oil! Oh, oil, oil, oil! Never was there a more frantic
demonstration. People who had no more than said
howdy-do to Talbot Curtis for years became his very best
friends in the twinkling of an eye, and so many pounded
his back that he began to be fearful of blisters. Ma Curtis,
after the first delirious excitement to which she had given
way, suddenly bethought herself of the haughtiness and
dignity becoming her position as being now both the rich-
est lady in the town and the matron of the foremost
family, and she retired to the front porch, where she sat
in great dignity and hauteur, stiff and stately, and received
condescendingly the plaudits of the population. Grandma


210 · THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
no surprise to him that Mary Curtis faced him flaming
with indignation.
“Never!" she cried. “Never, never, never, never!”
She started down the hill, and Jimmy, suddenly blazing
with wrath, strode after her and stood himself in front of
her, and, all unmindful of his grimy hands, placed them
on the lace which covered her smooth shoulders and held
her firmly; and he let his eyes flame down into hers.
“All right! But I'll guarantee you this. You'll never
marry Bert Beegoode! Never, never, never, never!”
She jerked free from him, suppressing a scream of rage,
and with those great blobs of oil on the shoulders of her
frock to remember him by she darted past him and ran
down the hill, ran past the house and out through the
gate; and he turned limp as it dawned on him that, with
her surprising temper in action, she was likely to marry
Bert Beegoode inside of twenty-four hours!


CHAPTER XVI
PERHAPS
Oil! Oil! Oil! As that'sensation quivered and rippled
and splashed to the furthermost confines of Fawnlake City,
it necessarily, in its ever widening circles — penetrated
into the park front of the third floor of the Hotel Splendide
where Messrs. Wallingford and Daw, who felt no need to
work early and late, were still enjoying their morning
cigars over the New York newspapers, a day old but still
good. The first they knew of the throbbing thrill was when
Violet Bonnie Daw came dashing in with:
"My Lord, boys, what do you think? The kids have
struck it! They've got it! Lord bless 'em, they've struck
oil!” and the tears were rolling over her plump cheeks.
Tears in Fannie Wallingford's eyes, too, as she followed
into the room.
“Don't you hear?" she cried. “They're calling it in
the streets! It's all over town! The boys have struck oil,
Jim!”
Jim put his arm around her as she came over to his
chair and held her tightly, and there was a hint of a sniffle
in him. As for Blackie, that human monkey was like a
jumping jack on a stick. Wild with joy and saxophone
in hand he marched round and round the room, playing a
medley of “Dixie" and other exultant things entirely unin-
telligible, occasionally pausing to poke his head out of
the window and shout “Hurray!” J. Rufus, however,
fell into sudden deep thought, and the more he thought
211


212
THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
the grayer of countenance be became. He roused himself
to gaiety.
"Wonderful stuff!” he proclaimed, and pumped the
pink up to his face and the smile to his lips and the twinkle
to his eyes. “Probably was never any more glorious
moment in the history of humanity. Son has struck an
oil well! Let's shoot out on the street, Blackie, and get
the dripping details!”
As the women looked out of the window, Blackie, who
could feel the moods of J. Rufus through a brick wall,
turned to him gravely with:
“What's the matter?”
“Blackie, it's a phoney! I want to get right over to
our tanks and make a measurement. If the level of the
oil in the tank now filling is below where the gauge sticks,
then it's a cinch that the kids have struck our rock pocket
leak! Blackie, I've looked at that map a hundred times,
and the location of their well isn't fifty feet from where
our pipe lines run through!”
“Great Scott!” gasped Blackie, instantly downcast,
but his spirit was up in a minute. “I know the answer,
and I bet I beat you to it by half a minute! All we have
to do is keep buying oil and pumping it into Jimmy's well
till he can sell it! Medal, please!”
“What do you mean, pump it in!” demanded J. Rufus
in fierce indignation. “Do you think I want to make a
crook out of my own son?”
“Well, he won't know it, you wobbling wompus! If he
isn't in on it, how can he be a crook?”
“Well, there is something in that,” admitted Wallingford
judicially. “It would be us, not him, and I guess we can
stand it.”


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
213
“Well, I hope you could!” interposed the voice of
Violet Bonnie Daw. “Husband, you may kiss me. There
have been times when I denied that you had brains, but
I'll take it back. You had a bright moment!”
J. Rufus was chuckling in keen enjoyment over the idea
of immolating his conscience for the sake of Jimmy and
Toad, enjoying, too, the cute turn it would be to hand
his son a fortune behind his back, when he found a light
hand laid on his shoulder, and looked up into the serious
face of Fannie.
“Jim dear, you know I never interfere with you, but
you must not do this thing. You must tell Jimmy the
truth!”
Joyless indeed is the way of the evil-doer when the
righteous are about. There was a hush like when the big
organ stops in church. Then, with something almost
approaching awe, J. Rufus rose, and taking his wife's
cheeks between his big hands looked down at her with the
worshipful affection she had compelled in him through
all these patient years.
“You're a fine little woman, Fannie, and I'm a big
slob!” he confessed, and kissed her. “You're right and
I'm wrong, and I'll tell him, if — if my theory proves up!
Come on, Blackie,” and as they started both men were
solemn.
Bliss reawakened when they reached the street, how-
ever, for there was a throng in front of the Fawnlake Bank,
and the throng was there, oh blessed be luck, to buy
allotments of dry sand in New Bagdad at prices which
would have been taken for a mirage a month ago! The
friendly doorman of the Hotel Splendide had no sooner
explained the situation to the authors of the oil than


216
THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
Waite residence, where the lollypops piled on the success-
ful diggers with every manifestation of emotional hap-
piness.
“Well, you did it, old kid!” said Lanks, hovering over
Jimmy regardless of the splatters of oil which still embel-
lished him. “I had to hold back the flock by main strength
from dashing up to congratulate you, but I was afraid
we might toss something in the works and break a
wheel!”
“With the doll she means, Snookums,” further explained
Plomps.
“It's been done,” reported Jimmy, the quiet smile still
with him and the musing light in his eyes. “I queered it
myself, and now I have to play the ace. Which of you
girls wants to marry the richest young man in this town —
tonight?”
The murmurs which rose constituted what might be
termed an ominous growl, signifying that Doc was not
popular with the lollypops!
“He goes for Cleo's perfume like if it was rum,"
suggested Lottie McCabe. “I think she could land
him.”
“Well Cleo don't!" blurted Toad with a vigor and
vehemence so surprising that all other conversation
stopped abruptly, while they stared at him. Cleo, sitting
next to him stared at him the hardest, and the longest,
and the most astonished.
“Light of my life!” she at last exclaimed, and snuggled,
not leaned, her willowy figure straight into his arms, and
slid a flexible arm around his neck. “Kiss me, darling!”
Toad looked down at her from this short range, and
his face turned so red that his freckles were lost; but he


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
217
was game and he kissed Cleo a resounding smack on the
crimson lips to the accompaniment of a shriek from all
the lollypops.
“She kissed him, and he kissed her yes,” grinned Jimmy,
whereupon Toad, muttering some retort under his breath,
broke away from Cleo's willowy weight and rushed out of
the room to get some cool air on his face; while Cleo sat
up with a strangely puzzled expression, the tingle of
Toad's kiss still on her lips.
“Girls, I'm gone!" she told them. “I started out to
be an enemy to man, hut I'm a slave in the first battle.
From this minute on your little friend vamp is a prude!
Gosh what love does to you!”
“That reduces the candidates to six,” figured Jimmy,
reaching over to pat Cleo's warm cheek.
“Cut it to five," observed Lanks, and even Jimmy,
obtuse as he had been to what lay beneath the warm com-
radeship of lanky Evelyn Anderson, was struck by some
queer undertone in her; but when he turned to her she
was laughing carelessly, and added: “I'd do anything in
reason for you, old darling, but, personally, I can't see
it in reason to sell myself for gold!”
“Oh, a fellow might do worse," piped a baby voice.
Florodora had sat in unnoticed quiet, weighing and meas-
uring and estimating generally, and in her lustrous eyes
was still the calm light of sane calculation. “I've been
broke away from home once, and it might happen again.
I could stand him — with money!”
"But Snookums," worried Lanks; “from all I've seen
of Cutie, I think he has made up his mind to marry respect-
ably and let his love stray where it will. How could she
get him; in marriage?”


218 THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
“Scare him into it,” grinned Jimmy. “Those photo
graphs —"
“I know!” piped Florodora. “I'll show him those
photographs, and promise to save him from being laughed
out of his old home town, and he'll marry me through
gratitude!”
“Hasn't she the sweetest way to put blackmail,”
drawled Cleo. “But keep the photographs, girlie. They'll
come in handy for the divorce.”
This seemed a better joke to the lollypops than marry-
ing Doc, and chuckling with a chuckle like his father's,
Jimmy rose to go; Jimmy the successful promoter, Jimmy
the oil magnate, Jimmy the brilliant young business
boy!
On yes! And at that very instant Jimmy's father, in
the dim high enclosure over on New Bagdad, finished
measuring the wet part of a plumb line and said sadly:
“Well Blackie, the Big Hope was spouting our oil. The
level of tank ten is nearly half a foot below its gauge."
“But why do you suppose there's no oil coming
through?” speculated Blackie, looking again at the
meter. “The kids have capped their well.”
"It's a cinch; Onion and Pete have stopped pumping.
I expected that, and it's all the corroborative evidence
I need. That engine is too light to pump oil into tank ten,
and keep up the flow in Jimmy's well beside; so the crew
has probably shut down.” He drew a deep breath. “Well,
I promised Fannie I'd tell Jimmy the truth, and the poor
kid has to have it.”
“Oh, hell.” Blackie stood disconsolately with his
hands in his pockets. “All right, Jim, but if it has to be
done you'll do it alone! I could no more be in the room
level of tank
do you supirkie, looking


222
THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
down there, nor if any other wells can be struck on your
land. So, if Mr. Beegoode wants to take the gamble, why
should you carry it? When you accept a hundred thousand
dollars you have it, and don't have to worry. Let Mr.
Beegoode do the worrying!”
A quiet voice replied to this.
“What is the maximum that you are empowered to
offer, on Mr. Beegoode's behalf?”
There was a spasmodic little pinching of Mr. Ter-
wixter's hook-like nose as he glanced at Jimmy, and then
he said:
"Oh well, since we have to come down to solid facts,
I may as well admit that I am empowered to go as high as
a hundred and fifty thousand dollars!”
"I said the maximum," pursued the even voice of
Jimmy, and there was a quiet smile on his face, and his
eyes were twinkling.
"A hundred and seventy-five!” snapped Terwixter.
“That's the last living cent!”
“Then, of course, Mr. Beegoode himself will go as high
as two hundred thousand,” observed Jimmy, and it
seemed so useless to argue with him that Mr. Terwixter
kept glumly silent.
"Well, well, I'll declare!” muttered Tal, looking from
his young friend Jimmy to his young friend Toad rather
expectantly, for this was a lot of money, and Tal's share
would just about fix him for life the way he was living;
leave his family well off, too, as values averaged in
Fawnlake City. A hundred thousand dollars invested
at six per cent would be six thousand a year, five
hundred a month! And a certainty, not a continuous
guess!


226 THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
grab the check, beat it straight to Henry Beegoode's bank
and get the money!”
“Jim!” The voice of Fannie. It was low, full of the
same frightened appeal which was in her eyes.'
“I won't! I can't!” Her husband glared at her with
both fists on his chair arms now.
“Fannie, you come right here with me. I want to see you
a minute,” commanded Vi, and grabbing Jimmy's mother,
dragged her by force into the Daw bedroom.
“What is this?” Jimmy was a trifle pale, and was
eyeing his father with a studiousness from which there
would have been small escape for a less agile-minded man.
“Oh, your mother is afraid for you to have so much
money in your own name,” declared Jim stoutly, trying
to escape from that quiet eye. It was a particularly
steady eye, and it lacked totally one quality which the
eye of J. Rufus sometimes had; the trace of fear.
Violet came back out, and called J. Rufus. He swore
under his breath, but he followed Vi nevertheless, though
with great reluctance.
“What is this, Uncle Blackie?” demanded Jimmy, and
Toad, every hair on end, gazed stupidly; so far, Toad
hadn't been able to see anything wrong. But Jimmy made
less out of Blackie than he had out of his father; for there
was this difference between Wallingford and his partner;
J. Rufus had very little conscience, but Horace G. Daw
had none; sympathy and sentiment and generous impulse
a-plenty, but of conscience, none!
“Hoot mon!” he cried, with extra agility in his fling,
and tooted him an extra skirl. “Tis a braw bricht moon-
licht nicht! Hoot mon, hoot mon, hoot mon, and to
blazes with the Dutch!”


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
227
Jimmy rose, and, walking to the window, looked out.
There was another extra on the streets. Toad and he had
made that extra! It was something to have set all this
excitement into motion, something to have been the cause
that those people down yonder were hurrying and scurry-
ing in all directions, stopping when they met to exchange a
few excitable remarks and scurrying on again, for all the
world like red ants after the destruction of an ant hill.
Why, a whole town, fifty thousand people, had been set
into commotion by the work of Toad and himself! There
was a tingle in it, there was in it the most dangerous
drunkenness which man may know, the thrill of power!
But what was wrong? Something, he was sure, for in all
these years he had spent more time in fascinated study of
his father than of any other human being. What was
wrong? Something!
He turned abruptly as his father and mother and Vi
came in from the other room. Violet swished away and
bounced into a chair, her face red with anger. Fannie's
face was pale, but her eyes were very bright. J. Rufus
stopped in the middle of the room, a glitter in his eye.
He hesitated, then, without a glance at any one, he went
to the window and looked out stubbornly.
“You'll have to be told the truth, Jimmy,” said his
mother with a little catch in her voice, and she glanced at
the broad back of her husband. “There is no oil in your
well.”
“What!” Toad was on his feet, and his voice shook
with indignation, but Jimmy, holding himself very quietly
indeed, looked from his mother to his father, and from
his father back to his mother.
“How do you know?”


228
THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
“Ask your — " Her voice broke. She could go no
further. This was the first time she had ever exercised a
separate will from her husband's. She nodded her head
in the direction of the window.
“She wins, Jimmy." J. Rufus tried to make his voice
nonchalant, but there was huskiness in it.
“Do you mean to say that we didn't strike oil in our
well?” demanded Toad. Both his fists were clenched, and
he seemed anxious to fight somebody. “Why dang it,
I guess I know oil when I see it! I knew there was oil
there from the first or all I'd learned of geology was wrong!
And there was oil there! We struck it! What right has
anybody to say that there isn't oil there! Whoever says
it's a dang fool!”
“That's what I say!” came in a muffled shriek from
the plump lady in the turkey-red chair.
"I think we'd better find out about this,” suggested
Jimmy, and now there was a quality of deadliness in his
quiet. He was in sympathy with no one in that room.
He was alone, a human being by himself. “Suppose you
tell us all about it, father.”
“Well, Jimmy;" J. Rufus sat on the window seat, and
stuck his thumbs in the arm holes of his vest, but before
he went on he cast an angry glance at Fannie, unmollified
by the fact that she sat with her handkerchief to her eyes;
“from the fact that you boys haven't asked any questions,
I have surmised that you knew our oil well to be a fake.
It is.” There was the sound of something falling on the
floor. It was Blackie's saxophone, and he paid no heed
to that precious instrument. “We're pumping oil into
our well, and into our tanks,” went on Wallingford, still
huskily, “through some deserted gas mains, from a pump-


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
229
ing station eighteen miles away.” There was a crackle of
something breaking. It was a spindle of the cabinet on
which Jimmy's hand had gripped as he listened; while
Toad stood numbly staring at J. Rufus. “We lost three
tank cars of oil through a leak into a rock pocket which
we have not located. You struck our rock pocket, that's
all. Whatever oil gushed out of your well, we lost.”
“God!” The pieces of the broken spindle came out
into Jimmy's hand and he threw them clattering into the
corner. There was not a vestige of color in his face, and
there were hard lines about his jaws which had never
before been there in any moment of his life. “God! This
is the last straw! You've been worrying about what would
become of me, about how I would turn out with my lobe-
less ear and my over-shrewdness, but it seems to me that
all the worry should be on my side! My God, I can't even
get rid of your influence on my life by changing my name!
I haven't done a thing that is crooked, and yet you pursue
me with it! I haven't had a chance! You gave me life
that I didn't ask for, a heredity I had no chance to choose!
And my mother, knowing what you are, brought me up
under your influence! She kept me with her, and she lived
with you! Mother, why didn't you let one of us go?”
Fannie Wallingford raised her head, and the smile that
she gave Jimmy through her tears and the smile that she
turned from him to his father was such a smile as martyrs
have worn on their lips when they were crucified for some
glorious cause.
“Love, Jimmy, that's all,” she said, simply and gently.
“I loved you both."
Out of the dense silence which followed this declaration
there came a choking sound. It was from the throat of


230
THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
J. Rufus. Jimmy crossed first to his mother, however,
and kneeling beside her put his arm around her, but as
she leaned her head on his shoulder and sobbed, she held
out her hand to Jim — and he was there to take it, and
presently with his free hand he reached out for Jimmy's,
and that hand, too, was gripped tightly, whereupon Violet
Bonnie frankly blubbered, and with no delicacy of feelings
whatever where her warm emotions were concerned, came
over and threw her arms around the whole Wallingford
family.
"By the way, father,” asked Jimmy, when some degree
of normality had been restored; “what did you intend
to do when you were holding back the truth?”
“Well, to make a clean breast of it, son, your mother
already had me licked before you got here, but when you
told me the facts of the situation I couldn't stick. It was
too good to be true that you could sell our few gallons of
leakage to Henry Beegoode for a quarter of a million!”
“Hoot mon! Hoot mon!” came like a jubilant amen
from the corner.
“You see, you're not selling a bogus oil well or anything
like that, just the stock of a company which owns land,
and you'd be legally safe; so Blackie and I planned to let
you go ahead, make your sale and collect your quarter
of a million in cash, then we'd start the pump and keep
your oil well gushing till you kids could make a getaway.
Tit for tat stuff, you know. Your mother couldn't see it
my way, Jimmy, but to me it was peaches and cream to
sting Henry Beegoode, who is trying to sting us, and whom
we are going to prove tomorrow to be a crook. Maybe
there's something wrong in me, I don't dispute it, but it
certainly did seem sweet to break off a quarter of a million


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
231
of Beegoode money! You see, if there were any crooks
in the deal it wasn't to be you kids, it was to be Blackie
and me. But, of course, since you know it, that gaudy
little futurist splash is off, it's cold, it's plain drab!”
Suddenly Wallingford stopped talking, struck into silence
by the peculiar expression on his son's face. The rich pink
color was again in his oval cheeks, and his quiet quizzical
smile was on his lips, and his eyes were narrowed with a
shrewdness which was appalling in one so young, while
they sparkled with musing enjoyment.
“You're a better man than I am Dunga Din," com-
mented the son of Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford, and rising
with the same leisurely movement which his father so
well remembered from the time when he had engineered
the appropriation of the yellow car, Jimmy reached for
his hat and went out of the door, followed by Toad.
J. Rufus and Fannie looked at each other with a new
fear in their eyes, then Fannie in a panic started to follow
her son, but J. Rufus touched her arm and held her.
"It's up to Jimmy now,” he said.


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
233
hand, he was their superior in advantage, on his action
depended their fortunes. The exaltation in him rose to a
degree of savage fierceness as he rested his gaze on the
Beegoodes, extra vulture-like today with their own exalta-
tion of greed. Involuntarily the tiger in Jimmy made him
lick his lips, while between those lips there came a breath
short, sharp, hot. The Big Hope well which Bert's father
would buy for a quarter of a million dollars was worthless!
The Curtis farm was worthless! The Beegoode claim on
New Bagdad was worthless, and Bert's father would have
to pay back out of his own funds the money he had taken
on those lots! Jimmy would just about break Bert's
father; break the whole Beegoode family! He! He could
break them! By gad, he held the power to do it, and the
savage in him sang, it leaped, it rejoiced, and it surged
the hot blood in his temples and in his ears! To break
and discredit and dishonor the whole Beegoode family;
crooks! They were crooks! Doc Beegoode there, leaning
over the back of Mary's chair and smirking down at her!
A grinding passion took possession of Jimmy's heart as
he watched him. It would be fine to break him, and to
expose him as a crook, and then, to finish the job, there
was something coming off tonight which would put Doc
out of the running for good with Mary! Jimmy scarcely
looked at her. There was no space in him for any gentle
emotion. What of the beast of prey there was in him,
derived from his father, was rampant! It was a conqueror,
and a ruthless one, who strode into that room, master of
the fortunes of them all, knowing what he knew!
"Well, well, I'll declare boys, you're late,” hailed Talbot
Curtis, smiling fondly at Jimmy and Toad. He had always
liked these boys, and it was fine to have them proved


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
235
highest office within their gift, to be the belle of a social
gathering or community and distract the attention of
every eligible man from the other girls, to foment a
rebellion, to incite a world war, to destroy a city, to cor-
rupt the morals of all mankind, or to lead them onward
and upward in a great renaissance of religious fervor, all
these things are but accomplishments of that mightiest
of all cravings in the human breast, the desire for power;
and here sat young Jimmy Wallingford, able to enrich
his friends, and himself, and to destroy his enemy!
“Well, Mr. Beegoode, we might as well establish our
figure and be through with the business. Our price is a
quarter of a million dollars.”
You could feel the thrill of that sum all around the
table. Everybody had a trace of the tang of it, especially
Henry.
“That price was never mentioned!” he shrilled, and
every wrinkle in his vulture like face was a wrinkle of pain.
“If you please, Mr. Beegoode,” returned Jimmy
calmly, “let us not haggle. Take all the time you want
to make up your mind whether to pay it or not, but that
is our price."
“Take it or leave it, Henry, take it or leave it!” added
Tal Curtis cheerfully. “You'll find us all of one mind
with our friend Jimmy, and if you don't want it at a
quarter of a million, we'll keep the property and the oil
well.”
Henry Beegoode looked around at the stockholders,
and he was a man who recognized an ultimatum when he
saw one. Truly they were all of one mind with Jimmy,
even to his son's fiancee so far as concerned this commer-
cial detail.


236
THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
“Well, I might go as far as two hundred and twenty-five
thousand,” he admitted, by way of doing his duty to
himself.
The only reply to that was Jimmy's glance at his watch
as a reminder that Henry might take his time, and the
sight of that, combined with the silent unanimity of the
stockholders, so irritated Henry Beegoode that, starting
to poke his lead pencil behind his ear he stuck it in his
eye, then slammed it on the floor in an excess of helpless
rage. He dug Ebeneezer Terwixter viciously in the ribs
with his sharp elbow.
“Fill in their amount!” he ordered. “And we'll raise
our prices on the allotments out there to cover it.”
Jimmy's smile did not change, but he licked his lips again.
“We shall require six certified checks in payment,”
he stated. “Twenty-five per cent each to Mr. Jessup and
myself, twenty-four per cent to Talbot Curtis, twenty-four
per cent to Emily Curtis, one per cent to Mary Curtis,
one per cent to Lucy Curtis," and Grandma laughed softy
as he named her name. “We have here the deed to the
Curtis farm, but since it has already been recorded in the
name of The Big Hope Oil Company, and you are pur-
chasing the total stock of that concern, there needs to
be no further transfer. The assignment of our stock to
your name in exchange for your checks will complete the
sale, I believe.”
"Yes, we've looked into the records," assented Terwixter,
rubbing his rib as he watched Secretary Jimmy gather up
the stock certificates for transfer.
Young Wallingford took his fountain pen from his
pocket to affix his signature to the transfer space on the
uppermost certificate, and it was his own, as it happened,


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
237
the stock of the natural leader and commander of his
company; and he drew his breath in deeply. This was
the moment in which he was to exercise that power he
had gained, to enrich himself and his friends, and to break
his enemies; and all by a trick of such superior shrewdness
as to elate him with a sense of mastery over the more
stupid minds of these also shrewd and tricky enemies.
Triumph! What a glow of triumph! Cut off their heads!
Let the blood flow in streams! So perish all enemies of
the victor! He smiled as he removed the cap of his fountain
pen to the other end. After all, he'd have to give credit
for most of this victory to his highly astute father, of whom
he was not an unworthy follower; and suddenly he paused.
The paper before him blurred. There came a blackness,
as it were, before his eyes, as he was removed far from the
scene, removed into vacancy, into space by himself, to
confront his own soul. There was no mighty struggle
within him, there was no profound self analysis, there was
no torrent of emotion. It was only that his fingers, with
the fountain pen between them, stopped as if automatically
and made no move to write. There is in every man a cer-
tain percentage of goodness and a certain percentage of
badness, and when the crucial moment comes, the crucial
moment, it is the greater percentage which wins. Through
the veins of Jimmy Wallingford there coursed a certain
amount of blood, and through his brain a certain amount
of thought, and through his heart a certain amount of
impulse, all of which were shrewd, tricky, dishonest; and
through veins and mind and heart there was a certain
other percentage which came from a source which was all
honest, all pure, all clean; and as a crystal dropped into
murky water clears it from the top downward, so, just as


238
THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
quietly and just as magically, that which was clear and
pure and clean in Jimmy Wallingford rose to the surface,
and settled the sediment down, far down. The blur which
had seemed to come on the paper before him, a misty blur,
cleared, and out of it a countenance formed, a countenance
serene, smiling tenderly with moist eyes — Jimmy's
mother! The blur on the paper? It was in his own eyes.
He blinked it away as he laid down his pen, aware that
they were all looking at him, waiting breathlessly for that
first signature which would begin the consummation of
the deal, wondering why he hesitated.
“I have decided not to accept the proposition.”
A blank silence, out of which suddenly screamed the
shrill voice of Henry Beegoode:
“I won't pay another cent!”
"I have decided not to accept any proposition," said
Jimmy quietly, and now he moistened his lips; he did not
lick them. It had come upon him that he was relinquishing
his revenge, foregoing the savage delight of breaking his
enemies, of enriching himself and his friends, and that he
was doing it against his will, sheerly because of the per-
centage of honor that was in him! An intrusive thing, this
percentage of honor, which, like a percentage of conscience,
sometimes seems an impertinent intrusion on the things
we most want to do..
“Why not?” It was a harsh voice, a strangely harsh
voice which now rose so insistently. It was Ma Curtis,
and whatever pretense or pose that woman had affected
was gone. She was intensely in earnest.
“I cannot explain, Mrs. Curtis," returned Jimmy,
gathering his strength for the contest which was clearly
in the determined eye of Mary's mother.


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
239
“Then, if you have no reasonable explanation, I must
insist that we accept Mr. Beegoode’s offer.”
“Well, well, Emily. Let's wait a little and consider it,"
suggested Talbot, panic stricken at the thought of unpleas-
antness.
“No, Tal.” She was not unkind to him, even though
she was full of bitterness. “This is my chance, and I'm
going to have it. All my life I've skimped and scraped to
keep up a genteel appearance on nothing, and while I was
skimping and scraping and saving you've let one piece of
property after the other slip through your fingers through
being so easy. I don't mean to be hard, but I am hard.
I want this money! I don't want to take any more chances,
and I want the money in my own name, all of it, Tal,
yours and mine both!”
It came upon Jimmy that he was going far to make his
conscience serve for the consciences of all these others,
but he saw very clearly now that what is right is right,
and that the way of righteousness is often a thankless
way, to be followed for its own sake, and for no expectance
of thanks whatsoever. Jimmy looked at Toad. He found
in that young man an indifference which he could not
comprehend; Toad's lips were still squared and his eyes
sullen and his freckles dully glowing with that intensity
of stolidity which had settled on him like a mantle; but
in answer to Jimmy's unspoken question, Toad gave a
jerk of a nod. As swiftly Jimmy glanced at the other
stockholders. A vote would be a deadlock. The Curtis
family would ballot solidly with Mrs. Curtis. He could
read that in Tal's lowered eyes and his lax figure. Mary,
of course, with her one share given her by her father and
her mother, and Grandma, would complete the fifty-


240
THE SON OF "WALLINGFORD
fifty straddle. Well, that would achieve the result, even
if he put it to a vote. So long as they were at a deadlock
on this offer, the offer could not be accepted; but while
Jimmy was reaching this conclusion, Henry Beegoode
suddenly leaned forward, all beak and talons.
“Tell you what I'll do. I'll buy the Curtis stock! It's
fifty per cent of the total company, and a hundred and
twenty-five thousand dollars is ready!”
There was some good blood Jimmy had from his father,
some good wit from his brain, some good pluck from his
heart, and all these qualities had another good quality,
from his father; they worked instantaneously! Turning
he found the bright eyes of Grandma Curtis fixed on him
in wonder, and in faith; and in that instant he knew what
to do. He made an imperceptible sign to Grandma, and
she understood as if it were youth speaking to youth; so
when he rose abruptly and walked to the door, Grandma
was after him and with him before any one knew what was
happening.
"Mother!” shrilled Ma Curtis, quicker than any of
them. “Come back here! Where are you going?”
But Jimmy had deftly slipped the key from the lock,
caught Grandma by the arm, pushed her through ahead
of him, locked the door from the outside and let them
pound on it.
“What is it, Jimmy?" asked Grandma, all aquiver with
excitement.
He took both her hands in his and looked down into
her bright old eyes.
“Grandma, can you keep a secret?"
“Lord bless you, my boy, I'm seventy-four years old,
and I know so many things that nobody else has ever


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
243
shoulder. It was Jimmy Wallingford's hand, and Jimmy
mashed Doc back against the wall with a thud. Here at
least he need have no restraint of impulse, although the
presence of three ladies put restraint on his action. All
he did was to shove his face in front of Doc's, and let
Doc quail at the passionate rage which blazed in his eyes,
which curled his lip, which distended his nostrils, and
which set the muscles of his jaw into knots; then he turned
on his heel and walked out, followed by the stolid Toad.


CHAPTER XIX
FAKE, EH?
The shades of night were falling fast when across the
sands of New Bagdad there trod two weary travellers,
and one weaved in a graceful rolling grapevine pattern,
and one weaved in sharp-pointed zigzags; and their foot
paths were like their characters, for the one who curved
was Onion Jones and the one who zigzagged was Petrograd
Pete; and the twain were in pursuance of the fell purposes
of that terrible organization known as the Cataclysm!
Furtively and secretively, though none were abroad on
the sands of New Bagdad to see, the Cataclysm approached
the dark, deserted derrick house of the Wallingford-Daw
Oil Aerating Company, and furtively and secretively the
Cataclysm passed three times around the tall structure
without being able to locate the door.
“Tell you what I shink,” said Onion Jones thickly,
sitting on the doorstep to rest. “I shink Jim an’ Blackie
took away the door. S’like 'em. They're shoo shmart
for us."
Petrograd Pete sleuthed that idea through all the
ramifications of his intellect until he caught up with it,
and mastered it, and decided on strategy. First he took
a drink of vodka, and handed the bottle to Onion, who
promptly strangled and had to be pounded on the back
as a matter of custom; then they rose from the doorstep
and went in opposite directions, in search of the fugitive
door, furtively, cautiously. Ah! Spies! Each member of
244


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
245
the Cataclysm detected the presence of a spy around the
far corner of the big dim structure, and each backed away
cat-like, from corner to corner, until at the doorstep they
bumped from behind. Petrograd Pete was on Onion Jones
in an instant, and had him by the throat and was hissing:
“Spy!”
“S’lie!” gurgled Onion. “Lemme go! Lemme go, Pete!
S'me! Jones!”
"Well, wadjoo doin' spyin?!” demanded Pete, letting go
of the throat with reluctance.
“I dunno,” responded Onion, much confused. “Smistake
here some place. Le's sit down on the doorstep an' talk
it over.”
Excellent suggestion, for they were tired. They sat on
the doorstep and took a drink of vodka, and this time
Onion's strangle trailed off into a laugh which seemed to
have no end, until Pete rose up and kicked him into silence
and got the explanation.
"S a joke!” gasped Onion. “Looky here Pete. If we're
sittin' on the doorstep, the door mus' be right behine us!
Lookit an' seefif 't 'aint."
It was the door! The Cataclysm promptly booted it
open, strode in and struck match after match in the effort
to locate a certain important paper which should give the
upper hand to the under-dog, since it would be sorely
needed at tomorrow's trial; but without avail, for no match
could last long enough for them to look at more than the
match. They found a hanging lantern, however, with the
aid of Onion's head, but the lantern was a worthless thing,
for there was no oil in it! Here they were, practically
surrounded by oil, thousands of gallons of it; it was in
pipes right beneath their feet, it was stored in giant tanks


246
THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
just outside; and yet there was no way for them to get
enough of it to fill a lantern. But genius knows no obstacles.
Pete stumbled out into the darkness, lantern in hand, and
drawing a forty-eight calibre pistol from his pocket took
wavering aim at the huge dark tank which towered in
front of him, and fired. Immediately a solid bar of oil
shot out. Beginning at the hole in the tank, Pete struggled
with that steel hard rod of rushing oil until it forced him
and what it had left of his lantern back to where it was
tearing into the sand; and here he lit his dripping wick,
just as his companion under-dog staggered out of the
derrick house with a paper in his hand.
“Betchoo sisissit!” boasted Onion. “Foun' it wishout
match, down behine the pipes where I shaw you drop it.
Hadn't move a inch!"
Pete held up his lantern, it was a flaming torch by now,
and through his bleary eyes he looked at the paper. The
color and the pattern were unmistakable. This was what
would give the upper hand to the under-dogs! As he
looked, the burning oil ran down the side of the lantern,
and the blaze spread hot on his oily hand. It occurred to
him that he had no further use for the lantern, so he
dropped it — then across the dark sands of New Bagdad
weaved the Cataclysm, part of it like a grapevine and
part of it in sharp zigzags, leaving behind it that little
tongue of leaping flame on the ground, and some thousands
of tons of well aerated oil shooting at it through a forty-
eight calibre hole!
It was a thing of impish life, that tiny tongue of flame
as it hid in the hollow of the sand until it could gather
strength for the mighty job of diabolism it had happily
to do that night. It flickered and it flared, and it died


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
247
down with the passing breeze, and it leaped up again to
mock the next zephyr, and it sent out wavering phantasms
of blue flame, almost invisible, to circle over the surface
of the oil then come back and say that the moment was
not yet. Sometimes it seemed to be gone entirely, but
always, and steadily, it crept upward on the oil-soaked
sand of the little hollow, and spread its circumference,
and held tenaciously to the elfin life that was in it, and
winked up at the winking stars in that great empty canopy
of night which hung over it; for except the stars there were
no eyes which saw the flame as yet, not even the nearest
pair, which belonged to Jimmy Wallingford out there in a
little wooden row boat, all by himself, at the lonely edge
of the lake near the dam.
He had slipped out here right after dinner to be alone,
because the presence of anybody just now hurt. He had
won a big victory that afternoon, perhaps the biggest
victory a man can win, and the victory had brought him
face to face with defeat! If he was to live by that honesty
which he had found in himself, and of which he was now
sure for the balance of his life, he must give up everything
for which he had striven in this town, and that meant,
first, last, and all the way through, Mary! It is small
wonder that the perspiration stood out on his forehead
though he was not rowing, for little Mary Curtis had taken
complete possession of every fibre of him. He loved her!
He seemed to be unable to go further than that point, and
sat there against the wall of the dam, listening to the
trickle of the water through the sluice gates below as
intently as if he had come out especially to hear that sound;
but when he roused himself his lips were firm, and his eyes
clear. He knew what he must do. He must lay aside any


248
THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
effort to save his business plans, return Tal's land to him,
leave the town, and try to forget that there had ever been
a Mary Curtis; acknowledge himself licked; and that
thought went hard with Jimmy Wallingford, for he had
never said the words before, even to himself. But it had
to be done, and something else went with it which made
it doubly hard. He had to save Doc Beegoode! Jimmy
wanted to be just, would be, but it was might difficult for
him to be just to Bert. Here were the facts, however; in
the attempt to win Mary, Jimmy had used extraordinary
temptations to bring out the worst in Doc, as his father
had done with Doc's father. Both Beegoodes had lived
correctly, so far as anybody knew, in spite of their inward
tendencies; and no matter what motive keeps a man
straight, the fact that he is straight should be sufficient!
It took all of Jimmy's strength, and he had developed a
lot of it that afternoon, to say that he would save Dr.
Bertram Beegoode, and, after a good scare, set his feet
again in the straight and narrow path; but the boy accom-
plished it, and having once made up his mind he couldn't
get back across that lake quickly enough, to stop Floro-
dora! He grabbed his oars, and headed home just as the
imp-like flame up there in the hollow of the sand began
to run dancing circles around the edge of its pit and try
its muscles, and its appetite for the steady, hissing stream
of oil.
A pretty town, Fawnlake City, and it cut deeply that
Jimmy had to leave it - and everything precious which
it contained. They were switching on the lights in the
bandstand now; this was concert night, and the glimmering
lights in the park, and the boulevard lights up Main Street,
and all the twinkling lights amid the trees where the town


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
249
spread across the hill made it like a fairyland; and it
saddens one to be leaving a fairyland — where precious
things abide. Oh Jimmy Wallingford, Jimmy Wallingford!
In your desire to be honest, you have been more generous
than just. Because you yourself felt the pull of a mighty
temptation today, you have extended your leniency to a
man who couldn't resist, and who wouldn't resist in the
years to come; and who never would have been a fit
husband for little Mary Curtis!.
Perhaps sadness strengthens one, but it didn't strengthen
Jimmy as he crossed the park and saw a slender little
figure in a flowered organdie standing in front of the
Hotel Splendide drug store. Mary, and she was with the
family, but when they went in for the ice cream soda which
everybody took either before or after the concert, Mary
did not go with them; instead she came straight in his
direction! He met her just at the entrance to the lilac
path, and when he spoke to her she looked up startled,
for she had been walking pensively, and as totally alone
in her thoughts as Jimmy had been on the lake. For an
instant she half turned, as if she would walk away from
him without speaking, then she faced him and stood coldly,
waiting to hear what he had to say; stood coldly enough,
but she trembled, too.
“I'm going away, Mary. Won't you say good-bye to
me, and forgive me?”
She controlled the trembling in her voice, angry that
it was there.
“I can't.”
“I'm sorry, Mary,” he went on humbly; though he
stood straight and tall and with something of dignity in
him, for he felt he was clean of soul. “I have been wrong,


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THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
but I'll undo all I can before I go away. Any — any foolish
thing Doc may have done is my fault, and I want you to
be happy with him!” There was such a curious catch in
his voice, and there was such anguish beneath it, that she
looked up quickly; and then his repression broke. “I made
all my mistakes because I loved you! I do love you, Mary!
I-"
She held out a slim white hand, and it did not tremble.
“Good-bye, Jimmy. I forgive you."
He took her hand numbly, and held it a long time while
she thought he was going to say something more, but he
did not. He was forbidden to say the only thing which
would come upon his tongue. He held her hand, because
when she took it away it would be "good-bye”! She was
going out of his life, and that was like ceath! He looked
at her, as if the dumb pleading in his eyes could move her,
but she protected herself against that plea by lowering
her own gaze, and he turned abruptly away, staring out
across the lake; and in all his shrewdness and keenness of
mind he could find no adroitness with which to make a
breath in the icy barrier she had set between them. On
this item he was dumb, dull, a sluggard. Suddenly he let
go of her hand. He was staring at a tiny flame across
there, a flame which leaped and wavered and died down
and sprang up intensified with each upward leap; and the
flame, each time it mounted, showed in dull orange sil-
houette against the dark sky his father's and Blackie's
tall derrick house, and the long row of tanks. Why, the
flame was right at the base of them!
“Look!" He grasped Mary's arm. “There's a fire!”
“Fire! There are thousands of gallons of oil over there!”
They ran down towards the lake, and on the beach,


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
251
clear of the trees, they could see what appeared to be a
sheet of flame suddenly stretch to the nearest tank and
play about its surface.
"I'm going across,” Jimmy decided, starting to his
boat. “I'll leave you to give the alarm if you will."
“Certainly,” she readily agreed, and was turning to
run through the park when Jimmy called to her and she
came back.
“Mary, tonight Bert is to be trapped into a situation
which would make him impossible for you. Won't you
please telephone Eddie right away, at the Splendide,
that I said it's off! I'm rotten sorry for all this. Good-
bye.”
She stood so motionlessly, and was so shocked and
horrified by what he had revealed, that he felt it futile to
ask her forgiveness for this last enormity, felt that he well
deserved her scorn and contempt, and with a gulp in his
throat he jumped into the boat and struck across for the
other bank.
Mary remained there, as Jimmy saw with surprise
while he rowed away from her; stood and stared after
that receding figure on the water, and the wavelets were
already orange-tipped from the glow of the far-off flames.
Once she turned to go but as she did so there was no need,
for the bells clanged out, and people came running down
to the beach. They were excited, these people who came
running, and they were talking of the danger. She hadn't
thought of that. Her mind had been too fully occupied
with the complexity of other things, and all these set
against the fascination of those leaping flames over
yonder. How rapidly they increased; how high they
mounted!


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD 253
I'd go to hell for him! And you, you white-faced prude —
what's it to you!"
For an instant Mary turned on her, and even Lanks in
her fury was surprised to see the answering blaze in
Mary's eyes. At the same instant a roar of horror went
up from the crowd as it saw the smoke roll down the
bank and spread on the surface of the water, and with
lightning-like rapidity overtake Jimmy's slow-moving
rowboat and blot it from view — while through the smoke
the red flames glared, and leaping tongues of it had
already reached the water's edge. Perhaps he might keep
ahead of those flames, might even make his way through
them, if the smoke did not suffocate him, but if the other
tanks broke loose -
Without a word to Lanks Mary suddenly ran down to
the motor boat concealed beneath the boat house bridge,
sprang into it, cast off the tiller, and headed out into the
lake. No longer in Mary's mind was there any complex-
ity of thought, warring elements, tangled psychology or
storm-tossed emotions. She only knew one thing; that
Jimmy was out there! Swiftly the rolling smoke obscured
her, too. Before Mary had more than disappeared into
that awesome curtain, the advance of the burning oil had
reached the beach at the Park, little running blue spirits
of disappearing flame, and suddenly Fawnlake City became
aware of not merely a great spectacle and a great waste,
and perhaps a great tragedy, but that a great peril men-
aced the town! If the other tanks should burst and flood
the lake, and the wind sweep those high leaping flames
ahead of it, Fawnlake City was doomed, the whole town,
when once the houses down near the water's edge should
catch on fire!


254
THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
Those little blue spirits of disappearing flame, running
fingers of fire which darted hither and thither like a net
work of ghosts of lightning flashes, were everywhere on the
water beneath the curtain of rolling smoke, where Jimmy,
with a wet handkerchief bound around his mouth and
nostrils, rowed painfully in the red-brown gloom, setting
his mind upon keeping the pull of his arms even so that
he should not go in circles; for in that impenetrable pall
he had no sense of direction. That dull glow confronted
him on every hand, and the stifling smoke smarted in his
eyes and burned in his lungs, and something rang in his
ears, buzzed in his head, and he was fighting off his second
paroxysm of faintness when suddenly, near at hand, he
heard a sound which gave him new life, new strength.
His name was called - and in Her voice!
“Jimmy!”
“Mary!”
“Jimmy!”
“Mary!”
“Jimmy!”
It was magical, the thrill in those groping calls through
the obscurity which baffled direction. Backward and
forward came the names, until suddenly a mighty explo-
sion rent the air, and flames reached far up into the sky.
A second tank had burst! A cross shift of the wind lifted
the curtain of smoke for a moment and showed to the
watchers on the beach the two boats out there, with Mary
stretched limply along the gunwale but still clutching the
wheel, and Jimmy not far away, bending forward at his
oars and peering through the smoke; and a circle of
flames surrounded him, where the oil clung near his
wooden hull. Then the wind died and the curtain fell


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
255
runnit
ke a ni
ce on the
Jimmi
Uth an
setti
so the
ronte
second
again, and frantically Jimmy rowed toward where he had
seen her boat; but when he had gone twice the distance
that he should he realized that he had missed her, and
stopped his oars to call and call again. No answer!
Some place there in the muffling vapors, evasive, mock-
ing, there was the slow chug of a motor, but beside that
there was only the silence of death around him, and those
orange glowing masses of sweeping smoke, and the darting
pattern of flame fingers on the surface of the water, and
here and there tiny floating pools of iridescent oil streaked
with the dulled colors of every tint in the rainbow; and
now a steadily growing heat which began to be intolerable,
to stifle, to suffocate, to burn and parch the skin, to sear
the eyeballs, to scorch the lungs. Gasping and choking,
Jimmy picked up his oars again and steered blindly into
that impenetrable curtain which was like the veil of death
— and now the flames from the second tank came sweeping
down the sand and began to spread upon the water!
They were frantic back on the beach; women were
screaming and men were cursing, but there was no help
for those in the lake, no way to reach them, for clumsy
hands in their excitement had let the boat barge loose,
and it had drifted out amid the smoke. Toad Jessup
would not say there was no chance! He found a lane in the
smoke, where the breeze blew down from the Big Hope
ravine and across the water like a blast from a blow pipe,
and, throwing off his shoes and his coat, he plunged in;
and with parted lips and suspended breath Cleo watched
the swimmer disappear down that dim perspective, while
past her tore a score of men headed for the dam.
The sluice gates! Out of the paralysis which had seized
them all had come this sudden thought; the only thing


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD 257
every explosion! The next one or the next after that will
sweep right over the town! Get down from there!”
“Let him alone or I'll brain you!” snarled Blackie,
thrusting himself between Henderson and J. Rufus; and
in his hand he held a convenient length of gas pipe.
“Go to it, Jim! Tell 'em its a fake!”
“It's a fake!” yelled Wallingford. “Look at that
wreath of smoke in the sky! That's a gas explosion!
There wasn't a drop of oil in that tank!” Another explo-
sion interrupted him. “Watch that one! The whole
thing's a fake, I tell you! It's a fake! The only two tanks
that had oil are already burst! See; the flames aren't any
higher!”
They were not any higher, they were lower instead; as
the oil spread on the sand and on the water the height of
the fire was less, and the two new explosions had brought
no fresh floods of oil. They could all see that, and they
hesitated. In that instant of hesitation Blackie and Tal
pushed past the guards at the door, and seizing the levers
frantically closed the sluice gates.
With the stoppage of the roar of the water there seemed
to come a calmer mood on the crowd, which was increased
now by the throngs from the beach who had moved down
to this new scene of excitement. In that calmness, the
mob of investors in New Bagdad oil land turned slowly
from the seething inferno out there, and, recovering from
its panic, gazed on big J. Rufus Wallingford up on the
platform, and remembered what he had said. Fake, eh?


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
259
hatred. She struggled to the edge of the platform where
she could glare up her viperous fury at Wallingford and
at Daw. Henry was with her, and black rage was in him,
too, that his oil land was a “fake”; but he had no chance
for speech, for beside him Caroline kept shrieking mono-
tonously: “Lynch 'em! Lynch 'em! Lynch 'em!”
Suddenly the sheriff, a brawny person with a yellow
mustache, jumped on the platform. He was scared blue
and began to argue for calmness; and he was stirring up
the very thing he dreaded. He represented law and order,
but he was ranging law and order on the side of swindlers
who were destroying law and order, and thereby he made
them impatient of law and order; so they howled him
down. However, it wasn't a riotous mob as yet, for in
spite of that shrill virago voice which kept shrieking its
hate, no person had risen among them to lead them on
across the border line where men become blind beasts.
Wallingford noted that fact, knew it with all the con-
centrated wisdom of humanity which was in him, knew,
too, that at any instant the man of the moment was likely
to spring up. In all such cases the man of the moment
must spring up, and suddenly he did. It was J. Rufus
Wallingford!
“So you've brought in a verdict, have you?” he jovially
inquired, as he pumped the pink into his face and smiled
his genial smile and actually accomplished a shoulder-
heaving chuckle, though his legs wanted to wobble under
him. “Well, I'll hand you a laugh!”
You could feel the change in that crowd as they looked
up at the smiling big fellow, and actually waited for the
promised laugh;and Fannie Wallingford, down in the crowd,
stilled the voice of terror in her as she looked up confidently


260
THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
Could woh that shave to me
at him, while the lean dark-visaged man who stood beside
the orator with his handy length of iron pipe in his fist
drew a deep breath of relief and grinned, and smoothed
his black mustaches to sharp points. He'd have to hand
it to Jim, he certainly would! With that section of gas
pipe Blackie knew that he could wollop at least a dozen
men, but Wallingford's tongue could wollop at least a
thousand!
Why Jim was telling them the great joke on Henry
Beegoode, who was to be proved a common thief in court
tomorrow; telling them with the gusto of a born story
teller the rare and rosy jest of the hole-in-the-hill, and
the pump, and the shipped oil, and the tremendous comedy
inside the derrick when they made the town imagine
they'd struck oil so Henry Beegoode would think the land
worth stealing; and when Wallingford thrust his hand in
his pocket for the paper about which he had told them,
that violet tinted third copy of the bill of sale which he
had secured from Henry and Doc by such a cute trick,
they were with him to a man! They were laughing heartily,
and Henry Beegoode, guilty in his soul, and Caroline,
equally guilty, made themselves as small as possible in
the shadow of the platform, and began to look for chances
to get away.
But presently the laugh began to check. The comedy
flourish with which the jovial J. Rufus had reached into
his pocket for the paper had not ended with the production
of the paper! It wasn't there! It wasn't in any of his
pockets! Why, he'd seen the thing that very morning;
had it in his hands!
“Well, where is it?” suddenly shrilled Henry Beegoode,
springing on the platform steps, black with craven passion


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
261
to have these people murdered before they could find that
paper. "He hasn't got it! And he never did have it! It's
another fake! It's a desperate lie to save his hide at the
expense of an honest man; one of your own townspeople
that you've known for years! He's played one dirty trick
after another ever since he came into this town! He'd
stop at nothing! But this has got to be his last fake!
I say lynch 'em!” and immediately there rose again the
shrill voice of Caroline Beegoode:
“Lynch 'em! Lynch 'em! Lynch 'em! Lynch 'em!”
Now at last that insistent demand began to stir the
blood lust in them, angry as they were that they had been
duped again, and in the ominous silence during which their
tempers gathered heat, a fight broke out in the edge of the
crowd. Two men were rolling over and over in the grass
back there at the slope of the hill, and from them came up
a hoarse voice calling Jim; Blackie. Fannie and Violet
Bonnie both recognized that voice, and frantically they
ran back to find Onion Jones and Petrograd Pete in a
deadly struggle for the possession of a crumpled paper.
It was clutched in Onion's fingers, and Pete, with his teeth
sunk in Onion's wrist, was trying desperately to open
that hand.
"Take it, quick!” gasped Onion, as Pete strove to
smother his voice. “Give it to Jim, and tell 'im Onion
always comes through!”
: Fannie seized the paper, and in the very instant that
she did so there broke forth a sound from around the
platform which was blood curdling. Jed Purvit had made
a dash up the steps, with other men pushing behind him,
and Blackie's iron pipe had come down on his skull!
Then had gone up the angry roar. The crowd had reached


THE SON OF WALLINGFORD 263
wished, from the bottom of his heart, that he had never
done a crooked thing in his life! Then this tragedy
couldn't have come to Fannie, and to Jimmy! That
broke him. His muscles went flabby and darkness seemed
to fall — and then there was Blackie's fierce clutch on his
arm and Blackie's fierce voice in his ear, telling him to
buck up and die with his teeth in a throat! Ugh! Just
he and Blackie to battle for a few extra minutes of life,
just he and Blackie, just he and Blackie! Suddenly there
was some one else beside him, some one out of that rolling
smoke along the dam; Jimmy! Jimmy, with his face
blackened by fire and his shirt front scorched and his
hands blistered, but his jaws set with high courage as he
ranged alongside his father; his father before all the
world! And there was Toad alongside Blackie, good,
sturdy, freckled Toad with fight in him from the roots of
his hair to the tips of his square-toed shoes. Almost Jim
Wallingford had been going under, but the sight of Jimmy
by his side roused his pride and stiffened his knees. Just
in time, for the sheriff gave way and they were coming!
Coming! And in all the earth and sky, there wasn't a
thing which could save them — these four against all that
mob. Before the flames of the oil died down, four ropes
would be dangling from that heavy bar which held the
sluice gate cables —
“Jimmy! Look! Jimmy, Jimmy, look!” Tal Curtis
down in the mob with Mary, and his voice was so electri-
cal that even those grim men on the steps heard it, and
turned, and looked! There, up the ravine, the Big Hope
Oil well was spouting a mighty column, two hundred' feet
high, a fountain of gleaming rubies in the glare of the fire
from New Bagdad, and as the crowd stilled, its attention


264
THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
distracted by this new wonder, the rush and the roar of
that tremendous gushing pillar could be heard above
every other sound!
Among all that crowd the first to recover his composure,
the first to regain the use of his wits was Get-Rich-Quick
Wallingford!
“Look at my son's Big Hope well!” he cried, and the
blood was back in his face, the strength in his knees.
“It's a gusher! Real oil! Millions of gallons of it!"
“I pumped it!” screeched the vindictive voice of
Petrograd Pete, seizing his glorious opportunity.
“It's a lie!” cried Wallingford, and tried to say more
but it was in their minds that that gusher was being
pumped, and they drowned the voice of the fakir with
angry howls. It might have begun all over again, but as
that possibility quivered on its tragic verge another voice
broke in, a clear and a vibrant and a young voice; Jimmy
Wallingford's!
“You'll listen to me, men!” he told them, breasting
those grim executioners who still hesitated at the top of
the steps. “You'll listen to me, if I die for it! And you'll
believe what I tell you!" There was a ring in that voice
which Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford had never tried, the
ring of an honest man who knew that he was honest, and
who was confident that the truth must be believed. J.
Rufus drew a deep breath of relief, and he began to gather
up a few words with which to help his son; but as he waited
for his opportunity it suddenly broke on his knowledge
that the boy didn't need any help. He was getting them.
No, by George, he had them! As the young oil magnate's
vibrating tones rang on, telling them all about it, men's
faces softened and women stopped their hysteria. Oh, it


266
THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
him, because it wasn't honest to sell it — even to Henry
Beegoode!”
It was good to hear that laugh from the crowd! Splen-
did! Heart-warming!
“And I'll tell you something else, Jimmy!” called up
Burrowes. “I'm going to begin shoving that branch road
through your oil land next week!”
The new railroad! That was the finishing touch. A new
railroad, and genuine oil, and everything! Now indeed
was Fawnlake City agog and agape and agag! The golden
dreams they had been led to believe were realities, right
now! They'd all be rich! And, say, a fellow likes to be
just, doesn't he? Well they wouldn't have been rich if it
hadn't been for Jimmy Wallingford; so blessed be the
name of Wallingford, J. Rufus and all! Also Daw! Also
everybody! Except the Beegoodes, on whom anathema!
Where was Henry? Why sneaking away across the park!
Hey there! Stop him! Stop thief! And every last soul in
Fawnlake City who had bought an oil lot from Henry had
a sudden feeling that they couldn't trust him with the
money over night! So there he went, lickety split, with a
third of the town after him, and by his side a gaunt female
figure streaking it along in more than panic, for while she
was fully dressed from the waist up she was not decorously
dressed from the waist down, her skirt having remained
in the clutches of Violet Bonnie Daw!
Ah, this was a great night, a fine night, and the two-
thirds of the town who stayed behind to watch the heroes
gather up there on the platform, the Wallingfords, the
Daws, the Curtises, the lollypops and President Burrowes,
laughed themselves sick to see those Beegoodes go it,
blast them! And while they were laughing at that,


268
THE SON OF WALLINGFORD
Florodora and her swain. Three cheers for Eddy and his
willowy bride, hooray, hooray! Music! Up in the band-
stand the band, “tipped off” by the triumphant sheriff,
who felt that he had done his full duty this night and
saved the day, played “Here Comes the Bride”.
As with one accord, Jimmy and Toad turned to each
other and grinned, then as with one accord they gazed
on that majestic spectacle at the head of the ravine, that
ruby-tinted gusher of real oil, which, gathering strength
since the last tap had opened a way for it through Walling-
ford's rock pocket, had blown off its own cap, torn away
the derrick, and was relieving itself with volcanic violence.
With tears in his eyes Jimmy put his arm around his
freckled partner, and said:
“Well Toad, what do you think of it now?"
Toad squared his lips:
“What I always thought! What I always kept on
thinking, even when you were going to sell out and I didn't
give a dang whether you did or not. I always knew there
vas oil down there! Didn't I, Tal?”
“Certainly did, Toad, certainly did!” yelled Tal, a hand
on the shoulder of his friend Wallingford and a hand on
the shoulder of his friend Blackie, and his curls were
bobbing for he was cutting a caper like a schoolboy.
“And I'll have to say this about our son Jimmy, Mr.
Wallingford; he's a smart boy, and I'll make mother say
so before the night's over!”
"I'll say it now, Tal,” agreed Ma, in the pleasantest
frame of mind she had been for many a day, and she smiled
most amiably on Mrs. Wallingford and Mrs. Daw; and
happy Grandma just kept saying “My, my! My, my!”
“But kids!” J. Rufus Wallingford had this night retired