OF A
MILLION
DOLLARS
GEORGE
KIBBE-
TURNER
THE BIOGRAPHY
OF A MILLION DOLLARS
. OF CALIF. LIBRARY. LOS ANGELES'
WHAT DO I LOOK LIKE TO YOU A MAN THAT WILL DOUBLE-
CROSS HIS BEST FRIEND ? ' '
FRONTISPIECE. See Page 162.
THE BIOGRAPHY
OF A MILLION DOLLARS
BY
GEORGE KIBBE TURNER
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
F. R. GRUGER
BOSTON
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY
1918
Copyright, 1918,
BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY
All rights reserved
Published, February, 1918
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I THE MAN WITH THE CARBURETOR . . i
II PARTNERS 13
III THE MORTGAGE 26
IV THE HOODLUM 32
V ZETTA'S RING 46
VI THE BOWL 59
VII TOM'S BOY 79
VIII A MIRACLE BY THE TAIL ..... 90
IX THE LITTLE PALE BOOKKEEPER . . . 100
X BACK OF THE BANK in
XI AN OPTION 124
XII A MISTAKE 135
XIII A SHARP CORNER 149
XIV REORGANIZED 165
XV AN ANNIVERSARY 176
XVI AN EARLY CREDITOR 192
XVII A LITTLE SOMETHING ON THE SIDE . . 206
XVIII MUTUAL PROTECTION 220
XIX A DIFFERENCE OF OPINION . . . .231
XX WORD FROM NEW YORK 254
XXI THE MISSING RUNABOUT 266
XXII A HOUSEWARMING 279
XXIII A MILLION DOLLARS HUH! . . . 296
XXIV MY LAWYER 311
XXV A TRAVELER RETURNS 318
XXVI MEMORIES 327
XXVII SUNDAY AFTERNOON 337
XXVIII Two PIECES OF PAPER 345
2133213
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
"What do I look like to you a man that
will double-cross his best friend ? " . Frontispiece
" You know what she's done to us ? She's
busted us ! Wide open ! " . . . . PAGE 107
She kissed me somewhere on the northeast
corner of my ear 185
"That's why I thought you were always
wrong because you hated him !" . . " 291
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A
MILLION DOLLARS
CHAPTER I
THE MAN WITH THE CARBURETOR
Since Pasc Thomas died last month my mind keeps
going back to the time we started in together that
dirty, foggy, February evening he first came into my
old bicycle shop on Elm Street in his old butternut
colored overcoat.
" Is the boss in? " said he.
" Right here," said I.
" Shut the door, why don't you?" said that Wil-
kins I had with me then. He was always dodging
drafts for fear of catching cold and he always
had one.
So this stranger stepped on in, and shut the fog
out after him.
" Well, what can I do for you? " said I, looking
him over.
He was a lean, hungry looking man, with eyes like
a ghost's. In that old flowing overcoat he looked
seven feet tall.
" I got something here I want to show you," he
said, and pulled out this small carburetor from his
pocket.
2 The Biography of a Million Dollars
You could see from his fingers he was a machinist.
" For motor cycles," he said.
' You get it up yourself? " I asked him.
I'd seen that kind before. We were used to them.
They were dropping into the shop all the time : those
lean, leather-faced Yankee inventors with absent-
minded eyes coming in showing what they'd got-
ten up, all kinds of things, the way they do in all
machine shops.
" Yes," he said to me.
" Sit down," said I.
" We'll be closing up in half an hour," said Wil-
kins.
"I won't take up much of your time," said the
man, in a quick, sharp voice, fastening those hungry,
pale-blue eyes of his on me.
" Sit down," I said to him again; " let's hear what
you got."
Anybody's a damned fool, I always claimed, who
won't find out what a man like that's got, when all it
costs you is to sit still and listen. How can you tell
what new idea might drift in?
" What's your name? " I asked him. He looked
pretty seedy to me ; about all in.
' Thomas Pascal Thomas," he said.
" Mine's Bill Morgan," said I. " Go ahead."
So he showed me the thing, and I took it up in my
hand that little brass arrangement, no bigger than
a teacup not so big! I often think of it.
'You familiar with them?" he asked, watching
me.
11 Some. I've been looking into this motor-cycle
The Man with the Carburetor 3
business some lately," said I, " thinking there might
be a dollar in it."
And I looked the thing over.
" Uh-huh," I said, opening it up. " Well, how
does it work in actual practice? "
" First class," he said.
"You tried it out?" I asked him.
" All I need to," said he, and went on explaining
its points to me. " I've got several new wrinkles
here, you'll see," said he, touching them with his
long fingers. Two of them off, I saw, on the left
hand.
11 Well now," I said finally, " to sum it all up
just what have you got here that the other fellow
hasn't?"
" Speed," said he, lifting up those queer pale-
blue eyes from the thing a second. ' That's what
I've got. Speed."
" That's a darned good thing to have these days,"
said I. And I sat there, looking at the carburetor,
in the palm of my hand the different parts of it.
It looked pretty good to me. And yet it was noth-
ing I could do anything with, by itself. But it
started me thinking.
; ' What's the best time they've made with them,
up-to-date, on these racing tracks?" I asked him,
laying it down. " I forget."
" Motor cycles?"
"Yeah."
" A mile a minute, about just a few seconds
under."
" And what do you claim you could do with this? "
4 The Biography of a Million Dollars
" Two miles."
'* Two miles a minute ! "
"Almighty near."
" Yes, you can! " said I.
" Look," he said, sitting up and talking straight
into my face. " I'll tell you. I won't lie to you.
You've brought up a little different thing.
" To begin with," he said, going on, " we'll
understand we ain't talking about my carburetor
now; we're talking about motor cycles how
you're going to get two miles a minute out of
them."
" Yes," said I, watching him.
" Now, then," he said, " I'll tell you," and put
his hand to his forehead for just a second. Then
he reached in and took out something from his vest
pocket, and began to chew it. I thought at first it
was tobacco, and then I saw it wasn't. It was more
white.
" Now," he said, " I'll tell you. In the first place,
you understand, I don't claim that it's just my car-
buretor that'll do all this."
I didn't say anything. I let him talk.
" It's a combination of things," he went on, " that
are coming along at this time that's going to
change the whole thing over make an entirely
new motor cycle.
" First of all, there's this carburetor of mine,
we'll say. Or some form of multiple jet carbu-
retor."
" To shoot more gas into her," said I.
" At these high speeds in the engines now."
The Man with the Carburetor 5
" Two thousand revolutions a minute, ain't it? "
said I.
" Yes, and two thousand five hundred."
" I God," I said. " That seems a lot, don't it,
when you think of it? "
" They'll go higher," said he. " And then," he
went along, " the second thing; there's the mag-
neto, instead of the battery, the way they're doing
it abroad in Europe."
' Yes," said I, listening. That man knew his
business you could tell that, just hearing him.
" And then, third," he said. " There's that me-
chanical intake valve they're bringing in to take the
place of that mean contrary old automatic valve
they've had.
' Those three are the principal things," he said
and stopped.
' You mean to say," I said, this idea flashing
through my head, " they could take these three im-
provements, and put them on a motor cycle that
would make two miles a minute."
" I mean to say," he answered me, " the time's
come when you can put all the power on two wheels
that they can carry, and not jump clear of the
ground altogether."
" If they can," said I, " the man that does it
first's got a barrel of money! "
" Going to stay here all night? " asked this Wil-
kins over my shoulder, breaking in on us.
" If I want to," said I.
I'd seen him getting up and putting on his over-
coat and his gum shoes and muffler.
6 The Biography of a Million Dollars
" Well, lock up after you," he said, " I'm going
home."
" Go ahead," said I.
But he didn't go ; he stood there, mousing around,
listening back of my shoulder.
" I'll tell you why," I said, going along, to Pasc.
" What they want in this country now is speed.
That's the United States of it. We've all of us got
to get there first."
" Correct," said Pasc.
" You know that, as well as I do," said I.
" That's what they've got to have. Feet were out
of date long ago," said I. " For the last fifteen
years we're all going rolling around on wheels."
" Good and sure," said he, watching me, and
chewing slowly on whatever it was he had in his
mouth.
" I've watched it myself," I said, " ever since I
was a boy in the old bicycle days. Long before I
got into this business here, like a darned fool
too late."
" Like the most of us," said Pasc, stopping chew-
ing.
; ' They were the first speed merchants, as the
saying goes," said I, " those bicycle manufacturers.
The big ones," I said, " before they all split up into
little assembling shops like this. They're the fel-
lows that first got us up on to wheels. All the rest
of it all this putting on an engine in those auto-
mobiles and motor cycles is just an extension on
that original idea, when you come to trace it
down."
The Man with the Carburetor 7
" That's right," said he.
" Gripes, the money those fellows those bi-
cycle manufacturers around here made in those
days. Hundreds of thousands yes, millions
every year. Millions," I said, " in ten years. All
starting, you might say, from nothing."
" And back again to nothing," said Pasc, with
those eyes of his watching me, " when the auto came
along and drove them out."
" All speed," I said, " that's all it was. Faster
and faster. And the big money in this country in
the next ten years is coming just where it did in the
last ten, selling speed to them. There's where the
money is now. Gold mines are a back number.
They've got to have speed, and they've got to have
it right away, when they want it."
" We put in an engine fifty per cent, bigger, any-
how," said Pasc, nodding his head, " than they use
in Europe, and gear them up accordingly."
" We've got to go faster, and faster every year,"
said I.
" That's what they want," said he, " and they'll
have it."
" I God, yes," said I. " If you could make some
machine that would shoot 'em out of a gun, they'd
eat it up, and the next best thing to that is a motor
cycle."
I could see Wilkins, still standing mousing
around back of my shoulder.
" And so I say," I went along, " the man who
could start first making them go two miles a minute
might have a fortune."
8 The Biography of a Million Dollars
"Who'd want 'em?" said Wilkins, breaking in
finally.
" Every eighteen dollar a week kid," said I, " that
wants to get out Sundays, and take breakfast in
Chicago, and dinner at the South Pole. And come
back and put her up in the front hall before tea.
Every kid that's got any zip to him. Oh, I know,"
I said, " I've been there myself."
And I saw Pasc Thomas grin one of those old,
sudden grins, that these sober-faced men like him
break out into.
" Haven't you? " I asked him.
" I have," he said, the wrinkles closing in around
his mouth again.
" I don't believe there's any money in it," said
Wilkins.
" And I know there is," said I flaring up, and
saying so anyhow. He always made me sick, pour-
ing cold water on everything. " If you can find the
man who could do what this man says they can."
!< It can't be done," said Wilkins.
' You can do it," said Pasc Thomas.
;< Who can?" I said, studying him. "Do you
know anybody? "
" I can," said Pasc Thomas.
" You sure of that? " said I.
" I ought to be," he said. " That's my trade."
" Where you been working? "
" I've been with the Rajah motor cycle people for
three years now."
"Are they making any money?" I asked him
right away.
The Man with the Carburetor 9
" That I don't know," said he flat. " That ain't
in my line." You couldn't help liking the man.
Nine out of ten in his place would have said they
were getting rich there.
" I don't know anything about the financial end,"
he said, " but I do know that machine, inside out
every nut, and screw and cotter pin in her.
" I got something here," he said, " maybe'll in-
terest you." And he dragged this odd envelope out
of his inside pocket. " Here's their machine," he
said, pointing with an old stub of a lead pencil to
a drawing on the back; " and here's how the one
would look I'd make with the new improvements
on it."
And then he handed it over to me. I couldn't
make much out of it then. I didn't take time to.
" Look here," said I, catching fire all at once.
" Do you want to take a chance ? "
" I don't know," he said. " What? "
" I tell you what I'll do with you," I said to him.
" If you'll come here and make up a half a dozen
of those machines you've been talking about, we'll
put up our machinery and the material against your
time, and split the profits.
" What do you say," said I, when he didn't an-
swer right off. "Will you do it? Will you take
a chance on your own stuff? "
" Well, yes," he said. And I could see his
thin lips tighten up. " I guess maybe I can do
it."
"All right then," said I. "That's settled."
And I started to get up.
10 The Biography of a Million Dollars
" Who says so? " said this Wilkins from back of
me, all at once.
" I say so," said I, turning around and facing
him.
" Well, I guess I'll have something to say about
that before you do it," said he, putting his hand up
to his lips the way he did when he was going to get
contrary. " According to our agreement."
" Oh, forget it," I told him. " Go home and
sleep it off."
" I mean what I say," he said, standing, looking
down at me through his glasses.
" So do I," said I.
" It's all right for you," he kept along. ' To
take a chance with the first wild thing that comes
along."
" You know we've got to do something," I said,
coming back at him; " you know that."
" It's all right for you," he said, " but it's my
money in here."
" Aw, drop it," I said, " wait till we get alone."
" What do you know about this man, anyhow? "
asked Wilkins, making one of those Susified motions
of his.
" Don't mind him," I said, turning around to
Pasc. " I've got the say-so here."
" Have you ? " said Wilkins, his voice getting
thinner and higher, and more old womanish every
minute; "we'll see whether you have or not."
" Oh, stand still," I said, " and hold your feet
down." Two years of him had been about all
I could stomach.
The Man with the Carburetor 11
" You can't do it," he kept saying, " that's all.
You can't do it without my consent."
u We'll see about that," said I, stepping toward
him, " tomorrow. Now, you shut up."
" You can't scare me," he said, backing away.
" Scare you," said I.
' You can't scare me," he said again, with a kind
of break in his voice.
" Don't burst into tears," I said. " Don't get
your clothes wet."
" You can't scare me," he said, for the third
time his voice way up. ' You can't bulldoze
me, you big bulldozer, you you big bully! "
And started blabbing out before that stranger all
the things he'd been laying up against me; and all
our private affairs the money he'd put in on my
notes.
" Quit it," I told him. " Go on, now; quit."
But he kept right along, like a child that has got
started crying and can't stop, turning from Pasc to
me and back again.
" I want you to understand," he said to him, " he
can't do it. He hasn't got the right. You can't
do it," he said to me, " not with my money in
here!
" I'll take out my money first, I'll get out. I'm
going to have some say in this business, or I'll get
out."
" Get out then," said I. " You poor old female
mule!"
He stood there, looking at me through his spec-
tacles; with his hair all brushed just so, and his
12 The Biography of a Million Dollars
clean collar and his clean white bookkeeper's hands
down by his sides.
" Get out," I said. " Take your three thousand
dollars; and your gum shoes, and your mufflers, and
your sniffles, and your darned Susie ways and
get!"
" I will," said he.
" Go to the devil," I said.
" You'll see," said Wilkins.
And the office door shut after him.
" I'll be here tomorrow for my money," he said,
coming back and opening it part way again, and
then stopped and thought a minute. " And Fll give
you just two months to bust in," he said.
And then he got out entirely, and left us two
standing there.
CHAPTER II
PARTNERS
We stood there I and this fellow I'd never
seen in my life until a half an hour before facing
each other; he looking at me and I looking at him.
I've seen hundreds like him; the machine shops
of New England are full of them still, lean-faced
men that don't talk till they're talked to ; these long-
faced, lantern-jawed fellows, with blue eyes peering
out over their shiny cheek bones, that have gone still,
working and puzzling around machinery.
He stood there like a stone fence ; he had stopped
that slow grinding, even, on whatever it was he had
in his mouth. His face was still as a board, as we
both waited there, listening to Wilkins' footsteps
go off along the sidewalk.
" I guess you won't thank me much for coming in
here," said he to me finally.
"Why not? "said I.
" Losing your partner."
" Don't let that worry you," I told him. " I was
just going to get rid of him anyhow." I wasn't,
of course, but I had to say so. " And you kept me
from having to do so."
" Well, I didn't know," said Pasc, and his jaws
started working again.
14 The Biography of a Million Dollars
" Sure," I said. " I've had my bellyful of him
two years."
" Well, then," he said, and set those hungry eyes
of his on me again, " is it going to be all right to
go ahead with that thing we were talking about
those motor cycles?"
" Sure thing," said I. " Unless you want to
quit."
"Quit?" he answered, talking slow. "Me?"
And stopped a minute. I noticed then his lips were
kind of apart.
" But I don't want to lie to you," he went on
again talking slower yet, as if it was hard work
getting the words out. " I don't want to do any-
thing under false pretenses. I haven't got a dollar
that I could put into it myself I want you to know
that on the start."
" You're squarer'n a die," I said to myself, watch-
ing him. ' They don't make many like you."
I noticed that he was kind of leaning up against
the desk.
" Oh, that will be all right," I said out loud.
" All I've got," said he, holding out that car-
buretor, " is this right here and my shop experi-
ence."
" That'll do," said I. " If you make good. If
you make good if this thing works out we can
fix up some sort of partnership in it."
"That'll do, will it?" said he, over again, as if
he was kind of tired. "That'll be all right?
For a kind of partnership?" and made a kind
of a grab at his throat.
Partners 15
And, bang! He keeled over on the office floor.
And his carburetor rattled out of his hand under
the desk.
" Here, what's this? " said I, dropping down on
my knees beside him.
It makes me laugh when I think of it this long,
lean fellow in the brown overcoat, looking tougher
than an old-fashioned dried codfish, lying there on
the floor keeled over in a dead faint and me
on my knees trying to bring him out of it.
But he came to right away and opened his eyes.
" Here," said I, " what's the matter with you? "
" Oh, nothing," he said, and started trying to
get up.
" Lie still," I told him, and slipped the leather
seat from the desk chair under his head. And I
sat in the chair myself and watched him.
" Gripes, what next? " said I to myself. " This
man must be a hoodoo. First he comes in and
drives Wilkins out of the door, and then he flops
over on the floor dead on my hands."
" I want to get up," he said, struggling.
" No, you don't," I told him. " Lie still."
So he did, for a while longer.
"Let me have that, will you?" he said, and I
handed him back his carburetor from under the
desk.
u What struck you?" I asked him finally.
" Oh, nothing," he said, " I don't know. All
of a sudden I felt kind of faint."
' What do you want now? " I asked him. I saw
he was trying to get something in an inside pocket.
16 The Biography of a Million Dollars
So I opened up his coat for him, and he reached
in his hand and brought out what he was after, and
broke off a sliver, and started chewing it.
" Have some? " he said, holding it out toward me.
"What is it?"
" Slippery elm," said he. " Go ahead. Have
some. I chew it all the time. It's fine for the
stomach."
I have to laugh now when I think about it. I
suppose he was kind of light-headed and wanted to
say something to pass it off.
" No, I guess not," I said.
I sat there watching him, and all of sudden it
struck me what it was that ailed him.
" Look here," I said, " I want you to tell me
something."
"What is it?"
" How long since you had your last square
meal?"
" Well," he said, " I had a little "
" No," said I. " I want to know ! "
" Well," he told me, " I stopped and took a little
something at a lunch cart."
"When?"
" Last night."
" Ah-hah," said I. " What was it? What was
it?" I said again before he'd answer me.
" Well," he said, " I guess I had a cup of coffee,
and a piece of squash pie."
" Ah-hah," I came back. " Well, I guess I know
something that's better for the stomach than chew-
ing slippery elm,"
Partners 17
And I went out and got a cup of coffee and some
sandwiches at the quick-lunch room around the cor-
ner. He was sitting up in a chair when I got back.
" That coffee did me good," he said, wiping his
mouth off when he was done ; and looked over at me.
" I won't lie to you," he said, " I was just about
down and out. That's the facts in the case. I was
almighty near starving. I never did anything like
that in my life before," he said, " fainting," and
stopped a minute.
" At the same time," he said, " I don't want you
to get the idea I'm a hobo or anything like that."
" I don't," said I. " Not for a minute."
" No," he said, " I'm a good workman. I'm a
first-class machinist, if I do say so."
" You don't have to tell me that," I told him.
" And up to six months ago I made my $28.00 a
week regular. Then I got this bug in my head.
I got up this carburetor."
So finally he told me about himself, dragging it
out pretty hard, like those close-mouthed ones do.
It seemed he'd married this lively good-looking
girl younger than he was apparently; pretty
young and full of life, and anxious to have a good
many things. And he thought maybe he could do
better than wages, and then he worked out this car-
buretor. So he sent his wife home to her folks and
started out with a couple of hundred dollars trying
to get somebody interested in it.
" I wouldn't give it up," he said to me. " I
wasn't going to give it up and go back to my wife's
mother not till I had to,"
18 The Biography of a Million Dollars
" Naturally not," said I.
" But I almighty near had to," he told me. " I
got down to this," he said, and fished out three
cents and a green street-car transfer from his over-
coat pocket. " This was the last throw," he said,
" when I happened by your bicycle shop on this side
street. This was the last when I found some-
body who'd listen to me, finally.
" You wouldn't believe me," he said, flaring up
a little, " you wouldn't believe me if I told you what
a lot of fools I saw in this business, tramping
around! Tramping around," he said, " six months,
all over, stopping into offices, trying to get some
of these apes in white collars that run these big
shops to stop just long enough to look at it once.
By Almighty! " he said, and stopped, staring.
" By Almighty, you're the first human being I've
talked to with sense in the whole bunch and I'd
be grateful to you if for nothing else for just
listening to me. I don't know but I appreciate it
more," he said, pointing to the empty coffee cup,
" than that.
" You don't know what it is. You don't know
what it is," he went along, " to go day after day,
tramping around, without getting anybody that'll
take the time to listen to you, give you a fair hear-
ing. It certainly is almighty humiliating. And es-
pecially when all the time, you know you've got
something. You know you've got something," he
said, reaching his hand in his pocket on to that car-
buretor, " that might make them rich and you
too."
Partners 19
And then he stopped short.
" I guess I got a little excited," he said, apolo-
gizing, and got up on his feet. " I guess it's time
I was going."
" Where'll you go to?" I asked him.
" I don't know exactly."
" I guess you don't," said I, and passed him a
couple of dollars.
" How do you know you'll ever see that again? "
he said, staring at it.
" I'm not worrying," said I.
" Well," he said and stopped there, stock-
still.
" Come around tomorrow morning," said I,
" and start in."
But he didn't move. He stood there with the
money in his hands.
" Look here," he said, " what are you getting
out of this? What can you be sure of? "
" I'll be getting a share in a damned good car-
buretor, as I understand it," said I. " And a first-
class machinist who knows motor cycles, to get a
brand new thing out on brand new lines. If it
goes through," I said, " I win big. If it don't,
all I lose is some material and time, and a few
weeks' machinist's wages, while you're working on
it.
" If that suits you," I said, waiting. But his
Adam's apple only went up and down. He didn't
say anything.
But finally he put the money in his pocket.
" At seven tomorrow morning," I said.
20 The Biography of a Million Dollars
" Well, all right," he answered, and kind of hesi-
tated, as if there was something else he was going
to say.
" All right," he said a second time, and went out
without saying anything more.
" Gripes," I said to myself, sitting there when
he was gone. " This will be about enough for me
for one evening."
For I saw right off what this thing was going to
mean to me. That Wilkins and I were through.
That poor mule would have his money out now,
anyhow. And if he didn't, I'd make him. We
hadn't made a dollar the last two years. And we
hated each other like the two men who were hand-
cuffed together on the desert island with nothing to
eat.
I saw then I'd have to have some money quick.
But the question was, where was the money coming
from? I couldn't get it at the bank, that was sure
not then; not in the bicycle business. I sat and
wrestled with it; and the more I looked, the clearer
I saw. There was only one way. I'd got to get
Polly to let me put a mortgage on the house. I
hated to do it too. I hated to drag her into it
to put up the only thing she had.
" But I don't see," I said, " looking at it the worst
way you can, that we'd be any worse off than we
are now. The bicycle business would go on just as
it was now; and this man's salary won't come to so
much as Wilkins' did. And what his material would
be wouldn't be much.
" On the other hand," I said, " this may be the
Partners 21
chance of a lifetime if he could do what he says
he can."
And I went over in my mind the figures I'd made
before on the motor-cycle business. " There's a
barrel of money in it, I believe," I said to myself
" a good big thing for the man who can jump in
right now, and jam it. If you could only sell quar-
ter the number of them that we put out of wheels
today. Christmas !
" And I believe we can do it," I said to myself.
" Start easy, and work it up. I believe it can be
done.
"We'll do it, too," I said. "We've got to."
And I got up. I heard somebody out in the shop.
And I looked up at the clock.
" Good Lord," I said.
It was seven o'clock, and old Tom Powers was
coming around, giving the place its first look-over
for the night. He'd been night watchman in the
building for several years now. A good capable
mechanic once, but his right hand was taken off in
a belt, so he wasn't any good on a machine any
longer. And they gave him this job as night watch-
man.
" Hello, Tom," said I.
"Hello yourself," said Tom. "What time's
this to be getting home? You'll get a good warm-
ing when your wife sees you."
" That's right, too," said I.
I always liked the old man. He was a queer
old devil. Some of them would tell you he wasn't
quite right in his head. He had this invention of
22 The Biography of a Million Dollars
his, the Miracle we used to call it from some-
thing he said once jollying him; this perpetual
motion machine he worked on there nights: A
kind of a small model that he had, a queer looking
thing, like a little windmill, with arms that folded up
and flapped out again when you set it whirling.
I never made out myself whether at the bottom
of his heart he took it seriously, or whether it was
just something to keep his mind from going loose
while he was alone in there nights, with those long
still rows of machinery. It must have got pretty
lonesome in those empty shops nights, thinking,
knowing you had your right hand gone. And I
always thought probably he was like a lot of those
other fellows that get crippled up in machine shops.
They naturally want to make themselves feel they're
some use yet, if they are gone physically; and that
starts them trying to think out something some
invention. Anyhow, in most ways old Tom was
sharp as a briar; and as well posted as anybody.
He had so much time to read the papers.
I often asked him what he thought of things, and
I thought I'd start him up that night.
" You've got competition, Tom," said I.
"What's that?"
" Another fellow's been in today with another
Miracle."
"Another one? That all?"
" Yes," I told him.
"What's this one got? What's he been trying
to do?"
And I told him.
Partners 23
" Do you know what I think I'm going to do,
Tom? " I said. " I'm going to start him off. I'm
going to see if I can't have a crack at the motor-
cycle business. There might be big money in it
what do you think? "
' What have you got that's new? " he said, look-
ing at me. He was a queer looking old fellow.
He had a face thin as an old skeleton, and a kind
of big bulging forehead; and cheeks sunk in over
his jaw. When he grinned you saw half of his
teeth were gone.
" We can make one, so he claims, that'll stand
up one hundred per cent, better than they do now."
" Can you ! " said Tom.
u And go fifty per cent, faster anyhow."
" That'll do it," said Tom, looking up. " That's
what they're after sixty eighty a hundred
miles an hour! "
" Could we sell them if we could do it? "
" Sell 'em, yes. Every kid'll want one right
away. Why wouldn't they? Hop on your own
kerosene can and over to Chiny and back in one day;
scampering around the world like the devil on a
stick. Sure they'll want one ! "
" We'd have thought it was a miracle at that,"
said I, " when we were kids."
" So it is," said he. " So's most everything now-
adays. That's the business we're all in miracles.
The only trouble with 'em is they don't last. This
one'll be a back number ten years from now, just
like the bicycle is today. There's something new
coming along all the time."
24 The Biography of a Million Dollars
" You're right," said I. " You got to keep
humping to keep up with the procession nowadays."
" I was reading in the paper just this morning,"
said Tom, " about those Wright boys, down in
Dayton, Ohio, starting over to France to show
them how to fly in the air."
" Yes, I saw that," said I.
" They was in the bicycle business, you notice,
like the rest of us."
" Yes, but that won't go very far," said I.
" There's a catch in that thing."
" It'll be the coming thing ten years from now
when your machine will be a back number and
mine," he said and grinned his old grin like an
old skeleton, with half the lower teeth gone. He
always joked about his contrivance.
" But there's one thing you got to remember,"
he said. " By that time we'll both have made our
million, and be retired."
" That's right, Tom," said I. " Why wouldn't
we make a dollar some day like the rest of
them?"
" That's right, why wouldn't we," said he, with
that death's head grin.
" But there's one thing," I said, " you want to re-
member ! I've got an option on some of that stock,
when you get the old Miracle on the market."
" You'll have it," said he.
" She's going fine, ain't she," said I. " She's
working out all right? "
" She's going good," he said. " I can't com-
plain," with that kind of dry old crafty grin upon his
Partners 25
face he had sometimes. I never could make out
whether he was laughing or not.
" She'll start some of these days," he said.
" And I'll come around and surprise you."
" You won't surprise me any, Tom," said I, spat-
ting him on the back. The poor old devil !
" Go on now," said Tom. " The wife'll be wait-
ing. Go along. I'll lock up after you."
So I went, and he locked up; and went back again,
I suppose, when I was gone, and started pecking
away with his old left hand at his little old perpetual
motion machine, back alone in the shop. And I
went along home, thinking how I'd put the thing
about the mortgage to Polly.
CHAPTER III
THE MORTGAGE
" The This is a nice time to be getting home,"
said Polly, coming to the door with two red spots in
her cheeks, and that little hitch in her voice she had
when she was mad or excited.
" I know it," said I. " But had a fellow come in
just as we were closing up that I had to wait for."
" I guess if you'd tried hard, you could have got
rid of him," said Polly, kissing me finally.
" You've got to stop this, Bill," she said. " It
turns everything upside down in the house, and you
know it."
" I apologize," said I.
" That won't do my dishes for me," said Polly,
going out in the kitchen for my supper.
So we didn't talk much while I was eating. Both
the kids were in bed; and we sat there alone.
'' Who was it," she asked me finally, when she
thought I'd had punishment enough. ' This man
who came in to see you ? "
" Oh, a fellow came in," I said, " who had a new
idea for a motor cycle."
" Another one of those cranks with frayed cuffs, I
suppose," she said, " that come in every week with a
fortune."
" Maybe," said I.
TJie Mortgage 27
And I helped her clear off the table, and went back
and sat down and smoked and thought it over while
she did the dishes.
" Tell me about it," said Polly, coming back, and
sitting on a stool beside me come around again,
good-natured as usual.
So I kissed her, and told her what happened.
" Poor fellow! " she said, staring, and getting red
when I told her about his flopping over on the floor.
" Why why didn't you bring him home? "
" Oh, I fixed him out just as well, I guess," I
said.
"Did he have anything you could use?" she
wanted to know. And I told her about his improve-
ments he had on the motor cycle; and what old Tom
had to say about it.
" Well, I always thought myself they were a kind
of a miracle," said Polly, " tearing around the way
they do. I wish father was here, sometimes, just to
hear what he'd say when he saw one. But they are,
anyway, that's what I always think, when I see one
just a miracle."
" Well, I hope this one will blossom out," said I,
" into a full-fledged one."
"Why? "said Polly.
" Because it'll be our miracle, if it does," I said.
" It'll be our own meat."
" What do you mean? " she asked me, sitting up
and looking at me over the arm of the chair.
" I've arranged with this fellow that's got the
thing to make up one or two for us on trial. And
if they turn out right," I said, " we're in on the
28 The Biography of a Million Dollars
ground floor, without any expense to us. It might
make a barrel of money for us; it might make us
rich."
" I don't see why it shouldn't," said Polly.
" Other people have luck.
" I hope so," she went on, patting my hand on the
chair arm. " I hope you make all the money there
is, Bill. It's about your turn. You've had your
share of the other thing these last few years in that
old bicycle business."
'' There's no money in it any longer," I said for
the millionth time. " We got into it too late."
" I know it," said Polly.
" It's about as profitable now as a deserted gold
mine," I told her.
" And about as cheerful, you poor old Bill," said
Polly, patting my hand again, and laying her face
against it. " Especially for a man who's so up and
coming, naturally, and anxious to get on as you
are.
" I wonder what it would seem like," she said
finally, kind of dreaming, " to have all the money
you want. I wonder sometimes. I wonder if we'd
be any happier with a hundred thousand dollars and
a big house than we are right here in this little house
on Collins Street."
" I wouldn't mind trying it once," I told hej>.
" I don't know how / could be much ! " she
said sighing.
And then we went upstairs.
I didn't say anything more till we were fixed in
bed.
The Mortgage 29
" Now, here, Mother," I said then, " I've got
something else to tell you. I didn't tell you every-
thing."
" Wh-what is it now? " she came back, her voice
sharpening up. "What is it?"
" Wilkins is going to get through."
"What!"
u And take his money out."
"What," she said. "What for? What's he
going to do that for?"
So I told her.
" That old pig," she said. " That old disgust-
ing thing. I always did hate him."
" You don't any worse than I do," I said, " nor
so much. But that don't get us anywhere."
" I suppose it don't," she said.
" We've got to raise the money for those notes
of his."
" How are we going to do it? " she asked, her
voice still clearer and higher.
" You tell me," said I.
" Can't you get it at the bank? " she asked me.
" No," I said. " Not any more than that first
loan that thousand dollars I had at the start.
If I could, I'd never had Wilkins in the first place.
No, there's nothing from the banks not in the
bicycle business, since the slump ! "
"What will you do then?"
" I don't know," I said. " Unless you want to
let me put a mortgage on the house ! "
She was sitting up in bed before I was through
saying it.
30 The Biography of a Million Dollars
" Never, never, never," she said. " A mortgage
on this house ! Never."
And I didn't say anything.
" How could you think of such a thing? " she
said. " Father's old place! "
I didn't answer her.
" The only thing we've got sure for the chil-
dren," she said, taking hold of my arm. " And
when you know how I feel about a mortgage. Any-
thing but that, Bill. Anything but a mortgage!
No, sir!"
I kept still.
"I won't do it, Bill! I can't!" she went on.
" You know it. It would half kill me. Oh, why
don't you say something! " she called out to me,
shaking my arm.
"What is there to say?" said I. "If you
can't stand for a mortgage, that's all there is to
it."
And she kept still now.
" I can go back, I suppose, and lie down in front
of Wilkins, if he'll let me ! " I said. " I guess he'll
have to, for that matter. And we can keep on the
way we are now sliding down hill year after
year year after year.
" On the other hand," I said, " if I took the bi-
cycle business back myself, I know it pretty well;
and if worst came to worst, I believe I could clear
myself, and get out whole. And in the meanwhile
there's a chance in the other thing maybe the
chance of a lifetime. It isn't impossible," I said.
" It isn't as if fortunes hadn't been made time and
The Mortgage 31
time again out of machine shops in things with no
more promise in than this."
She sat perfectly rigid. I could just see her,
against the wall, sitting up white beside me.
" But that's up to you," I said. " I believe it
would be all right. I believe if you wanted to stand
for it in two or three years if you wanted to
come in and stick "
"If if I'll stick, Bill. If I'll stick!" said
Polly, sitting there like a ramrod. " You say that
again, and I'll scratch your eyes out! "
So the next day I handed Wilkins his money.
CHAPTER IV
THE HOODLUM
We made up the first one with our own hands,
you might say. All the stationary parts of the
engine were cast special. We even bent the tubing
on the frame ourselves to be sure and have it right
and plenty strong. Then we took her out on
Breakneck Hill, and tried her.
" She's good, Pasc," said I, when we came back
with her. " She's good."
She took it like a bird.
" I'm glad you like her," said Pasc.
"I certainly do!" said I. "We've got some-
thing there, and don't you forget it."
" She does pretty well," he said.
" She's got the power right in her. She's got
power enough to tear open any ordinary machine
like that Rajah, like you would an envelope."
" That's why I built her so strong," said Pasc.
" She's got the power," I said; " she's got the
strength; she's got the reliability. She's a wonder
she's there ! "
" I'm glad you think so," said Pasc, chewing
faster than usual on his slippery elm.
" That settles it," said I. " We're going to get
in back of this thing, and we're going to drive it."
I'd been thinking and figuring day and night on
the thing.
The Hoodlum 33
u I tell you what I'm going to do," I said. " I'm
going to run out the bicycles just as fast as I can;
get rid of them, and the bicycle business, and get
right after this."
"Ain't you hurrying things a little mite?" said
Pasc.
" No," I said. " I know where I can place these
bicycles, all right now; and get a little something
for the business, and it may be some time before I
get another such a chance. There's no risk in that.
I'm glad to get out so well. There never will be
any money in it. That day's gone by.
" But in this thing," I said, " there's a good big
chance. Take it at the worst. If we only sold
three hundred of them a year, we'd make a good
nice thing out of it.
" No," I said. " I'm doing the right thing, and
I'll tell you why another reason. The man that
grabs this thing these new improvements we've
got has got to go after it hard. It won't be
lying around long. There's no real binding patent
on it except maybe on your carburetor."
" I guess maybe you're right," said Pasc.
" I know I am," said I.
So we did; we went right after it, day and night.
We hardly took our clothes off to go to bed. We
decided to make up six machines to start with.
And while I was making up the last of the bicycles,
Pasc Thomas was getting the first of the motor
cycles for market. We decided finally we'd call
her the Hoodlum just the opposite, you might
say, of the Rajah. We thought the name would
34 The Biography of a Million Dollars
strike the young fellows just as well as that did
better. It was Pasc's wife's idea mostly.
We sold this six first three, and then two and
then one more, to young bloods around the town
who wanted something special extra good. And
they were good; everybody that saw them said so.
" But all in town," said Pasc. " We don't get
any orders from outside."
"That don't worry me," I said. "That will
come later. Give them a little time, and they'll
advertise themselves. They'll get started. We
haven't really tried to push them outside yet. I'm
not worrying."
So we went ahead, and made up six more; and
after that I had something to worry about!
' This won't do," I said, when we footed up the
cost of the things. We weren't making a dollar;
we were both working our heads off and not making
day wages turning them out separate, by hand
that way.
" I tell you what I can do," said Pasc. " If you
let me go ahead and make up forty at a time, I
could save you thirty dollars on a machine right
there."
" Go ahead and do it," said I.
" Can we? " he asked.
" Yes, I think so," I said. " With what came in
from the bicycle business and what credit we can
get on material."
Forty was going to be quite a strain for us, I
knew that. It meant we had eight thousand dol-
lars pretty near tied up in the things before we got
The Hoodlum 35
through. It meant a second mortgage on the house,
finally.
" Go ahead," Polly said to me. " I throw up
my hands. Go ahead. We might as well be hung
for a sheep as a lamb."
"You're a good sport, Pol! " I said, when she
fixed it up for me.
" I have to be," she said, " living with you."
Way down in the bottom of her heart she was as
strong for the thing as I was talking about it all
the time. That was about all we did talk about
those days the Hoodlum. We had it for break-
fast, dinner and supper.
" The only thing is," she said, " can you sell it? "
"Sell it," I said. "I certainly can. Why
wouldn't I? It can spin circles around anything
that's made."
' Those other people with the Rajah have got
such a start, that's all," she said.
' You watch me sell it," I said.
But just the same, I didn't. I had no luck with
the dealers out of town.
;< We don't know it," they said to me. " It may
be the best in the world. But it's new, that's all."
Finally the best thing I could do was to put it in
with a dozen or more dealers I knew were reliable
on consignment. And then they didn't seem to sell
only a few right there at home.
Finally it got along toward August, and it was
plain we'd have to do something before long.
Our accounts were coming due; and our balances
were way down at the bank.
36 The Biography of a Million Dollars
We did our banking, like a good many of the
people in the bicycle trade had, with Proctor Bill-
ings' bank the Second National coming in
when his father, old man Billings, was alive.
On the first of August that little bookkeeper, that
girl I'd got out of business college, after Wilkins
left, came back in the afternoon from the bank, and
said:
" The teller said to tell you that Mr. Billings sent
word to you he wished you'd fatten up your balance
a little bit; it's been pretty low lately."
That didn't sound good to me the way things
were moving. We only had a loan of a thousand
dollars there; but we certainly needed that. And
I had been figuring and figuring on how I could get
it up in the fall. And now I was afraid he might
close down on us entirely.
" Couldn't you go to Proctor Billings," said Pasc,
" and show him how you're fixed. Tell him what
the prospects are, when we once get started."
" Show him," I said. " That's the last thing I'd
do ! Proctor Billings ! That tailormade dude.
He'd close on you, as quick as he'd close his hand.
Go to him! That's what the old bicycle manufac-
turers did to his father. And you know what hap-
pened to them."
" I've heard more or less," said Pasc.
" He cleaned them out, that's all," said I. " He
ruined them. They always claimed they'd have
pulled through, if he hadn't started the thing. And
he'd done their banking for years, for ten years
and made himself rich out of it. But he jumped on
The Hoodlum 37
them first when the time came. He got his money;
and he was about the only one who did.
"That's the danger in this thing, Pasc," I said;
" what we're up against all the time. I wish a thou-
sand times it wasn't; I wish there was some way
you could just go ahead and make a good thing
and sell it and not spend three quarters of your
time figuring, figuring how you're going to get
money to do it with. Money that's always the
trouble. And especially when you're doing business
with people like that Billings crowd.
" Oh, I know them," I said, " father and son
I've watched them for years. And they're as like
as the Indians on two copper cents. Only this one
now wears more expensive clothes, and has more
college educated manners. But underneath, neither
one of them ever had any more bowels than a file.
" But don't fret, Pasc," said I. " Everything's
been running against us so far; but there's got to
come a change pretty quick. Sooner or later some-
thing's got to break in our favor. It can't run
against you all the time."
I counted, of course, on some sales coming in
from somewhere. But they didn't. Instead of
that, right away that next week, the machines be-
gan coming back from the dealers entirely first
one and then another.
' Three came in today," Pasc told me one night.
' Three ! " said I, and jumped on a train to New
York to find out what was the trouble.
" We can't sell them, that's all," said this dealer.
He was a good friend of mine.
38 The Biography of a Million Dollars
"Why not?" I asked him.
" Well, they're new for one thing."
" So's everything once," said I. "That's no
reason."
' Well, if you want the truth way down un-
derneath," he said, " I can give it to you."
" Go ahead," said I.
" But if it got back to me, you understand that
you got it here it would kill me, as far as the
motor-cycle business is concerned."
" I understand," I told him. " What is it? "
" It's the Rajah people," he said. " They're
knocking you to beat the band that's the trouble.
They're got everybody scared. They say your
things look good, but they won't stand up."
" Oh, they do, do they? " said I.
' Yes, all those changes in the machine, and es-
pecially those new mechanical valves."
" So they're looking for a fight, are they? " said
I, getting hot. " Well, they've come to the right
place for it if that's what they want or any-
body else. We can accommodate them."
" Don't start eating me," he said. " That won't
get you anywhere."
" No," said I. " It's somebody else I'm going
to eat not you. And I'm much obliged to you."
And I started back home again figuring it out
on the train.
" There's just one thing to it," said I to Pasc.
" We've got to fight."
"How?" said he.
" We're going down there to Newark on Labor
The Hoodlum 39
Day," I said, " and show that Rajah crowd up, and
that piece of junk they've got! "
" You mean to say," he said, " you're going into
racing? "
" That's what I mean."
" Look here," he said. " How are you going to
do that?"
" I can do it," said I.
' That costs money, going into that racing
game," said Pasc.
" I understand that," I told him.
" Where'll you get it? Who's going to back
you?"
" We won't have to be backed," I said " not to
any great extent, and I'll show you why. We've
got the machine. We know that, don't we?"
" Yeh," said Pasc, with those queer blue eyes of
his on me.
" We can cut figure eights around that piece of
junk of theirs."
" Good and sure," said Pasc.
" All we need is somebody that's got nerve
that can hang on to her and let her go."
" When you've said that," said Pasc, watching
me, " you've said a good deal."
" I know that," I answered him, " I know we've
got to take a man who's had some experience."
" You bet you have."
"But if he had that and the Hoodlum under
him, and plenty of nerve "
"Who is it you've got in mind?" he asked
me.
40 The Biography of a Million Dollars
" You know that little red-headed boy of Tom's,"
I asked him. " That little Chuck Powers? "
" Uh-huh."
" That's the one. He's ridden quite a lot in
quite a number of these races around the country,
and he's got nerve to burn."
11 Will he do it? " said Pasc. " Will he take the
chance? "
" He'll do it," I said, " I know the boy. He'll
jump at it."
' Well, do we want him to, ourselves," said Pasc,
stopping his everlasting chewing of his slippery elm.
" Do we want to take the chance of having
him?"
"Why not?"
;< Well, we wouldn't want to be responsible for
killing him."
"Killing him!" said I.
' You never saw those devils those real pro-
fessionals," said Pasc, " riding a real race, for blood,
in one of those new motordromes those Bowls."
"They do have some bad accidents on them; I
know that," said I.
" When something goes or they shoot off the
edge of the Bowl it's liable to be sure death.
They kill a plenty of them in a season going at
those speeds."
" Well," said I finally. " We've all got to take
our chances in life, that's certain. If I get him,
will you do it, will you get out with him, and help
him, and train him up on the fine points of the ma-
chine?"
The Hoodlum 41
" I'll try it," said he. " But it will be a kind of
an experiment, from his standpoint or ours
whether we'll get anywheres with it."
" We've got to, that's all. It's that or nothing
now with us. If we don't, we bust by the
first of October, anyhow, when those accounts come
due and that note at Billings' bank."
" But look here," said Pasc. " How are you go-
ing to do it anyway? "
" He won't cost anything, nor the machines, nor
you nothing but expenses."
"What are you going to do about the boy?"
Pasc wanted to know.
" I'm going to him and tell him we'll put our ma-
chine and expenses against his time; and if he makes
good, we'll make it up to him, and more later.
He'll jump at it ! I know it ! "
" Maybe," said Pasc. " But even so," he said,
bringing out his old envelope and pencil stub, the
way he did when he was figuring or working on his
mechanical ideas. " Even at that, where'll we get
the money? "
" We'll get it," I said.
"Do you realize where we stand?" he said to
me. "What our bank balance is? I don't think
you do."
"Why not?" said I.
" While you were gone," he said, " this thing
came up. Myrtle came in when she found out and
told me about it."
" What's she done now? " said I. He was talk-
ing about that little bookkeeper we got from busi-
42 The Biography of a Million Dollars
ness school. She was always in trouble with some-
thing.
" She sent out for me in the shop," said Pasc,
kind of slow, " when she found out."
"What is it?" said I.
" It seems she made a little mistake in her addi-
tion. We haven't got so much in the bank as we
thought for."
" How much have we got? " said I.
And he told me.
I jumped up on my feet, and cut loose.
" Seven thousand devils," I said. " How'd she
make that mistake?"
" I don't know," said Pasc. " Kind of worn
down and tired, I guess."
" Did you fire her? " I said.
" No."
" Well, I will tomorrow," I said.
" No, you won't," he said, " when you think it
over. She's nothing but a kid and she's tired
out, that's all."
" That won't help us any," I said, " when she
makes some great big blunder."
" We're all tired some," he said, " around here,
nowadays."
" She never will catch up," said I. " She's al-
ways behindhand. She isn't fit for it anyhow. She
hasn't got blood enough in her body to keep a
mouse alive."
"Besides," said Pasc, "what do you expect?
What else can you get anywhere for eight dollars
a week? "
The Hoodlum 43
"Ah-hah," I said. "Well, we'll see." He
didn't convince me then ; I meant to let her go any-
how. I only wish I had.
" But the question is," said Pasc, " how are we
going to do it, anyhow? How are we going to get
the money for racing or even for our rent and
our payroll? "
" We might sell a machine or two more than we
expected."
" I've counted on more now than we'll sell," said
Pasc, looking at his old envelope.
" We can do it, somehow," said I.
' You'll have to have several hundred dollars any-
how."
" We can do it."
"How?"
" I don't know how, but we'll do it," I said. " I
know that. Because we've got to. We're like that
bulldog that climbed the tree. And we'll sit right
down here now, and figure it out."
' Jerusalem," said Pasc, looking up at the clock.
" See what time it is."
It was a quarter past seven.
" Zetta'll snatch me baldheaded," he said, jump-
ing up.
I knew there was no use of talking now; that was
one thing you never could move him on anything
where his wife was concerned. Besides, I could see
myself there was no use of going ahead then before
supper.
" I tell you what you do," said I. ' You come
right over to the house after you've eaten."
44 The Biography of a Million Dollars
"Shall I bring Zetta with me?" asked Pasc.
" She gets almighty lonesome sitting there alone in
that flat."
" Sure," I told him. " Bring her along. The
women can amuse themselves while we talk busi-
ness."
And then he rushed out.
Old Tom Powers got in before I got out myself,
and I asked him about his boy.
" He won't get much out of it first," I said.
" But if he wins out, he won't lose anything by it in
the long run. You know me well enough to know
that anyway, Tom," said I.
" He'll do it, I guess," said old Tom, talking a
little slow. " He's crazy about the riding, and he
knows every nut and bolt in that machine of yours.
He'd ought to," he said. " He was brought up
inside a machine shop. His mother weaned him on
machine oil."
And he showed his gums in that old lean grave-
yard grin of his.
"You haven't got any objections, have you?" I
asked the old man in spite of myself, seeing that
old right-hand stump of his. The boy was the only
child they had.
" His mother won't like it very much, I suppose,"
he said. " He ain't only eighteen, and he's the only
boy she's got. She thinks it's worse than it is, too."
" Yes, I know."
" But he's got to take his chance," he said,
" along with the rest of us. Women always think
the worst of everything.
The Hoodlum 45
" Go on now," he said, stopping talking about it,
kind of suddenly. " Go on. I'll lock up after you.
Don't you ever go home to your wife in season? "
So I left him as usual, poking around in the dark,
closing up the place after me.
CHAPTER V
ZETTA'S RING
She was a kind of a dark-looking woman Pasc's
wife a fine, full figure of a young woman, with
black hair and red lips. I had only seen her once
or twice, when she'd come into the office. She
hadn't come to town until just lately; and when she
did, they didn't live near us; they'd gone way over
to the other end of town, where they were putting
up those new eighteen dollar a month flats.
" Hello," she said, coming into the door.
" Hello, Mr. Morgan. Howdy do, again. And
this is Mrs. Morgan, isn't it? Howdy."
" I'm ashamed of myself," said Polly, taking off
her wrap for her, " for not coming over and seeing
you."
" Oh, don't mention it," she said. " With your
kids and doing your own work at the same time, I
know just how it must be. If I was you I'd be
dead."
And she went over and took a chair and started
talking along to Polly.
" We'll let the men alone," she said, " to take
care of their own troubles."
She was smart as a steel trap, you could see that;
just brimful of life.
" Our sitting room's pretty small," said Polly.
Zetta's Ring 47
" I'd take you upstairs, only the children are asleep
there."
" Oh, this is all right," said Pasc's wife. " We
can sit over here and talk, and not disturb them a
particle.
" You go ahead now, boys," she said to us.
" You talk your business, and we'll sit over here and
get acquainted."
You couldn't help liking her; she was so kind of
free and easy, and friendly. She started right
along talking to my wife.
" It is kind of lonely," she said, " at first not
knowing anybody in town. And more so with us. I
always did like to go, I'm that kind; and Pasc there
is just the opposite. That's the trouble with us."
" I guess you don't fight much," said Polly.
" No, we don't fight," she answered her, looking
at Pasc, and smiling. They were a queer couple
entirely different from one another. But you could
see they thought the world of each other, especially
Pasc. Every time she looked at him, his lean old
leathery face lighted up like a jack lantern.
I was out getting a cigar for Pasc, from the side-
board in the dining room.
" I always want to go too much," I heard her
going on to my wife. " I was brought up that way.
An only kid, kind of spoiled. But he wants to come
home and sit there nights, thinking out something
in his head. For the last two years it's been this
carburetor. He's got carburetor on the brain. It
was pretty fierce sometimes, especially for a bride.
I used to get mad and call him my human carbu-
48 The Biography of a Million Dollars
retor, sometimes, didn't I, Pasc? " she called over to
him.
And he grinned that sudden dry grin of his, like
those still fellows do their teeth opening up sud-
denly out of their stiff faces.
" Just to show him I'm living," she said, " I have
to get up, and kick over the traces now and then.
But I know; I'm not a fool about it. I know I can't
quarrel with my bread and butter. And especially
now when we're all going to make so much money
on the Hoodlum.
" Now, you go ahead, boys," she called over to
us, across the room. " Stop your listening and get
down to business."
" All right, Sister," said I, and we went ahead.
I felt as if I'd always known her, all my life.
" Now here," I said to Pasc. " Let's get right
down, and find out just what we can do. Let's fig-
ure out just what we can hope to lay our hands on."
And Pasc brought out his old pencil stub, and an-
other old envelope half covered up with draw-
ings and figures.
" Now in the first place," I said, " here's one
place we can cut down some. We can get rid of
this one man."
" I hate to do that,' said Pasc. " He's been a
pretty good man for us."
" I know that," I said. " But we've got to do it.
We can make it up to him sometime later."
" But you can't cut out much, that's certain."
" Not and run," said I. " Unless you and I stay
there twenty-four hours a day."
Zetta's Ring 49
" You'd better take your beds down and sleep
there," Polly called across the room.
You could see they were both listening to us while
they talked. They had to more or less; the room
was so small.
" Never mind," I called back to her, " you keep
out of this, now! "
We couldn't cut out much that we hadn't already
try all we could. I could hear the women going
on with their talking, as we sat thinking about it.
They were talking about housekeeping, and the
trouble of getting along on what they had. And
what they'd do if they had money.
" What I object to is the smallness of it," I heard
Zetta Pasc's wife say, " being cooped up so
when you're poor."
" Now, here," I said to Pasc, " let's get back to
the main thing. Let's see what we can hope to lay
our hands on. There's one or two other men," I
said, " I believe I might sell to, if I shaved the price
a little."
" Yes, I know," said Pasc, wetting his little pen-
cil with his tongue. " But even so, you've got to
have several hundred dollars yet to pull out any-
way. Isn't that so? "
" Yes, that's right," I had to admit.
" I'm afraid we're kind of up against it," he said.
" Not on your life," I said, and I sat there at one
side of the center table, figuring on it.
I could hear the women. They were talking
about money still, what they'd do if they had it
like a couple of kids. I had to grin.
50 The Biography of a Million Dollars
" If you had a lot of money what would you do
with it?" Zetta was asking.
" I don't know," said Polly.
" I do. I'd live," said the other one. " And
we'll have it too out of this last thing I know
it. And when it comes I'm going to have one
grand large time."
I had to grin to myself. We were sitting, figur-
ing our heads off to see where we were coming
out, and she was spending our money for us already.
The worst of it was we didn't get anywhere;
there wasn't any loophole apparently.
" We were funny folks that way at my home,"
I heard Pasc's wife going on, " about money.
Sometimes we had a lot; and sometimes we didn't.
My father was in the livery stable business ; and he
used to go around to these big races, and bet quite a
little, and he was pretty smart at it, too; but some-
times he'd get caught!
" But when we had it, we had it. We didn't
keep it long. I was the only child; and he used to
give me everything there was, when he had the
money. I used to go everywhere; and do every-
thing, about, that he did. We used to have the fin-
est horses in town; and he let me drive them all the
time when I wasn't more than ten years old.
And I could drive some. I'd like to see a horse
that would go too fast for me or anything else ! "
she said. ' That's why I've been so much excited
over this Hoodlum. I'd like nothing better," she
said, " than to dress up like a man, and take one of
those things and ride and ride and ride ! "
Zettcis Ring 51
She'd got kind of excited talking about it; and the
color had come up under her dark cheeks shining
through the skin. She certainly was a stunning
looking woman those days.
" I'm like my father, i guess, more ways than
one," she said. ' We both had to be going fast,
all the time. He gave me this," she said, breaking
off, and taking a big diamond ring off her finger.
I hadn't seen it before. " On my eighteenth birth-
day. Before he died. Don't you love them?
I do. I think they're wonderful. I'm going to
have a bushel of them, when this Hoodlum makes
good when we get all this money we're going
to."
" I do," said Polly. " I like them pretty well.
Only I never had one yet not a real one."
" I always thought the world of this one. Isn't
it a dandy? " she said, turning it so the light struck
it.
" Isn't it a lovely one? " said Polly.
I looked over and saw it. It was a great big
fine stone. It made me kind of sore. She sitting
there showing the light on that diamond, and we
sitting over across the room figuring, figuring.
Figuring and not getting anywhere; with all our as-
sets tied up in those thirty or thirty-five motor cy-
cles.
" I give it up," said Pasc finally, looking up from
his old envelope.
" Well, I don't," said I, and kept along.
I saw Polly flush when he said it, and knew she
was listening in all the time.
52 The Biography of a Million Dollars
" I never was much good at figures," said Pasc,
stopping and waiting for me.
But I didn't get anywhere either.
" You're up against it, too, ain't you," he said to
me finally.
" Well, I don't see just now where the money's
coming from."
" Well, then," said Pasc. " Will you want to go
ahead with it? "
" I sure will," said I.
" You don't want to start and spend our money
for something you can't finish, do you? "
" No. But you don't want to bust either, do
you? " I said to him.
I thought I was talking pretty low still, but I
guess I wasn't.
" No," he said.
" Well, we will! " I said. " Unless we find the
money to put this thing through."
He didn't say anything.
"We'll bust, that's the English of it," I went
along.
" Excuse me," I heard Pasc's wife saying to mine.
I had noticed their talk had slackened up the past
minute or two. " Excuse me, Mrs. Morgan," she
said, " but I've got to get into this thing the men
are talking about."
When I looked at her, I saw her face was red as
fire.
" What do you mean? " she said to me. " Did
you say you'd bust, if you didn't have more money
to run off that race with? "
Zetta's Ring 53
" Well, that's about the size of it."
" Do you mean to say," she said, turning to Pasc,
" things have got as bad as that, and you never told
me?"
And those black eyes looked clear through him.
" Why didn't you? " she wanted to know. " Why
not?"
" I didn't want to bother you," Pasc told
her.
" Bother me," she said, in a sharp voice, " I wish
you'd bother me more sometimes! "
And we all sat there for a few minutes feeling
awkward.
" You must have thought I was a nice one," she
said to me; " fooling around, and talking about
money, and showing off my diamond."
" I didn't think anything about it."
" Look here," she said to me, " would three hun-
dred dollars be any use? "
" It might be," I said. " A good deal."
" Here," she said, " take it."
And in a quarter of a second, she had that ring
off her finger.
"Take it," I said, flabbergasted. "What?"
" This ring," she told me. "It's worth three
hundred dollars."
" Not on your life," said I.
"Your father's ring! " said Polly.
" Yes, you will! " said Pasc's wife.
" Not and take any chance like this with it," I
told her.
" Didn't you tell me," she asked, " that three
54 The Biography of a Million Dollars
hundred dollars might pull you through? Save
you?"
" It might. Yes."
" And haven't you put in everything you own
a mortgage on your house, and everything? "
" Yes," said I.
'Then what do you take me for? No, sir,"
she said to Polly, who started to reason with her
about this ring from her dead father. " No," she
said, standing very straight and still. " We're
partners in this thing, aren't we? Then you've got
to take it.
"What do you think I am you putting up
your house and all that, and I sitting here with this
thing? You take it now, before I get mad. If
you don't, Pasc will. Isn't that right, Pasc?"
" Darned sure," said Pasc.
" No, sir," said I again. " I refuse to take it."
" All right," she said, quicker than a flash and
she handed the ring over to Pasc. " I tell you
what I'm going to do then."
" What? " said Pasc, grinning at her the way you
do at a nice lively child.
" Will three hundred dollars pay for the expenses
of this race everything? "
" It ought to," said Pasc.
" Then it'll be my race," she said. " I'll pay
for it. You go ahead, boys, you run your race;
and I'll pay for it. And you'll see it's done," she
said to Pasc.
" You can count on that," said Pasc.
" But you don't take any risks of losing it," said
Zettas Ring 55
I. ' You could pawn it, if you like, but you've got
to fix it so we're both responsible for getting it back
to you."
' You've got to have it, anyhow," she said,
" whether you lose it or not."
So we compromised, finally. Pasc took it and
put it in his pocket before she would be satisfied.
' You needn't think," she said to me, " that you
men are the only ones that ever take a chance in
your life."
She looked great flushed up that way, but her
upper lip sat down on the lower one, straight as a
die.
" There's a woman," I said to myself then,
" that'll go a long ways for what she's after."
She started smiling then, showing her big white
teeth when she had her own way.
" You'll pay me for this," she said, " don't you
worry when we win out; when the Hoodlum gets
going right. Because we're going to win don't
you forget that: this race, and everything we're
after."
" That's the way to talk," I told her. " I al-
ways did like a woman with some spunk and go to
her."
" Well, we've both got 'em, I guess," said Pasc,
looking at our wives.
" I God, yes," I said. " That's one satisfaction.
You bet we're going to win," I said to her.
41 And right after that I'm going to collect on
you both,' she said, and started to laugh again.
" You can go the limit with me," I told her.
56 The Biography of a Million Dollars
" I wish half the time," she said, " I was a man,
anyhow."
" Pasc don't," said I, " and I don't blame him."
" I do, just the same," she said. " You can go
somewhere and do something. You aren't cooped
up all your life, like a woman never able to get
out, and get what you want most."
" What's that," I said, jollying her.
" Just what you do."
"What?"
" Money," she said. " Without it, where are
you? With it you can cut loose and be free.
Heavens," she said, and threw up her arms above
her head. " You can live.
' You watch me," she went on, " when we get
the money. I'll have diamonds galore, and au-
tomobiles, and some real clothes, once. I'll go to
New York, and get some clothes that'll make these
country frumps around here sit up and take notice."
" You bet you will, and I'll see you get them, if
he won't give them to you," I said to her, jollying
her again. She was considerably younger than any
of the rest of us.
" And now we're going," she said, getting up.
And then they went on home. I noticed Polly
didn't have much to say, when they'd gone.
" She's a stunner, isn't she," said I. " I don't
know when I've seen a handsomer woman."
" Yes," said Polly, without any spirit in it.
" Like one of these red birds you see sometimes
on the top of a tree, in the country. You can't
keep your eyes off her. Don't you think so? "
Zetta's Ring 57
" She is striking looking," said Polly. " But
she uses kind of funny grammar; and she dresses
pretty kind of conspicuous."
" She can stand it," I said.
" Yes, she can in a way."
"What's the matter with her?" I said. Polly
was always pretty nice about other women.
"Don't you like her?"
' Yes," said Polly, " she's a kind of a lawless
thing. But I like her very much."
"Then what is it?" I said, "that you've got
against her? "
" Nothing."
" What is it," I said, keeping after her. " Are
you jealous of her? It's something; I know
that!"
" Nothing in the world," she said, " not against
her."
"Against who, then?" said I, still trying to
worm it out of her.
" Against myself," she said finally.
"Against yourself?"
"Oh, why didn't / think of that!" said Polly,
letting it loose; flushing up to the roots of her hair.
" Think of what," I said, wondering.
" What she did that diamond ring."
" Diamond ring," I said. " You haven't got
any diamond ring."
" But I've got other things," she said. " All
that old jewelry of mother's. That is quite valu-
able."
" What do you want to do," I said, " give us
58 The Biography of a Million Dollars
that! " I had to laugh to her, standing there all
flushed up.
" I guess you've done about enough, girl," I said,
kissing her. " You've put up about all you own.
I guess we've all got about enough up to put on one
bicycle race. You can keep your mother's jew-
elry.
" But let me tell you something," I said, think-
ing; " if this thing works out you'll see some race.
If that boy of Tom's can stick on the old Hoodlum,
we'll show up that Rajah thing. We'll show them
what a real motor cycle is."
" I I bet we will," said Polly.
CHAPTER VI
THE BOWL
" Now here," said I to Pasc down at the shop
the next day, standing there beside one of those old
original first model Hoodlums, " what could she do,
if she had to? "
" On the straightaway? "
" Yeah."
' Two miles a minute."
" You say so," said I. " But you and I'll never
live to see any two miles a minute on wheels."
" She could," said Pasc again, " if there was
anybody living dared put her to it."
"And what about that other thing the
Rajah?"
" A mile in fifty seconds. Not more. Not for
any length of time. It would bang her up too
much. This old girl," said he, " of ours has got
easy fifteen seconds over that Rajah machine in the
mile."
" Do you believe it? " said I.
" I know it," said Pasc. " Just the same as I
know she won't make anywhere near her time at
Newark. In one of those condemned Bowls
against that Shang, the Murderer that Murphy
and that other Rajah bunch."
" I suppose they are the devil," said I.
60 The Biography of a Million Dollars
" You'd think so," said Pasc.
" Well, it's up to you. That's your job," said I.
" When are you going to take young Chuck Powers,
and start him getting used to it down there? "
" I think I'll start tomorrow," said Pasc. " I've
arranged for getting the money on Zetta's ring."
I had letters from him, then, telling me how they
were getting on; and what their plans were.
" We've got it all figured out," Pasc wrote me.
" We're going to run a new style race. We're out
to show that Rajah machine up. And so as to do
that good, we're going to start dragging them out
from the first; till we pull the insides right out of
her. You'll see some records going; and now and
then a chunk of hot metal out of that Rajah engine,
following us around unless they manage to foul
us out of it."
I heard from them, rather encouraged, several
times. But I didn't go down there myself till the
day before the race the day before Labor Day.
I couldn't afford it and I was too busy.
"Well, how's it coming?" I said to Chuck
meeting him first, and shaking hands outside the
dressing room.
" Oh, all right, I guess," he said, looking up a
second, and down again the way that kind does;
not very talkative. He had a kind of bold, obsti-
nate pair of eyes, when he did look at you blue,
with the whites showing underneath.
;< Won your heat, I hear," said I.
" Uh-huh."
" That's good."
The Bowl 61
" You'll find Mr. Thomas inside," he said, going
along.
" What's he done, anyhow, in practice? " I asked
Pasc, when he told me about the preliminaries.
" Forty-three seconds for the mile."
"Yes, he has!" said I.
" He can do better," said Pasc, " if he's left
alone. The trouble is the Rajah people know it
just as well as we do now. They know they've got
to do something extra. That Shang Murphy's
after him, already. He started out to pick a fight
with him yesterday, when he was just standing
there."
"He did, huh?" said I.
" That's their old game. Scare the hearts out
of the new ones before they even get in."
" Did it work," I asked him, " with our kid? "
"Work! " said Pasc, smiling that dry old leath-
ery smile. " You watch them."
And then we walked around and he showed me
this Bowl, where they rode. It was a queer look-
ing thing, 'round and 'round six laps to the mile,
as I remember it. A board track, banked straight
up, until it looked just like the inside of a bowl.
The riders started and ran 'round and 'round in-
side them, as the fellow said, like a scared mouse in
a soup tureen hanging up on the sides against
the force of gravity.
" The only trouble is," said Pasc, " they ain't
banked enough."
"Not banked enough! " I said.
" Not yet. You've got to have them so they
62 The Biography of a Million Dollars
hang right out in the air, when they're riding; as it
is now they keep sliding off over the edge, and kill-
ing themselves.
" Especially passing somebody else," said Pasc,
" at these speeds now. Just a twitch of the wrist,
and off you go. The condemned things are only
thirty-five or forty feet wide. And you can imagine
how long it takes to shoot that."
" They have killed quite a few lately, haven't
they? " said I.
; ' They're nothing more'n death traps," said Pasc,
" the whole of them. Some day they'll have to do
away with them entirely." And they did, of course,
after that. " It takes a man with a case-hardened
nerve," he said, " to get into it now."
" Well," I said to him, " how is it? How'll this
kid of ours stand it? "
" All right," said Pasc.
" He must be pretty small, next to the rest of
them."
"That's all right," he came back. "It ain't
size that counts in this, and I don't except that
great foul-mouthed murdering freak that Shang
Murphy.
' We're going right after them," said Pasc,
" we're going to draw them out from the start,
just the same as I wrote you."
" Go ahead," said I. " I'm ready for you.
The minute we win, the advertising's all ready to
smear up on the walls where the crowd goes out.
And if we don't win," said I, trying to be funnier
than I felt, " I guess I've got the car-fare home.
The Bowl 63
But it'll have to come out of the creditors, at that."
I sat there waiting in the grand stand that next
afternoon, and watched the crowd, and the riders
starting to come over into that Bowl underneath.
I was away over at one end of the grand stand, the
only seat I could get in the front row. Pasc was
down with Chuck Powers in that center of the track
the pit, they called it; so I sat there alone, and
shoved my jack-knife blade into the seat as far as I
could shove, and drew it out, and shoved it in again
wondering just what was going to happen to us
that next hour and a half in that loo-mile race. If
we didn't get it, of course we were through.
There was a man next to me a small, black-
looking young fellow with a big checked cap, and
bright yellow shoes, and a bright blue necktie. He
looked like he might be one of these young Italians,
or a French Canadian. His big cap was down over
his eyes, and he sat there chewing gum.
"Queer looking things, ain't they?" I said to
him, thinking it would help pass the time to talk to
somebody. " These Bowls."
" Sure," he said, looking straight out ahead.
" Treacherous damned things, too ain't
they? " I went along. u I see where they killed an-
other man over in Revere last week that Joe
Lavoisier."
I noticed him then give this little kind of a twitch.
u You see about that? " I asked him.
" Yeah, I saw it," he said, and pulled his cap
down more over his eyes.
14 Dangerous business," said I,
64 The Biography of a Million Dollars
" They call it racing," he answered after a min-
ute. "Its right name is murder the way they
run it now."
" Shooting off over the edge? "
" Or being pushed."
"Crowded off?" said I.
" You've said it," said this fellow next to me.
" That would be murder! "
" What was I telling you? " he said to me, and
shut up. And we both sat there, staring at the
track. Some more of the riders were coming on.
He stopped chewing his gum, and sat there staring
down. He seemed as if he was looking for some-
body.
I heard him cursing then, after a minute or two,
under his breath. I turned around, and looked at
him, and he saw me doing it.
' You were speaking about that Joe Lavoisier,"
he said, " getting his last week."
" Uh-huh."
" Well, that's the fellow that gave it to him," he
said, nodding his big cap.
" Who? " said I, " that big black-looking one? "
I had been watching him before, suspecting al-
ready who it was.
He nodded his head again.
"Who is it?" I asked him.
' That's Shang Murphy."
" So that's the man."
' That's the guy. That's the main murderer,"
he said. "That's the fellow that gave it to
Joe."
The Bowl 65
" Gripes," I said, " he don't hardly look human,
does he?"
He didn't in that leather suit; gawking
around. He looked about eight feet tall, and about
as big around as a napkin ring.
" He ain't," said the fellow next to me. " He's
a damned murdering rattlesnake."
I sat there watching him, thinking about all I
had heard about him. I noticed, after a while, how
this man beside me kept cursing him out. I didn't
pay so much attention at first. I was watching
Chuck Powers down there, getting ready with his
machine, looking like a two-year-old kid next to
that big freak.
But then I heard this fellow next to me curs-
ing and swearing as if he was talking to somebody
in a kind of a hoarse low voice. And I followed
his eyes, and he was talking to that great freak,
that Murphy, as if he was alone in a room with
him.
" You think you're the only one," he was saying
under his breath, " that can pull that murder stuff.
But some one's coming along, some day, and hand
you yours. And when they do, all I ask is I'll be
there to see it you " And he cursed him, in
that hoarse low voice of his till your hair rose up on
the nape of your neck like a dog's, listening to him.
Finally I caught his eye; he saw I was listening.
" Say, what have you got against him, so much? "
I said to him.
" Oh, nothing much," he said, giving me a stare.
" Only I'm Joe Lavoisier's brother." And he
66 The Biography of a Million Dollars
pulled down his cap again. " I was there when this
thing killed him."
" O, that's it! " said I, catching it finally.
And then we both shut up and looked down at
them, getting ready to start the riders on the
wheels, each one of us thinking his own thoughts.
" But one thing, by Gripes," I said, looking down
at that long leather thing underneath us, and start-
ing talking to him under my breath myself. " If
you start any of your murdering stunts this time
on that boy of ours it'll be your last one.
There'll be three hospitals full of you just as soon
as I get near enough to you to get one hand around
that turkey neck of yours."
And the two of us sat there glaring at him.
' There they get up," said Joe Lavoisier's
brother.
And they started the machines off around the
track, four of them circling for the flying start,
each one at a different quarter of the Bowl.
" Here's where you see it," said he, " the only
place on the stand. Out here away from the
judges, where you can watch them having it out
alone, among themselves."
" Uh-huh," said I, watching them. They didn't
look like anything human, for a fact, any of them
in those round helmets, and leather clothes they
put on them to protect them from the fire of the
exhausts, and the splinters from the board tracks,
if they got spilled. A flock of earless, hairless,
goggle-eyed leather devils, tearing off on wheels.
" Bang," went the pistol.
The Bowl 67
" There they go off," said the fellow side of me.
And they flung themselves up on the side of the
Bowl, whirling faster and faster.
" Some pace," said Joe Lavoisier's brother, tak-
ing out a stop watch. ' This one is for blood."
" Fifty-five seconds to the mile already," he said
after a little while, studying his watch.
Every three or four seconds one went snorting
by. I could hear the old Hoodlum come a-roaring
all the way around the track. She had an entirely
different sound to her. She was walking right up
on the man ahead of her one of those two
Rajah riders.
" Look at her go up," I said, half out loud.
" That's that new machine, with the young kid
on it," said this Joe Lavoisier's brother.
" Uh-huh."
" You'd know that. You'd know it was some
fool kid," he said.
"Why would you?"
" Hitting it up like that. She can't stand it.
Nothing can. Nor he either."
" You watch him," said I.
" Yeah? Well, you watch what old Pegleg Han-
sen does to him, the one ahead on that Rajah
there, when he gets up to him. He's got a nerve,
anyhow a fool kid like that butting in on a race
like this, against old birds like these two. They
oughtn't to let them. There ought to be a law
against it."
But Chuck kept right after his man, while he was
talking.
68 The Biography of a Million Dollars
Across the track the same thing, almost, was go-
ing on. This Shang Murphy was running up
up up on the man ahead of him.
"Shang Shang Shang," the grand stand
was yelling; that Rajah crowd everybody riding
one those days.
'" Listen to this," said this Lavoisier's brother,
poking his elbow into me. This Shang was lying
up behind the other man, cursing him, telling him to
let him go by. Black, putrid oaths something
frightful for talk; you could smell it, almost, over
the gasoline.
" He's after him," said Lavoisier.
" What good does that do him? " said I. " He
can get by. What's "he trying to do to him, any-
way
This young fellow sat there, chewing his gum,
watching them out under his long cap visor.
" Pulling his lung," said he.
" Pulling his lung? "
n ' Getting his heart."
" Scaring him out, you mean," said I.
" It ain't any different from prize fighting," he
told me. " The first thing is to find the yellow
streak. Get the heart out of them. Then you got
them.
'There's where Joe won out," he went along.
" He was nothing to look at. "No bigger'n this
young kid. But nobody ever scared him yet. He
had a heart like a lion. You got to have one, in
this game.
" Look at this one here," he said, watching.
The Bowl 69
" He's done before he's started. Shang's got him,
already. He's a good rider too. But he can't
stand thinking what this murderer might do to him.
He's all in. See that!"
And blur-r-r, Shang Murphy went by him finally.
They'd gone now, maybe twenty laps.
" Fifty seconds," said Lavoisier, looking at his
watch again. " They won't beat that much.
" Here," he said. " Pegleg's after the other
fellow that young kid."
" Go it, Chuck," I yelled. " Don't let him bluff
you."
He was trying that cursing act on the boy
blocking him, and cursing him, pretending the boy
was crowding him.
" Pretty raw that," said Lavoisier. " Look at
that. See that wabble? He won't let him get
by."
I could look down the straight and see the wheel
of that Rajah rider that Hansen flinch, as
Chuck tried to pass him.
" That's the worst I ever saw," said this man be-
side me. " They'll take a lot from a Rajah rider
the judges. But they can't stand for that, for-
ever. Look at him hold. Look at him block
him."
That Shang Murphy was sailing around after
them as if they were tied.
'That's how they go down," said Lavoisier
" just one touch of the front wheel on the back one
ahead of you. That's how they killed all those
bicycle riders in those old paced races. That's
70 The Biography of a Million Dollars
how Jimmy Michael got what he died from finally,
if you only knew it. Going at speeds like that
once is enough! "
" E-e-e-eh," yelled the grand stand beyond us.
Chuck Powers had jumped his man at the turn;
sailed up and over and down again, like a swallow
over a barn.
But almost within a fraction of an inch, it
looked like, from the edge of the track.
" You see that," said Lavoisier, turning around.
He was warming up, and getting more talkative as
the race went on. " You see that? Some chances.
That kid's either got his nerve or he's crazy. Did
you see that Hansen; he ran him right up the track.
If the kid wasn't so quick one eyelash, and it was
all over !
' The same game. The same game," he said,
and spit between the benches. " The same way
that bunch of murderers got old Joe. If these
judges stand for that, they'll stand for murder
with a gun. Take them out! Take them out and
shoot them; and get it over with! " he started
yelling.
"Look! "said I.
" Ah-hah, I thought so," said he, sitting down.
They were waving Hansen off the track.
" He was looking for it, I guess," said Lavoisier.
* They put him in probably to pocket this new
man. It looks to me as if they were afraid of him.
Who is this kid, anyhow? He's quite a good little
rider, at that. He won't scare, that's one thing.
And he's got some machine there, too. Listen to
The Bowl 71
that exhaust, will you? Like a three hundred dol-
lar watch. And look look at her pick up ! "
That boy of ours loose again was just eat-
ing up that third man the one that Murphy had
scared out.
" Look at this," said I to Lavoisier. " Here's
another one. Look at him all over the track.
Look at him wabble ! "
" That ain't it," he said. " That ain't on pur-
pose. That's where Shang cut the heart out of
him. He thinks he's coming into a pinch again.
He's getting nervous again when he thinks of them
passing him. He ought to be taken off; he's
scared till he's dangerous."
But then all at once the man straightened out,
as Chuck came up to him; and the boy went by fly-
ing-
" That's how they get," said Lavoisier, " when
they get thinking once of what would happen if
they went down at those speeds. He's done.
There's only two left on the track now."
"Hey, look at that kid go!" I said, watching
Chuck.
This other man sat still, taking it on the stop
watch.
" Forty-five seconds," he said, as if he didn't
believe it. u A mile in forty-five."
The old Hoodlum was running right over them.
The whole crowd got it, yowling as Chuck came
right up on Murphy. The feeling was turning a
little, too, on the riders. Chuck was getting them
on account of his size.
72 The Biography of a Million Dollars
I could see old Pasc in the pit, down there under
the track, holding his stop watch following her
and listening to her go.
She was going like a bird. It looked good for
us.
This Lavoisier's brother was listening, too.
" Some machine that. She's got fifteen seconds
on that Rajah, I believe, to the mile. She's play-
ing circles round her.
" Here's where the race begins," he said, " be-
tween these two." And I sat forward, watching;
knowing he was right. The whole thing came now
for us.
' This fellow's got the machine," he was going
on, " all right; and he's got plenty of sand. But
can he stand it, when that murderer once starts after
him?"
And right after that it started.
" Hear that. Listen to that," said Lavoisier,
when they went roaring by. " He's getting after
him, pulling his lung! "
I've heard some foul talk in my day, but nothing
like that this thing was putting out under his breath
at Tom's boy, as they shot by us.
' Try it - Try it you " he said. " Take
a chance. Go on."
Bang just before he got to us up and
around Chuck went by him not waiting a sec-
ond."
" Good boy," said Lavoisier's brother. " Good
boy. You got something! You got something
this time ! You big bum," he yelled at Murphy.
The Bowl 73
And sat down again quick, watching.
" Look, look," he said. " He almost ran away
from him entirely. He almost lost him. Too
bad! Too bad!"
" He can lie in behind, I suppose," said I.
" Forever ! Like a paced race, exactly. You
can't shake him, with the front machine taking off
all the wind pressure.
" That's a mistake," he said, talking all the time
now. " That kid must have lost his mind."
I saw what was going on. The Hoodlum was
ahead now, and the boy was doing what Pasc said
they would pulling the insides out of that old
piece of junk of that Rajah crowd.
" It takes twice the power driving that first one,"
said Lavoisier.
" You watch her," said I.
He didn't answer me; he was timing her again.
" Do you know what I made that?" he said to
me. " Forty-three seconds ! " And he started
timing it over again.
The grand stand was catching it now yelling,
all the time, at those two brown streaks. The third
man was off the track now entirely.
' They can't do it," said Lavoisier to me.
:< They can't build them to take punishment like
that mile after mile."
"He don't think that way," said I, when Shang
Murphy went by, still cursing in that low voice' at
Chuck ahead of him trying to " pull his lung "
still; pretending he wanted to go by.
" Look out ! Look out ! The next time ! The
74 The Biography of a Million Dollars
next time! " He kept saying trying to get him
jumpy.
The kid said nothing; went riding right along,
according to orders.
" That'll do for you," this great freak was say-
ing to him, going by pretending Chuck was
blocking him on the turns. " I won't do anything
to you now but crack you open and spill you on
the track."
Tom's boy never turned a hair; just kept going,
and the more he went along, the madder that great
ugly freak behind him got.
" You'll get yours before this 'afternoon's over,"
he called out to him, in that hoarse stage whisper.
" You heard about the other ones that got fresh.
You know all about that Joe Lavoisier," he said to
him. I heard him say it myself. " Well, you
look out, that's all."
I looked sideways, and saw that Joe Lavoisier's
brother's face. He sat back, stopping talking,
looking out under the long visor, with steel-blue
murder in his eyes.
It must have been about half over now. Round
and round they kept spinning at that devilish pace.
The little one ahead and the big one chasing. He
didn't curse so much now.
" He's tired, I believe," I said to Lavoisier's
brother.
1 You don't know what it's like," said he,
11 pounding those turns at those speeds. Your
wrists and neck. It almost kills you. Bang
like falling from a second story on your head!
The Bowl 75
That's wheie the small fellow has the advantage.
The big one's showing it naturally."
" I notice he isn't curing so much," I said.
" Maybe he's thinking up something," said La-
voisier's brother. " Something wicked."
" How can he when the other fellow's always out
ahead of him? He needs his breath, that's his
trouble!"
" It isn't over yet," he said. " One of the ma-
chines may break, any time."
That was just what I was wailing for to hear
that Rajah crack, the ignition or one of those auto-
matic valves on her. But there was nothing of the
kind. That Shang Murphy was a wonder in hand-
ling a machine keeping her going. They're
born that way; they can feel a machine, a good
rider, at those speeds, and what's the matter with
her, just as if it was a part of their own flesh. The
two kept going that way, ding-dong, mile after mile.
" He's not saying a word now, is he ! " said I,
watching him. " He's all in."
" He's worse that way. He's framing up some-
thing in his mind," said Lavoisier. " That's when
you want to look out."
And all at once wow ! the grand stand went
up in the air, beyond us, in the middle.
" He's jumped him! " said Lavoisier, looking.
"Who has!"
" That kid," he said. " That kid's jumped him.
He caught him asleep!
" Gee, some kid," he said. " Some get-away.
Some speed. He's got clean away from him ! "
76 The Biography of a Million Dollars
" What do you think of that, you big stiff? " he
said, getting up suddenly, and shaking his fist; and
sat down again, studying his watch.
" Forty-one !" he said, finally. "A mile in
forty-one." It had never been done before, or any-
thing like it. The Hoodlum was running away;
around the track again after the other one, like a
cyclone after a farmer's wagon.
The grand stand started yelling jeering Mur-
phy.
' That's what gets him. Look out for murder
now. If he tries to pass him," said Lavoisier's
brother.
" That's just what he'll do," said I, and he did
shot up right beside him.
The big one started for a second to run him
up to track, and stopped when the grand stand
started groaning.
Chuck ran right up beside him. You could have
thrown a blanket over the two of them as they
went by us.
"Come on, you poor old stiff! Come on!"
said Chuck, as they went by and pulled her out
some more.
" Bang! " something went on the Rajah. He'd
done the trick for us what we were after.
"She's blown! Blown!" I yelled. "The
piece of junk! "
' Valve stuck," said Lavoisier.
The old Hoodlum, with Tom's boy on her, sailed
on away, the grand stand laughing, howling.
" That finishes it," said I.
The Bowl 77
" No," said Lavoisier.
"Why not?"
" Not if he can murder him. Look at him,"
he said. "He's laying back for him deliber-
ately."
He'd got his machine working again the valve
working.
" What's he going to do? " said I.
" I don't know. He don't himself. He ain't
human any more since they ragged him in the
grand stand. He's just murder and sudden death,
going eighty miles an hour. There ain't any more
brains in that head now than a rattlesnake's. Just
nothing but the idea of hitting out and killing some-
thing.
" He don't want to pass him," said Lavoisier's
brother ! " That fool kid don't want to go by him
again."
But he did he tore right up to him again
one brown streak up to another. Before he got
there, at all, the other one was cursing him.
" Keep off, you," he said. " You've crowded
me once too often, once too often."
Tom's boy was running beside him, their elbows
touching. He didn't budge an inch. All at once
it came right opposite us, where the officers
couldn't see it.
"Look out!" yelled Lavoisier's brother, stand-
ing up in his seat.
I saw Tom's boy staggering.
" He gave him the knee," said Joe Lavoisier's
brother from where he stood. " The damned dou-
78 The Biography of a Million Dollars
ble murderer. I saw him. He gave him the
knee."
And the grand stand didn't even groan all
watching.
It was all over in a minute. Both of them stag-
gered from the thing, going at that speed.
But he must have missed him so he didn't
get the full blow anyway.
" He's caught himself," I heard this Lavoisier
say. And I saw myself that Tom's boy was safe
straightened out again, when bang! the big
freak wabbled and went down himself tired out,
crazy mad, teetering at that awful speed, I sup-
pose, like a man all gone, running, stumbling, and
going down. That last push had been too much
for him.
Off he went, flying clear of the machine; rolled,
slid up, and slid down the slope, like an old bag,
with the machine behind him, sliding down into the
pit.
" A-ah," said the grand stand crowd, drawing in
its breath.
'There's yours! There's yours!" yelled Joe
Lavoisier's brother, up beside me. " There's yours
at last, you damned murderer ! "
And the grand stand went silent waiting.
All you could hear was the popping of that ma-
chine, on its side; and the sound of the old Hood-
lum slowing up on the Bowl above it.
I turned around to keep this Joe Lavoisier's
brother quiet.
CHAPTER VII
TOM'S BOY
" Shut up, you fool," said I. " That's no way
to act. The man's killed."
" Aw, to hell with him," said Joe Lavoisier's
brother, watching under that long cap visor. " He
ain't killed. Nothing struck him."
I could see, myself, one of those long, leather
legs moving, when that little bunch opened up a
little around him in that pit.
" Only scratched up some, that's all," said my
man, watching still.
' That young guy," he said after a while, " he's
the boy. He's there! He's just like Joe was.
You can't scare him. He's got a heart like a lion.
He reminds me of him. He looks like him on the
track. A little fellow," he said, turning around to
me. " A little fellow. But a heart like a lion !
Like Joe. Like old Joe was ! " and pulled that
loud checked cap down over his eyes again.
They were standing Murphy up on his feet again,
down under us, and everybody was getting up and
starting out from the grand stand.
" Well, good day," said this Joe Lavoisier's
brother, in that hoarse voice of his, nodding; and
went on by me.
" Good day," said I, and stood there still, look-
80 The Biography of a Million Dollars
ing down on to the pit, watching them all get ready
to come up over the track.
" Hello," said somebody right back of me a
woman.
I turned around, and there stood Zetta Thomas,
with a couple of rows of seats between us.
"Why, hello! 1 " said I. " Where'd you come
from?"
" That's a long story," said Zetta, laughing,
showing those white teeth of hers. " But wasn't it
great? Wasn't it glorious huh? Did you ever
see anything like it?" she said, as I was stepping
over the benches to get to her. " The way the
good old Hoodlum went ! And that boy that
Chuck Powers !
"My! Think what we owe him. Imagine,"
she said, watching down where they were climbing
up out of the Bowl; pulling at the tips of her gloves,
impatient and restless as usual. " Imagine, if he
had fallen down on us! But now, think what he's
done for us."
' You've done something, yourself, if my mem-
ory's good! " said I, thinking where we'd have been
if she hadn't put up that ring for us.
" It's nothing to what he's done," she said, her
cheeks red, and her eyes snapping, looking down.
She certainly was a handsome woman as she stood
there that afternoon, dressed up in some kind of a
black and yellow dress.
" For this makes it all right for us," she said.
"Now don't it?"
" I hope so," said I. " It'll certainly help ! "
Tom's Boy 81
" When are we going down there to see them? "
she asked me, impatient as a two-year-old.
" Let's let the crowd out a little first," I told
her; " and then we can get around there, and see
them down by the dressing rooms.
" But where'd you come from?" I asked her.
" I couldn't stay away, that's all. I tried it, but
I couldn't. I couldn't sit there, any longer wait-
ing. Without jumping out of my skin ! "
" I don't blame you," I said. ' Your own race,
you paid for. But when'd you start? How'd you
get here? "
" How'd I get the money, you mean? " she said,
laughing.
And I grinned.
" Well, I'll tell you how," she said. " I got it
from the grocer. I told him I had to have it.
Something had come up that was life and death to
me. And Pasc was away out of town, and every-
body else I could go to. So he let me have it."
" How much did he give you? " I asked her.
" Ten dollars."
" But that would only get you here. It wouldn't
take you back."
" I know that. But I knew I'd find you here,
didn't I? " she said, looking at me.
I had to laugh; in spite of myself.
" Zet," I said, " you're a corker."
And she laughed back, flashing those teeth at me.
" Pasc don't know it, at all, eh? " I asked her.
" Know it. No. Wait till you see his face !
But it was worth it. It was great, wasn't it?
82 The Biography of a Million Dollars
We've won out," she said. ;< We've made our bets,
and we've won. And now come on. I guess we
can go over now, and see the boys Pasc and that
rider who won out for us."
So we went around that way finally, talking about
the race and Chuck Powers.
" Hel-lo ! " said Pasc, seeing her the way he
always did, like an older person talking to a nice
child; and grinned that old sudden, jack lantern
grin of his. " So you thought you'd come ! "
" I had to, Pasc," she said, and kissed him.
" Wasn't it great? Where is he? " she asked. " I
want to see him."
"Who?" said Pasc.
' That Chuck that boy who rode for us."
" Oh, he'll be out pretty soon," he told her, " if
you wait here."
And we stood there, talking about what it was
going to mean to us.
"What did I tell you all the time?" Zetta
wanted to know.
' We've done it this time, I guess," I said.
' There won't be any doubt now when they come
to picking between our machine and the Rajah.
Not to anybody who ever hears about this race."
'You know what?" said Pasc. "I've got or-
ders now for ten separate machines, and two agen-
cies in New York, without stepping out of my
tracks just around the dressing room."
" Didn't I tell you so," said Zetta, " always? I
knew it all the time. Boys," she said, and
grabbed my coat sleeve, " we're all going to be rich !
Tom's Boy 83
And when we do get this money, boys listen
we're going to have some excitement out of it.
We're going to live.
" You remember what I said to you ? When I
turned in my ring for this?" she asked me.
" About what I'd do, when you came to settle with
me; when our money came in?"
She had stars down in her eyes pure deviltry;
like you see sometimes in a young devil of a horse.
"What do you take me for," I said; " I don't
forget my debts that way."
" I mean it," she said, staring right at me with
those steady black eyes of hers.
" So do I," I said, laughing at her.
" And I'll tell you another thing," she said, still
looking at me, " if you want to know it! "
"What's that?"
" And that is you can never pay this boy this
rider for what he's done for us today."
And we looked over, and just that minute old
Tom's boy was coming toward us, out of the dress-
ing room.
" I can try," I said to her. " I generally do."
" Isn't he a handsome boy," said Zetta, seeing
him.
" I don't know," I said, " I never thought of it
one way, or the other."
He was though, in a way. He had this devil-
may-care style to him even then and that
bold, kind of insolent way of looking at you, when
he wanted to, that kind of took the women as it
came out afterwards.
84 The Biography of a Million Dollars
" Goodness," said Zetta. " I didn't realize he
was so old as that. He looked so little next to that
big ogre of a thing he rode against."
" I wouldn't tell him that."
"Why not?"
" They don't like to be told about it when they're
little."
" He's not so small," she said, " when you see
him this way.
" If he had been younger," she said, and laughed
back over her shoulder at me, going out to meet
him, " if he was what I thought he was, I was just
going to take him around the neck, and give him a
big hug and a kiss."
And she went up, holding out both her hands to
him.
" It was great," she said to him. " Great.
Just splendid. You beat him all to pieces that
great big beast of a thing. Didn't you? I almost
died, watching you, from excitement."
' You know what she said to me, Chuck? " said
" She said if you were only a little younger,
she certainly would have kissed you."
" Go as far as you like," said Chuck, but his face
got fire-colored; he dropped her hands, right away,
and stood there.
" I would," said Zetta, standing looking at him
in that straight-out way of hers. " I meant it. If
you'd been three years younger, I certainly would
have done it, too.
" For you saved our lives," she said. " You
don't know how much we owe you."
Tom's Boy 85
" Not so bad as that, I guess," said Tom's boy,
shifting on to his other foot.
" You did," said Zetta. " Maybe you've made
us rich by this. And if it does," she said,
" you want to make them pay you for it, too."
" We will," said I. " Don't you fret. I gen-
erally manage to pay my debts to most people, what-
ever I owe them, whether it's a good turn or a bad
one. I always have.
" And you did us one this time, Chuck, all right
a good one. We've got to hand it to you," said
I. " You did the job today."
" Aw, I don't know," he said, looking up and
down again. " You'd ought to killed me, if I
hadn't. I had twenty seconds on him to the mile.
I had the only machine on the track."
" And you rode it, in the second place," said I.
" You can't tell me. I saw you. That big mur-
derer didn't scare you much, did he, boy? " I said,
slapping him on the shoulder. " He didn't turn a
hair on you."
"Who?" said Tom's boy, stiffening up and
looking in my eyes again. " That big stiff. Not
in a thousand years! "
" How much was he hurt, anyhow? " I asked
him.
" Oh, not much."
"How much?"
" Splinters, that's all from that board track
right through the leather; stuck all over him, like
a dressmaker's pincushion."
"Nothing broke?"
86 The Biography of a Million Dollars
" Not so far as they can see."
" Well, you gave him what was coming to him
this time, anyway."
" He did it himself," said Chuck. " He wouldn't
have done it, if he hadn't been mad with the heat,
after the grand stand jollied him."
" It's too bad you didn't kill him," said I. " He
needed it. The damned murderer. And you want
to look out for him after this. He'll be laying for
you. He'll get you if he can."
"He can try! " said Tom's boy, glancing up at
me a second again, with those eyes of his.
" Well, there's one thing," I said to him. " You
won't lose anything by this day's work, not if I can
help it."
" Look," said Zet, breaking in, " I tell you what
we're all going to do now. We're all going over to
New York to some big restaurant, and celebrate ! "
I saw Pasc grin, and I did, after him.
' You've got the money for it, I suppose," I said
to her.
"No, but you have somebody!" she came
back at me.
' We won't have not when we get these bills
here paid," said I.
" What'll we do then? " she said. " We've got
to celebrate somehow."
' We haven't made our million yet, remem-
ber," I said to her.
Here," said Tom's boy, " I can let you have it
if I can collect on this prize."
1 That won't be necessary, I guess," said Pasc,
Tom's Boy 87
and grinned again. " I've got it; I've got enough
for that from what I got in part payments on
those machines."
" All right then," said Zetta, " come on."
" Go it while you're young, eh? " said I, feeling
pretty good myself.
" We won't be, any too long," she said. " I
don't propose to miss any of it from now on."
And we laughed.
" Well," said Tom's boy, backing away. " I
guess I'll be going."
"Going? Going where? " said Zetta. "You're
coming with us. Why, certainly you are. This is
your party, mostly. Unless you've got some other
place you'd rather go," she said, fastening her eyes
on him. " Have you? "
" No," he said, looking up, and grinning at her,
" I guess not."
" Well, then, come along then," said Zetta.
" Do you all want me? " he said, looking at me.
"Sure, we all want you. Why wouldn't we?"
I told him.
" They'd have nothing to say about it anyhow,"
said Zetta. " This was our race. I paid for it,
and you rode it."
" I'll just run across here," he said, when we
stopped laughing at her. " I've got to polish my-
self up for a minute."
" Hurry up then," she said. " We'll be waiting
for you. We'll walk slow, and you'll catch up with
us."
" He's not much more than a kid, after all," she
88 The Biography of a Million Dollars
said to us, watching after him running back. '' The
kid freckles aren't all off his face yet."
" He's half a boy, I guess, and half a man," I
said.
And then she turned around quick, and shoved
her arms through Pasc's and mine, and started
along between us.
" This is our night, boys," she said, looking up,
" isn't it? We've just got to celebrate some way.
" The only thing," she said, " to make it com-
plete would be if Polly was here, wouldn't it?
Have you telegraphed her yet? " she said to me.
" Well, you ought to be ashamed of yourself.
You'll do it, just as soon as we can find an office.
She mustn't wait a minute, sitting worrying about
it."
" That's right," said I.
" I can see her eyes snap, when she gets it," said
Zetta. " I can almost hear her stammer, getting
excited. She'd ought to be here, Bill. She put as
much into it as any of us more."
" I guess that's right, too," said I.
" She'd take her heart out and give it to you,
Bill," she said, looking at me " if you wanted it."
" And then get mad, if I didn't take it ! " I said
and laughed.
' You don't deserve her, Bill," she said, laughing
back. " She's too good for you, and that's the
truth."
" I guess it is, at that," I told her.
" Or for any of us. She's an angel. A kind of
a little spunky angel. I always think of her that
way."
Tom's Boy 89
" A fighting angel, eh," said I.
" Yep," said Zetta, " they have them that way.
I read it when I was in school in Milton's ' Para-
dise Lost'
" Look! Come on! " she said, looking back of
her shoulder. " Here he comes."
As we went out into the street, there was that
poster that fellow of ours had pasted out on the
walls and fences.
HOOT TOOT!
GET OUT OF OUR ROUTE!
HOODLUM !
CHAPTER VIII
A MIRACLE BY THE TAIL
It certainly did look rosy, on the face of it, right
after that. Every mail was full of orders and ap-
plications for agencies for days and weeks.
The women especially got all excited over it.
" See here," said Polly, pulling out this paper,
when I came home. It was the second week after
that race. " See here, didn't you tell me we were
going to sell two hundred machines a year?"
" We ought to do that, anyhow," said I.
" And didn't you tell me you'd make fifty dollars
on every car? "
" Nearer sixty," said I, " when we're going
right."
" But that would be twelve thousand dollars a
year!"
' Yep," said I.
" Oh," she said, and kept still. I don't sup-
pose we'd ever had fifteen hundred dollars a year
before to spend on ourselves.
But I didn't speak about the rest of it to her
naturally. I just kept up a terrible thinking to my-
self. I had for several days and nights then.
"What's the matter with you?" said Polly.
" You don't sleep at all."
A Miracle by the Tail 91
" Oh, I don't know," said I. " Something I ate,
I guess."
u Well, I guess not," she said, miffed; " not when
I'm cooking for you."
" Maybe I ought to cut out coffee," I said.
" I've been drinking quite a lot lately."
" What you'll have to cut out," she said, " is
working all day; and thinking about it all night.
Go to sleep."
" Don't worry about me," I said, " when I get
tired doing a good business making money I'll
let you know."
And I lay still, and figured on it the way I was
doing all the time now, to see if I couldn't find some
loophole. It was no use to bother Pasc about it.
It wouldn't be any good; and that was my end of
the business anyhow. But finally he got it himself.
" Here's a funny thing," said Pasc, coming in and
sitting down in the office after six o'clock. " I wish
you'd explain it to me."
"What?" I asked him.
" We claim we can turn out three hundred ma-
chines a year here."
" Yes."
" And we're going to."
" I see orders for three hundred right now,"
said I.
" How are we going to? "
"You don't mean machinery? We can make
them up, or get them made now; you know that."
" No, I mean money," said Pasc. " How are
you going to get the money?"
92 The Biography of a Million Dollars
" I wish I knew," said I. And I shut up and let
him talk.
" As I understand it," said Pasc, getting out his
old envelope and stub again, " you get twenty-five
percent, down from the dealer, with the order; and
twenty-five more when you deliver; making fifty per-
cent, when your delivery is made. And the rest on
sixty days."
" Yes."
" So if you sell a machine for two hundred dollars
to a dealer, you get one hundred dollars from him
and it costs you one hundred and fifty dollars."
" Yes."
" So while you seem to be making fifty dollars
on a machine, you're really out fifty dollars in actual
money for every machine that goes out from the
shop."
' To say nothing of the time before that," I said,
" while we've got the machine being made in the
factory."
' Yes," said Pasc, with his old blue eyes on me,
wetting his old pencil and going on with his figuring.
" Now then," he said slowly, " if it stopped some
time this thing we'd catch up, and get our
money in. But now, growing the way we are, we
never can catch up; it gets worse every day."
" Is that right? " he asked me, looking up. " I
want to get that right."
" That's right."
'Then that's a peculiar thing, ain't it?" he
said. ' The more money we seem to be making,
the less we've got, You wouldn't believe it ! "
A Miracle by the Tail 93
"Peculiar, yes," I said. "Damned peculiar!
And damned dangerous ! "
" Dangerous! " said he.
" It's going to bust us, if we don't look out."
" Bust us ! " said Pasc, stopping and getting it
into his head. " Hm! Making money so fast it'll
bankrupt us. That's a new one ! "
' What are we going to do about it? " he asked
me, after a while.
"You tell me!"
' You can't cut down expenses much more."
"No."
" Nor take any more of the work ourselves."
" Not and live ! "
" Well," said he, " there's only one thing then, I
suppose."
"What?"
' You've got to stop your deliveries till you get
some of your money in."
" You can't."
"Can't?"
"No. How can you?" I asked him. "You
know those dealers as well as I do. They're in
business to sell a machine when an order comes for
one, ain't they? If they don't get deliveries from
us, they'll sell somebody else's, won't they? "
" Good and sure," said Pasc.
" But it don't stop there. If we lost that order,
it wouldn't be so much. One order's not so much.
But what we lose is the dealer. If we can't deliver
goods, he starts for the fellow who can and
hitches up with him."
94 The Biography of a Million Dollars
" Naturally."
" But that ain't all," I said. " The minute he
does that, he not only don't push our machine any
longer; he knocks it, by comparison anyhow. And
no matter what a reputation you've got, or what
your goods are, you can't stand continual knocking
like that especially with a thing like ours a
motor cycle where the ordinary man don't have
any real knowledge enough but what a dealer can
tie him all up in ten minutes' talking."
"So we've got to keep growing!" said Pasc,
after a while. "Anyhow! "
" Unless we want to die."
' That's a funny thing," he said, thinking awhile.
" If you grow you bust, and if you don't grow you
bust just the same. You're damned if you do, and
you're damned if you don't. And as it is, we're in
danger of being killed by over-prosperity too
much business."
" That's about it," said I.
;< What are we going to do about it? " he asked
me after a while.
; ' There's just one thing," I said, " that's all.
I've been thinking over it day and night; we've got
to get more money, somehow."
"Credit?"
" I guess that's all you can get," said I. " I've
got Briscoe and Company to help us out, some, by
showing them what we were doing. That's our
biggest account, of course, and I'm working on some
of the others."
"What about the bank?" he wanted to know.
A Miracle by the Tail 95
" I've been trying to get Proctor Billings over
here for a week to look us over," I said, " to see if
he won't give us a little more than that one thou-
sand dollars we've got now. He says now he'll be
over tomorrow.
" I God," I said, thinking. " What a power
these fellows have got that control the money!
You don't realize it until you go in business for
yourself; and get up against a thing like this.
" You sweat and drag and work eighty-one hours
a day. And when you're through the day, and cov-
ered with dust and oil, and blisters, one of these
damned still-faced dudes from a bank drives over in
his limousine, with a flower beside him in a little
glass vase, and decides whether you're going to live
or die. That thing drives me crazy. It always
has, ever since I was in business to have to get
down and crawl around to men like Proctor Billings,
and ask them for permission to go on living."
"What will he do for us in the bank?" asked
Pasc. I can see him still, sitting there in his
overalls, with his envelope and pencil stub; and his
old faded eyes staring out at me over a smear of
machine oil on one of his old prominent cheek bones.
" Not much."
" What'll you do, then, if he won't help us? "
" I'll have to try and tease the creditors along
the best way I can."
"It ain't normal, is it?" said he. "This way
we're doing? "
" No. But what can you do? "
" Get some money in from somewhere."
96 The Biography of a Million Dollars
" Yes," I said, " if we could. I thought maybe
I might get some idea out of Proctor Billings along
that line if he comes."
He came that next day, as a matter of fact, locked
up in his limousine, wearing his chamois gloves, and
went through the shop with me, as if it was a special
favor to me; and Pasc came along for a minute and
spoke to him, and looked at him, all smeared up
with machine oil so he couldn't shake hands. And
then Billings flicked off his new gray suit with a fine
handkerchief, and sat down in the office for a min-
ute or two, and listened to me talk without any more
expression on his face than the bottom of a china
plate.
" I don't see how," he said finally, getting up, " I
can be of any use to you. We can't take on any
more of a loan for you in the bank. You're over-
extended too much. You aren't in any condition
for a bank to take up from what you say your-
self."
'What can we do?" said I, getting desperate,
and mad. He always got me on the raw, just look-
ing at him riding around the town.
' You'll have to get in more money," he said in
that particular, college educated talk of his.
' That's what I'm trying to get now," I told him,
getting madder.
" In the form of capital," he came back at me.
"How'll I get it?"
' That I don't know," he said. " All I can say
is, we'll continue our loan at the bank, but we can't
possibly go any farther."
A Miracle by the Tail 97
And then he went out and got in his limousine,
and left me there jumping mad, cursing him under
my breath as he drove away.
" We'll pull it out in spite of him," I said to
Pasc. " And we're well off, if we never get any
of that kind in with us. He and the old man to-
gether," I said, " didn't have blood enough in them
for an eel.
" We'll pull her through," I said, talking along
to encourage myself. ' We've got a big thing, and
I know it, and by working it along right, we'll come
out all right. We've got a big thing; and you take
a man like old man Briscoe he's big enough to
see it.
" I've got to keep on the right side of him," I
said. " He's a quick-tempered old man, but
straight as a die. Always willing to help you out
if he thinks you're doing your part. A fine old
man if he is a millionaire! A regular oldtime
New England mechanic that's earned his living with
his own hands.
"Not one of these bankers with soft hands
and hard faces ! Not one of these fellows with the
money, that earn their living by their faces never
right out like a man; always bluffing you, keeping
you from knowing what they really think, or plan,
or mean to do to you. I hate the whole tribe of
them."
" How'd you happen to know old man Briscoe,
anyway?" said Pasc.
" I worked for him one year down in his shop in
Bridgeport. The only year I ever was out of this
98 The Biography of a Million Dollars
town since I was born. He's the man we've got to
watch," I said, "after this like a hawk. Do
what we tell him we'll do, to the dot; or there'll
be trouble."
" You'll do it, all right," said Pasc, getting up
and taking off his overalls.
I stayed around there a little longer till old
Tom Powers came in for the night.
" Hello, Tom," said I, putting on my coat.
" Well, how's the old Miracle coming on for you
these days? How's she coming?"
" Good," said Tom. " How's yours? "
" Too darned good," said I.
" How's this? " he wanted to know.
" We're selling them so fast it's busting us," I
said, and I stopped and told him a little something
about the trouble we had to get money to fill our
orders, coming in so fast.
" What do you think of that, Tom? " I asked, to
see what the old man would say.
' They're strange acting things," he said, " these
Miracles."
' They are, by Gripes," I said. " If we don't
look out, this one of ours is liable to be too much
for us."
"That's the trouble with them," said Tom.
' You can't tell where they'll land you. You can't
tell half the time whether you've got them, or
they've got you after you get hold of one. Half
the time all you got is one hand on your Miracle's
tail, wondering where she'll go next."
" And you with her, eh, Tom? " said I.
A Miracle by the Tail 99
" The trouble with them is," said he, looking up
without cracking a smile on that old skeleton's face
of his. " They're so much bigger than a man is.
That's the trouble with them."
And I laughed and went out. You never could
quite make the old man out. He was a queer one.
There was always apt to be a lot of sense in that
stuff he was getting off.
CHAPTER IX
THE LITTLE PALE BOOKKEEPER
It was a hard, ugly fight. There were three or
four times in those next few months when we
strained our credit to the limit. And the bank was
after us on our balance all the time. We wouldn't
have got through, if Briscoe and Company and some
of the other supply people hadn'it helped us out on
the showing in our statements watching us, of
course, like hawks, every minute.
But this particular time things were a little bit
easier. I'd got a little money in cash down from
one or two of the dealers; and I was feeling pretty
good.
" I tell you what I think, Pasc," said I. He had
come in for a minute, between jobs, and we sat there
in the office. " I believe we're beginning to see
daylight. I believe, if we turn a few more corners
and take care, and do everything just so, we'll pull
out; these people will see us through on the basis of
our profits."
' That's good," said Pasc.
" And they've got a right to. If nothing scares
them," I said. " Do you know what I think? "
" No."
" I've been figuring up lately what we are making
here. What do you think we are likely to pull out
The Little Pale Bookkeeper 101
of this thing, If it comes out right? This year, I
mean."
" I haven't the slightest idea," said Pasc, lying
back in his chair, watching me, with his long bony
legs in his overalls stretched out ahead of him.
' Twenty-five thousand a year ! Laugh, if you
want to," I told him, " but it's so if it keeps go-
ing the way it is now; if we pull it through all right.
" I hope we can," I said. " I'd like to do it. I
never knew how we could get outside capital in, if
we wanted it. But I never wanted to get it, if I
could help it.
"I tell you, Pas-,," I said. "I always felt this
way. I always thought, when people got up a busi-
ness and pushed it through, they were the ones who
ought to have the benefit of it, and not outsiders.
Not outsiders these men with the money, like
Proctor Billings, for example. I don't know as I
ever told you, but I've always had a suspicion, since
that time he looked us over, and I showed him our
statements for his bank, that he's had his eye on
us, more or less. I think he thinks there's some-
thing here he'd like to get in on. There have been
several signs of it, for one thing; and then I've been
told so, straight. I hope he never does get us where
we would have to let him in. There's one kind of
man I can't stand."
" Seems to me I heard you say that before," said
Pasc, grinning.
" Yes, and you'll hear me saying it again, prob-
ably," said I. " We're a different breed of pups.
We don't take to each other naturally.
102 The Biography of a Million Dollars
" What I want to see out of this business," I said,
" is our people, you and I, and the folks that have
worked with us to build this up get what there is
in it."
And just then I saw that Myrtle that little
bookkeeper we got from business college to take
Wilkins' place look up at the clock all at once, and
put on her coat in a hurry and go out.
" I wonder what's she's forgot now? " I said to
myself.
And I looked up at the clock myself, and saw she
was going over to the bank late as usual.
" Late again," I said to Pasc. " She couldn't be
on time if her life depended on it. She's got to
hustle now, if she gets in at all."
" She ain't very strong," said Pasc, looking after
her.
" She don't look well to me," said I, " and she
never has. She looks worse and worse. She hasn't
got blood enough in her body to keep a robin alive.
I don't think we ought to keep her. Sooner or later
she'll have to go anyway."
' No, no," said Pasc, making excuses, as usual.
" I don't think so. She'll get on to it, before long."
" I don't believe it," said I. " It isn't in her.
She won't do."
" She's conscientious," he came back. " You
couldn't find a harder worker, or anybody that was
more loyal everywhere."
' That's it," I told him. " If it hadn't been for
that, and your begging, she'd been fired long
ago."
The Little Pale Bookkeeper 103
" Oh, no, she wouldn't, Bill," said Pasc. " You
say so, but I know you better than that."
" She's got so now," I said, " she seems to have
got kind of panic-stricken, following around, trying
to catch up."
" You've got to remember," said Pasc, still find-
ing excuses, " you don't ever see the best side of
her. She's scared of you, always."
" Why should she be? " I came back at him. " I
always treated her right."
" I know you have, always. More than right.
But you don't realize, sometimes, I believe," he
said, " how you impress people who don't really
know you, Bill. You're so darned positive about
everything you do. You go after everything so
strong."
" Maybe I do," I said. " But that don't make
any difference in what we're talking about. I've
told her she could have help if she wanted it."
" I know you have, Bill," said Pasc. " That's
perfectly true. But she wants to do it all herself;
she's told me about it. You could see how you'd
feel. She thinks it's her one great chance just
like the rest of us. She's ambitious to do it all her-
self to show she can; so if she does make good,
it will be better pay for her afterwards. She's am-
bitious in her way. And she's got this mother and
sister at home, kind of partly dependent upon her."
" I know all that," said I.
" She's ambitious, naturally," Pasc went along.
" She wants to do it all. And she's over-conscien-
tious. That's the trouble. I honestly think half
104 The Biography of a Million Dollars
her trouble is because she's always working in our
interest. I think she's trying to save us money, try-
ing to do so much herself."
" I do myself," I told him. " That's the devil
of it."
" And she thinks sometimes she'll handle it."
" That's just it," I said. " Look at it now. Out
twenty minutes, just going around to the bank.
She can't do it. The job's too big for her. She
can't follow it around. I'm sorry for the kid, just
as you are, but the thing's too big for her; that's all
there is to it."
" It's been pretty big for most of us," said Pasc
" when you come right down to it."
" It isn't killing either of us yet," I said, seeing
again how pale her face was, when she went out
with that kind of bluish look to it, like skimmed
milk; as if the blood was all out of her body. And
great dark-blue rings around her eyes.
"Where is she now, anyhow?" I said, wonder-
ing what kept her at the bank; and remembering her
face, again, I suppose, as she went out.
" She'll be back in a minute," said Pasc.
" I don't want to work her to death, anyhow," I
said. " I don't want her to die on our hands."
I was worried about her, too. I used to find her
there evenings, when we were ready to close
struggling to catch up, fighting the figures on those
books of hers; trying to get them right. I had to
send her home.
" I'm sorry for her," I said, looking up at the
clock again, wondering why she stayed ; " we both
The Little Pale Bookkeeper 105
are. But we might be a darn sight sorrier for our-
selves for something she might do to us. She might
be a dangerous thing to us. She's got so now you
can't rely on her. And she'll make some bad mis-
take we can't afford."
And I turned and looked at the clock again to see
when she was coming.
" Well," said Pasc, " I guess we can try her a
little longer."
And just then I saw her, finally, outside, coming
on the street. She was a homely kid, thin and
small; and always dressed in a blue serge suit that
seemed as if it was falling off of her, and a little
round cheap hat.
She came in the door holding her bank book
and this slip in her hand. And I got up. I could
see from the color of her face that something had
happened.
She didn't say a word. She came right in, and
walked right by us, and sat down at her desk and
threw her arms down and her face on them, and
started crying; not loud, but as if she was going
to tear herself all to pieces.
"What is it?" said I. "What's the matter
now?"
And Pasc went over beside her, trying to stop her.
But we couldn't get a word out of her; either of
us. She just lay with her face hidden, and when
we tried to make her talk, she'd just sob a little
worse, and bury her face in deeper.
"What is it?" we kept asking her. "What is
it?"
106 The Biography of a Million Dollars
But she just hunched her shoulders, crying.
She had on this little cheap round straw hat of
hers, and it fell over crooked on one side. In one
of her hands, that stuck out, she had her bank book
and a slip of paper.
"What have you done?" said I, stiffening up.
For I'd got a suspicion of it now. " What is it? "
I said. " Come. Come on. Talk. We ain't go-
ing to bite you."
And then I reached out, and took that bank book
and slip of paper wet and sticky where she'd cried
on it.
I took them away from her.
" By God! " I said, when I looked.
" Don't," said Pasc to me. " Don't."
He was on the other side of the girl, patting her
on the arm.
' You know what she's done ? " I said to him,
bringing my voice down the best I could. " She
hasn't made her deposit today, or yesterday, either."
"Yes?" said Pasc.
" She forgot it entirely yesterday; and she was
late today. And in the meanwhile that check to
Briscoe and Company has come back, and been pro-
tested!
" Is that right? " I yelled at her.
"Don't!" said Pasc. "That don't do any
good."
" Look," said I. " That is how it was. The
check came in yesterday; and yesterday she didn't go
near the bank at all. And she came in late this after-
noon, and got the teller to write me this about it."
YOU KNOW WHAT SHE'S DONE TO US? SHE*S BUSTED US !
WIDE OPEN! Page 107.
The Little Pale Bookkeeper 107
" Isn't that right? " I said to her again, and took
hold of her. "Tell me!"
And she bobbed her head up and down, like a
crying child on a desk in school.
" Didn't I tell you? " I yelled. " Didn't I warn
you that that one thing must be attended to! "
I felt Pasc taking hold of my arm, but I shook
him off. I was crazy just about.
"And not today, either," I said. "Yesterday!
And you said you'd do it right off."
" You've got to stop this," said Pasc, pulling.
" You're scaring her to death."
" Scaring her! " I said turning on him. " Scar-
ing her to death ! You know what she's done to
us? She's busted us! Wide open!
" You know what they wrote us," I said to him,
"what old man Briscoe told us we'd have to do;
about that exact agreement we must carry out.
Now, not only haven't we done it, but our checks
have gone back protested!
" We're through," I said. " He's certain to shut
down on us now, I know him exactly. And the min-
ute he does, all the rest of them will be on top of
us at once."
Then I stopped talking, and went over and sat
in the chair, holding that bank book and that note
from the teller trying to think.
I didn't say anything for a while; and Pasc didn't.
There was no noise in the room, but that girl cry-
ing, and the machinery outside going grinding
along, out in the shop.
" I told you what would happen," I said to him,
108 The Biography of a Million Dollars
" if you kept her. And I hadn't more than said it
when it came ! "
" It was our fault, too," said Pasc. " Not seeing
it was done."
" Seeing it was done! " I said. " I gave her spe-
cial instructions yesterday afternoon, just before I
left her. And she said she would start right out
and do it. Special instructions," I said, " that no-
body could miss but an idiot."
' You've got to stop that," said Pasc, setting his
fingers in my arm. " That's no use. It only makes
it worse. She's nothing but a kid."
And when she saw him taking her part, the girl
started crying louder, letting herself loose, in kind
of half hysterics.
" Oh, Lord," I said, walking up' and down.
" She's got to quit that."
; ' What are you going to do? " Pasc asked me.
" I'm trying to think," said I.
" It was kind of strange, wasn't it," said Pasc
" their coming down on us like that at the bank.
They usually call us up and give us a chance, don't
they, in a case like that? "
" Yes, they do," I said. " They have."
" Do you suppose that Proctor Billings would be
trying to play some trick on you?"
" I don't know," I said, thinking. " He might.
And yet," I said, " they warned me once or twice
before, when checks came back on them. But they
might be. There might be a hold-up.
" Oh, quit, quit! " I said. That girl kept going
on, worse and worse. You couldn't hear yourself
The Little Pale Bookkeeper 109
think. " Keep her still," I said. " I've got to
think. I've got to work this thing out."
And I went over then and dug out that new state-
ment of the business I'd had made out for us.
Pasc was over trying to stop the girl, patting her
on the back of her shoulders, like a little kid.
" It may be a hold-up," I said " by Billings. I
hope it is."
" Hope it is," said Pasc. " How's that? "
" Because if it was just the ordinary thing; if he
didn't have any personal interest, he'd just let it
slide along. Our account's been no good to them,
there's been no money in it for the bank. He'd just
let us slide as you'd expect he would, if there
wasn't something in it for himself. You could talk
to him all night. He's got no more insides to him
than an ice-box.
" On the other hand," I said. " If he planned
for it; or thought he saw something in it for him-
self, I could go right to him and show him he'd got
to pull us out, if he ever wanted to get anything.
For once this thing goes smash, it's all over.
Humpty Dumpty wouldn't be in it for a minute if
this thing went bankrupt!
" Oh, quit, quit," I said to the girl, and went up,
and took hold of her arm myself. " Nobody's go-
ing to hurt you. Listen," I said, " if you don't
stop, you'll have to get out, that's all."
She kind of shivered then and stopped.
Then I got up myself, taking that statement.
"Where you going to?" asked Pasc.
" The only place I can go," said I, starting to go
110 The Biography of a Million Dollars
after my hat. " I'm going to see Proctor Billings.
" She'd better go now," I said to Pasc, nodding
over to where that little bookkeeper was still sitting.
" She'd better go, anyway, where she can have some
other woman with her. Her mother."
She kind of dragged herself to her feet then, and
Pasc went over by her.
When I went out, she was getting together her
gloves, and veil and stuff clearing away her own
personal stuff from the drawers in the desk. Get-
ting ready to leave her job. And Pasc helping her.
And I went along, cursing her out to myself;
wondering if I was going to save anything out of
what she'd done.
CHAPTER X
BACK OF THE BANK
The shades were all down at the bank when I got
there drawn for the day. But the door was un-
locked. I opened it and stepped in.
" Gripes," I thought to myself. " What a dark
still hole it is in here, after hours."
Back of the glass you could see the clerks with
their heads down by their green electric light shades
writing. But no one was moving around or talk-
ing; and there was nobody at all in the main cor-
ridor. So I went along back, my heels clacking
on the marble.
'What can I do for you?" said this still-faced
fellow, coming out from a door, bowing.
" I want to see Mr. Billings."
" I'm Mr. Billings' secretary," he said, and smiled
with the lower half of his face only.
" I've got to see him personally," I told him.
" I'll see what I can do," he said, and bowed
and disappeared again, and left me standing there.
It was so still you could hear the pens scratch
those white-fingered clerks working on their books.
I stood and watched them. It always looked to me
like a curious way of earning vour living sitting
there juggling figures in that still hole; more so, I
suppose, to a man used to banging around a machine
shop all his days.
112 The Biography of a Million Dollars
" Won't you come this way? " &aid Billings' secre-
tary, coming back, bowing again; and showed me
ahead of him into a little private reception room in
back, with one electric light going.
" Won't you sit down," he said, and smiled that
smile with the lower half of his face again. " He'll
see you when he's disengaged."
" All right," said I. " Whenever he's ready."
Then he turned on more light, and bowed and
went out again; and left me there.
' You get on my nerves," I said to myself, watch-
ing him. " You bow too much to suit me."
I was getting; nervous, probably, over this game
I was going up against waiting in this place I
wasn't accustomed to.
It was stiller yet in there; a small room, without
any outside windows fixed up regardless, with
red leather furniture and highly polished woodwork,
and little oil paintings of sheep around the walls.
Stiller than underground.
I sat down, and ran over that statement of the
business I brought with me; looked at it all again
to be sure, and sat waiting all the time with my
eye on that door in the shiny woodwork where Bill-
ings' secretary had gone out.
I sat there. Not a sound, from anybody for
ten minutes !
" Gripes," I thought. " He takes his time about
it!"
And I got up and walked around and looked at
the pictures of the sheep. And watched that shiny
door sideways!
Back of the Bank 113
It opened once, and my man the secretary
came back again. And I got up expecting to be
ushered in.
" Not yet," he said. " He's still engaged."
And he went on out, stepping softly on that oriental
rug every hair in his head and thread in his
clothes and muscle in his face just where it ought
to be.
And I went back and sat down again picking
at my hat band in my lap, waiting. It struck me
sitting there: " How many other fellows must have
sat here, in this still hole, just as I am now, waiting
and got turned down !
" I God," I said to myself, " what a power these
still-faced fellows have got over you. In these
banks ! Just sit and smile, and make you wait.
Forever, if they want to. Just say they can't see
you.
" Refuse to see you at all," I said, half out loud
and pulled out on my collar. And got up on my
feet, thinking of it! The sweat came right out on
me.
And I sat right down again and stayed there
watching that door as if I expected the devil to pop
out of it. Fighting something you know is one
thing; fighting something back of a door, that don't
make a noise, is another.
" Won't you come in, now? " said Billings' secre-
tary, opening it without a sound.
And Jie bowed and showed me out ahead of him,
still and polite as an undertaker at a country funeral.
And I pulled my coat collar down, seeing his smooth
114 The Biography of a Million Dollars
one, and followed down after him into Proctor Bill-
ings' private office.
" Come in, won't you? " said Proctor Billings at
the door, and held out that long cold hand of his.
" Sit down." And smiled with the lower part of
his face like that secretary, without the eyes lighting
up at all.
Right over him, where he sat down at his desk,
hung the face of old man Billings, his father, an oil
painting taken just before he died; as like the other
man as the two Indians on two copper cents as
I always said and just as hard. Only the son
was polished by his education.
'Will you smoke a cigarette?" he said to me,
and handed out his gold case. And I took one, with
his gilt monogram on it.
"Now what can I do for you, Mr. Morgan?"
he said, making that faint smile on his lips again
with just as much expression in those gray eyes of
his as two steel balls would have. And his face fell
still again.
" I came to see you about that check of mine,"
I told him.
" What check? " he asked me.
1 That one you sent to protest . The one to
Briscoe for insufficient funds," I went on explain-
ing.
Not a flicker in that face, anywhere!
"I'm sorry," he said finally, "but I'm afraid
you'll have to tell me all about it."
So I did; what else was there to do? And he
sat there watching me, listening to me explaining
Back of the Bank 115
still. I was doing all the talking, I saw that. I was
almost begging him now. It made me hot. But
the madder I got, the more I had to go along he
doing nothing at all but listening.
" If it had been my fault," I said, " I wouldn't
feel so strong about it. I wouldn't feel I had just
the same right to be here now, asking you to help
us out."
And he nodded, listening, without the slightest
expression in his face one way or the other.
" I don't see now," I said, flaring up a second, in
spite of myself, " why it was you didn't notify us,
when it happened. Give us a chance, anyway."
" Let's find out," said Proctor Billings, and stuck
one of those long white fingers on a push button.
" Was Mr. Morgan's check protested yesterday? "
he asked the man who came in one of the tellers.
" Yes, sir."
" Without notice to him? "
11 Yes."
"Why?"
" They'd had their two warnings for overdraw-
ing this month," the teller said, and stood up, stiffer
than a soldier, watching him and avoiding my
eyes.
" Is that right? " said Billings to me.
" Probably it is," said I. " I told you how it hap-
pened."
;< We've had a lot of trouble with that account,
Mr. Billings," said the teller, still watching him.
" You know that."
" That's all," said Proctor Billings, without an-
116 The Biography of a Million Dollars
swering him. " When you go out, will you send me
in the card on that account, please."
" Yes, sir," said the teller, and bowed to him,
and went out. And I sat there, waiting.
"You see?" said Billings, asking another ques-
tion.
" Yes," said L
" That's our rule."
" I see," said I, holding back a second or two to
try if he would go on talking. " I see," I said,
when he said nothing. " But that doesn't help me
any. What I've got to see is how I'm going to get
out of this. These Briscoe people are our biggest
creditors, giving us special accommodations, under
a special agreement. God knows what they'll do to
us, when our check goes back to them."
He sat there, waiting, smoking, hearing me ex-
plain, with the picture of his father over him, and
a vase of cut flowers on his desk, all his ways and
face and manners still and quiet and exactly right
and showing exactly nothing of what he thought!
" I've come here," I said, " because you're the
only man in the world now that can pull us out."
" Well," he said. " What is it we can do for
you?"
" Can't you stop that check before it gets back to
them?"
" Let's see," he said, and pushed a button on his
desk once more.
" Just where is that check? " he asked the teller,
when he came in again. " Could we stop it now
before it gets back to Briscoe and Company? "
Back of the Bank 117
" I don't know. I don't think so. But I'm not
quite sure."
' You see, please."
" All right," the teller said. " And here's that
card of the account you were asking for, Mr. Bill-
ings."
And he bowed again, and went out. And we two
sat there Proctor Billings looking over my ac-
count, while I gaped around at the flowers on his
desk and the walls and the picture of old man
Billings over him with his cold face, and his
straight lips, and his old long nose, thin as an icicle.
' They certainly do look alike," I said to myself.
' The same eyes and mouth the same long, thin,
frozen noses " ; and I thought again of what they
used to say about the old man that when he had
the nose-bleed it was ice water that came out and
froze on his chin.
This young man was just like him, you could see,
the same thing exactly, with a college education,
trained in this game of keeping his face still, han-
dling money, from the time they gave him his first
quarter.
He sat there now, motionless, reading my bank
statement.
" I hope you find you can catch the thing, some-
where," I broke in finally.
" Come in," said Proctor Billings, turning to/the
door. Then the teller walked in again.
" It's too late," he said. " They say that it's
gone through. The notification will get to Briscoe
and Company tomorrow morning in the mail."
118 The Biography of a Million Dollars
" That's all," said Proctor Billings, dismissing
him.
" It can't," I said. I was almost crazy.
" You've got to stop it for me somewhere," and I
got up on my feet. I felt like a fish with a net
around it, drawing in. " We've got to do some-
thing! " I said.
" Well," he said, and took another cigarette.
"What would you suggest? We'll do all we can for
you," he said, and smiled that lip smile of his again
" reasonably."
"Can't you call them up on long distance?" I
asked him. " You know them personally, don't
you?"
" Yes."
" The old man Briscoe? "
" Very well, indeed."
" Can't you call them up and tell them then? "
"Tell them what?"
" What I told you. About how it happened.
About that girl's mistake."
' That wouldn't do you any good now," he said
to me, holding his cigarette off and watching it.
"Why not wouldn't it?"
; ' That isn't what they'd ask me now, if I called
them, now their check's gone back; they wouldn't
stop there. They'd be sure to ask me now how you
stand anyway. How solvent I considered you, my-
self. That would be it, wouldn't it? " he asked me.
" Probably it might," said I.
"What could I tell them?" he wanted to know
while I sat still. " What could I say to them from
Back of the Bank 119
this?" he said, and flipped that statement of my
bank account across the desk to me.
I looked at it and laid it down !
"You owe them money, don't you?" he asked
me. " And a lot of it? " he asked me.
I nodded to him.
" What they'll want to know of me I should im-
agine especially if I call them up is whether, in
my opinion, they'll get it back; what the best thing
is for them to do."
" I suppose so," I answered him finally.
"What could I answer them? What could I
advise them," he said, " from what I know? "
He had me cold, on the face of the thing all
wrong; explaining, explaining, explaining from the
beginning and still wrong at the end. And he sit-
ting there, watching, asking questions.
He had me there with my back against the wall,
fighting for my life; and everything polite and still
and smiling, without turning over one of those white
hands of his.
It made me hot to see him manceuvering, play-
ing me off my feet in that game of his I didn't know.
It made me mad, but at the same time I saw, quick
as a flash, it gave me the opening I was after.
II I'll tell you what you can advise them," I said,
staring into those metal eyes of his, " if you want to
know. And you yourself, too. Just this one thing.
If they shut down on us now, we're busted ! "
He sat looking at me.
" Naturally," I said, going ahead, " you're inter-
ested, too. Or your bank is to the tune of a
120 The Biography of a Million Dollars
thousand dollars, anyhow. But it's in your hands,"
I said. " You can let us go on, or you can bust us
for the mistake of a fool-girl bookkeeper, if you
want to! "
He sat still, looking at me, behind that mask of
his.
" But I want you to understand this," I said,
" before you do it. I want you to understand if you
do, or they do, you'll both be doing the one thing
that'll hurt yourselves most."
"Why?" he asked, speaking again finally, and
sat still again, with those polished steel eyes on me.
" I'll show you why," said I. And I pulled out
this statement of the business from my pocket.
' You remember the bicycle business," I said.
" How much there was left of it when it tumbled? "
He smiled, looking at me the smile thinner
than the edge of a knife.
" Quite well," he said, in that college educated
talk of his.
" One pile of junk," said I. " Wheels and screws
and tubing! "
" And crazy credits," said he.
' Well, here it is," said I, and tapped my paper,
" right over again ! With this one difference ! "
"What?"
" Stopped, it's the same a heap of junk. But
going, it's a fortune ! "
He said nothing at all.
" A fortune," I said, and slapped down the paper
on his desk. " Fifty thousand dollars a year, next
year, if it keeps going! "
Back of the Bank 121
He reached cut his hand for it. But I didn't let
it go yet.
" And another thing," I said, looking him in those
eyes, " it's just as well to understand. This busi-
ness is our business ! And anybody that thinks he
can grab it away from us and run it himself, will
find when he comes to look at it, he's got just the neck
and tail feathers, that's all !
44 This is a two-man business," I told him. " We
started it and made it and know it. And we're the
only ones that do. That business is all carried
around under two hats. And nobody wants to make
the mistake of thinking they can get it, and set it
on its feet, and start it going again, without us.
For they can't. That's one sure thing."
44 Fifty thousand dollars a year! " he said, pay-
ing no more attention to that last talk of mine than
as if I hadn't been giving it at all.
" Yes," said I. " Take a look at it I "
And I handed him the statement.
" This will show you the whole thing," I said.
" What we've done, and what we've got, and what
we're going to do."
He ran his eye down it.
"Who made this out for you?" he asked me.
"Is it reliable?"
" It ought to be. I got the best people in town
to do it " ; and I told him who it was.
He glanced his eye up and down and turned the
pages.
14 Would you care to let me take this? " he asked
me.
122 The Biography of a Million Dollars
" Glad to," said I.
"Overnight?"
" Yes, certainly. But in the meantime, what
about getting Briscoe and Company on the long dis-
tance?"
" It's too late today," he said. " They'll be gone
for the night. Besides," he said, and turned that
mask of his on me again, talking that polite, cold
talk, " what is there I could say to them yet? "
And he got up from his chair, and stood there, in
front of his flowers, under the painting of the old
man. And I got up after him. That was all there
was for me to do.
11 1 want to say this thing, though, before I go,"
said I, looking into those blank eyes of his, " if you
do this, naturally we ain't asking you to do it for
nothing."
" I see," he said, freezing up stiffer still. " Well,
this is scarcely the time to discuss that."
I could see then I hadn't suited him, the way I
got at it.
" I'll let you hear from me in the morning," he
said, and held out that long hand and smiled that
thin-lip smile.
And I went out, through that empty private recep-
tion room with the pictures of the sheep on the wall.
Stiller than ever; all the electric lights out but one!
" Gripes," I said to myself, " what a power these
still-faced dudes with the money have over you ! "
Not a word, not a flicker of an eyelash or a
change of a muscle in his face to show where I stood.
It was a part of the game they were trained to
Back of the Bank 123
these men that run the banks; these bowing men with
white fingers and fine clothes and masked faces
these fellows that deal in money.
" He's got me," I said to myself, out in the twi-
light in the street. " He's got me right in the palm
of his hand. He can ruin me as easy as he can
shut up his fingers, if he thinks that'll figure out
best. All he needs to do is to sit and watch and wait.
All he's got to do is to do nothing! "
; ' What a grip they've got on us," I said, turning
to go home. " What a great big powerful thing
these fellows have got control of 1 "
CHAPTER XI
AN OPTION
We sat there, Pasc and I, that next morning in
our old office, he on his side and I on mine, not say-
ing a word, waiting. I felt rotten. I'd hardly slept
all night.
" What do you suppose he'll do to us, now he's
got us? " I asked Pasc, finally, sitting there with my
head in my hands. I had a headache over my eyes
that jumped like a young rabbit.
" I don't know," said Pasc, looking up.
He was over there at that old table he had on the
other side of the room from me, with his old stub
and envelope out, working like a beaver. He'd got
an idea during the night on an auxiliary exhaust, or
something, and he was afraid it would get away from
him.
" Lord," I said, sitting up. " If the flood came,
it would still find you plugging on some improve-
ment on a motor."
' That's all I'm good for," said Pasc, wetting his
pencil point with his lips, and looking sideways at
the envelope. " But I do expect I can make that
exhaust a hundred per cent, better than it is now."
" Sure," I said. "Always!"
And he went on working.
" Gripes," I said, rolling my head in my hands.
An Option 125
" I'd give my left eye to know what's going to
hapoen to us in the next twenty-four hours."
" I wish I could help you out," said Pasc, looking
up. " I wish I was some good to you in that line.
But there's no use of pretending. I ain't."
And T got up on my feet, starting walking.
" They're a natural mystery to me," said he
" banks and money. They always were."
" They are to most of us," I said, " except those
damned pale-faced pirates that run them."
" I always think, somehow," he went along, " of
a lot of little fine wheels, meshed in together, run-
ning in oil. Stiller'n the wheels in a watch. But
they're beyond me! " he said, and went back at his
envelope again, for fear he was forgetting some-
thing.
" I guess you're right," I said. " They've got a
regular system a regular machine for extract-
ing money from everybody and everything they come
in contact with; every business in the country."
And right after that the telephone started ringing.
" Yes? Hello! " said I, grabbing it.
" Mr. Morgan? " said the voice that pale pri-
vate secretary of Billings.
"Yes!"
" Mr. Billings wishes me to say he will see you
at 10 :3<D if you are at liberty."
" I'll be there !" said I.
' Thank you. Then he'll look for you," he said,
politer than ever, and hung up.
"At liberty!" I said, starting marching around
again. "At 10:30! Gripes! He's in no hurry
126 The Biography of a Million Dollars
about this thing! Old man Briscoe will have us
dead and buried by the time he gets around to us."
And I grabbed up my hat then, and went out, and
walked the streets, until it was time for him to see
me.
" Good morning," said Proctor Billings, when I
finally went in, getting up cold and polite and de-
liberate as ever, with a fresh flower in his buttonhole,
and a new bouquet in the vase behind him. " Take
a seat."
I said how-d'do, and sat down, and held on to
myself, waiting for him to start in.
"Will you smoke a cigarette?" he said to me,
holding out the gold case again.
It was a regular part of the ceremony, apparently.
He always opened with it like an old-fashioned
meal with prayer.
" Not now," said I. " Maybe later."
And he laid the case on the desk where I could
reach it.
" Well," said I, starting off to talk again, in spite
of myself; " have you looked it over? "
" Yes."
"What'd you think of it?"
" It's a very interesting statement," said Proctor
Billings.
* That's what I thought you'd say," I said, en-
couraged. " So now," I said, " the bank can go
ahead, can't it, and straighten us out in this Briscoe
thing?"
" No," said Proctor Billings.
"No!" I said. "What do you mean?" I
An Option 127
thought you just said we had a wonderful state-
ment! "
" ' Interesting ' was what I said," he came back,
looking at me.
" Well, interesting then. Isn't it good enough
for you to get us out of this? "
" The bank, you mean as a bank? "
" Why, yes," said I.
"No!"
"Why not?"
" It wouldn't be justified from a legitimate bank-
ing standpoint," he said, sending out his cigarette
smoke. " We're speaking now about anything we
might say about you to Briscoe and Company? " he
asked me, raising his eyebrows.
" Yes," said I.
He shook his head. "We couldn't do it," he
said, knocking off his cigarette ashes, " under the
circumstances."
I sat there for a minute, letting it soak in. And
just then this knock came at the door, that secre-
tary !
" Long distance wants you."
"The same call?"
" Yes."
" Give them the same answer. Tell them I'll
call when I come in."
" Yes, sir."
There was this little fine rosebud in his buttonhole.
The color of flesh. I kept rny eye on that, waiting,
while they were talking.
" Briscoe and Company," Billings said to me,
128 The Biography of a Million Dollars
when the man went out. " They've been calling all
the morning."
" Now here," I said, stiffening up, when I heard
it. I knew it was a matter of minutes now ! ' You
say you can't do anything! "
" As a bank," he said again.
" Not even tell them about that protested check
how it happened."
" We might do that," he said. " Yes. But what
good would that be, when old man Briscoe calls me
up as he evidently is doing and asks me per-
sonally what I think about it; your whole situation,
and what he'd better do about it? "
" Well," I said, watching him. " What will you
say to him now you've seen that statement? "
" I wouldn't advise him one way or the other."
"That's all you'd do, huh? " said I, getting hot
again.
"What else could I do, under the circumstances?
What would you do? " he asked, looking over at me,
cooler than ever " if you were in my place in this
bank?"
I didn't say anything.
' You wouldn't be here now," he said, " if your
condition wasn't critical? "
And my eyes fell down to his rosebud again.
' Well," I said finally, " what's the answer? "
' You've got to have capital ! "
" All right," I said, looking him in the eye; " then
why don't you loan it to us? "
" As a bank? "
" Yes."
An Option 129
" Because it's not a bank's business to, not a con-
servative legitimate bank's."
" I thought a bank's business was loaning
money? "
" Not to a concern without capital," he came back.
" It's the business of somebody else to furnish the
first money the capital that takes the first risk of
the enterprise, and gets the profits. That's not a
bank's business."
And the talk came to a stop again.
" I don't say," he went along, " you couldn't find
some banks that might do it for you who weren't
so old-fashioned and conservative as we are. You
might try it," he said, knocking his cigarette ashes
off again, " and see."
" Try it, hell ! " I said to myself, getting red in
the face. With old man Briscoe waiting now on the
other end of that wire !
" Let me ask you something, for a minute," said
I. " You say I can't get capital out of your bank,
or any other bank, legitimately. Well, where am
I going to get it? "
" The natural way," he said, looking over at
me, " would be to get some individual to put it
in."
"I see," said I, watching him. "Well, who?
Do you know anybody? "
" I can't say that I do."
" Would you? " said I, keeping my eyes right on
him. " Would you consider it yourself? " And I
froze up, waiting for him to answer.
He took his time about it.
130 The Biography of a Million Dollars
" I might, possibly," he said then, looking over.
" If it wasn't for one thing."
" What's that? " I came back like lightning.
*' I have no intention of forcing myself into the
situation."
" Forcing nothing ! " I said. " Would you con-
sider it?"
" Under certain circumstances, I might."
"What are they?"
" How much money do you think you ought to
have, right now? " he asked me then.
" Twenty thousand dollars."
" Twenty-five might be better, I should imagine,"
he said. ' You should have enough; it's safer."
" All right," I said, jumping right after him.
"Now what would you want? How would you
fix it?"
" I should have to ask you ten per cent, interest
in the first place," he said.
" All right," I said, and groped my hand out
for a cigarette, keeping my eyes on him to see
what was coming next.
" Under the circumstances," he said, his face as
still as always.
"That's all right," I said again. "And then
what?"
" Control," he said, not moving a muscle.
" Control ! " I said, sitting up straighter. I saw
it coming now. I saw him reaching out his hand
for it that whole thing that Pasc Thomas and I
had bet our lives on and taking it away from us.
"Control?" said I, standing up. "Control
An Option 131
what? Do you mean to say you want us to hand
over the stock majority of our company for twenty-
five thousand dollars? "
" Not at all," he said. " I wouldn't consider
doing that under present circumstances for a minute.
Sit down. Please I "
And I sat.
" Understand, please," he said, still more polite
with those gray eyes of his on me, " I'm merely stat-
ing the only conditions I would take up this matter
on. At your request."
' Yes," I managed to choke out of myself.
" I wouldn't think of investing money in your con-
cern now, under any condition," he told me. " But
I do see, I think, a plan by which I can loan you
money, with reasonable safety for this kind of
private venture; and hope to get it back. But to
do that the one condition is that I have absolute con-
trol of the stock, until my debt is paid, you under-
stand?"
11 Yes," said I.
" Is it agreeable to you? "
" Yes."
" Because if it isn't, we'll drop it now."
"It is," I told him.
" When I'm paid, of course." he said, " the con-
trol goes back."
" All right," I said, watching. " And what
else?"
" I want to be perfectly clear about this," he an-
swered me, looking down, and talking very carefully,
" before we go any further. This bank has con-
132 The Biography of a Million Dollars
ducted a legitimate banking business in this city
for a great many years. It was established by my
father, and run along strictly legitimate banking
lines by him. And up to date neither it nor any of
its officers have ever taken any of its customers by
the throat, and taken their business or their stock
away from them. And this arrangement of ours
will be made on the same lines if at all. I'm tell-
ing you now the conditions I will come in on. If
they are not agreeable to you, you need not consider
them at all."
" I understand," I said; " and it's all right. Now
go ahead. What other condition is there? "
" I believe," he said, " if your company pulls out
by the aid of my money I should have an op-
tion to buy a certain amount of stock. I should con-
sider myself entitled to it. To buy it at a price."
"What price?"
11 Par, I should say."
" All right," said I ; " let's say par for the minute.
But how much? "
" A third."
" A third of the stock at par," said I, thinking.
" Giving me the same amount as the other two
stockholders," he said. " That's the only basis I'll
consider it on."
Well all right," I said to him. " How long
would you expect the arrangement to run? "
4 We could try it for a year, first," he told me;
" and see how we stand then."
And I said all right.
" Just one thing more," he said. " We should
An Option 133
understand now; if I do this it may mean a general
shake-up; a reorganization from the bottom up if
I think your business needs it."
" How about the running of the shop? " I asked
him.
"That's your work the detail. Though, of
course, I should always have the final authority
the right to act, until my debt is paid."
"All right," I said. "Go ahead. Cut down,
reorganize. I guess we need it, anyhow. Es-
pecially financially. We never did claim to know
that end of the business."
' Yes, I think I can be of use to you there," said
Billings.
" I know you can," said I.
" And now," he said, " I'll have this memorandum
drawn up between us, to send to you; and I'll call up
Briscoe."
I got up. I saw it was my cue to. And he got up
with me, very polite and agreeable.
" I believe," he said, " I can be of use to you in
this business on the financial end anyway. My
father used to say," he went on, glancing up again at
old man Billings over his head, " 'a new business is
like a new baby. It's apt to be all right if you can
get it through its second summer.' And the finances
are where it's most apt to break down. There's
where I can be of some use to you, I think. I ought
to be. I ought to know something about it," he said,
looking up again at the painting of the old man; " I
had one of the best teachers in the world."
And he held out his long hand to me.
134 The Biography of a Million Dollars
" I believe you will," said I, looking up with him
at that old lean face upon the wall. ' You cer-
tainly ought to ! " I thought to myself.
" I believe we ought to make a strong team," I
said, shaking hands. " And there's plenty in it for
all of us you'll find."
" I hope so," said he.
I left him standing there, under his picture of his
old man, with the bouquet of flowers back of him.
And walked out through the still reception room,
with the sheep pictures on the wall - feeling better !
There were three or four there, waiting. I no-
ticed one man that I knew.
That pale-faced secretary came out of the side
door after I did.
" Just a few minutes, now," he said to this man,
who got up, grabbing hard on the rim of his hat,
" and Mr. Billings will be able to see you." And
he smiled that lower half of a smile again, moving
on.
" They all have to come to them," I said to my-
self. ' They have got to come where the money is
sooner or later."
There was something in my hand, I noticed, when
I got out on the street. It was that gold mono-
gramed cigarette I'd taken to smoke, all ground up
to nothing where I'd been squeezing it.
CHAPTER XII
A MISTAKE
" He held us up, Pasc," I said, talking it over
with him that night; " and declared himself in on
us. That's the English of it."
" And yet," said Pasc, " if he gets any stock, he's
going to pay real money for it when he might
have just made us hand it over."
" I can see why, in a way, too," I came back at
him. " He's safer putting in his money this way on
a loan, where he can get it out again; and then buy
his stock after he sees how good it is. For nothing
practically. What's par the way we've got it cap-
italized now? " I said.
" And if he wants to be crooked, and take it away
from us," I said, " all he needs to do is to wait
until he gets on to the ropes of the business, and then
to work some shenanegan while he has control of the
thing smash it and take it over."
" Why should he do that," Pasc wanted to know,
" when he had us in the first place? "
" Clear enough," I told him. " He'd know the
business then. And at the same time he'd have the
record there of our agreement, to show how fair and
aboveboard and proper he was with us."
"Do you know anything to prove that?" Pasc
asked me.
136 The Biography of a Million Dollars
" No. I just think so on general principles."
" You're too suspicious, Bill," said Pasc.
" I am with that kind of cattle," said I. " That's
the way they get their living. They're trained to,
all the time."
" That ain't the way they'll act, in my opinion,"
said he. " That ain't what I think he's likely to do
here."
" What do you think? " I asked.
" I don't think so bad of him as you do," said
Pasc "from what I hear. I think he's sharp.
But I don't think he'd cheat you outright. I think
he'll do what he thinks has the look of being fair and
square in business."
" I God, .yes, in business I " I said. " Business
the way his old man did it."
" He seems to think a good deal of his old man,
according to you," said Pasc, " and his reputation."
14 Well, he's the only one that does," I said
" that I ever heard of. That's just what he'll do.
He'll do business like his old man. He'll get you
where he wants you first. And then he'll be as kind
and soft-hearted as an adding machine an adding
machine," I said, choking up, " crossed with a rat-
tlesnake."
" A little more adding machine wouldn't hurt
us in that business very much," said Pasc, " in my
opinion. If he starts to reorganize it the way he
said he might, it won't be the worst thing that could
happen to us."
; ' There's something in that, Pasc," I had to ad-
mit. " I expect we could save a dollar that way now
A Mistake 137
and then if we had system. And that wouldn't
make me mad, anyway! And anyhow, about all we
can do now is to make the best of things. He's got
us any way we turn."
" It'll work out all right, I think," said Pasc.
But when Billings started to work it out in detail
that reoganizing business, it wasn't so agree-
able to either Pasc or me especially when it came to
cutting out our people we had had with us right
along.
That little bookkeeper that Myrtle had to
go, of course. She was done for, anyway, by that
mistake. She never came back to the office after
that thing, except to finish cleaning up her desk. In
her place Billings put an experienced bookkeeper, a
lean, lantern-jawed Scotchman standing all day,
deaf and dumb, hanging over his books, working and
getting out statements for Billings himself to work
on.
Pretty soon Billings was having me over to the
bank to talk about them and cutting out a man
here and there. I put up a fight once or twice, for
one or two of them, but he wouldn't have it.
'That's what ruins most businesses making it
a personal matter. My father always told me," he
said, looking up again at his picture: 'business
isn't friendship; it's arithmetic. The multiplication
table plays no favorites,' he used to say. ' And in
the long run a business doesn't, either; for if it does,
there won't be any business.' '
So finally I went off and did what he told me.
One of the first things he run across, of course,
138 The Biography of a Million Dollars
was Chuck that boy of Tom's. We had had him
on the payroll, most of the year, riding for us and
training, ever since he won that first race.
"Who is this man?" Proctor Billings asked me.
" Just what does he do? "
So I told him. " He isn't riding all the time," I
said. " But he isn't very high-priced, compara-
tively; and we've always figured it paid us well in
advertising."
" I see," said Billings. " Well, I'd like to look
into it to see just what he does produce for us.
" I've looked it up," he said, a day or two later,
" and I'm pretty clear that it doesn't pay. Racing
has had its day as advertising. He isn't bringing
his money back. We'll have to let him go."
" But we can't let him go ! " said I.
"Why not?"
11 Why, he made us, in a way," I said. And then
I told him just what he'd done for us.
" I see," said Billings, thinking it over. " Well,
I tell you what you can do. You can let another
man go, and give him a place inside the shop if
you want to. I should think it might be better for
him, than this irregular traveling around the coun-
try, racing."
And he put it up to me to do.
I never felt rottener about anything in my life.
It didn't mean anything to Billings, of course. We
weren't human beings to him, any of us; nothing
more than cogs in the machinery figures in a col-
umn. But I knew myself just how the kid would
take it.
A Mistake 139
He didn't say a word, when I was telling him
about it just sat there, chewing gum now and then,
and looking up with his head down a little, with the
whites showing under those hard blue eyes of his.
I told him I was sorry, but we'd made up our
minds we'd have to give up racing. " But I can give
you just about as much money there, inside," I said.
" Or it will be as soon as you get started."
He didn't say anything for a minute. Just sat
there with those sulky eyes on me.
" I know how you feel about it, probably," I told
him. " But I'd advise you to take it. You can't
tell when this racing might blow up. And this here
would be a steady thing for you a life job, if you
wanted it. And I'll be here always to look
out for you."
"Ah-ha?" he said, looking at me with a little
crooked smile on his lips. " Well, I guess I won't
take it. Just as much obliged."
" Why not? " I came back at him. That look on
his face made me a little sore.
" How about you? " he said. ; ' Would you want
to go back in the shop? "
" That ain't the question," I said, getting hotter.
He had a different way with him than he used to
older and sulkier and more devil-may-care. " The
question is do you want this job I'm offering you?
It's a good job ! " said I, watching him.
" Maybe," he said. " But it's not my job. That
ain't what I'm cut out for; I'm a rider, not a me-
chanic."
" All right," I said, " that's your lookout." He
140 The Biography of a Million Dollars
had me mad now the way he said it, as much as
what he said. That smart Aleck, indifferent way
kids talk nowadays, when they're trying to show how
independent they are. ' The time may come," I
said, " you won't turn up your nose at a good job as
a machinist."
It was true enough, too, what I told him. But I
felt meaner than a dog, saying it and mad at the
same time !
" Anyway," I said. " There it is. I've offered
it to you "
" Don t worry about me," he said, starting chew-
ing gum; working his jaws and looking up at me.
" I can place myself all right. The Rajah people
have been after me for six months for more
money than you gave me. But I turned them down
right along.
" I turned them down," he said, getting up. " I
thought I'd take my chances and stay on with you
here. I thought maybe you wanted me to. But
this is different! "
He turned around, and went out. He had
changed a lot in a few months grown quite a little,
and got a lot cockier, and surer of himself, knocking
around the country, winning races that way. He
was a pretty wise boy by this time; and his success
at riding had given him a swelled head. I didn't
care for him a whole lot. But that didn't let me out
from what I owed him.
" It couldn't be helped, I suppose," I said to Pasc;
1 but I never felt meaner over a little thing in my
life than letting him go."
A Mistake 141
" And of course you couldn't tell the boy how
it was how it was forced on us," said Pasc. " It
certainly was a mean job for you," he told me.
But the women took it the hardest of anybody.
The whole thing had been a kind of family affair
with us before that; we talked about the people at
the office and the shop, when we got home, always.
The place those days was always what Billings
claimed a business shouldn't ever be run on a kind
of personal basis.
" Did-didn't he make you? " said Polly, flaring up
when she heard about it. Did-didn't he give you
your first big start what he did in that race? "
" I never denied it," said I.
" I thought I thought that was one thing you
always claimed," she kept after me. "I I
thought you always made your boasts that what-
ever anybody did for you, you always paid them
back; especially if they stood by you and did you a
favor."
" We offered him a job," said I.
'Yes yes. What kind of a job!" said she.
"He's right. He's a rider; not a mechanic."
" He could have changed."
"Changed," she said. "So could you! What
harm would it have done to keep him? Tell me.
He'd have made something for you as advertising,
wouldn't he?"
" Probably he would."
" How how much would you have lost all to-
gether? "
11 1 don't know."
142 The Biography of a Million Dollars
" I don't either," said Polly. " What you did,
in my opinion ; you lost money by by letting him go
besides doing a mean thing, throwing him out."
" Well, it's done anyhow," I said. " We won't
talk about it any more."
You can't explain a thing like that to a woman,
anyhow. And I wasn't going to bring in Billings
too strong, and throw it all off on him even in my
own family. I don't believe in that kind of business ;
especially when he was probably right about the
thing anyway.
But Zetta, Pasc's wife, was the worst when she
heard about it. She wouldn't speak to me for a
week or two, until Pasc convinced her I wasn't to
blame for it personally. And then she had the boy
around to her house for dinner, just to show him
what she thought about it. She was an Indian that
way. She did exactly what she thought she was en-
titled to, and the devil himself couldn't stop her,
when she once got started.
ic Why wouldn't I ? " she said to me, when I
brought it up. " He's just as good as we are, as far
as I know. Or Proctor Billings, for that matter! "
she said, getting red. " And a little better in this
thing, I should say, if anybody asked me. The only
thing to be said for us, we're in line for a little more
money some day. That's the only difference.
Why shouldn't I have him up to dinner, if I want
to?"
' You should probably," I said, dropping it
feeling raw and uncomfortable about the whole thing
still.
A Mistake 143
" I stand by my friends," she said.
" I do myself, sometimes ! " I answered, getting
sore.
" But that's the way business goes, I expect," I
said to Pasc, when we were alone, " if you're going
to run it and make money. You can't run it on
personal lines, the way the women would like to.
You've got to operate your business according to the
laws of arithmetic as old Billings said, or you
won't have any to run."
" Up to a certain point! " said Pasc.
" And if a man don't earn his money, all there is,
he's got to go."
" Yes. That's the idea," said Pasc, in a kind of
a dry way. ' That's the rule that'll work out with
all of us before we're done with it, probably."
* " Let it," I said. " I'm not afraid of it. And
anyhow," I said, " you've got to admit the business
is working out well, under Billings, so far as making
money goes. It's getting down into shape now;
even you and I can see that."
" From that standpoint it's all right, I be-
lieve, from the standpoint of making money," said
Pasc.
' Well, that don't hurt your feelings any, does
it? " said I. " It don't mine. I'm beginning to be-
lieve that in some ways getting Billings in here was
the best thing that ever happened to the business.
You and I could never have organized it in the
world."
" No, we couldn't, I guess," said Pasc, running his
hand over his forehead. He was getting kind of
144 The Biography of a Million Dollars
anxious and bony looking lately. I'd noticed it be-
fore. We were speeding up pretty fast in the
shop.
Billings was certainly getting it organized now;
that was one sure thing. That deaf-and-dumb
Scotchman he had on the books was a wonder. " He
sleeps with them," I said. " And eats figures for
lunch, with a small glass of water on the side."
There wasn't a word out of him scarcely. He
was working with his eyes down, all day. And by
this time after three months or so Billings had
got in his brother a machinist to work in with
him on the shop management, as Pasc's assistant.
The two of them those brothers were always
around, working, saying nothing.
4 You couldn't ask for a better man," said Pasc,
about the one helping him. " He's always picking
up something I've forgotten. Or catching some mis-
take, or stopping some waste. He earns his money,
that's certain. He's great on system, just where I'm
weak."
I began to feel around in my mind then, wonder-
ing just why it was Billings thought he'd better put
him in there in the shop.
Pasc had the shop end, of course. And I had
the general management, especially of sales going
out and meeting the trade and selling the goods.
That was my line naturally. When it came to sell-
ing machines and handling the trade, I was there. I
didn't take a back seat for anybody. I liked it. I
could eat it up.
But I could sec, every now and then, that Pasc's
A Mistake 145
end was worrying him especially with the speed
we were getting on now, since Billings came in.
' We thought we were going pretty fast before,"
he said, sitting there at night, drawing his hand over
his forehead. " But it was nothing like this."
He looked thinner than a rail; and those pale eyes
further down in back of his cheek bones than ever.
" How do you stand it? " he said to me.
" Fine," I said. " I just bite into it. I feel like
a fighting cock every day except now and then my
stomach goes back on me out on the road."
" I don't know just what's struck me," he said.
"What's that?" I asked him.
" I get these headaches all the time."
" Your digestion, probably," I said. " That's the
matter with me, nine times out of ten; when I've got
one, my stomach's out of whack."
" Well, maybe you're right," said Pasc. " But
half of the time I feel like Tunket. I worry about
my work a good deal," he said " the responsibil-
ity of it. I don't sleep so terribly well nights
especially when a new idea strikes me. The way it
is then, I get my work here driving me around all
day; and a carburetor or a cam shaft chasing me
all night. Between the two, they're running me
thin."
" Cut out the nights," said I.
" I guess I'll have to or the days, one or the
other," said Pasc.
But that Scotchman, that McAdam, who had
come in as his assistant, didn't worry much, or have
any reason to. Everything went like machinery
146 The Biography of a Million Dollars
with him; as if he was just one wheel in the shop.
I used to watch him around there, coming up always
in the next place he was wanted, as if a cam operated
him.
" Why don't you throw more of the detail off on
to him ? " I said to Pasc.
But he didn't want to do that. He was too con-
scientious. If he only had, things might have turned
differently, perhaps. But yet, I don't know either.
The pace was getting pretty fast for him.
The first I knew that anything out of the way had
happened was one night, when I was getting ready
to go ; and Pasc came in and sat down waiting, until
after that bookkeeping McAdam had gone out
finally.
He sat there, staring off across the room. He
hadn't washed up, even.
1 What ails you, Pasc? " I said, waking up to it
after awhile. " Why don't you change and wash up
and go home? What's the new wrinkle you've got
on your mind now? "
And then he gave a kind of a groan.
;< What's the matter, anyhow?" I asked him.
"Another headache?"
" No."
"What is it?" I said. I saw then there was
something serious going on.
"By misery!" he said. "I've made an awful
bull."
"What?"
" I spoiled about three thousand dollars' worth of
stuff, I should say."
A Mistake 147
" Gripes, Pasc," I said, sitting up and taking no-
tice. " How did you come to do that? "
" Counting labor," he said.
And then he explained to me. It was that last
improvement in the engine, he told me.
" That last one that was going to improve the
intake one hundred percent?"
" Yes."
" Didn't it? " I said. " Didn't it work out when
you got it in the engine? Have you got to take it
all out again? "
" The idea was all right," he said. " I've gone
over it since, with the one I put up myself, but the
trouble is, they put it in all wrong. They spoiled it
making it."
" How did that happen ? " said I, staring at him.
" I don't know, exactly," said Pasc. " I suppose
it was because I wasn't around all the time to super-
intend them. But it never occurred to me," he said
to me, talking lower, " it never entered my head that
any man who pretended to be a machinist could make
such a condemned, ridiculous mistake as those two
men did."
" What did you do fire 'em, on the spot? "
" No," he said. " McAdam wanted to, but I
wouldn't have it. I told him it was on me. And it
was, too. It wouldn't have happened if I'd stayed
there, where I'd ought to have been, instead of
mooning around on something else."
" Where were you anyhow? "
" Off somewhere, I expect working out that
next idea that struck me at my bench."
148 The Biography of a Million Dollars
"God, Pasc," I said. "How could you do it!
A thing like that just now, especially ! "
" It'll be over, rather than under three thousand,
I expect," he said.
And he got up slowly, and began to take off his
overalls and get some of the smudge off of his face.
And finally he started on home, going out with his
head down.
When I was following after him, a little later, I
ran across McAdam, that assistant of his, going
later than I was even; forever there, peering around
the corner snooping around, saying nothing.
" I guess I'll go tomorrow and tell Billings about
this thing myself," I made up my mind. " I guess
that will be safer. He'd get it from one of those
two spies of his, anyhow."
He took it entirely different from what I expected
just raised his eyebrows, and said it was too bad.
And then dropped it.
" After all," I said to myself, going away, " what
could he say anyhow the way things are going
with us now? If we keep showing profits the way
we are? "
And yet that didn't convince me really. I never
could feel easy and secure with him.
CHAPTER XIII
A SHARP CORNER
I used to sit around thinking things over as we
came towards the end of the year that that first
agreement with Proctor Billings had to run.
" What's the matter with you? " Pasc asked me,
catching me sitting there, figuring in the office.
"Nothing. Why?"
' You're sitting around, brooding like a sick man,
or an inventor trying to hatch out a new idea out of
his mind," said Pasc, smiling that little old dry smile
of his.
" I'm worried, if you want to know," I said.
" About what'll happen when that agreement runs
out."
" Worried ! " said Pasc. " I thought we were
making a lot of money."
" We are," I told him. " We're going to show
profits of sixty thousand dollars this year."
" Billings ought to be satisfied with that."
" That's what I'm afraid of," I said. " Too well
satisfied! "
" What do you mean? "
" I don't know," I said, " exactly. But there's
something up. I don't know just what it is. But
it's something! "
" What makes you think so? " said Pasc.
150 The Biography of a Million Dollars
" Oh, a number of things," I said. " The way
Billings acts for one thing so very polite, and re-
served, and particular ! "
" Probably you just imagined it," said Pasc.
" No, I didn't," I told him. " And those Mc-
Adams those still sneaks of his, always around,
always busy! What are they in here for, anyway?
We got along without them before. You can't move
around in your own office, and pull out a paper from
the drawer, but you know one of them has his eyes
on you. Between Billings and them, it seems some-
times as if we were surrounded by these still-faced
things, day and night."
" They're good men, at that," said Pasc.
" I hate them," I said. " They ain't half so hu-
man as a spider."
' You distrust them too much," said Pasc, " nat-
urally. You're too different from them. They're
good people for the work those Scotchmen."
' Yes for that kind of work," I said, " I guess.
But I tell you what I think they're here for," I told
him, " if you want to know. I have for some time.
I think they're in here to learn the business all around
so if Proctor Billings wanted to, any time, he
get along without us ! "
" He wouldn't do that," said Pasc.
"Why wouldn't he?" I asked him. "That's
what I meant just now, when I said we were making
too much money; it's too much temptation for him ! "
" I know," said Pasc. " But if we are making
so much, how could he get the business away, if he
wanted to? "
A Sharp Corner 151
" The same answer as always from the start.
Capital. Money. For every dollar we show in
profits, three and four and five have to go in there
in capital. We showed sixty thousand dollars' profit
this last year, and we're in debt one hundred and
seventy-five thousand dollars more than when it
started! "
" Seven times what you expected you'd need! "
' Yes," I said " that Billings is responsible for.
The way he's fixed it! We haven't moved an inch,
when you come down to it. He's got us surer than
he ever had. We never in the world could get the
money this business would have to get, if he shut
down on us now."
" But he won't," said Pasc. " He won't do that
sort of thing."
11 1 don't know," I said. " I'm worried.
There's something coming up. He's going to spring
something on us, I know. Just the way he acts.
And if he wanted to, he could dump us out of this
both of us as easy as emptying a basket."
I could see just the minute I went in that still back
office of the bank that morning when the agreement
was coming up, that I was right that there was
something coming just from that calm deliberate
way Billings got up to meet me with.
He sat down by the cut flowers from his green-
house under the old man's picture, after we shook
hands. He was great on shaking hands. All those
bank men are. Then he sat, taking his time, look-
ing over the statement of our year, waiting for me
to start up the old game.
152 The Biography of a Million Dollars
" Well," I said, " coming to it finally, " it's not so
darned bad, is it? Sixty-one thousand dollars for
the year."
" No, it isn't," he said, putting up his eye-
brows, and turning over the pages with those white
fingers, pretending to be reading one part and an-
other.
" No," he said, laying it down. " It's pretty
good."
" You bet it is," I said.
" In a way "
"In a way!" said I. "It's six per cent, of a
million dollars." I'd been saying that to Pasc,
when we were first feeling good over it kind of
half in earnest and half a joke.
" If you want to look at it that way," he answered
me. And stopped. And I waited for him, this
time. " But I should say that was just a little pre-
mature ! "
11 Premature? " I said after him.
' To talk of it as interest on fixed capital."
" What would you call it then? "
" A first year's earnings, wouldn't you? A good
year. If principal grew so easily as that, we'd all
be millionaires around here, out of the bicycle busi-
ness ! "
And he smiled that thin smile of his.
" Maybe we would," I said.
' No," he went on, pulling out another cigarette
for himself and pounding the end of it on the desk.
;l That's one trouble here."
"What?"
A Sharp Corner 153
" The bicycle business. If it wasn't for that, I
wouldn't be so afraid of this."
" Afraid! " I said after him.
" Yes of the capital it's eating up."
His face was still as a wall. I moved my chair.
I saw he was getting around to it getting started
on this first move.
" A hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars,"
he said, reading it off the statement. " Quite a little
money to be responsible for, personally if any-
thing should happen."
" Nothing's going to happen," I said.
"How do you know?" he asked me. "Any
more than in the bicycle business. Yes," he said
again, when I didn't say anything. " That's it, I'm
afraid/ "
' That's your way of putting it," I said, coming
back at him.
" It's my money," he said. " Or I'm responsible
for it." And we stopped there waiting.
I looked up for a second, and saw the face of the
old man, in the oil painting over me looking down
on the same old still-faced game again, he'd played
there himself when he was alive.
" Look here," I said to Billings. " You haven't
got anything to scare you yet not much. With
our earnings for the year put it the worst way
you want to."
" It leaves me," he said, " with the responsibility
of one hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars, in-
stead of twenty-five. Seven times what I was led
to expect."
154 The Biography of a Million Dollars
That was one for me of course.
" Seven times what we first estimated," he re-
peated again. He said "we"; what he meant, of
course, was " you."
" Some of it," I came back, " was transferred
from the supply people."
" Yes, but I'm responsible, just the same."
I stopped waiting for his next move. It came
right away.
" But that isn't the worst, of course. That isn't
what I'm afraid of most."
" What is?" said I, watching him with all my
eyes.
" The future," he said. " Do you know what
you'll need next year? " he asked me, putting those
hard eyes of his on mine for a second.
" Not exactly, no."
" At least two hundred thousand dollars
more I "
I didn't say anything. I knew it was probably
true.
I You should have a factory, for one thing. You
need more room. And you could save, probably,
ten dollars a machine, if you had a real factory
properly arranged."
II Easy," I told him.
'Where is it all coming from?" he asked me.
" If the company was old enough; if it had a record
of earnings to show, you could capitalize it take
it to New York, and dispose of some stock. That's
no use now. We'll have to place its paper if I
can manage it, as I have in the past."
A Sharp Corner 155
" Look here," I said, getting restless finally.
"What's all this leading to?"
" I suppose," he said, " to taking up the renewal
of our agreement."
" All right," I said, " go ahead."
I wasn't going to let him drag the thing along this
way forever.
" If you want to do it," said he, looking at me,
extra polite.
" Certainly I want to," said I. " Don't you? "
" I don't know," he said.
" Don't know ! " said I, turning chilly.
" No," he said, and his voice kept getting harder
and his face more stiff. " I don't. I 'don't know
that I do want to, as a matter of fact except under
certain pretty clearly defined circumstances."
"What are they?" said I.
We both sat going carefully watching each
other in that still room; the old man's picture over
us, and the smell of the hothouse roses in the vase,
filling up the place like a funeral.
He took his time about telling me what he wanted.
" Go ahead," I said. " What are the condi-
tions? What would you want?" I was getting
nervous.
" In the first place," he said, " I should expect to
retain my option to buy in my interest in the com-
pany at the price we first agreed upon.
" That's all right," I said, sitting up and watching
every move he was making. It made you laugh, on
the side, to think what the cost of the stock was
then compared to what it was worth now. Prac-
156 The Biography of a Million Dollars
tically nothing! But that was done, anyhow. " Go
ahead," said I.
" And I should want a voting control of the stock,
as I have now, until the obligations to me were paid
up."
" Go ahead," said I. That was clear enough.
It didn't change the situation from what it had been
either of those things. " Go ahead." I saw
what he was really after was still coming.
" That we can take for granted," he said, " I sup-
pose." And I nodded to him.
" But the main thing for me," he said, and
drew out this paper from his pocket " is all here
in a new plan for capitalization I've drawn up to
show you."
"What is it?" I said, sitting up and taking no-
tice. This was something new to me. We were
capitalized, of course ; like everybody else is. But I
had only the haziest kind of the general idea of this
stock game. I sat up; I was afraid of it darned
shy, the minute he started opening it up.
" I'll show you the whole thing in detail," he said,
" if you like."
He had it all worked out, of course, as I knew he
had. But the first thing he said nearly knocked me
over.
" I should capitalize it," he said, " at a million
and a half dollars."
" A million and a half," I said. " What do you
mean? Didn't you say it was no use talking in such
figures as a million dollars ! "
"What difference does it make?" he said, look-
A Sharp Corner 157
ing at me, "what figure you capitalize it for? If
it earns it all right. It's all capitalized. If it
doesn't earn it, who's hurt but just three stock-
holders?"
" Nobody, I suppose," I said.
But just the same it made an impression on me.
He passed it off. But it looked to me to be at least
a sign of what he thought there might be in it.
44 A million and a half," he went along, " for con-
venience. I put it there in the first place, because
of there being three stockholders."
" Go ahead," said I, watching this new game,
hard.
" But all that million and a half," he told me then,
44 would not be in one class of stock."
"How would it be?" I asked him, eyeing that
face of his.
44 Half a million preferred; and a million com-
mon."
44 How's that?"
44 A million common, with voting power," he said.
4 Voting power ! " I said over to myself. 44 Now
we're getting to it! "
44 Controlled equally between you and me."
44 And the other half million preferred? "
44 For Mr. Thomas," he said.
44 What's this? " said I, jumping at it.
4 That's one absolute condition," he said, turning
those still eyes of his on me, 44 of my going on."
"What?"
44 If I go on with you with more money, and a
new factory it will be under a change of manage-
158 The Biography of a Million Dollars
merit of the plant. Mr. Thomas will have to give
up his part in the concern; and his voice in the stock
control."
He didn't move a muscle as he said it.
"What are you talking about?" I said to him.
" Do you know? "
I had just as much expected a club across the face.
" 1 know very well," he said, cutting out his words
clear and sharp. " I'm through with any concern
that Mr. Thomas is in control of turning out the
product. He'll have to go."
" Let him go 1 " I said, getting my breath back.
" Put Pasc Thomas out of the Hoodlum ! What
are you crazy? Why, it's his thing! He made
it!"
' Yes, and he'll ruin it, if he'll ever have a chance
of manufacturing it on a large scale, after the way
he's been doing. Besides," said Billings, " I
wouldn't go into any company, permanently, without
expecting to have at least half of the stock any-
way."
I almost choked to death while he was saying it.
" Now wait," he said, holding out his hand, when
he saw me opening up my mouth again. " Before
you make any comments on my plan, it'll be just as
well to let me explain it, so you'll know what it is.
That is," he said, staring at me again " if you
want me to go on with you."
I sat and listened as he told me to. I began now
to get an idea of the thing.
' To start with," he went on, when I sat back and
waited, " I have no desire on earth to underestimate
A Sharp Corner 159
Mr. Thomas, or do him the slightest injustice. He
is an excellent man in his place."
It made me wriggle in my chair to hear him, pass-
ing judgment on Pasc Thomas running a machine
shop ! I wanted to get up and eat him raw. But I
didn't. I sat and took it getting chillier every
minute, understanding his scheme.
" As an inventor," he said, " he is a very able
man. On the other hand, he's just the type of man
who should never have charge of a manufacturing
plant or a voice in its management."
" What makes you say that? " I asked him, keep-
ing my voice down. " That mistake he made? "
" That, and a hundred other things. He's en-
tirely unfitted for it. He's worse than that. He's
dangerous. At the same time," he went along, " he
invented the machine he made the company pos-
sible, as you say. And he should certainly have his
share of the profits from it. He can be of great
use, too, in the future."
I sat glaring at him, holding in.
" So I have worked out this plan for him to
protect his rights," he said. " I'm giving him the
first chance on earnings. My plan will give him
three hundred thousand dollars in seven per cent,
preferred stock."
" Three hundred thousand dollars," I said, " I
thought you said five."
" There would be two hundred thousand dollars
left in the treasury, and two hundred thousand dol-
lars common," he said, " to issue in emergency.
And three hundred thousand dollars would give Mr.
160 The Biography of a Million Dollars
Thomas twenty-one thousand dollars a year, before
we declared ourselves any dividends on our stock.
" For the present," he went on, " it would not be
likely that we would pay dividends even on pre-
ferred stock. And in that period, we could allow
Mr. Thomas a salary, a good living salary, say
seventy-five hundred dollars a year, to be given up,
when we decided to pay preferred dividends. And
in the meantime, he could come and go as he wanted
invent what he pleased, and let us have his in-
ventions.
" In this way," he said, " you and I would be
left in active control of the company as equal owners
of the stock with the voting power."
" And pay ourselves good, fat salaries, I suppose,"
said I.
' We'd pay ourselves properly," he told me.
"How much?"
" Oh, say fifteen thousand dollars a year."
Then he stopped a minute, and waited and let it
sink in. And it did, all right. I got it. I didn't
have to be told what he could do, if he called for his
money from the Company.
" I think that is about the substance of the plan,"
he said, fingering the bottom of the vase, where his
hothouse flowers were, " as it came to me, trying to
work out a fair arrangement for every one. I knew,
of course, it might not appeal to you, personally,"
he said, looking up. " But of course," he said, star-
ing me in the eye, "that's your option whether
you do it or not."
It certainly was a fine option.
A Sharp Corner 161
" Who would you have managing the shop in the
place of Mr. Thomas? " I said, still holding in till
1 got it all.
"Mr. McAdam his assistant under you,"
he answered. " You would be president and I treas-
urer."
" I see," said I.
" You would take the business and I the financial
end."
" I see," I said again.
I did as plain as if it had already happened.
He in the bank managing it under absolute control
until his debt was paid off; I working for him, under
guard by those slink-eyed spies of his those Mc-
Adams, until he'd got what he wanted out of me
as he had now out of Pasc. I working, day after
day, with that still-faced, cold-handed crowd watch-
ing me, till they got what they wanted out of me.
Then another banker's trick; another shift, and
they'd slip the knife into me in the dark, and I'd be
out in the street with Pasc. And this still-faced
thing, with his still agents, were to have the whole
concern we'd made in his own hands, perma-
nently.
And then I broke loose. " So that's it," I came
out finally, getting red in the face.
"That's what?" he asked me.
" That's what you've been sitting around cooking
up the last few months. It's a fine scheme you've
got it down fine! In the first place, you and I get
together and put Pasc Thomas down, and take his
invention and his property away from him."
162 The Biography of a Million Dollars
I saw him get a little white, when I said that, in
spite of himself.
" By Gripes," I said, this thing striking me all of a
sudden what he was trying to do! 'What do
you take me for? What do I look like to you a
man that will double-cross his best friend for the
sake of a few dollars? Or a million, either!" I
said. " For I'm inclined to think now you see some-
thing in this something bigger than I thought
even ! What do you think I am, a crook? "
" You needn't make quite so much noise unless
you feel you must," said Proctor Billings, giving me
an ugly look. It was a queer thing to see. The
hotter and redder I got, the colder and stiller he
was.
" I'll make what noise I want to," I said. " If
you made a little more noise, occasionally," I told
him, "moving around, people would trust you a
little more. There's worse things in a man than
noise, I've found."
And he sat still.
" That's the first thing," I went along. " Pasc
Thomas goes; and I stay. I and you and the other
still-faced boys you'll keep around me in the factory
watching. And when the time comes, and you get
what you want out of me out I go on the sidewalk,
flipped out, with another banker's trick. And there
we'll be. Thomas and I out in the cold. And you
with the property.
" I like that," I said. " That'd be a fine thing for
me I Oh, no. I'm not much. But I'm too wise for
that. I know I can't go up against the game that
A Sharp Corner 163
you still-faced boys in the bank can work up; not
alone, anyway! "
' Wait," said Billings, breaking in on me. I
could see from his voice and his face that he was
white mad. White and still and dangerous. " It
isn't necessary to bawl," he told me, " or insult me.
All you have to do is to withdraw from our arrange-
ment and finance yourself elsewhere."
" Yes," I said. " In other words, you'll shut
down on us, and demand your money."
" You can put it that way, if you like," he said.
" I should probably want my money when it came
due."
" And if you didn't get it, I suppose, you'd take
the business, eh? "
" I would try and take care of my claim," he
said.
He had it all worked out, all right. He had us,
if he went ahead and demanded his money now. I
saw that as well as anybody. But I wasn't in any
condition to admit it then.
" All right," I said. " Go ahead. Have a try
grab it, if you think you can ! But you'll have
one of the prettiest little fights you ever had, before
you get through. I'll promise you that.
" Now you begin to see how big it is," I said. I
was crazy, thinking of what he was trying to do.
" You're going to strangle us, till our tongues hang
out, huh?" I said, shaking my fist in his face.
" You're going to take it away from us. Go ahead.
Try it! Try it!"
" But there's one thing," he said to me, when I
164 The Biography of a Million Dollars
stopped, cold and quiet as if I hadn't spoken at all,
" you'll have to remember."
"What's that?"
" You haven't the entire decision in this matter
yourself."
" What do you mean by that? " I asked him.
" I mean you don't control the stock now, as I un-
derstand it."
And I stood gaping at him, wondering what he
had up his sleeve now. " There's another man who
owns half of it, isn't there? " he asked me.
" Pasc Thomas ! " I said.
" Yes."
"Pasc Thomas!" I said again, and burst out
laughing. " He'll throw himself out, I suppose," I
said, " of the thing he cares more for than anything
else on earth."
But it made no impression on him. He stood
there, looking, his face motionless.
" If I were you," said Proctor Billings, " I would
wait and find out what he says, before you decide
definitely to commit financial suicide."
CHAPTER XIV
REORGANIZED
I went back to Pasc Thomas at the factory, froth-
ing at the mouth.
" You know what the game is? Do you know
what that crook is trying to do? " I said, when I got
him off by himself, where those two McAdams
those spies of Billings couldn't overhear us.
"No. What?" said Pasc, sitting staring, with
his long hands hanging on his knees.
u He wanted me to go in with him, and freeze
you out."
' You don't mean that! " said Pasc.
" I'll show you what he did," said I. And I told
him just exactly what the scheme was. The further
I got with it, the stiller he sat looking off.
" Do you see it now? " I said, when I got through.
" I don't know as I do," he said, coming back to
earth for a minute.
" Why not? It's as plain as the nose on your
face," I told him. " He gets his line on the busi-
ness and sees there's a fortune in it. Then he
gets these two fellows, these two sneaks, these slink-
eyed Scotchmen, into the factory. And the minute
he thinks he knows it he's got it learned enough
out comes that long white hand and grabs it."
166 The Biography of a Million Dollars
" He didn't want you to get out," said Pasc.
" No. He needed me for the present. He
hasn't got the selling end learned yet," said I. " But
he'll get me some way, when he's ready or he
thinks he can, anyway by sitting back and cook-
ing up some other crooked trick, and springing it on
me when the time comes."
" I don't know about that either," said Pasc,
talking lower and lower, the louder I talked.
" Well, I do," I said, " it's you go now and next
me and then he gets it all. That's the program.
We all go out one by one till he gets it.
" Oh, no," I said. " No. I can see through a
millstone. He thinks he's got us now, where the
hair's short, where we don't dare to fight. But
there's where he fools himself. He's going to have
the warmest fight he ever had yet, before he gets
this ; he's going to hear from " .
And all at once I looked up and I realized Pasc
wasn't paying the slightest attention to me; just sat
looking off.
" What's the matter with you? " I said, stopping
short. " Are you sick or what? "
" No," he said, starting up and catching himself,
and coming back to earth again.
'What does ail you then? Aren't you inter-
ested? What are you thinking of staring off like
that?"
" I think," said Pasc finally, clearing his throat,
"I think he's right!"
" Right! " said I, going up into the air. " Who?
Proctor Billings? What do you mean? Oh, I see.
Reorganized 167
You mean he's got it figured out right. That
we can't get away from him any way? Well,
if"
" No," said Pasc. " That ain't what I mean."
" What is it, then? What do you? "
" No," he said, talking slow. " I think he's right
about the whole thing."
"Right! "I yelled.
" I've got to get out. But you'll stay."
"Get out," I yelled again. "You? Well I
guess not ! And he can't force you out either I You
get out," I said, " of the company? Why? "
" I believe it will be the only sensible thing to do;
I'm not fitted for it, just as he says."
" Sensible ! " I said, watching him close to see
whether he was crazy or I was. " Fitted! What
do you mean by that? Who's to be the judge of
that a man like Proctor Billings, who's walked
through a machine shop three times with chamois
gloves on? "
" He's right," said Pasc again.
" He's nothing of the kind," I came back.
" What are you talking about? "
" But it's more than that," said Pasc, going
along in a kind of level voice.
11 More," said I. " What does that mean? "
" It means," he said, " it's happened just right for
me. Almost providential." And I sat there,
watching him with my eyes hanging out on my
cheeks. ' The fact is," said Pasc, " I've got to quit,
anyhow! "
"Quit!"
168 The Biography of a Million Dollars
" I ain't been very well all the spring," he told
me.
" Those headaches? "
" Yes. There hasn't been a day for the last three
months I haven't had one of those condemned
things splitting my head open. And now lately the
doctor's been giving me warning I've got to quit."
" Why didn't you tell me about it? " I asked him.
" Oh, I don't know," said Pasc, looking off.
"What good would it do? We couldn't either of
us stop, the way we were fixed. Though occasion-
ally," he said, " I did have to knock off and go home,
when you were away; and leave McAdam in charge."
" I'll bet you " I said, stopping, thinking.
"What?"
" That's how Billings heard it," I said " about
you being willing to get out."
" Probably so," said Pasc.
And then we sat still a minute. It was an awful
thump to me !
;< Was he pretty positive about it? " I asked him.
"Who?"
" The doctor."
4 Yes; he said I'd got to quit, or there'd be trou-
ble. There is some now. But not so dangerous, if
I quit right away." And he sat still a minute longer,
letting that soak in.
I wouldn't have it. I couldn't make myself be-
lieve it.
14 I don't believe it's anything, anyhow," I said,
" but just your stomach. I know from experience.
I can always trace it back to that."
Reorganized 169
" No, that ain't it with me these headaches that
I have, so the doctor says," Pasc told me.
"What is?"
" It's nerves. Nerves exhausted," said Pasc.
" But that ain't my theory of it, either. I think I
can go back further than that."
"To what? "said I.
" Like half the folks, nowadays "
"What's that?"
"Speed," said Pasc, smiling that old quick smile
again. " Speed. I ain't geared up for this kind of
thing this last year or two. It's got going too
many revolutions a minute for me about the way
it did with that Myrtle, and her bookkeeping."
" Don't be a damn fool, Pasc," said I, " compar-
ing yourself to her."
" I mean it," he said. " We've got speeded up
too fast lately for human beings, I believe. You
can stand it, maybe; I thought I could," he said, look-
ing at me the way envious sick folks look at well ones,
" But I can't. You don't mind it at all, do you? "
" No," I told him. " It's meat and drink for me.
I can take all they give me. And I believe myself
there's something else the matter with you, besides
work, if the truth was told. You're naturally tough.
I still believe there's something else behind, in spite
of what your doctor says."
" Maybe there is," said Pasc, opening up one of
those sudden grins of his again. " Maybe Zetta's
got it right. She always claims the trouble with me
is carburetor on the brain.
'' That is my trouble, too, in a way," he said, " and
170 The Biography of a Million Dollars
always has been, from a boy getting thinking,
some idea riding me around in my head. It sounds
like a dumb idiot to hear another man tell it, but I
get an idea on my mind, and I can't shake it off.
It comes in and takes possession of me. And I
can't do anything at all, after that, but sit thinking,
thinking. And it's worse, of course, when you're
tired out. Your brain gets loose then; you lose con-
trol of it, and it goes following the thing around like
a hound. Like a foxhound," he said, " you have to
go home and leave at the night fall. And you hear
him sometimes waking up going following,
tireder and tireder, all night long. Nights are the
worst," he said, pushing his long brown stringy
hair back from his old wrinkled forehead.
" I guess I'm no different," he went along, think-
ing, " from a lot of folks in our lines around ma-
chine shops, thinking out improvements. You see
them, all over. You can spot them as far as you
can see. Only, I struck this thing that went so well
it kept me jumping nights and days both. And
nights and days are too much for me."
" So you think you've got to go? " said I, after
quite a while, thinking it over.
" Yes."
11 1 God," I said. " I can't get used to it 1 " And
I got up and stood at the window.
" I can't," said Pasc.
" I always sort of felt we'd keep going along to-
gether always," I said, after awhile.
" So did I, Bill," he answered me.
And we both stayed still for a minute or two. I
Reorganized 171
stood watching out the window at a couple of dogs,
and a comic opera singer on a billboard across the
road.
' This thing was our baby, Pasc," I said to him
when I thought I wanted to. " We fathered it and
mothered it, and sat up nights; and lugged it around,
and sweat blood and cussed over it."
" I know it," said he.
And we shut up again. I looked around for a sec-
ond. He sat there hunched up, with his long hands
and wrists hanging down, and those pale-blue eyes,
staring off, forty miles in back of nowhere.
" But I guess there's no getting around it now,"
he said finally. " I guess it's got to be.
" I've got to go off and get built up again. Get
rid of this thing gnawing in my head or get it
worked out. Somebody's got to work it out! " he
said, sitting up a little, and clamping those far-off,
absent-minded eyes back on mine again. " Before
long, somebody's got to work out a carburetor on
an entirely different principle from now, with the
grade of gasoline going down the way it is if
we're going to keep going on."
I had to smile to hear him after he'd just been
saying he'd have to give it all up.
" Keep going on," I said. " What do you care?
You got yours. You ain't responsible for keeping
the world going on, are you? "
" No," he said, staring back, " I don't suppose
I am, more than anybody else. But I have to just
the same keep going on with it, like the rest oJ
the folks, whether I want to or not. And with this
172 The Biography of a Million Dollars
thing, now, this carburetor thing I've got on my
mind I guess I'm about like the fellow when that
old Thirteen-Fourteen Puzzle was going; the one
they said locked himself up in a room, fighting it; and
told them, if he didn't come out alive with the an-
swer, they could bury them both together.
" But I'm on the right track now, I believe," he
said, brightening up a little. " I'm on an idea now
that's a hundred per cent, better than anything
they've got yet."
I had all I could do to keep from laughing.
" No," he went along, not noticing me, " I've got
a queer job for the rest of my life, apparently. I've
got to go off and get my health back; and fight this
thing on my brain. I'll have all the money I'll need,
apparently and more, too, if what you say is
true."
' You're a funny duck, that way, ain't you ? " I said
to him. ' You* never did care a whole lot for
money."
" No, I never was very ambitious that way, I
guess," he told me.
* You're just the opposite from me," said I.
" I don't know but what I am."
" Just the opposite," I told him. " I'm out for
the coin, with the rest of them. I'm out for the al-
mighty dollar. They can talk about the evils of it,
and all that, and how they'd go without it; but I
notice there's none of them ever refuse it when it
comes their way. It may be an evil, but no man
ever got heart disease yet trying to run away from
it.
Reorganized 173
" And if you're out, Pasc," said I; "if you think
you've got to be it puts a little different look on
this business for me. In the past, working it to-
gether, it's been a kind of pet and hobby with me. A
kind of part of us. Our own business! But now
with you out, and me going on with Proctor Billings,
it's all changed to me. It's dog eat dog. From this
time on I'm out for the spondulax for all there is
in it. I'm out for big money! To hell with the
business except for what you can turn it into. I'll
work this thing like Billings and the rest of them
on the basis of the multiplication table, no favors
asked or given.
11 If that's the game," I said " and I guess it is
I can play it with the next one. Let him try on
some of his tricks. Let him try to flip me out ! "
" I don't think he will," said Pasc. " I don't
think he has any idea of it."
" Well, if he has," I said, " let him. I'm no-
body's fool. I can watch and keep my mouth shut,
myself, if I have to. Watch his tricks, and get on to
him. And on the other hand, if 1 do keep in with
him, as you claim, I'll have the best schoolmaster in
this money business in this part of'the country."
" If you don't start fighting him," said Pasc, grin-
ning.
" Don't you fret about me," said I. " I can stop
fighting, when I have to. When I think there's
something in it. And I think there will be this
time.
" I'm going to sit around and watch his tricks," I
said, making up my mind right there, " and learn
174 The Biography of a Million Dollars
that game of his. Stay right with him everywhere
in this business, and outside if 1 can work it.
Watch Billings running that money machine of his.
It'll come in handy to me, not only squeezing the
most 1 can out of this thing of ours; but there ought
to be something else, every now and then, on the side,
if you only have sense enough to see it and pick it up,
that would help fat up your bank account if a
man keeps his eyes open."
" You'll get to be a terribly tricky man, Bill, I
don't doubt," said Pasc, looking at me with that
faint old leathery smile he had sometimes, around his
mouth.
" That's all right," I told him. " But I know,
and you know there is just such a thing; that those
fellows with the money, like Proctor Billings, have
got a system for grabbing everything and turning it
into money; a regular machine for turning money
out just as sure as we've got a machine shop here,
you might say, for turning out speed. And they've
got their methods, just like any other trade. And
it won't do me any harm to sit down and watch them
do it. See how a man like Proctor Billings manipu-
lates it, to turn out a million or so every year or two
out of nothing! "
' You mean to say," said Pasc, thinking of some-
thing else all the time, " that he thought that share
of mine in the business might be worth three hun-
dred thousand dollars, when everything gets started,
at seven per cent, interest? "
11 1 can't tell you what he thinks," said I. " But I
do. I'm sure of it now. You'll be sure of that
Reorganized 175
much in a year or two if he'll put himself and his
money right behind it now."
" It don't seem true, exactly," said Pasc, looking
off. " It don't seem possible. But I'll be glad for
one thing, anyhow; it'll give Zetta a chance to amuse
herself finally. It will pay her back a little for hav-
ing a half invalid on her hands.
" Get her out of housework, and the movies, for
amusements," he said, going on " give her some
money to spend dressing herself; and let her move
around, and have some lively times, the way lively
good-looking women of her age want to. And do,
when they ain't hitched up to an old cripple like me,
with a case of carburetor on the brain."
" Oh, shut up. Don't be a fool ! " I told him.
CHAPTER XV
AN ANNIVERSARY
Well, I was president of that new corporation, the
Hoodlum Motor Cycle Company, and Proctor Bill-
ings was treasurer, just as he planned it. I was pro-
tected in my rights by an agreement; but he was
to have a kind of general veto control as long as
his money was financing it. But not a minute
longer !
" There are two main things," he said to me after
we had it fixed, " as I analyze it. The first is to
speed everything up. Speed up and rush out the
goods for the demand while it's on. That's your
end."
' You watch me jam it," I told him.
" And the second thing is to get the money to
carry it, and to get that new factory up. And
that's my province."
" It works out well, don't it," said I, " when
you come to divide it up. We two ought to knock
the tar out of that proposition."
" I hope so," he said
" I know so," I told him. I was feeling good,
to see it going the way it was; and I was getting on
a little better now, more friendly. I'd have been
friendly with the devil himself, making so much
money as we two were together.
An Anniversary 177
" And so far as keeping down costs go, and all
that detail work," said Billings, " I don't think we
can do better than those two Scotchmen those
two McAdams that is, if you have no objections."
"Objections, no!" I told him. "They don't
trouble me any. Let them burrow. I don't be-
lieve you could beat them for that business."
I didn't care much about seeing them around
those two silent hangdog things, slipping to and
fro about the place. But I knew enough to know
they knew their business under Proctor Billings'
direction. Queer things tougher than bull beef;
work all day and all night, and keep their mouth
shut like Indians on a long run. They liked
the game for the game's sake, I could see, watching
them besides the money. They worked together
one holding down a cent, while the other one
skinned it.
So we started out on that new arrangement
Pasc out of the management practically, except for
a consultation now and then, and what improve-
ments he worked out; keeping his own hours, drop-
ping in when he felt like it, and the doctor said
he might. And Billings and I went out after the
business I after the trade, and he after the
finances.
He knew his line, I had to hand it to him jolly-
ing him, when I got to know him better, at the
twists and turns he took in the money end of the
thing as we got along.
1 You're a past master at it," I told him. " I can
sc that. Your old man put you onto the ropes b-
178 The Biography of a Million Dollars
fore you were out of skirts. You were wise on this
money business long before he put you into this
banking machine of his."
I used to get right after him after a while.
" Oh I'm on to you," I used to say. " Your old
man turned out the money here in this bank in a
regular machine just the same as we turn out
motor cycles or old Allen turns out bicycle spokes.
And handed over his trade to you. But I serve
you notice right now," I told him. " I'm watching
you all the time to learn your tricks to see what
your plant is and how you run it just the same
as you watched us. I'm going to learn before I
get through, how one of these money machines is
put together and operated. How you smooth-
handed boys go to work to get the dollars, with-
out ever having to soil your fingers."
It made him squirm some I could see that,
when I got after him that way. But what did I
care? I was just as good as he was. And I
knew, anyhow, he'd take most anything from a man
who he was making so much money with as we were
together.
I don't know as there's much to say about that
next year, except that everything went our way, and
we doubled up the business again. I don't know as
I could remember anything particular, if it had
happened. We were too busy to remember any-
thing but that one main idea the business always
jumping up faster and faster; and we people in the
plant rushing around like crazy men, getting up at
six o'clock and getting to bed at midnight, tearing
An Anniversary 179
the days and nights to pieces, trying to keep up
with our new business.
" You'll kill yourself," said Polly. She was all
the time kicking about it.
"Kill myself, nothing!" I said. "The more
work like this they feed me, the better I like it. I
can tear it up, and ask for more. All I wish is
that the day was one hundred and twenty-four hours
long instead of what it is."
" All right," said Polly. " Have it your own
way. Maybe you won't say that some day if you
keep going all night and all day, too. You're
human, like the rest of us, if you don't think so.
Your digestion's all out of kilter now, and you know
it.
" Wh-why wouldn't it be," she'd say, getting ex-
cited and stammering; " sit-sitting around the
restaurants with those men in all that tobacco smoke,
eating all that heavy greasy food."
" Oh, go hire a hall, Pol," I told her. " I know
what I'm about. Go to sleep. You're getting so
you croak like a tree toad in a summer dry spell
all night long."
But I was showing considerable speed, at that.
A man less tough than I was wouldn't have stood
it rushing around keeping the plant keyed up to
the last notch; getting that new factory started, and
the extra stuff bought for it. And when I wasn't
there, going jamming around the country, getting
new agencies established, sleeping on Pullmans and
eating most anything, most any time, taking out
the trade, getting them satisfied and friendly.
180 The Biography of a Million Dollars
" It's lucky God gave me two men's appetite
in this business! " I used to tell them. " Half my
value to the company's my eating ability with its
customers."
" How about a drink, Bill now and then ? " said
this fellow I was talking to.
11 You never saw me yet," I said, heating up,
" when I turned a hair."
"No, Bill, you're a wonder! " said he.
I guess that was right. I guess if I hadn't been
extra husky I never could have stood it. Nor if
that thing hadn't been going our way so strong.
You can always manage to get out of bed in the
morning and go at it again, if you know you're mak-
ing money enough. And we were making enough
in that company now to make a dead man get up and
hustle. By the end of that year there was no ques-
tion about it we were going to be rich out of it.
Pasc Thomas didn't seem to be improved so
very much after he got out of the management.
There was nothing new; just his nerves, just his
sleeplessness his mind still out of his control,
chasing around after carburetors and valves or some
other hundred per cent, improvements on the motor.
He wasn't any better that summer, and Zetta finally
came to me with an idea about it. She'd got so she
talked pretty free to me about everything.
" I kind of believe I'd like to take him out to
the West," she said. " Go to Yellowstone Park
and the Rocky Mountains; and then go down, maybe,
and spend the fall and winter in Los Angeles if
you can fix it! Give him a change of air, and a
An Anniversary 181
change of mind; give him a chance to sec the coun-
try, and turn his ideas in a new direction.
" And I'm speaking once for him and twice for
myself, I guess," said Zetta " saying it. I
wouldn't mind getting out and seeing the country a
little myself. I certainly am sick of this town.
It's full of dead ones. From all I can see, all the
women around where we live want to do is to read
the family history, and turn up their noses at any-
body that's shown any signs of life since 1642."
Her face got kind of red and flushed, talking
about it.
" So I believe I'd like to do it," she said, " both
for his sake and mine, if you can fix it for us to let
Pasc get away from the factory entirely."
" I can do better than that, I believe, now," I told
her. And I took it up with Billings.
" Yes," he said, thinking and looking down. " I
think we're in a position to do it, now. I think
there is no reason why we shouldn't cut off his
salary now, and start paying him his dividends on
that preferred stock."
" It's making it twice over."
" Yes," he said. " Five times."
And so we started in on the preferred dividends.
" You've got to score that up to Billings' credit,
anyhow," said Zetta, tickled to death with the
thought of getting loose, traveling.
* Yes," I said. But I could see, too, that there
was something back of it; that Billings figured it
was good policy to have the preferred paying divi-
dends.
182 The Biography of a Million Dollars
I remember that night before Pasc and his wife
started off for the West, and the dinner party Polly
and I gave them up at our house the four of us
together, in our new house. We'd moved then,
just lately, into our house on Bellevue Terrace. We
made it a kind of anniversary of that other time
that first time they came to our other house on Collins
Street, just before that Labor Day race that started
us going.
"It seems good, don't it," said Pasc "just us
four together again?"
" It certainly does," said Polly.
" It don't seem possible," said Zetta, looking at
me with that kind of fixed stare she'd got in her
eyes, since Pasc's poor health. " All that's hap-
pened!
" But it is," she said, breaking off her stare, and
talking louder. " That's the main thing." (And
she laughed that loud, nervous laugh of hers.)
' That's the main thing we've got it now ! We've
got the wherewithal and we can live ! Eh,
Pasc?"
She looked handsomer than ever that night. She
was dressed up to kill in one of those flame-
colored dresses she used to wear, after that, eve-
nings.
'Eh, Pasc?" she said, calling across the table
to him.
He opened up that quick smile of his and
shut it up again without talking.
' You old crank! You poor old rooster, you! "
she said to him. " You never could learn to en-
An Anniversary 183
joy yourself, if you lived to be a thousand years oldl
Could you? " she said, and threw a kiss at him.
"You know what he's doing now?" she asked
me. " He's gone back, and started working on that
darned carburetor again. Started up again, just as
we began packing up to go away."
" I just had this idea," said Pasc, looking sheep-
ish, " I thought I'd get down before it slipped me."
"Out comes the .old envelope and stub, eh?" I
said to Zetta.
" Yep," she told me. " It's something a hun-
dred per cent, better this time! "
" You bet," said I. "Always!"
" But he's going to cut it out on this trip," she
said, her face coming down sober, " or I'll know
the reason why. I'm going to get it off his mind,
for once and my own ! " she said. Her voice
was getting kind of sharp and jangly. " For one
while! That's what we agreed before we started.
And I'll see he keeps his agreement."
" Good for you, Zet," I told her. " I bet on
you!"
" You better," she said. " Now let's talk about
something that's agreeable. Let's talk about the
money you're going to make."
' That sounds good to me," I said, laughing.
" How much is it going to be this year, Bill? " she
asked me, looking at me with those devil-may-care
black eyes of hers. "Your share? A hundred
thousand dollars? "
" Not this year," I came back at her. " Next.
You got that one little detail wrong, that's all."
184 The Biography of a Million Dollars
"Otherwise I'm all right?" she said.
"You're all right, all the time to me!" I
told her.
" You remember that time," she said, " that other
time we're celebrating now when we all sat to-
gether in the old house on Collins Street trying
to figure out how we could possibly pull it out, and
get the old Hoodlum started! "
" And your ring! " Polly struck in.
" You bet I do," said I. " And that reminds me,"
I said, looking over at Polly; and I reached in and
dug that diamond ring I had for her out of my vest
pocket the biggest stone I could find in town.
" That reminds me of something that's got to be
done right now."
And I got up from the table, and got a chair, and
dragged it up back of her.
" Just to show you my memory's good," I said,
" Shut your eyes now! "
And I reached over, while she shut them, and
pushed it on her finger.
" There," said I, putting it on. " Don't say I
never gave you anything!"
"Bill," said Polly, laughing. " That that
isn't the right finger. You've got it on the engage-
ment finger."
" That's all right," I told her. " Any old finger
goes with us, don't it, Zet? "
' You bet it does, with you, Bill," she said.
" And if Pasc says anything, I'll go to the mat
with him," I told her " right now ! "
And Pasc grinned.
An Anniversary 185
" Take your hand away, anyway," said Polly,
" so she can see it."
She sat there for a minute, when I did; that fine
dark red color of hers mounting up to her cheeks.
" You've knocked me speechless, Bill," she said,
finally, turning it around to look at it.
" It's the biggest I could find here in town, Zet,"
I told her. " It's a quarter of a carat more than
my ring is."
" It's a wonder that's what it is," she said, still
staring at it. " Bill, you're a peach to me. You
always were," she said, flushing up some more.
" S-sh," I said. " It's all right, but don't let my
wife know about it."
And the rest of us all laughed and got red.
" She'll never know from me," said Zet, turning
and pretending to sit up close to me, where our
chairs were together and then looked down at
the stone some more.
" But it was great of you, Bill and her, too,"
she said, and smiled at Polly. " But you most, of
course, Bill," turning back to me.
" Of course," said I.
" I certainly love 'em," she said. " I never could
get enough of them, especially like that ! Why, I'd
kiss a man for less than that, Bill ! " she said, looking
up at me, all at once.
" Go as far as you like," said I. And she
did, she kissed me somewhere on the northeast
corner of my ear.
"Here. That'll do!" said Pasc, grinning.
" That's for remembering," she said to me.
186 The Biography of a Million Dollars
" Oh, I don't forget things like that very often,"
I said. " Not if I know myself."
"I know you don't," said Zetta. "But here!
I'm forgetting something myself," she said; and
went over and got it from Pasc. " You can't guess
what I've got for you, Bill," she told me.
" Is it anything like that arrangement you got
Polly," I asked her, " with the lace all over it? "
" No," she said, and pulled out this watch charm
a Hoodlum, all made up and cast in gold.
" Pasc had it made for me, exactly right," she
said. " And see that diamond is the head-
light!"
" It's a beaut," said I. " It's a dandy." And I
sat looking at it.
"Do you like it really?" she said, looking
over at my chain. " Do you think it's as good as
your Elk's emblem? "
" He'd be silly if he didn't," said Polly. " Those
old Elks!"
" I would, that's right," I said. " I don't know
when I've had anything that struck my fancy so."
I didn't either; it was certainly all right.
" For all kinds of things," I said. " For a keep-
sake, for one thing; or for just the way it's made
up; it's a model, ain't it a real model? It's a
Hoodlum, just to the T. That's what it is. It's
a regular razulah," I said " and don't you for-
get it!"
" I'm glad you think so," said Zet.
1 To say nothing of the girl that gave it to me,"
I told her.
An Anniversary 187
" Well, we'll have to be going before long, won't
we, Zet," said Pasc, finally, " if we're going to get
everything ready for starting in the morning."
And then we drank a toast or two to them
when they said they'd got to go.
" Here's to us," said I. " Here's hoping. All
we want and a little more of it! A long life,"
I said
" And an amusing one," said Zetta, taking it
away from me. " Plenty of amusement," she said,
and got up on my chair.
" Here's one," she said, " for all of us! Here's
to the old Hoodlum long may she pop ! " And
waved with her handkerchief.
And after that they went along home.
' Take care of yourself good," I heard Polly
telling Pasc. " Come back here all rested. Don't
let that giddy girl drag you around too much and
keep you from your rest."
" No danger. Don't worry," said Zet, laughing
and flashing her teeth. " It's carburetor that ails
him. That's what's breaking up our home."
" Isn't she the wild one, when she once gets
started," I said to Polly, talking them over with
her, the way you do with your wife, getting ready
for bed.
" Absolutely lawless," said Polly.
" But just as good-hearted as she can stick."
' Yes, she is," said Polly. " But what she wants
most is excitement. Crazy all the time for some-
thing to do ! "
" It's funny, too," I said, " with Pasc just the
188 The Biography of a Million Dollars
other way so especially now he ain't well. I
don't know as they ought ever to have married.
And yet," I said, thinking, " they seem to think the
world of each other, too."
" They do," said Polly. " That's the worst of
it."
" But if he gets tired of her," I said, " there's
plenty that'll have her. She's certainly one good
looker. She can come and sit on my knee any time
she wants to."
" Can she ? " said Polly. " We-well, she wouldn't
if she had to live with you, and knew how cross
and ugly you were to live with these days. I'm not
worrying about any woman running off with you
especially! All I'm afraid of now is, when you get
up so ugly as you do when you don't sleep right
lately, you'll go out some morning and b-bite some
poor child in the street, and have to pay damages
for it."
" Is that so? " said I, pinching her.
" Y-yes. And now let's go to sleep, if you intend
to get any or let me before you've got to get
up and start in on that new factory tomorrow morn-
ing. If you don't want to kill yourself, you'll have
to get some sleep sometime, especially now! "
We were just getting the new factory finished
that time when Pasc and Zet were starting for the
Coast, and getting into it between times trying
to without stopping filling our orders. And
those were certainly some strenuous days. It was
quite a place this new one. Proctor Billings had
built it and leased it to us on a piece of land he
An Anniversary 189
owned along the railroad; on Thomas Avenue,
a new street he opened up and named after
Pasc.
I was there all that next day, working my head
off, getting things started; and late again at night,
going home for supper. And, going out through
the shop to my auto, I ran into old Tom Powers,
coming in on his job for the night. It seemed kind
of funny to see him there after being in the old
place so long and I stopped and talked with him
a minute about the new plant.
" How do you like it, Tom," said I. " As far
as it's got?"
" It's a grand place," he said. " You ought to
be well satisfied with it."
" I am," I told him. " It's some different, eh,
from the old days when we were starting up in that
one floor on Elm Street? "
" Yes," said Tom. " There's some changes."
" But it was a good old shack at that, Tom," I
said. " You can try as you like, but you can't
quite forget the place you started out in."
' You can't, that's right," he answered me.
And we stopped a second or two.
" I hear 'em saying," he went along, " Mr.
Thomas is out now entirely."
" Well, no," I said. " He's got his stock here
yet, Tom, but he won't be very active here again,
probably."
" Well, he'll have money enough, that's one
thing," said Tom. "Where is he now? What'll
he be doing? "
190 The Biography of a Million Dollars
" He's gone out West, for his health, to have a
little rest."
" Ah-ha," said Tom, wagging his old skull. " But
he won't rest just the same."
" Why not?"
" That kind never does," said the old man. " I
know. I know myself, from experience. When your
mind gets started on a thing."
" You do, Tom, that's right," said I, looking at
him. " You do, don't you? How's your machine?
How's the old Miracle coming these days any-
how?"
" Oh, I can't complain," said Tom. " She's com-
ing along; I think I can see now the way to get
around that one hitch in her."
" Good," said I, patting him on the back. " Got
her moved over into the new place? " I asked him.
" I have."
" Well, I guess you're right, Tom," I told him,
smiling, and thinking about what Zet had said about
Pasc and his carburetor. " You fellows are all
about the same. You won't let up until they bury
you."
" That's right, too," said Tom.
And I told him, in a word or two, what Pasc was
trying to do with the carburetor, and the higher
speed motor.
* That's what they're after," said Tom.
' They're going faster and faster," I told him,
especially with those aeroplane motors. They heat
up so, they can't do anything with them."
' You saw in the paper how the Wright boys had
An Anniversary 191
sold their flying invention to those Frenchmen,"
said Tom.
" Yes," said I.
' You never thought it would amount to much,"
he said, reminding me.
" No," I answered him, " I didn't. Well," I said,
"your time will be coming next, Tom with the
old Miracle ! " And I slapped him on the back and
walked along.
He stood there, looking down, with his hand by
his side, leaner and older, and more like an old
skeleton than ever.
I heard him clearing his throat, and then finally
he called after me.
" Mr. Morgan," he said.
" Yep."
" Did you hear about my boy? "
" No."
" He just had a bad accident in one of them
racing Bowls."
CHAPTER XVI
AN EARLY CREDITOR
" Yes, I did ! " I said. " I lied. I did hear about
that. Certainly I did! "
I had. But I'd been so busy that time that it had
just passed out of my mind. I'd heard it a night or
two before, stopping at the garage for gas over-
hearing some of those bottle-shaped boys hanging
around there, talking about it.
" How did it happen? " I asked one of them.
" That Shang Murphy," he told me, stopping
chewing gum a minute. " He'd been laying for him
for two years, you might say."
" I thought they were both riding on the same
team for the Rajah people."
" They were," he said. " But not lately. That
Shang got a bad spill a while ago, and they never
took him back on again, so lately he'd been riding
independent, on the outside."
And stopped, the way they do, not talking to
you, till you make them go on.
" He was sore," he told me finally " at Chuck,
especially. He thought he got him off the team
and swiped his place as their principal rider. So he
had it in for him. He always did have, at that, ever
since that first race Chuck beat him, riding for you."
"So that's it, huh?" I said.
He would know, of course, that's all they talk
An Early Creditor 193
about, those wise boys in front of the garages
the women going by and how fast they can run a car
or a motor cycle. And more so, naturally, in a town
where the factory is.
" Is that so? " said I. " How bad was Powers
hurt?"
" They say it's his right hand," he told me. " A
wheel got it."
" I God," I said. " That's getting to be an
awful game, those Bowls, with the speeds they're
making now. They ought to do something to stop
it."
It all came back to me, of course what I'd
heard about it when old Tom spoke to me. I
told him so.
" How's he coming out? " I asked him.
" Well, he won't race any more, probably," he
told me. " Anyhow, that's what they said at the
hospital."
" I understand it's his right hand," I said, " like
yours."
" Not so bad," he said. " But smashed up quite a
lot, too. I don't know just how much but so he
won't have the strength in it to race on one of those
domned things again."
" How about working at a trade, in a shop? "
" They tell me he can do it, after awhile."
" You ought to be glad, then," I said, " if it'll
get him into something regular, out of that devilish
racing."
" I am," said Old Tom. " But his mother is
most! "
194 The Biography of a Million Dollars
" What's he going to do? " I asked him.
" That's what I was going to ask you about," said
Tom, standing over on his other foot. " His mother
wanted me to ask you if he couldn't come around and
see you after he gets out of the hospital."
" Sure," said I. " Send him around. If I've got
anything I can give him, he'll get it. I got him into
the thing; I ought to be willing to help to get him
out.
"How's he turned out?" I asked the old man.
" What kind of a boy's he been? "
" He'd been better off if he'd not seen this racing
game," he told me. " It's not been extra good for
him. He's seen too much of the high life. And
got too much for doing nothing the way I see
it."
!< Well, maybe he'll steady up now," said I.
" And it might be just the thing to start him in the
shop like the rest of us did. That mightn't be a bad
idea, might it? "
" No, sir," said Tom. " I wish you'd get him to
do it."
" Send him around, anyhow when he's ready,"
said I. " I'm pretty busy myself, now, but the first
minute I can, I'll see him."
I was still out to do what I could for him. And I
felt that way when he got out of the hospital and
came around to see me in my new office.
' They said you wanted to see me," he started out,
coming in, dressed up very slick, and sitting down,
looking at me.
I didn't take much of a fancy to him, or the way
An Early Creditor 195
he went at it. ' Well, yes," I said, passing it over.
" How are you? "
11 Oh, I'm all right"
" Just where did you hurt yourself? "
" I got it where the old man did," he told me.
11 The right hand."
" How is it good enough to go to work yet? "
' That depends," said he, looking up at me and
down again. " What work? "
I didn't care for his cut much, any more. He
was a good looking boy on the surface too
much so. And dressed up, like a clothing ad. He
looked too good to me. A good looking boy with a
bad eye. One of those wise ones you see roosting
around in front of the garages dressed up, paring
their nails, and goggling at the servant girls. Look-
ing down when you go by, and looking up and staring
at your back when you're gone. Hating everybody
that's got a dollar, on general principles, and trying
to figure out how they can get a few dollars of easy
money themselves without getting their fingers dirty.
I know the breed, better than they know themselves.
Seeing other people with money close to, all the
time, makes them all the time dissatisfied.
I didn't care much for the way he acted, but I told
him what I could do for him in the shop. I was
going to give him that as I told his father. And
then, if he made good, I would push him along.
But I could see right away it didn't suit him.
"You haven't got an agency, somewhere?" he
asked me, looking up. He kept his eyes down
mostly, but when he wanted to, he looked up and
196 The Biography of a Million Dollars
looked at you with this hard expression, afraid of
nothing on God's earth.
" No. Not this minute," I came back, getting a
little sore at his nerve, asking it; but still holding on
to myself. " But what's the matter with your start-
ing here in the shop the way the rest of us had to ?
Would your hand prevent you ? "
" I don't know whether it would or not. It
might. How much is there in it? " he said, looking
up again.
And I told him.
"Ah-hah," he said. "Well, I guess that ain't
my line. I could make more than that as a chauf-
feur, if I had to." And he got up and brushed some
imaginary dust off his tailormade clothes.
4 You're pretty particular, ain't you? " said I, get-
ting hot under the collar, finally.
" What I thought you were going to offer me," he
said, not turning a hair, " was an agency. That's
more my line."
I was, as a matter of fact, later, when I had one
if he worked out all right. But I wouldn't say so to
him.
" If I wanted to," I said, still holding myself down
all I was able, " I couldn't very well give you one till
I had one vacant! "
" I can wait," he said, staring up again.
; ' Well, you'll wait a damned long time," I said,
letting loose a little, " if you turn this job down now,
before you'll get another job from us."
' There are other places on earth," he said, and
started to move off " at that."
An Early Creditor 197
" You got that right," said I. " There's no law
to compel you to come here or us to hire you
either!"
u Let me ask you something," he said to me, turn-
ing back a minute " for a change! "
"What is it?"
" Are you the man," he asked me then, staring
with that damned insolent, ugly look in his eyes
" are you the man that always talked so loud about
paying his debts to his friends and his enemies? "
" I generally manage to," I said, still holding back
all I could. "Why?"
" Oh, nothing," he said. " I just wanted to hear
you say it again. That's all."
" I'll say it again, all right," I said to him, " as
many times as you want. You may find it out yet
too. I pay my debts to my friends and my enemies !
But paying up my friends don't include handing over
easy money to cheap young cigarette bearers and
clothing advertisements to sun their shapes around
on the corners, when they ought to be at work like
the rest of the folks."
" Yeh," he said. " You're like all the rest of
them. When they've got a couple of hundred thou-
sand, they always get the idea they were the ones that
taught God how to turn on the sun.
" Easy money," he said, looking at me, with a
nasty smile on his face. "God! I suppose you
think you got a patent on it."
' That'll do for you," said I. " For some time.
If you hadn't been so cocky, I had it all fixed up for
something good for you. But no, that wouldn't do
198 The Biography of a Million Dollars
you. You couldn't soil your hands in a machine
shop not for a minute. You're the wise boy, out
for easy money. You know the patent, that's a sure
thing. You know just how it's done like all the
rest of your kind that breed around gasoline the last
ten years, like mosquito wrigglers in old rain water.
But that lets me out. You're all right; you know so
much about easy money, you can get all you want
yourself. You don't have to come around here
again, asking me for any of it. All you have to do
is to go out and pick it up for yourself."
" Don't worry," he said, throwing me another
ugly look. And then he went along out.
I didn't think much about him again till Pasc and
his wife came back in the spring from California. I
used to see him sometimes, hanging around the
garage, but we didn't look at each other. He was
around there looking and criticizing and keeping
his mouth shut, and dressed up regardless; playing
the hero to the rest of those bottle-shaped boys, and
every fool cheap girl in town who had money enough
to buy a pair of long white shoes.
I was out in Chicago in the spring, looking over
the agency, when Pasc and Zetta were coming back,
and got on to my sleeper in the Chicago station.
' Why, hello," said somebody back of me.
" Look who's here ! " And there was Zetta in a
big yellow hat, and a kind of yellow and black gown
dressed up to kill, coming back from those south-
ern California hotels.
" Hello, where did you come from? " said I; and
grabbed both her hands, when she held them out to
An Early Creditor 199
me. And nearly shook Pasc's arm off when he came
back in. And we three visited all the evening, until
the porter wanted to make up the berths.
" Well, Pasc," I said, sitting down with them. " I
believe you're looking better."
" He is," said Zetta. " I'm the one that's all
done up. I'm coming home to see if I can get over
this trip."
" You don't look tired to me," I said.
" You're looking slick."
' Tired, no ! I'm coming home for some excite-
ment."
" Excitement " I said, watching her, " after
traveling all over the world ! "
" Excitement," she said. " Yep, and a divorce! "
"A divorce, eh?"
' Yep, Bill," she said. " I'm a wronged and de-
serted wife."
And Pasc grinned one of those still old grins again.
" Pasc," I said. " I wouldn't have thought it of
you."
" Yes," said Zetta, rattling on. " I've got the
co-respondent all picked out. You've heard about
these stenographers," she said, " and these wicked
business men. Well, I've got a new one. I'm go-
ing to name his carburetor.
" And I'll get my divorce, all right, too. Any
judge will give it to me that hears my story once."
Pasc grinned again, when she was saying it, but a
little sheepish; and her voice sounded just a little
sharp and jangly. You could see there was some
sore spot in back of that fooling.
200 The Biography of a Million Dollars
" I'll tell it to you, Bill," she said, " so you can see
it for yourself. For six months," she went along,
" I've been in this humiliating thing traveling
along all over with him and his carburetor. It
started in at Yellowstone Park.
" Honest," she said. " And I leave it to him to
say I'm right. He stayed inside the hotel prac-
tically all the time we were there in the Park. He
couldn't tell you now whether El Capitan was a
name of a saloon or a hot spring."
" I just happened to have an idea come to me, as
I got there," said Pasc to me, looking foolish again.
; ' What'd you do, in the meanwhile?" I asked
his wife, laughing.
"Do! What could I do? I let him alone,
finally, with his carburetor. And I found the best
looking guide I could, and went out riding with him,
all over. I had the finest horse ! " she said, looking
up. " That was the one thing for me, in the whole
trip. I haven't had so much fun since I was a kid.
" But honest," she said, " you don't know what
it is, Bill, traveling alone for months with a man
who can't see anything day and night, but a little
brass carburetor in back of his eyes somewhere."
"Didn't you get acquainted at the hotels?" I
asked her.
" A lot of stall-fed women," she said, " sitting on
the piazzas. And a bunch of old knee-sprung men,
so worn out and feeble their legs knock together
when they were dancing. No life left in them
or they wouldn't be there. Just like all these pleas-
ure hotels they're all alike as far as I can see
An Early Creditor 201
a combination of old folks' home and nursery.
" But I did learn the new dances," she said.
"That's one thing!"
"Did you teach them to Pasc?" I asked her,
laughing.
" No," she said. " He only dances with his car-
buretor! " And laughed a kind of harsh, flat laugh
again.
" And of course," she said, " nobody danced much
with me either. Why would they? If a woman
can't get her husband to pay her any attention, it's
not much of an advertisement for her."
' You had enough attention, I should say, from
different ones, to satisfy most any woman," said
Pasc.
" There's one other thing," she said, " I did get
out of my trip. I learned to drive a car. There
was a young fellow at the hotel with a runabout that
showed me how. And I'm going right home, and
I'm going to buy the fastest one they make. There's
nothing like it. You can take off your hat, and put
down the wind shield and go ! There's nothing
like it; you can forget everything else in the world
just go! "
I had to smile at her and Pasc with me
watching her eyes flash all of a sudden.
1 You'll have to look out for her, Pasc," I said;
" she's got the speed bug! "
" She has. Bad," he told me.
And after that speaking of driving we got
talking about that Chuck Powers. They'd heard
about that accident of his when they were out in Los
202 The Biography of a Million Dollars
Angeles. It was getting to be a center for motor
cycle racing about that time.
" Wasn't it a shame," said Zetta. " An awful
thing ! Just think of it. They say he was the best
motor cycle rider on the track in this country, if
not in the whole world. And that means he went
the fastest drove the fastest thing in the world,
faster than anybody has ever gone, except maybe
that Englishman! Think of the nerve it took, and
courage! Think of the excitement of doing it!
And now he's got to stop, entirely. Just that young
fellow!"
" Well," I said, " it looks to me worse than that.
It looks to me as if it had spoiled him entirely for
doing anything else."
And I told them about my experience with them.
" But why didn't you do it? " Zetta said to me
right away, when I told her how he'd held me up
and what he wanted. " Why didn't you give him an
agency, if he wanted it? "
" How could I," I came back at her, " when there
wasn't any vacancy? "
; ' Why didn't you make a vacancy, thea? "
" And throw another man out? "
" Sure. I would," she said.
" You would, I believe," I told her. " There's a
woman's idea of business," I said to Pasc, a little
miffed.
" Sure I would. If I owed anybody what we owe
to him," said Zetta.
' Well, if you want to know," I said, getting a
little huffy, " I'd have had something better for him
An Early Creditor 203
before he got through, if he hadn't been quite so
cocky about it.
" But since then," I said, defending myself, " I've
been just as well pleased that I didn't do any differ-
ent than I did. I had him looked up afterwards
and I don't want him. I wouldn't have him at any
price, around handling agency funds."
" Why not? " Zetta wanted to know.
"Too much high life that racing life was too
much for him. I found that out later."
" But he couldn't drink," said Zetta, " a rider, at
those speeds."
" No, that wasn't it."
" What was it then? " she came back.
" The women, if you want to know! " I told her.
" Well," she said, thinking, " he was a handsome
boy."
"Too darned handsome," I said. "And too
much of a regular devil."
" I don't believe it, anyhow ! " she said to me all
at once.
" Believe it or not; that's his reputation ! And all
the money he's got has gone somewhere, that's sure.
He's standing around there now, in his nifty clothes,
without a cent left too swell-headed to take any
ordinary job, and his old mother feeding him at
home. Aw, they make me sick, this young crowd
that's coming up around our business, looking for
easy money."
And the porter came around about that time, and
routed us out, and we dropped it. Zet went in to get
ready for the night; and Pasc and I went out and sat
204 The Biography of a Million Dollars
up till one o'clock in the smoking room and talked
business.
" What is it you've been fussing over? " I asked
him. " Is she right? Have you got some new
wrinkle on the carburetor? "
" Not yet," he said. " I'm working over it. I've
got a good idea, but it don't seem to work out yet."
" You'll get it," I told him. " I bet on you."
" I hope so," he said. " It's wearing me thin
again, running me."
" Why don't you ever drop it, and go at it fresh
sometime," I said to him " after you've rested."
" I wish I could," he said. " But I ain't done so
bad this time, all together! " And then asked me
how Billings and I were getting on in the business.
"Oh, all right, I guess," I told him. "Yes
we're making a lot of money. But it ain't like the
old days, Pasc, when you and I were there."
" I think he generally means to do the fair busi-
ness thing, in his way," said Pasc.
" Well, maybe," I told him. " Maybe that's the
way they have to be when they're trained the way
he's been. But try my damndest, I can't like him.
Down at the bottom of my heart, I don't ever trust
him. I'm afraid of him. He's always sitting there
cooking up something. Some new sleight of hand
to pull your money out of his sleeve.
" It's different entirely," I told Pasc, " from the
old days. We're only together Billings and I
hunting dollars, that's all. It's dog eat dog. He
knows it, and I know it. And that's all there is to
it!"
An Early Creditor 205
And then I went on and told him about that rear-
rangement of the stock we were working out then
that I was worrying and puzzling over about that
time.
CHAPTER XVII
Proctor Billings had called me around to the bank
about a month before that.
" I believe," he said, sitting there, " the time is
about right for refinancing."
He had a new style now; he smoked all his
cigarettes in a holder, sticking out about a foot from
his face. He couldn't stand it to touch a bare ciga-
rette with his lips any longer. And beside him on
his desk always, he had the fresh flowers from his
conservatory. All elegance and la-de-da and lovely
cut flowers on the outside; and inside, about a half
an inch, colder and harder than the ice that's been
piling up at the North Pole for the last five million
years. I had to smile to myself, watching him.
" I believe," he said, in that nice particular way he
had when he was pleased with the way things were
going, " I believe we could begin to start to move
towards some more permanent basis of capitalization
than we are on now. It would be better for both of
us. I could get rid of the burden of the financing;
and you," he said, with his carefully measured smile,
" could get out finally from under this control of the
company I've had while I'm furnishing the money."
" I could stand that too," I told him.
" I imagined so," he said. " And I could stand
A Little Something on the Side 207
myself getting some of my money back, and getting
my own credit straightened out. Money's pretty
easy," said Billings, explaining. " And they've been
putting out quite a variety of automobile stock with
more or less success. A good many of them with not
such good prospects, or earning so much as ours!
There's something like a little boom in that line of
stock; and for my part, I'm in favor of taking ad-
vantage of it to start in the direction of turning this
thing of ours into a little money."
" Cash in, eh? " I told him. " Well, you've got
me with you there. Go the limit. Go after itl "
' You mean that? " he said.
" You bet I do," I answered him.
And then he told me his idea.
" I believe," he said, " the only way to do with a
thing like this is go straight to New York and do it
right in the beginning, with the really big people.
" You can go up to Hartford, of course, or any
smaller place. But their market for securities is only
small and local; they'd have to go to New York
themselves anyhow. And my idea has always been
to go yourself to New York right down to the big
banks yourself. The only danger is," he said,
"they're so big! "
" Ah-ha," I said, and shut up. I wasn't showing
my hand much. That Wall Street game was some-
thing new and strange to me, but naturally I wasn't
telling him so.
' They're big," he said, " and they're sharp.
And a thing like this is only a mouthful for them.
They might eat us right up, if you don't look out for
208 The Biography of a Million Dollars
them. But on the other hand, they've got the
machinery to take care of you simply and easily.
And you've got to go to them anyhow, probably; if
you don't the smaller people will, very likely. The
best thing, I always thought, was to go right to them
in the first place yourself. There's no more
danger."
"Go ahead," I said; "if they don't scare you,
they don't me."
I had been watching that banking business some
myself there in his bank. Billings had just made
me a director there. He ought to; we were the
second largest business in it. But while I was
around the place, I kept my eyeballs busy watching
him and those other fellows with capital he had with
him operate it poking around, grabbing off the
cream of everything around town. I had a little
thing myself by this time, that I had an idea I would
have a try at along that line. I was working on it
when Billings went down to see those New Yorkers.
I didn't know how I was going to do it, but there
is nothing like trying, to get your hand in.
" How'd you come out with him? " I asked Bil-
lings, when he came back from New York.
" I rather think they'll take it up," he told me, " on
some sort of an issue of preferred stock."
" Good business," I said, thinking first of getting
the company out once on its own feet, free of that
control of his over it for furnishing the money.
Tickled to death of being my own man finally, and
getting the chance at the same time to cash in on
my stock. I thought then, too, I might maybe get
A Little Something on the Side 209
this little thing I was thinking of into the new deal
somehow, if I could work it. And cash in a little
something on the side.
" Fine business," I said to Billings, feeling pretty
pleased over what he was doing, but knowing I'd got
to watch him, just the same. ' That's the stuff," I
said, slapping him on the back. " Go after it, boy."
He didn't know what to do with himself when I
did anything like that. It made him jump all over.
I did it half for deviltry. What did I care? I
wasn't afraid of him now. I knew he'd have to put
up with it, anyhow, as long as we were making good
so.
So then I went to work on that little deal of mine,
right away, seeing what I could do with it.
There was this little old shop that had made
spokes for us way back in the old bicycle business,
and had kept right along with us, selling the stuff ever
since. I'd been watching it for some time. I
thought I could get a hold of it at first, and see if I
couldn't make a dollar out of it myself. But now I
thought: "Here's a chance to get it and work it
into this new concern of ours, if it goes through
as a side issue in this new stock deal." So I tackled
it between times at luncheon mostly.
I used to see young Allen, who had the old place
with his father, when he was in at Lembach's,
where a good many of us used to go at noon on ac-
count of their cooking that good old substantial
German cooking there, and their beer. They had
the best Wurtzburger in town. I met young Allen
there, and at the Elks' rooms, when we both hap-
210 The Biography of a Million Dollars
pened to be in there together. And I got him to
talking now and then. I knew his old man, who
really owned the place, was getting through pretty
quick kind of old and not very well. And I
knew as well as I wanted to that Charley, the son,
would just as soon get loose for once in his life, and
get out of overalls, and drive an auto around, and
see what the world looked like on the other side of
those grimy old machine-shop windows, from seven
A. M. to six p. M. So finally I worked an option out
of them. Then I went to Billings.
When I told him about it, he was a lot easier than
I thought he would be. I thought maybe he'd want
to be let in on it himself. But there was nothing like
that came out at all, when I brought it up. He let
me go on and explain it all out.
" Can it be worked? " I said. " Do you suppose
I can fix it to bring it in on that new deal. It would
be a good thing, all right, for the company."
" I wouldn't be surprised at all," he said.
" Especially," he went on, watching his cigarette,
" as I shall have something of the same kind to
offer."
"Which? "I said.
" Bringing in my factory some way into the thing."
" Giving up the lease, and buying it in for the com-
pany? "
" That's it," he said.
"Why not?" said I, thinking. "Certainly.
One hand washes the other. We'll bring the both
of them in on this preferred stock thing. And
both of us make a legitimate dollar on it. All
A Little Something on the Side 211
right," I said. "You go ahead, will you? See
what you can do I "
I knew then, of course, I'd have to keep my eyes
peeled with him, and this New York crowd too.
And so he went down and talked it over with
these New Yorkers and come back and told me what
he thought he could do. And we worked some more
on it together.
They were going to put out seven hundred thou-
sand dollars more preferred stock, besides what Pasc
Thomas had, making a million in all. There was
two hundred thousand dollars of the old preferred
stock in the treasury; and they would issue five hun-
dred thousand new. Of course, this wouldn't have
any voting power in the corporation. It left that
just where it was in the common stock. The main
issue, of course, between Billings and me to settle
was the price of our two new things in it.
We finally agreed that he would have one hundred
and fifty thousand dollars of the seven hundred thou-
sand dollars of new preferred for his factory; and
I'd get a hundred and twenty-five thousand for my
thing. That worked us out a good fair profit.
Then the rest of the preferred that didn't go as
commission to the New Yorkers would clear up
our debts, give us money for our finances, and set
us free finally out of Billings's control.
That's what made me stick up my head in the air
and snort the idea of being free again; more, a
hundred times, of course, than the little twenty-five
or thirty thousand dollars I was expecting to clear
on that other thing. I was feeling pretty good about
212 The Biography of a Million Dollars
that time sitting watching that New York crowd
shuffle the cards and put the deal through. Watch-
ing when I could that machine of theirs at work.
" We're all out after it," I was telling some of the
,boys in the train I had over to Lembach's at lunch.
" They can tell you something else. But that's
what we've all got on our minds nowadays. Easy
money quick ! All of us, from your slick crooked
chauffeur, lolling, waiting for the women shopping,
at the edge of a sidewalk, to the head of a trust in
his mahogany chair.
" But we're the dubs," I was saying to them.
' You and I. These bankers are the boys ! We
get up before the dew stops falling, and hustle and
sweat and get covered with oil and grease till the
stars come out. And they drop down at ten A. M.
in a limousine and sit there, and smoke their ciga-
rettes and watch us ; and figure how they're going to
take away what we've got and turn it into money
for themselves. Talk about your modern machin-
ery," I said. "They've got the machine for you!
A regular machine for manufacturing money. They
don't have to make or sell anything to get it. They
just make their money direct.
" I've been watching," I told them, " for the last
year or two in this town. And I know something
about them about their machine, and how they
work it. And it's a beaut! Take it from your
Uncle Bill. They've got their eyes out everywhere
in this town; nothing gets by them. They've got a
regular system of watching, through the banks and
each other ; they know everything that comes up and
A Little Something on the Side 213
looks good in town. And when it gets ripe, they're
there to pick it on the dot. They step right up,
some way, and declare themselves in."
" I guess there's something in that," said this fel-
low that was with me old Piggy Briggs.
" You bet your life there is," I told him. " You
know it as well as I do. I used to think it was
something pretty soft some pretty big money ! "
" It might strike some of the rest of us that way,
right now," said this other man this other fellow
that was with us.
" Pretty fair," I said, " at that, for ordinary folks.
But I've got a look in, lately, on a new thing
something that makes these fellows here look like
thirty cents in the Waldorf Astoria. I've got a
squint on these million dollar boys from New York
these Wall Street bankers."
" Tell us about them, quick," said Briggsy.
" You know as much as I do, probably," I said
to them " up-to-date. We all know about the
same. Only this " I said. " I know this. I
know they've got a machine stretching all over this
country, that makes this thing here look like nothing.
" You know what you've got to run up against in
business, getting money," I told them " always.
Well, I used to think at first it was just myself, not
getting in right to get them to lend me money just
what you'd got to expect to run against naturally in
any town, where they have a big strong bank. But,
oh, no, it's nothing like that! I got a look into i:
lately, working up a little stock deal. This thing
here in town is nothing but one little cog in a wheel.
214 The Biography of a Million Dollars
They're all meshed in together, all over the country,
in this big machine this money machine these fel-
lows are running for themselves down in New York.
You talk about coining money ! These fellows make
a million dollars every time we pick up ten. You
ought to watch them for a while. Oh, mama !
Oh, what a graft ! What a machine they have got !
They've got the whole country watched that way,
like Billings and his gang watch this town
through their banks and agents and one thing and
another. They all have to come and bring their
stuff to them sooner or later, from all over; to have
it turned into dollars. These fellows own the only
machine for it. All they have to do is watch, and
hold us all up and collect their pay three million
dollars apiece every afternoon at three o'clock.
" Oh, I've watched them a little here locally,
boys," I said. " I'm nobody's damn fool if I do
look it. I've watched them in operation. And be-
lieve me, one of these days I'm going to get my hand
in on that; I'm going to have some of that easy
money myself."
" Easy money! " said somebody, laughing, " easy
money! What do you know about that? Bill
Morgan moaning about easy money? The only
case on record in the United States of a man who
sprained his back picking up money out of the road.
It's in all the medical papers."
And they all began laughing
" Laugh, if you want to," said I. " You wouldn't
laugh so much, if you had to get up in the morning,
and follow me around doing my day's work. You'd
A Little Something on the Side 215
be wind-broken. Every one of you fat-handed,
hotel-fed loafers. But after this you hear me
I'm going to let up a little and make my money
easier. I'm going to get in on this other game now
and then. I've got a little deal on now," I told
them, " just a little starter, that looks good for just a
little bit of money."
" I'll bet it's a million dollars, or the old boy
wouldn't stoop over to pick it up," said this man who
was jollying me, and they all laughed again, down to
old Hansie, the waiter.
" Laugh, if you want to," I told them. " Go on.
I might have my million some day at that. But
whether I do or not, I'm going to take a crack at this
game these still-faced bank boys are doing. It's the
biggest thing in the country, and I'm going to learn
it and get in on it.
" I ain't afraid of them," I said, u nor to match
myself against them. None of us at this table need
to be, if we ever got anywhere near an even break
with them. Did you ever see them? " I asked this
man. " Did you ever know one of these still-faced
fellows in that sort of thing, personally? "
" I don't know as I have," he told me " very
well."
" A queer breed of cats," I said, seeing Proctor
Billings when I said it. " Still-faced dudes, la-de-da
boys, all of them. They'd die, every one of them,
on the spot, if they saw Charley Briggs here, that
time he was stewed in Chicago, eating his pie with his
knife."
' You lie, I never did! " said Charley.
216 The Biography of a Million Dollars
" Not a regular man in the whole bunch of them,"
I went along, paying no attention to him. " Not a
one of them that ever got out in a sand lot with the
other boys and played a game of ball when they were
kids. They catch them early," I said, " on account
of their fine complexions; and long white fingers."
" Like professional gamblers ! " said Charley.
" Sure," said I, " same thing! And then they put
them inside these banks, and train them for years to
keep their faces still doing a murder ! To put
over some new deal, without turning an eyelash.
Oh, you've got to watch them," I said, " every minute
of the day, and have a night watchman on them
nights."
And then I got up.
" I'm liable to have to see one this afternoon," I
said. And they all laughed. They knew what I
meant, of course. And I went out over and saw
Billings at his bank.
I was feeling pretty strong naturally; right up in
G with things moving the way they were. I had
been, ever since I'd seen I was going to get out from
that old stock-voting control of Billings', especially;
ever since I'd seen I was going to be my own man
again, when this financing was done.
" He was just telephoning to you, I think, Mr.
Morgan," said Billings' secretary, when I got there.
He was extra polite even for him, it seemed to me.
And then I went on through that private recep-
tion room, with the polished woodwork and the little
pictures of sheep on the wall. I had to smile when I
remembered that other time I was sitting there and
A Little Something on the Side 217
rl ' "I
waiting, shivering in my boots. And I went along
into Billings' office and tapped once and walked in,
smoking my cigar.
" Well," I said, sitting down, " how's she coming?
What do you hear from our friends in New York? "
And he handed me out then their last plan, as
they'd finished it. He didn't say anything. He sat
still and let me read it.
" This is just the same, ain't it? " said I. " The
preferred stock? "
" Exactly," he said.
"But what's this?" I said, turning the page.
" Here, this is a new one ! "
" That's their addition," said Proctor Billings.
" That's a change they have insisted on."
" Insisted on," said I. " What is it? "
" At the last minute," he said, " they decided that
to put it through, they would have to have that two
hundred thousand dollars of common stock in the
treasury, to give out as a bonus to their customers
two to every seven of preferred."
" They've got some nerve ! " said I.
" Well, that's what they ask," said Billings, and
closed up again.
"I don't like it, much not much!" said I,
studying. " If you ask me. And I'll "
u I know," he said. " But, of course, you get
your share of it with your preferred in this new
deal."
' Yes," I said, studying some more. " And so
do you. And look here," I said, for it struck me
then, naturally, right in the eyes. " Look here," I
218 The Biography of a Million Dollars
said. " What's this? You must think I'm a wise
boy. Oh, no!" I said. "No. No! Nothing
like this ! You can't slip anything like that over on
me!
" I God," I said, " that's certainly a raw one, even
for a bank man. I suppose," I said, " you thought
I wouldn't see the little joker in that."
" I had nothing to do with it whatever," he said,
getting white and still, and extra polite. " It was
all done in New York."
But I didn't pay any attention to him. I was
crazy.
" Oh, no," I said. " Nothing like that. I'll bust
it all up first and wipe it out all together.
" I like this," I said, getting madder and madder.
" Here I am, planning especially to get out from
under your control of the company. We agree that
I'm going to be my own man for once just as much
in the concern as you are. No more or no less.
And now you spring this on me the last minute.
When this goes through, according to the price you
set on your building and what I get for mine on this
other thing, you'll have more common stock than I
will. You'll have control of the company forever! "
" I told you once," he said, getting whiter, and
lowering his voice way down, " I had nothing to do
with the arrangement of the thing."
" Ah-ha," I said. " I heard you. But it hands
you the control just the same, don't it whoever
put it over. It does, don't it? " I said, facing him
with it.
" No," he said, cooler than ever, getting whiter
A Little Something on the Side 219
and colder as usual, when he got mad and
politer than polite.
" No ! " he said. " And now, if you will kindly
stop charging around like a wild animal, I shall be
very glad to discuss it with you. If you act like an
intelligent man."
" You tell me first," said I. " Don't this give you
more preferred stock than I've got? Don't that
give you absolute control? "
" Sit down," he said, those polished steel eyes on
me. ' That's what I'm trying to talk to you about
if you'll let me!"
CHAPTER XVIII
MUTUAL PROTECTION
" The first thing I'd like to ask you," he said, look-
ing at me, " if you don't mind, is just what your
attitude to this business is? "
" What do you mean by that," I came back at him.
" I mean what are you in it for, now, princi-
pally?"
" That's a weird question to ask a man," said I.
" I mean it," he said. " I would like to know."
" What am I in it for? " I said, staring at him.
" What would I be in it for? What is any man in
business for his health? I'm in it for what any-
body else is, I suppose ; for the good old stuff the
spondulax the iron man. I'm in it for just what
you are what you get out of it ! "
"Then you'd sell, if you got your price?" he
asked me, in that level voice, arranging a cigarette
in his long holder.
" Certainly I would, if I got my price, wouldn't
you?"
" Oh, yes," he said, lighting up his cigarette.
" Oh, yes, that's what I'm in here for admittedly
to make money pure and simple. To get in, and get
out, when I see a profit. But I always thought you
might take a different view of it."
"Different," I said. "How?"
Mutual Protection 221
" I've always thought," he said, " you might have
some sentiment about selling out."
"Mel" I said. "Sentiment! Well, that's a
new one. That's the first time anybody ever called
me sentimental yet."
And I stopped and laughed. I had to. ' Well,
I guess not; not if anybody came along once with my
price," I said, " he'd get my share here, so quick
it'd scare him."
" I'm glad to hear that personally. That sim-
plifies matters very much," said Billings.
'Why?" said I, stopping and looking at him,
wondering what he was up to now. ' What is
this ? " said I. " What's all this got to do with what
we've been talking about the control of this com-
pany."
I thought he was playing me off.
" Everything in the world," said Billings, " as I
see it."
" How do you figure that out? "
" I can show you that, my friend," he said, talk-
ing now in that kind of precise measured way he
talked sometimes, when he was getting over being
mad " in a very few words."
And I sat and watched him close.
' You say I will have control here, with that new
stock issue," he said. " If you think of it, you'll see
I'll have nothing of the kind."
" You'll have more stock than I will," I said.
" But not a majority," he told me.
; ' What difference does that make, practically?"
I said.
222 The Biography of a Million Dollars
" A great deal. No, we will be both in exactly
the same situation."
" I don't see it."
" The same situation," he repeated again, " and
the same danger! "
"What's that?" I asked.
" Each one will be exposed to the other one's
selling out any day to a third party to somebody
who has picked up enough more of that new stock to
give him a clear majority."
" Or one of us might buy enough to control, him-
self," said I, " for that matter."
" Exactly," said Billings.
" Well, we could fix that by agreement," said I,
11 1 should think."
" Yes," said Billings. " Yes. But the main dan-
ger from now on will be that at any time somebody
might come in and offer a real temptation for one or
the other of us to sell the other out."
"Come in," I said. "From where? Who'd
want to buy it? "
" Our New York friends may, for one," he told
me.
' The ones financing this? "
4 Yes. They've been getting into motor stocks
pretty deep lately. Personally, I think they're going
deeper. I believe, sooner or later, they're going to
make a great consolidation of motors," he told me,
when I asked him what it was. "And if they do, I
believe they could use our product to advantage.
That's just a guess on my part, of course," he told
me. " But it's a good fair guess. And whether it
Mutual Protection 223
is or not, whether we have an offer, either you or I,
I don't care myself for the chance of it all the
time. I don't know how you may feel about it,"
he went on, " but for my part I'm perfectly free to
say to you, I don't care to be in a situation where you
or any other man can sell me out any minute. It
isn't good business. It's bad for the nerves."
" Amen," I said, " I'm with you."
"You are?" he came back. "Well, then, all
there is to do is to devise some form of agreement
to cover the point for both of us."
" Go ahead," I told him.
" While we are operating the company together,"
he said then, " it will be simple enough. We can
vote our stock together, with certain rights agreed
upon between us. We haven't had much friction
so far!"
" No," I had to admit.
" The difficulty will come up when either of us
begins to think of selling. That's the thing we will
have to arrange between us for our mutual pro-
tection.
" There are several ways of doing it, of course,"
he told me. " You could bind yourself not to sell
out to a third party, without first giving the other
party to the agreement the right to buy at the same
figure."
" There's some objection to that, as I understand
it, ain't there? " I said.
" There is, yes. It might be difficult for the other
man to raise the money to buy, under certain condi-
tions, for so large a sum at any reasonable notice."
224 The Biography of a Million Dollars
" It might open a hole for funny business," I said,
" on the price by a fake offer from a third party,
for instance."
" It might," he said. And we both stopped,
thinking it over.
" You say," he asked me, after a minute, " that
you would sell, if you got your price? "
" You bet," said I.
" Have you ever thought," he said, " what your
price would be the limit? "
" I don't know as I have. Have you? "
" I've rather set a mark," he answered, " of what
I thought it might be possible to get out of it."
"What?"
"A million dollars!"
"For just your own stock," said I, sitting up.
" Yes."
'' Two million for both of us ! "
" I believe it might be possible."
" I don't believe you can do it in a thousand
years," I said. " I don't believe you can come within
a mile of it."
11 Would you be satisfied," he asked me, with
those still eyes of his, up watching me again, " with
that sum for your stock? "
" Would I be satisfied'' I came right back, " with
a million ! Two million for the two of us ! We'd
have a fat chance of getting it I "
" I'm not so sure."
" In cash, I mean, not just some new stock! "
" That's what I mean," he told me. " If I sold
at all."
Mutual Protection 225
I just laughed at him. It struck me funny.
"Well," he said then. "What if we do this:
We will pool the vote on our stock while we're here
together."
" That's all right."
" And agree for the present that neither one will
sell his share for less than a million."
" In other words," I broke in, " we'll stick to-
gether. We won't sell it at all."
" You seem to think so," he said. " I'm not so
sure. But if we both wanted to sell at any time,
of course, on any other basis, we could easily agree
to do it," he went on. We were getting down to
business now. He had cut out the frills and his
face was as still as the old man's in the oil painting
over him. I was getting busy myself, following to
see where his mind was going.
' That's right," I told him. I couldn't see any out
in that.
" Of course," he went along, and smiled a small
smile, " if we did sell for that two million, either
one or the other of us would have to do the selling."
" It won't be me," I said. " That ain't my line
just this minute."
" I do offer more chances along that line, I sup-
pose," he said.
" I'm willing to admit that," I told him, " always.
You'll handle it if anybody does in this combination.
Go on," I said, laughing again. ' Try it. I'd like
to see you.
" But there's one thing more," I said, stopping
short
226 The Biography of a Million Dollars
"What?"
" Whoever sells it whether you do or I do, the
other man's got to get exactly the same price for the
stock as the seller does. That'll be understood."
" That's agreeable to me," said Billings.
" Directly, or indirectly or any other way.
There'll be no rake-off for the seller in this abso-
lutely. No bonuses or commissions or side deals.
We each get just exactly what the other does on the
basis of the stock we own."
' That's agreeable to me," said Billings again,
not changing a muscle.
" All right."
" Then I'll tell you what we'll do," he said, sit-
ting up at his desk, after a minute " so it will be
absolutely sure. We'll sign two agreements I to
you, and you to me. We'll both agree, for a period
of three years, say, that if we hold the company,
we'll vote our stock together always."
11 Yes."
" But if either one can sell the other's stock for a
million dollars or more, he has the option to do so."
" Provided," I said, " he gets himself no more
than the other does."
" Exactly. I understand," said Billings. " But
if you can sell my stock, or I yours for a mil-
lion "
" You sell it," I said. " Quick as God'll let you.
Only remember," I said, " share and share alike, or
the whole thing's off; the option is no good."
" Certainly," said Proctor Billings. " That will
be part of the agreement. But under this arrange-
Mutual Protection 227
ment," he went along, " you're willing to let these
people go on with their financing it now? "
" Well, yes," I said, thinking a minute. " This
thing is a roast they're putting over now. It's a rot-
ten roast and a hold-up to get that common stock out
of the treasury that way. But I don't know what we
can do better do you ? "
" No, so long as we get a good share of it our-
selves."
' Well, then, let them go ahead, as far as I'm con-
cerned. I think it will be better business, everything
taken into consideration. That's what you think,
isn't it?"
' Yes, I think so," he said, sitting there with his
still fit on, watching his eyes clear as crystal,
and his face as still as an old cat looking around the
corner at a squirrel. " I think so on the whole."
So we went into it on that basis.
" And you want to get busy," I said, when I got up
to go, " right away. I'll be looking for my million."
" All right," he said, smiling. " I will. I don't
say I will get any such price, you understand," he
said, " I merely thought it would do no harm to
try."
" Oh, I understand," I said. " I was just kidding
you."
" Well, I'm very glad," said Billings, getting up
with his polite manners on full force, to let me out,
" we arranged it so easily. My father used to say,"
he said, turning back to the picture again, " it was
hard enough to divide losses, but it was the devil to
split up profits between two men."
228 The Biography of a Million Dollars
And he gave me a cold long hand again, and shook
hands, and I went out.
I didn't believe what he said; I didn't believe for a
minute that anybody was going to offer us a million
dollars for that property. But, yet, at the same
time, it didn't make me mad at all to hear him say it.
And we certainly weren't getting bad money now,
any way he put it. And all that afternoon, it kept
coming back to my head as if somebody was call-
ing it to me : " A million dollars. A million. Bill
Morgan, millionaire ! "
I went over to Lembach's for a little drink
after I left the bank; and then right over to the
office.
" A little more speed, Bill," I said to myself.
" You've been letting down a little, since this little
deal of yours was on. Back to the factory for
yours. A little more speed. You've got to gear up
a little bit higher, brother, if you're going into the 1
millionaire class! "
I sat there and jammed things around in the office ;
and kept the office force humming, and half of them
and myself after hours. They certainly heard from
me in the office that afternoon. With that, and
that luncheon and the boys, and the excitement of
talking with Proctor Billings over that stock thing,
my stomach went bad again, and I went home again
that night late and ugly feeling rocky.
It was that night, at the house, I first heard about
the Thomases and Chuck Powers.
'You know what Pasc and Zetta have done?"
Polly asked me when I got into the house.
Mutual Protection 229
" No."
" They've got Tom's boy for chauffeur; Pasc told
me today."
" The fools! " I said. " What's he thinking of.
That speed maniac!" I said. "They must be
crazy. He'll kill them all before he's through."
" I'd rather ride behind him," said Polly, " than
with Zetta, when she's out in that big new runabout
of hers."
' They're two of a kind,'' I said " she and the
boy."
" Maybe he'll be more careful," said Polly, " driv-
ing somebody else."
" He can't be," I told her. " It gets in the blood
after awhile. That's all he is, anyhow speed !
Speed," I said, " and some cheap tailor's clothes,
pressed up every morning."
" You're a little bit hard on him, I always
thought," said Polly.
And that made me hot, I suppose.
" Yes? " I said. " Well, I happen to know him,
that's all. That ain't the only thing either. From
all I hear, I don't think he's a fit thing to be driving
a decent woman around, anyhow."
" Oh, Bill," said Polly. " That kid! You men
are disgusting."
"What do you know about it?" I said to her.
" He's twenty-three, yes and he's older than most
of us at forty if you want to know ! If you want
to get an idea about what's what, you want to
stand for a minute, and listen to those kids, as you
call them those bottle-shaped loafers before the
230 The Biography of a Million Dollars
garage, tell what they know about the women going
by."
"I I'd like to," said Polly, getting sarcastic.
" It would be a nice thing for me to spend my time
doing."
" Well, you'll see me in the morning, going over
and telling Pasc what I think about it ! " said I.
" I would," said Polly. " I I'd make myself
just as popular as I could, mixing into family affairs
like that?"
" You trust me! " said I.
' Yes like a bull in a china shop," said she.
" You go to the devil ! I'll do what I want to,"
I told her; and turned over and tried to get to sleep.
I was feeling rotten still. My stomach was all in.
She was right though I wouldn't say it to her,
naturally. I was uglier than hell's kitchen, those
last few months, but I couldn't stop it. I seemed
to have no control over myself at all.
CHAPTER XIX
A DIFFERENCE OF OPINION
" Look here," I said to Pasc, a few days after
that, when I was stopping at his house. " What
are you trying to do kill your wife? "
" What do you mean? " said Pasc.
" Is it true, what I hear, you've engaged that
Chuck Powers for a chauffeur? "
' Yes," Pasc told me, acting a little bit awkward.
" He's going to work for us, temporarily, till he gets
something else."
' You ought to have more sense," said I.
" Don't you know he's the most reckless damned
driver in seven States. And here in town," I told
him, " he's got to be worse even. He's got to be
the town devil to hold up his reputation with those
half-baked young speed experts around the ga-
rage."
' Well," said Pasc, acting as if he didn't want
to talk about it, " it was Zetta's idea. And you
know how she is about a car now! "
' Yes, I know. Fifty miles an hour is loafing
through traffic! And that makes it all the worse."
' What is this? " said Zetta, coming in on us sud-
denly from the back room. " What are you saying
about me? "
232 The Biography of a Million Dollars
" I was saying to him," I said, making the best
of it, " he ought to have more sense than to get that
wild Chuck Powers to drive you around."
"Look here," she said, coming right at me, the
way I knew she would, " what's that to you?
Wasn't it enough," she said, snapping those black
eyes of hers, " for you not to give him a job, when
you owed it to him, without going around and try-
ing to push him out of one, when he gets it."
" I offered him a job. A darned good job," I told
her. " He'd have had it now, if he hadn't got such
a swelled head."
" He couldn't take it, if he wanted to," she said.
" His right hand is too stiff. He couldn't stand
it."
" His head's too stiff," I said, " from swelling up
between his ears. His hands are too clean, that's
all that ails them. He's got too much good looks.
He wants to stand around with the rest of those
cigarette holders, who lop around in front of the
garage and take the servant girls out on joy rides in
somebody's machine they couldn't pay for, if they
took all the pay for honest work they were ever
going to get in their lives ! "
i{ The trouble with you, Bill, is," she said, looking
me in the eye : " you've had it in for him ever since
he wouldn't take that job you offered him. You're
sore. I don't blame him a bit for not taking that job
even if he could do it. That ain't his kind of
work, anyway."
" No, he's too good for it," said I. " He's got
too good a shape."
A Difference of Opinion 233
" And besides," she went along, " if you want to
know, we've only got him temporarily till he gets
something else to do. We owed him that much,
anyhow! "
" Aiming at me, I suppose? " I said.
" If you want to take it! " she said. ' You owe
him as much as we do and more."
" Well, I've done what I'm going to," I told her.
" I certainly wouldn't do anything for him now
not after the way he's acted. But if you want to," I
said, " and want to get hung up on a telegraph pole
all right. Go ahead. I suppose you won't be
satisfied, anyhow, unless you're going five hundred
miles an hour in that runabout of yours. But that's
your lookout.
" That's your lookout," I said, getting hotter as I
went on. " But I wouldn't have him around on gen-
eral principles. He's a bad egg all the way through.
I wouldn't board him in my dog house," I said.
" And I know what I'm talking about."
" So do I," said Zetta. " Let's talk about some-
thing else."
I was right, just the same, and I knew I was,
though, naturally, I shut my mouth up then. That
boy had gone bad since he'd been in that riding game,
traveling around in the country, learning all the
worst of the nasty underground things that a bunch
of fresh young kids poking around from one city
to another get taught to them. He was a handsome
looking devil now. And he'd come back, like one of
those kings of the dare-devils in the movies, a real
hero, standing around with that bunch in front of the
234 The Biography of a Million Dollars
garage, making comments on mankind in general,
with just two ideas in their noodles women and
speed; how they're going to sneak off with some-
body's machine, and take some cheap girl carousing
around the country at sixty miles an hour, with a
ten-dollar bill they've managed to knock down on
the garage charges of their employers. I know that
bunch; don't fret. I've watched them; and he was
the wisest of the lot, the wisest, hardest boy there
under contract to be, you might say.
But I didn't say anything more about it then. I
had my own business to attend to. I never spoke of
it again, till that talk began to go around.
" Do you know what I heard to-day? " Polly asked
me, one night, after we went to bed.
" No."
" A woman told me you know who that it
was all around that Zetta is over in Watertown at
that swell roadhouse there, dancing with that Tom's
boy. People who've been over there have seen her
several times dancing with him."
" I don't believe it," I said. " I know who it was
told you and I don't believe it."
" It might be, at that," said Polly, " over there
thirty-five miles away, where she'd think nobody from
here would come."
1 You've got that wrong," I said. " She's got
more sense. She wouldn't do it."
" I don't know," said Polly. " She might. The
girl's half crazy. She don't know what to do with
herself since they got their money, especially.
She can't be attending Pasc all the time, and she's
A Difference of Opinion 235
never found anybody here that she liked. And no-
body's taken her up anywhere."
" Ah-ha, maybe," I said. " But you're wrong
about this other thing."
She wasn't though. I heard it several places after
that. If the devilish boy hadn't had such a repu-
tation everywhere as a general all-around, still-
mouthed devil, it would have been different. If he
had been an ordinary chauffeur even, but he was
something else. He was better than just a chauf-
feur, in a way. He was a kind of a town character
a celebrity. Everybody knew about the thing.
And by and by it got too strong for me to stomach.
" Now here, Pasc," I said, going to him finally.
" I'm going to talk to you like a Dutch uncle."
" What about? " said Pasc, staring at me.
He was looking awful thin and old lately. Those
pale eyes, looking at you, from way down in their
sockets deeper and deeper.
'' When are you going to let that young fool that's
driving Zetta around for you go? " I asked him.
''Why?" Pasc asked, looking up quickly.
'What do you mean? Have they had any more
accidents I haven't heard about? "
' They've had enough, I guess," I said. " I've
known of three. He'll get her some day. Or she'll
get herself, driving along those country roads at
such a clip."
" I know it," said Pasc. " But what can I do?
That's what she wants. That's exactly what she's
after now tearing around in that car, and I can't
stop it."
236 The Biography of a Million Dollars
" Yes, you can stop it, too," I said, getting mad
at that soft easy-going way he always had toward
her. " You've got to. If you don't want to get
her killed!"
" He's a wonderful driver," said Pasc. " You've
got to say that for him ! "
" That's the kind that always get theirs," said
I, " sooner or later. And besides that, he ain't
driving all the time. She's doing some of it.
And there ain't any woman alive that's fit to drive
at those high speeds not if she once gets in a
pinch!"
" Zetta's got a pretty good head on her," said
Pasc, arguing with me.
" Maybe she has," I said, getting excited, I sup-
pose, arguing. " You can take a chance with her, if
you want to. But that ain't the only thing either.
He's not a fit man to be driving around your wife
or anybody's wife."
; ' Who says so I " he said, starting up.
" I say so," I came back. " You know his repu-
tation, as well as I do. If you don't you ought to,
dragging these fool girls around nights, in your car,
when you ain't home. I don't suppose, maybe, you
know all that," I said, thinking "with your eyes
turned inside out all the time you're awake, looking
at some new carburetor. But you ought to. If
you don't, it's time you did.
" Now, look here," I said kind of sorry for
him, the way I always was, when I saw him hand-
ling practical things; "while I'm at it, I'm going
through with what I've got to say. You and Zetta
A Difference of Opinion 237
are my friends. I haven't got any better that I
know of! "
" I don't think you have," said Pasc, getting em-
barrassed.
" And I know what I say to you is right. And
you'll take it the way I mean it. It ain't the right
thing to have that boy driving Zetta around all times
of the day and night, stopping at hotels and tea
houses for refreshments. You and I know it's all
right," I hurried up to say. " But it don't help her
any. It can't help but make people talk."
" I'd like to hear 'em," said Pasc, his old leather
face set.
" Well, they're doing it all right," I said. " You
might just as well face the thing as it is."
He put his head down for quite a while after that
I waiting for him.
" I'm sorry for that," he said. " I'm sorry that's
come " and stopped.
" But it's my fault if it has," he went on then,
when I'd waited. " I take all the blame for it my-
self."
" Oh, rats," I told him. " Blame nothing! "
" I do," he said. " I'm a fit person for anybody
to live with, let alone a quick, lively, full-blooded
young woman like Zetta to be tied to ! I'm nothing
but a sick brain sitting in a chair, turning itself inside
out, hunting a new idea for a carburetor; keeping on
and on because it has to. With no more control over
its motions than a clock has."
" I do think you could let up some," I told him,
" for your own sake as well as hers. But that ain't
238 The Biography of a Million Dollars
what I'm talking about now. What you want to do
now is to fire that boy."
"How can I?"
"Why can't you?"
" Zetta won't listen to it," he said. " Not till
he gets another job. She says we owe it to him
and a lot more than we'll ever pay."
" The hell we do," I said, getting hot again.
" That's what she says, and what she'll stick to
you know that. Especially when he's down and out
kind of this way."
I could see that, of course.
" Well, I'll tell you what I'll do," I said, thinking
it over. " I'll do what I said I'd never do. But
I'll do it for you ! I'll get a place for him an
agency. I'll make it for him ! "
" Much obliged to you, Bill; that's almighty nice
of you," said Pasc. " Not that I think a whole lot
about what you've just been saying about this other
thing. Though I've taken it as you meant it! It's
all right from you ! " he went on. " But I'll say
this. I am worried half crazy sometimes think-
ing about her tearing around any old road, all
kinds of hours and weather, with that reckless boy
driving her, or she driving him, which is even
worse."
" But there's one thing," I said, waiting for him to
get through, " I won't do ! I won't go to him, and
offer a job to him myself again. I won't do that
under any circumstances."
" I tell you what I wish you would do," said Pasc,
" I wish you'd go to Zetta and get her to take it up
A Difference of Opinion 239
with him. I think there'd be more of a chance of
him taking it."
"Taking it! " I said. "Taking it!"
" From you," said Pasc. " You've got to re-
member he's terrible sore at you. I don't really
believe anybody but Zetta could get him to take it."
" You make me laugh," said I. " But I'll go.
I'll see her. But I won't see him! "
So I went to her, and told her what I'd do.
" I'll see," said Zetta. " But I tell you now, I
don't believe he'll do it."
" You ask him," I told her. " And then you'll
know better. What he wants is a piece of easy
money."
" It isn't so," said Zetta.
" Well, there it is," I said. " That's what he
asked for. Now he's got it."
" All right. I'll take it up with him," she said.
But a day or two afterwards, when I went in to
see about it, she said: " It's just as I thought; he
wouldn't take it. He said he wouldn't take a job
from you if it was his last meal on earth."
"He won't, eh?" I said, getting mad, and a
little surprised, at that. " Well, he don't have to.
But that shows you just what he is. He don't want
to work. He's got a snap, and he knows it. He's
bad clear through; that's what's the matter with
him."
" I don't think so," said Zetta, her mouth setting.
" I don't think that's the way he is at all."
" Now, look," I said. " I want to ask you some-
thing."
240 The Biography of a Million Dollars
" Go ahead," she said.
" Are you still going to keep him? "
"Why not?"
" Well, I'll tell you why not, if you want to
know," I said. " In the first place, you've got Pasc
scared to death jumping four ways for Sunday,
for fear you'll get killed smashed up with that
reckless fool."
" There's nothing to it," she said. " He's one
of the best drivers in the country."
" Well, you ought to think of Pasc, anyway," said
I. " How he feels ! "
" How often does he think of me? " she said, her
eyes getting sharp and shiny. " Or anything besides
that fool carburetor! No. / can take care of
myself!"
1 That's a nice thing to say," I said.
"Isn't it!" she said after me, her eyes getting
hard.
" Yes," I came back at her. " It is. And there's
something else, too, as long as we're on the sub-
ject. There's a second thing."
" What is it?" she asked, in a kind of a sharp
suspicious voice.
" He's not a fit man to be driving you, or any
other woman around.
' You must know that," I said, when she didn't
answer. " If you don't, you ought to."
" Go ahead now you've started," she said, her
eyes getting a still, dangerous light in them.
"What else?"
" Nothing else," I said. " Except that you can't
A Difference of Opinion 241
do it or any other woman can't without get-
ting talked about."
" Do what? " she said.
" Go around driving up and down the country
stopping at tearooms and restaurants danc-
ing " I said. I looked away from her and said
it. I thought I would get it out once and for all.
" What is this you're giving me," she said, very
low and quiet. "An insult?"
' You know it ain't," I said.
And she stopped a minute, her mouth shut down
tight.
" If anybody else said that to me, I'd kill them,"
she said then and stopped, getting hold of her-
self again.
" I'll tell you this," she said finally, " so you'll
know. Pasc knows all about what I do every-
thing and has from the first."
" I don't doubt that," I said.
" And it's nobody else's business," she went on,
giving me a stare.
" Maybe it ain't," I said. " But that don't pre-
vent their making it their business."
" It's nobody's business," she said, " if I want to
go out, and amuse myself and get a little excite-
ment out of life. And not sit at home, and mope
around with a monomaniac a man with one idea
in his head."
"Don't!" said I.
" No. I'll take that back," she said. " He's al-
most sick, I know that. But he don't treat me
fair!"
242 The Biography of a Million Dollars
" He wouldn't treat you bad for the world," I
told her.
" No, he don't beat me up," she said, in a kind
of bitter voice. " I wish to God he would some-
times, so I'd know he noticed me ! "
And we both sat still a minute.
" I try to do what I can," she went on. " I did
try to keep him interested the best I could. But
it wasn't any use. He won't even look up and look
at me, the way a man looks at a woman he cares for.
So I've cut it out.
" So I do what I can to keep him well," she said,
in this bitter voice; " and when I can't do anything
else, I get out. I've got a right to that much !
" Besides," she said, letting down a bit, " I'm
doing nothing wrong or underhanded. I've told
him what I did. He understands it perfectly well."
" Yes," I said. " So do I. But the rest of them
don't."
" What do I care," she said, letting go of herself
her cheeks with deep red spots in them, " for
the rest of them? What they say! I don't give
that," she said, snapping her fingers. " Or for you
either ! " she said all at once to me her breathing
coming quicker.
' You come in here, and insult me ! In my own
home," she said. "What do you think I am? I
won't stand it you you get "
" Hold on, Zet; wait before you go that far! "
said I. " I'm not doing this for my own amuse-
ment. I've got something else to occupy my mind
but going around insulting women. I'm doing this
A Difference of Opinion 243
because you and Pasc are the two best friends I've
got or I think you are. And I'd be damned sorry
if you'd ever go to smash, any way. That's what
I'm here for now. And you know it just as well as
I do."
And she looked down and didn't say anything
back to me.
" Don't you? " I asked her.
' Yes. I guess so! " she said finally.
" I don't go whispering, and goggling behind your
back. I come to you man fashion and tell you
what's going on, like a friend should or I think he
should, anyhow.
" I come to you," I said, " because I've got a
license to if anybody has. I'm just telling you facts
you ought to know. And you've got no business to
get mad over it not for a minute."
"I suppose you're right maybe " she said,
after awhile, thinking.
And I sat still, waiting to see if she'd say anything
more.
" I always said," she came out finally, " I wouldn't
explain to anybody. It was nobody s business
but I will to you," she said, " as long as it's come
up this way."
And then she went along to tell me about herself.
" For the rest of them," she said "all of them,
except you and Polly, I don't give one little silver
damn. And the women especially. Especially the
women! I never liked one scarcely, in my life.
Not scarcely one. They're mean-spirited, small-
souled things the whole of them. I always liked
244 The Biography of a Million Dollars
the men better. They're kinder hearted, and more
charitable at bottom. They'd do more for you in
trouble."
And she told me again about how she was raised,
and about her father an old-fashioned, horsey
kind of a man, who kept a livery stable in a small
town ; one of those old-time, free-and-easy horse men.
" He was as fine a man, if I do say so," she said,
holding her head up, " as anybody ! We had more
money, and spent more than almost anybody else in
that narrow-minded, mean-spirited, little, psalm-sing-
ing country village. There wasn't a man there who
didn't like him and say he was a good fellow.
But did any of those dowdy, beady-eyed, bony-souled
New England women have anything to do with us?
Not on your life.
' The more I see of women," she broke out again,
" the more I despise them. They ain't half so kind
minded as a weasel. Except now and then, a few
of them " she said again, and tears came into her
eyes - " like my mother was. Except when they
come like my mother and your wife like old Polly.
And then they're half angels too " she said and
stopped.
" Little sandy-headed, spunky angels," said I,
smiling at her, letting her get on her feet again.
"Eh?"
' Yes," she said, nodding her head, going on
finally. * Too good and kind to count in with the
rest of us ordinary folks.
'' I'm a fool! " she said, and took out her hand-
kerchief.
A Difference of Opinion 245
" See here," I said, after awhile, " Zet. Ain't
this thing half your fault? Don't you stand the
women off, as much as they do you? "
" What chance did they ever give me home,
or here in this town either? Oh, I know," she
said. " I dress too gay. I talk too loud for them!
I'm looking for too much excitement.
" Oh, I know them, as if I'd made them," she
said. " And worked out their poor little hand-em-
broidered souls for them ! "
" I don't believe it," I said. " If you went out
to play with them, they'd come in and play with
you."
" Who wants to play with them those frozen-
faced frumps?" she said to me. "I can have
some amusement of my own if I have to."
" If you met them half-way like Polly does,"
I said; " and showed them you liked them! "
"That's different," she said. "Polly's differ-
ent."
" Nonsense," I said. " Different nothing. You'll
be just the same yourself, when you get in your new
home up on the hill with us."
That was just after we'd bought our new house on
High Hill.
" You'll get in just as well as we did."
" No, I won't," said Zetta. " And I don't want
to. And about this other thing," she said, " we were
talking about; I shall go ahead, just as I always did
so long as Pasc knows about it. So long as he
says nothing, it's nobody else's business, if I want
to get a little excitement out of life. You've got
246 The Biography of a Million Dollars
to remember, Bill, I'm not getting any younger."
" Yes, you're terribly old," I said.
" I'm thirty pretty near," she said. " And if
I'm going to get anything out of being young, I've
got to get busy. And as far as I look at it, it don't
seem to me wildly wicked for me to go out and see
other people enjoy themselves, dancing around."
" And dance around yourself, occasionally."
" Mighty seldom," she came back quick. " Only
once or twice, when I just had to. Of course they'd
make it a hundred, if they saw it once! I had to,
Bill, I was feeling so'darned blue. I get that way,
every now and then, Bill; you know it. I get des-
perate. I just get where it's anything for a little
excitement.
" And so far as this boy goes," she said, " you're
wrong about him. You don't do him justice in the
first place. You can't after that row with him.
He's nothing but a boy I'm a grown woman to
him.
" But if he was all you said he was," she went on,
when I didn't say anything, " do you think for a
minute I'm not able to take care of myself? The
first minute he got gay," she said, her eyes flashing,
" what would happen? What do you think! " she
asked me.
" I suppose you'd eat him alive," I said.
" But that ain't it."
" It is, too," she said, " so far as I'm concerned.
What do I care what they say? You don't know
how it is, Bill," she said. " Being cooped up. Be-
ing a woman all the time on your good behavior I
A Difference of Opinion 247
You don't know what it is not to have something to
do. Do you now?" she asked me. "Imagine
yourself! "
" No, I suppose I don't," I told her.
" Except tend a sick man who doesn't want you
around."
" That ain't so," I told her. " And you know it."
But she just shook her head. " I oughtn't to be
a woman," she said. " I wish a thousand times I
could have been a boy instead of a girl. But it
ain't really anything we can help, is it?" she said
and smiled at me again a little crooked.
" No," I said. " But for God's sake, Zetta, do
what I tell you. Cut this boy out."
" I can't do it, Bill," she said.
" Can't why not? " said I.
" I can't," she said. " I won't throw him down
now. When he's fixed the way he is. I owe him
something. And I like him in a way."
"Why?"
" He's such a young untamed devil, I guess," she
said. " He don't care what he does. I guess
maybe that's one main thing. And he's in hard luck.
You don't believe it, but he is I He's desperate.
"But you didn't ever think?" she said, all at
once her voice getting sharp and hard again.
4 Think nothing, Zet ! You know me better than
that," I said to her. " I like you. I always did
like you. And I'd trust you anywhere. There ain't
a crooked hair in your head. Only I think you're
a little damn fool about this thing and you've
got to stop it."
248 The Biography of a Million Dollars
" That's my business," said Zet.
" Look," I said, when she shook her head at me.
" You will do this much ; you'll try again to get him
to take that job of mine. Insist on it."
" Yes. I'll try," she said finally. " But it won't
be any good any more than it was before. I can
tell you that in advance.
" You don't like him, Bill," she told me again.
She'd let down a little and was talking less excited.
" And when you come down to it, you didn't treat
him right. I know just the way it happened.
When he got fresh, or when you thought he did,
you had to get up and snatch his ears off the first
time he disagreed with you. And you've never for-
gotten it. And you never will. Oh, I know you,
Bill," she said, " down to the ground. And so does
everybody else.
" And there's another thing, while we're at it,
talking out this way, Bill," she said to me. " I've
wanted to say it for some time."
"What?"
' That Proctor Billings is going to get you, be-
fore you get through trim you bad," she said,
looking through me with those smart black eyes of
hers.
" Why? What makes you think so? "
" I know it."
"How?"
" I don't know how."
" I guess you don't."
" I don't know how," she said. " But I know
he will. You're too slam bang downright; you can
A Difference of Opinion 249
jam a thing through, all right, Bill; but you can't
sit in with Proctor Billings on that game he's playing
with those still-faced boys, as you call them.
Sooner or later, they'll get you."
" Don't you worry," said I.
" And I ain't the only one who thinks so, either,"
she told me. " I've heard them."
" Don't fret not too much," I told her.
" I've warned you, anyway," she said, " of what
I think, and what they're saying."
I didn't ask her who; I didn't attach enough im-
portance to it. And then I came away good
friends with her still. Thinking it all over, about
her and how she was fixed with Pasc and his inven-
tions; and that crazy, reckless, bad-eyed boy, racing,
faster and faster every hour, downhill to the
devil.
" How much is there in what she says? " I said to
Polly, after we'd gone to bed that night. " Are
they really trying to freeze her out the women
here?"
" They don't like her. They're not much struck
on any of us I guess," she told me, " if the truth was
known."
"Why not?"
" For one thing, we've made too much money, too
quick," she said. " And then again, we aren't like
them I "
"Why not?" said I. "We're decent people.
Just as good stock as they are."
"We're not, that's all," she said. "We ain't
like them. We haven't been raised the same. It'll
250 The Biography of a Million Dollars
be different with the children. I can see that al-
ready."
" There's one thing," I said. " They won't be
darned snobs if they don't want their heads
knocked off!"
We were up there by that time, in that High Hill
neighborhood that swellest part of town; near
the Proctor Billings, and the Waterburys, and the
Fenby Lesters. Billings had helped get us in there
in that old Banks' house that had been for sale
so long. And I felt the neighborhood, I thought,
myself, sometimes kind of stiff in the back of my
neck.
" She's entirely different from them, too," said
Polly, thinking. " You can't get around it. She
hasn't got along here in town, a bit."
" She lays it all to the women," said I.
" Well, she's right," said Polly. " They don't
like her."
" Why? Just for what reason? "
" Her dresses," said Polly. " She dresses pretty
gay, for one thing, for a town outside of New York.
And she is pretty fond of color. She would be
noticeable anywhere. Then there's her high voice.
And they don't like her grammar, either."
" Nor her good looks, I guess," I said " prob-
ably!"
" Probably not," said Polly. " But she is pretty
reckless pretty lawless, you'll have to admit."
" She seems to always have to have excitement,"
I answered.
" She lives on it," said Polly.
A Difference of Opinion 251
" But you agree with her," I said. * You think
it's the women that have got it in for her? "
" Yes, I do."
" What little mean things they are," I said.
" Yes, in a way," said Polly. " I suppose so. I
suppose they are. I suppose they've got to be.
They're brought up that way. They live in a world
of little things terribly small. Their main pleas-
ure, I think sometimes, is seeing differences think-
ing they and their folks are better than somebody
else. They are just the same, I always thought, till
they die, as they were when they were children.
They never grow up, that way. They're just the
same exactly as those little snippy kids who used to
go to public school when we did, and went off by
themselves together, because they had kid shoes and
handmade underwear when the rest of us couldn't
afford it.
"No; you can't get around it, Bill," said Polly.
" Women are that awful little in such things.
But it ain't all bad either," she said. " It's a good
thing some ways, I think sometimes."
" Good. How? " said I. " I don't see it."
" It makes them want to keep themselves up, all
the time, and their children. Make them look good,
and act decent, and keep up appearances, and get in
with better people, always more educated. And
that goes a long ways sometimes. Men don't mind.
They're kind of careless about such things. And
somebody's got to do it. Somebody's got to keep
up. It does a lot of good, taken all together. And
it's a woman's job."
252 The Biography of a Million Dollars
" I don't see it," I said. " That's stretching it
pretty far."
" It's right though," said Polly. " It's better a lot
of times it has more influence on other women,
what the women say and think, than all the police
force in the country, that's my opinion."
" What a queer old girl you are, Pol," I said, pat-
ting her.
" It's true, all the same," she told me. " And
that's one main trouble now with Zetta. She won't
pay any attention to them what they say, or what
they think. She goes right ahead and does what
she pleases."
" No," said I. " She doesn't give a hoot for
anybody; she never did."
"Perfectly lawless," said Polly. "You can't
blame them. She's got started, and she won't stop;
and the more they say, the more she'll defy them.
But you can't blame them, either, their talking about
her."
" I suppose not," I said. " She's changed a whole
lot," I went along, after awhile, " in the last few
months. The strain of it's telling on her."
" It is," said Polly.
" I don't think I ever saw anybody change so
much in such a little time. She used to be such a big
strapping good-humored thing. Now she acts as
if the devil was eating her raw. I never knew any-
body to change so," said I.
" I have," said Polly.
"Who?"
"You I"
A Difference of Opinion 253
" Don't start that again," I said. And then I
rolled over and went to sleep. I had something else
on my mind to think about but women and their
troubles, and what they thought. I had something
big coming on now.
CHAPTER XX
WORD FROM NEW YORK
Proctor Billings had called me over to the bank
the first of that week; and the minute I went in, I
knew there was something on. He was so terribly
polite and polished. You could quite often tell that
one way, that something was coming good or
bad. You very likely didn't know which. But that
was the one way he had of warning you of show-
ing his feelings in any way. But when he was ex-
tra polite look out for something I
He sat there a minute or two, putting another
gold engraved cigarette in his holder. Then he
showed me the cut flowers on his desk.
" Orchids," he said. " I'm trying them in my
conservatory a little. Aren't they good?"
I guessed then it was something pleasant he had
to tell me. And right after that it came out.
' You know what I think? " he asked me.
"No what?" said I, waiting for him.
" I think I'm going to take up that option."
"What option?"
14 That one on your stock."
" For that million dollars," I said, stiffening up.
* Yes," he said, very cool and calm. " I think
now I can get us both our million dollars, for that
stock."
Word from New York 255
"Goon!" I told him.
" Yes."
"Apiece?"
" Yes."
"How?" said I.
" That Universal Motors combination they're
forming just as I thought they would," he went
on, explaining. " They'll take in one motor cycle
company, if they have the chance."
" How do you know? "
" I have had it from headquarters," said he.
" From New York. Our same people are running
it Magnus and Company, the ones who financed
us. You know that, of course.
" And I believe," he said, " if you and I manipu-
late it as it should be done; if we stand out together,
we can get our million apiece for our stock here.
" If we want it now! " he said.
"If we want it!" I said. "Oh, no, we don't
want it! You don't, do you, Boy?" said I, slap-
ping him on the shoulder.
He took it like a little man. He even smiled a
little.
" Yes, I think I would take it," he said, taking
his cigarette holder out of his mouth slowly.
" Oh, no. We don't want it," said I. " Gripes
if I saw a million dollars for that stuff of mine,"
I said, " I'd grab it and run down the road so fast
you couldn't see me in a month for dust."
" And I think, in addition," Billings went on,
making another smile again, " I could get you
placed at a big salary in the motor cycle end of the
256 The Biography of a Million Dollars
company. I'd drop out, of course, when they left
town here."
"Where'd they go?" said I.
" To Detroit, I suppose. They'd want to fit it in
with the rest of the plant. There's where the
money would be for them saving on the overhead
costs, and the agencies."
" Look," said I, " wouldn't they want to pay it
out to us in stock? "
" Not to me," said Billings. " Cash only."
" Same here," I said. " I don't know anything
about that other thing. You wouldn't know what
you got hold of any more than fishing at night."
"Shall I go ahead then?"
" You bet you shall," said I.
I was feeling my oats pretty well when I went out
through that waiting room that morning that
old private cooler where Proctor Billings had them
wait for him to see them. And the pictures of the
sheep. I had to smile, thinking of everything going
out
But I struck a snag right away I'd never dreamed
of with Polly.
"What do you think of this, Pol?" I said.
"Eh? A million dollars in cash if we can get
it! And we might, at that! What would we have
thought five years ago? Great business, eh?"
" Great," she said, getting excited. "I I'm
awful glad you're going to get it, Bill. I is it all
to be in money? "
" It will be, if we take it."
" That that's fine," said Polly, brightening up
Word from New York 257
a lot. " That'll mean you'll have a chance to get
out and rest up for awhile."
" Not so you notice it," I said. " Not if what
we want goes through. I stay with it as man-
ager."
" Oh," said Polly, pulling off. " Then I don't
care about it. It don't interest me."
" Don't interest you ! " said I.
" No," she said. " It don't mean anything to
me a million dollars any more; only a lot of
figures. We've got all the money we want long
ago, and more. What I'm interested in is you.
What I thought was that you were going to stop
for awhile."
" Well, I guess not," I said. " If I can help it.
Why should I? I never felt better in my life.
I'm as fresh as a daisy."
'Why why should you?" said Polly, firing
up again. ' Well, if you lived with yourself, you
wouldn't have to ask that question. You're all to
pieces," she said, her voice getting sharp. " Your
digestion's gone. Your nerves are jangling all the
time. Why wouldn't they be? U-up all hours of
the day and night, at the factory. O-out ever) 7
day and half the night, eating heavy meals at that
Lembach's and the Elks with those men. You
can't stand it. Nobody can. You're different en-
tirely. You're like a bear with a sore head. No-
body can look at you, but you get up and want to
bite them."
" I must be a nice thing to live with, according to
you," I said.
258 The Biography of a Million Dollars
" You are," said Pol. " And it's a shame too,"
she said, after awhile, " when you're naturally so
good tempered when you aren't all to pieces!
That's why I wanted to jump up and laugh out
loud when I heard it. I thought you were going to
sell out for good."
" You laugh too quick," I told her.
" Bill," she said, coming over and putting her
arm around me. " You've been going too fast.
You can't do it. You don't see it, but I do. You
don't want to get laid out, like Pasc, do you a
chronic invalid? "
" I'm not Pasc," I said.
" No," she said. " But you're flesh and blood,
just the same if you don't think so. You can't
stand this always. I know; I can see."
" I wish you'd stop giving out that moan about
Pasc," said I, getting sore. " I'm sick and tired of
hearing it. I'm not like Pasc in the slightest de-
gree. And you know it. I'm no broken-down bag
of bones."
" N-no," she said, hurrying it out. " You're big
and fat and puffy. Just as bad the other way.
Just as bad exactly."
" Oh, piffle," I said, shaking her arm off.
' There you go again! " she said.
;< Well, this hasn't been done yet," said I.
' Very likely it won't ever be. The probabilities
are we'll stay right here and keep on going the way
we are now."
" And, as for going to Detroit," said Polly. " I
wouldn't stand for that, anyhow."
259
"You wouldn't," said I, staring at her; "well,
drop it. It hasn't happened yet I " And I got out,
and went down the street.
It made me pretty sore, what she said. But
there was something in it. I was ugly lately. I
felt worse all the time like a vicious dog.
" I don't know what's got into me lately," I said,
going down to the Elks. " My digestion's all out
of whack. I guess that's it all right. It must be.
I'll have to be a little more careful 1 "
Two days afterwards I heard from Proctor
Billings that our thing would probably go through
price and all. And the thirty thousand dollar a
year job for me if I wanted it!
I felt pretty good, naturally. I stopped into
Lembachs for lunch, and I ate more than I ought
to grilled clams, I think it was that was their
specialty. Or something else pretty heavy. When
I got through I had to go home. I had one of
those bilious headaches again.
" I don't see what it is, Pol," I said, when I got
home. " I never used to be like this. My stomach
seems to be all shot to pieces."
" You'll find out what it is," she said, " if you
keep on going like this much longer."
" You may be right," I said, rolling. " Gripes! "
I was in awful pain. " I'll have to cut it out some,
I guess. I'll have to get out and eat simpler."
"I'd like to see you!" said Polly. "While
you're doing what you are now. I'd like to see you
stop, when anybody wants you to anything!
" No, you won't stop, ever. You'll do exactly
260 The Biography of a Million Dollars
what you please, without regard for me, or any-
body else. I I'd like to pound you," she said,
getting red, clenching her fist. " I wish I was
strong enough. I'd beat you into a thousand pieces
till you had some sense !
" Oh, Bill," she said, throwing her arms around
me again, and reaching up with the other hand,
trying to feel my forehead. " Why are you such
an idiot?"
And I pushed her away from me.
" Get away," I said. " Let me alone, will you?
If there's anything makes me tired it's a woman
pawing around you when you're sick! "
" Have it your own way," said Polly, shutting
her mouth together and leaving the room.
" You bet I will," I said. And I turned my face
over to the wall and took it, for the next three
hours.
There were several days that she and I didn't
talk on that main subject to both of us. We kept
off it. We always had, on things like that, since
we'd lived together.
' That's one thing I won't do," said Polly, right
after we got married. " We won't have any argu-
ing going on in this house. We're both too quick-
tempered. I didn't marry to start a debating so-
ciety. If anything comes up we can't agree on, we'll
just drop it, and cool off." And that's what we
always did, or she did dropped the thing, and
cooled off, and kept her mouth shut.
But this thing couldn't be dropped. It came up
all at once, and it got going fast, and had to be
Word from New York 261
settled. Within a week Proctor Billings sent for
me to sign up and confirm that option that he could
have my stock to hand over to those New York
people.
" It's all right," said Polly, when I told her what
I was going to do and her mouth tightened up.
"I could stand for it, I suppose! All but one
thing!"
"What?"
" Going out to Detroit."
" Don't be an obstinate fool. That's one of the
best parts of it for me in a business way. I'll
just be getting good and started when I get out
there."
" I won't do it, that's all. I warned you before-
hand," she said. " And I won't."
"You won't, eh?"
" No," she said, tightening her lips again. " I
won't!"
And we stood and glared at each other.
" I won't," she said and her face got white,
starting around her mouth. " I told you I
wouldn't, and I won't. I won't pull everything up
again and move the third time in six years
way out there."
And I didn't say anything for fear I'd be sorry.
" Oh, Bill," she said, almost crying. " Just
when we got started so well here. When the chil-
dren have got their little friends! In three years
Junior will be all ready to go to Yale with all the
rest of the boys."
"And what else?" I stood and asked her. I
262 The Biography of a Million Dollars
could see there was something beside that; that this
was only excuses the way women do covering
up the main thing. "What else?"
" No, sir," she said, getting kind of hysterical.
"I I won't. I I won't go to Detroit and
you won't, either! If I've got to bury you if
you can't take the money they offer you and get out
and rest, I'd rather stay just where we are and keep
the business. I'd rather bury you here where I've
got friends, then out in Detroit, where we haven't
got any! "
" So that's it," I said. " That's what's on your
mind."
" Yes yes, it is," she said. " If you want the
truth, I'm worried to death about you. And you
know it."
And then she kind of broke down.
" Well, then, you've got to get over it," I said,
keeping away from her. I was going to break her
of that, if I could. " Because if I'm sick, it's mostly
in your head. Cheer up ! " I said. " Your im-
agination's got loose, and is running away with you.
I'm not going to die right off ! "
' Well, you wouldn't want to be a half invalid
all your life, like Pasc," she said, easing up a little
and staring. " Just for nothing at all. Just for
rushing around and tearing around for more money
when we've got the chance now to get out, with
more money than we will ever know what to do
with."
" Well," I said. " If that's all the matter, just get
it out of your head ! I'm good for a long time yet."
Word from New York 263
" You don't sleep decently, your digestion's all
gone. And you're smoking all the time," said
Polly. " I know. You've got to stop it. You're
going too fast just as poor Pasc was. Only in a
different way. You have been faster and faster
every year since this started ! "
" Fast your grandmother's foot," said I.
" All right," she said, her voice getting sharp
again. " But remember what I say. If you go to
Detroit, you'll go alone. I won't, nor the children
either. You can go, and kill yourself, if you want
to. But I'll stay right here with the children. You
can't budge me ! "
" We'll see about that," said I, breaking out
again. " Not on your life," I said. " You don't
dictate like that to me ! "
So that next day I signed up and confirmed my
option with Proctor Billings who was to deliver
it to the New York people. For he was putting
through the whole thing. With my consent. He
knew how. They didn't know me in the transac-
tion those New Yorkers practically at all;
though they did promise me with Billings' con-
sent this five years' contract as manager at De-
troit of the motor cycle end, that Polly was so rabid
over. I went right along. I went over it with
my lawyers, and I decided that next day to go-
ahead under the old agreement and take the new
job at the same time.
" We ought to hear from them get the money
in a month," Billings told me.
I went home that night. I didn't say anything
264 The Biography of a Million Dollars
to Polly, or she to me, about that. I didn't have to.
We knew. It certainly was a rotten mess. And it
went on that way for almost a week.
We didn't talk much on anything she and I
just went on living, saying nothing, with this thing
always between us. We wouldn't either of us give
way, I could see that. She was spunkier and more
set than I was, if anything. Daytimes I was away
from the house, most of the time. But we slept
together in one bed at nights, just the same as al-
ways without scarcely talking to each other, ex-
cept when we had to and nothing at all on this
one thing we were both thinking of. I woke up
one night, and I thought I heard the bed shaking.
I thought she was crying to herself without any
noise. And then I made a motion, and it stopped.
Two nights after I thought I noticed the same thing.
By this time, if I told the truth to her, I was kind
of sick of it all myself. I was feeling kind of rocky
anyway, and this row at home didn't help much,
when I got to thinking it over. I was almost tired
of my bargain already. It seemed to me Polly
might be half right about the thing. It might be
a kind of fool operation, after all, for us to pull up
and go out there to Detroit after living all our lives
in this one place and got used to it. And that kind
of got me arguing out the whole thing again with
myself.
"What's the advantage of it?" I said to myself
lying there* thinking at night, listening to see if
she was going to start that silent crying again. " I
believe we could have made more money, too, sit-
Word from New York 265
ting right here, and running the business ourselves.
" Running it ourselves," I said to myself, " and
staying here where you're known and can be
somebody! Instead of going out there and be a
small toad in a great big puddle. A million ain't
so much," I said to myself, " compared to what
you'd make here. And what's thirty thousand dol-
lars a year for five years? "
But that wasn't the only thing or the main
thing with me. I began to see that as the days
went along. The fact was, when it came right
down to it, I hated to give up that business we'd
worked so hard to build up.
I felt that way at first a little. But it kept
growing on me. And it grew worse as I saw, right
side of us, what Pasc and Zetta were doing with
themselves, since he got out all the time getting
worse and worse, until finally it came to that time
at their new housewarming.
CHAPTER XXI
THE MISSING RUNABOUT
They had been there several weeks then in that
new house of theirs they'd built next to ours.
Every morning pleasant days you'd see
Pasc come out and sit around the lawn. Polly used
to call my attention to him, before our row became
quite so bad.
" You think Zetta's changed," said Polly. " It's
been nothing to him. See him," she said. " Isn't
it awful. Doesn't he look and act just like an old
man!"
;< There's nothing to him, any more," I said.
" Sitting, staring off," said Polly.
"Still at it! He's still got that carburetor on
his brain," I told her; "that change he's working
on for the poor gasolene and for the aeroplane.
He can't quite fetch it, I guess."
" Maybe maybe he never will ! " said Polly,
watching him, sitting there on a bench he had, under
an old maple tree, getting out his stub and scrap of
paper again.
" Not so bad as that! " I said. " I guess."
Then she didn't say anything, answering me.
" Poor fellow," she said to herself, under her
breath. " He always looks so tired."
The Missing Runabout 267
" Ain't it funny," I said, watching him. " It's
burning him up."
" I don't see anything funny about it," said Polly,
speaking up.
" It's a queer thing to watch, just the same," I
said.
" You can see a carburetor in his eyes, if you
look close, so Zetta says," said Polly.
" I believe it," I said. I could almost see from
that distance his old pale-blue eyes, peering out
from back of those bony cheek bones, searching
around a thousand miles off for something they
could never quite find. " But he's lucky in one way,
at that, to have something to think about. Luckier
a lot than I'd be, if I ever had to knock off busi-
ness."
" Maybe," said Polly, " though I don't believe it.
But that's the way it's hard on Zetta. She don't
have that either something to think about. And
you never see them together at all. She says she
tries her best every day with him, and then gives
him up finally to his carburetor."
"And goes off riding with her chauffeur!" I
said.
" Yes," said Polly. " Most every afternoon."
" It's a darned outrage," I said, " for her to be-
have so."
" It doesn't look very nice," Polly answered me.
" Are they still talking about it? " I asked her.
" Yes."
" Just as much as ever? "
" More."
268 The Biography of a Million Dollars
" She's a fool," I said. " Just a plain damned
fool she's gotten to be ! "
" It's a shame too," said Polly. " There isn't a
thing wrong about her except this awful restless-
ness. Like a disease."
" I don't know which is worse," I told her, " be-
ing crooked or a plain damned fool. I don't know
what does the most damage. I'm through caring
about her now, anyhow. The thing I care about is
old Pasc, sitting there, chasing his invention around
inside his old skull. That's all I care now."
" I don't. I'm sorry for them both," said Polly.
" You can't blame it all on her," she said. " He's
got to take his share. He and his everlasting car-
buretor."
" Following around after it," I said, and grinned,
thinking.
" Like a man who sees a ghost," said Polly,
"beckoning; and has to follow it, in the old stories
those old people used to tell."
" And the worst of it is," she said, going back to
Zetta again, " you can't stop her. He won't see it
ever ; and the more she thinks all the folks talk
about her, the more she'll go right ahead, faster
than ever, defying them. Everybody's talking
naturally, everywhere."
" Do you think," I said, " they'll turn out the
neighbors around here, anyhow at that dinner
party, when they open up the house? "
" I think so," she answered me. " Probably.
With what little we do and with Mrs. Billings.
But she isn't helping us not very much."
The Missing Runabout 269
" The reckless fool," I said, thinking of Zetta
again. 'You can't blame the women exactly!
You know what they're calling those two down at
the garage that row of eyes and clean collars and
dirty mouths along that wall?"
" No," said Polly.
"The soul mates! "
' They are in a way, too," said Polly. " In one
way. Both of them. Both desperate kind of
rebels. You won't see it," she said, " not since you
had that row with him but that boy of Tom's
isn't all bad."
" He's bad enough," I told her, " so if you went
tearing around with him like that, I'd kill you."
" Maybe," said Polly.
" No maybe to it," said I.
We'd done all we could. I'd gone to Billings,
practically, after Pasc had shown me how he'd like
it if Zetta could get in with nice people, like Polly
had. I'd practically gone and asked Billings if he
wouldn't get his wife to help out a little, and come
anyhow herself. For they were neighbors prac-
tically, you might say and kind of leaders on
High Hill. And what they said went. And Bill-
ings said he'd see what he could do. And Polly
heard somewhere else that his wife was coming, and
even helping out a little though it came pretty
hard.
But Zetta, of course, wouldn't help any or
hardly come half-way; especially when she took a
dislike to anybody, the way she had to Proctor
Billings' wife.
270 The Biography of a Million Dollars
" You talk about Billings the human icicle,"
she said to me, " he's nothing to his wife. Male
and female icicles," she said, laughing that harsh
laugh of hers, " and (what is it now?) the female
is more chilly than the male or something like
that! " And made up a stiff face like Mrs. Bill-
ings.
I had to laugh, in spite of myself. m
" Let them see me," she said to Polly about the
same time, " driving out, if they want to. What
do I care? I'll go where I please, and do what I
please, so long as I know I'm straight. Whose
business is it? "
We two were pretty well worked up, especially
Polly, as the day of that party of theirs came on.
We weren't sure that we'd get the women to recog-
nize her and come up to the very last minute.
But the Thomases didn't care apparently. Zet
was as indifferent as ever, and old Pasc was around,
looking off, with his eyes in a vise, trying to tear
that last wrinkle about that carburetor from the
back end of his brain somewhere.
It was that way clear up to the day of the dinner
party itself. Zetta talked absolutely indifferent.
It made you mad almost, when you thought of all
the trouble we'd taken for her.
" I don't care. I wouldn't have cared if they'd
all stayed away, and hadn't accepted. I wouldn't
have done it at all. I wouldn't care that if it
wasn't for Pasc, and you, Honey! " she said. And
grabbed Polly in her arms and kissed her.
" But I'll be good. I'll be stiff as any old maid
The Missing Runabout 271
you ever saw," she said to her, coming around
again in that old-time, good-hearted way of hers.
" Just tell me what you want me to do, and I'll do
it."
And she had done just what she said she would,
for days till that very afternoon of the dinner
party.
" Do you know what she's done ! " said Polly
when Tcame home to the house a little early, to see
if I could do anything.
"No. What?"
" She's gone out riding this afternoon in that
runabout with Tom's boy. Just now ! "
" The devilish fool," I said, getting up out of
my chair. " Can't she stop for a minute?"
" She told me she just had to."
" Had to ! The whole town will have to see
her. This afternoon ! "
" No," said Pol. " It was pretty near dusk,
when they started. Pretty dark."
" It's now four thirty," I said. " Nearer five.
Think of it. Two hours before the dinner! "
"The real fact is," said Polly, "she's nervous.
She hates meeting them all tonight, like poison
all those women. And she thinks this will set her
up brace her. Give her fresh air! "
" Yes," I said then. " And what if anything
happened. If they, had a blow-out; or got held up
anyway! What's she thinking of? It's dark as
night right now!
" What's Pasc doing? " I asked her.
" That's the worst of it," said Polly. " Do you
272 The Biography of a Million Dollars
know what he's doing really. He's working on
that thing of his now! Today! He's in one
of those fits those trances when he thinks he's
discovered something. He's forgotten there is such
a thing as a dinner party."
" Sitting there alone," I said, " like an absent-
minded child in the dusk."
" Yes. In his room upstairs."
" She ought to be killed," I said.
But I thought, of course, it would come out all
right some way. It was six o'clock, pretty
nearly, when Pasc called up and said Zetta and the
driver hadn't come yet.
"What!" said I. "Not come!"
I looked around. Polly stood right back of
me.
"What is it?" she asked. And I told her.
" You let me talk to him," she said, and took
the telephone away from me.
" I'm worried," said Pasc.
" I don't blame you," said Polly. " Now here
listen. I'm coming over to your house, and see
that things are going right. I've been there all
day, anyhow. And Bill will start right now to see
if anything's happened to them. Any tire trouble."
" Well, I wish you would," Pasc told her. " If
you feel you can."
' You know we do," said Polly. " You know
that's exactly the way we do feel."
" For I'm getting kind of worked up," said Pasc.
"Look," said Polly. "Which way did they
go?"
The Missing Runabout 273
And he told her where he thought. It was a
common road they often took, out through the
woods that Rocky Cove road, where she went
out to tear off the miles in that fast car. I knew it
a lonely place, but pretty good for a country
road.
" Hurry up, Bill ! " said Polly. " You haven't
got any time." And I ran out to the garage.
" I God," I said to myself, driving out the run-
about, "what does this mean?" I didn't know
what to think. I knew there was that road house
beyond there. I thought of that first that road
was the shortest way there. She might be out
there drinking a cocktail taking a bracer, and
take too much. And yet I couldn't think that
either. I'd never seen her drunk not more than
gay at the furthest.
" I don't know what to make of this," I said to
myself, scared. " Unless it's an accident."
I was in a nice fix. I didn't want to ask any-
body of course not near the town anyway, if
they'd seen them. And out farther it was too dark
anyway. I kept plunging on down the road I
thought they'd gone on, trusting to Providence. I
kept going. I went deeper and deeper in the
woods. And all of a sudden, I turned the corner,
and I saw it!
I saw this headlight on the side of the road, tilted
up into the trees. And this figure standing in my
own headlight. I hadn't more than turned the cor-
ner, when it jumped up and stood there this
woman still, in that dead white light. Held up its
274 The Biography of a Million Dollars
hands and stood there. And I saw them those
hands !
I held up with a bump. Both brakes. I saw
those hands!
"What is it? What's happened? Are you
hurt?" I said, jumping out.
" No," she said, " not a particle."
"Your hands?"
" No." And stood there for a minute, still.
" Look," she said and started and kind of
staggered around. " Look," she said, like a child
showing you something it's found.
And I started after her, down the bank.
il We were going around the corner," she said.
" I was thrown ! "
The car was clear over wheels up.
" Look," she said, straining at the side of it.
"Can't we raise it?"
" Stop! " I said. " You can't do that! Not in
a million years ! "
" I tried to get the jack," she said, panting.
" But I couldn't get to it."
We talked like people breathing, rather than just
speaking hoarse and whispering.
"Where is he?" I asked her. It was dark
under there in the woods. Black as your hat
except those twisted headlights, cocked up into
the trees; and my lights pointing down the road.
"Where is he?" I said.
"Under there! Look," she said. "You can
crawl in here." The car was kind of tilted on the
bank,
The Missing Runabout 275
u How long's it been? " I asked her.
" I don't know," she said. " I don't remember.
But here ! " she said, hurrying showing me this
place where the car lay up against the bank. " I
got in there I got in there ! But all I had was
matches. They went out under there in the
wind. I reached him, but I couldn't get ahold of
him to pull him out."
" Wait wait ! " I said. " I've got my pocket
flashlight in the car." And I ran over and got it.
"Hurry!" said Zetta. "Hurry! I'll back
around your car till you get that light, too."
And I went down under so I could poke my head
in. I could see the matches there, on the ground,
where she'd been. And I turned my eyes up. I
looked with my flashlight! And I backed right
out quick !
" He didn't seem to breathe," said Zetta
" when I put my hands on him."
"No!" said I. "No! Look," I said, think-
ing forty times to the second. " Nobody's been
here, of course? "
" No."
" And nobody's seen you riding that you know
of?"
" No," she said.
"Sure?"
" It was almost dark when we started."
" Come on ! " I told her.
" Come ! " she said to me. " Where ? "
" Home," I said.
" And leave him there I "
276 The Biography of a Million Dollars
" Come on," I told her. " There's no time to
lose."
" But suppose " she said.
" There's no supposing to it."
" Suppose," she said. " He might be still
alive?"
"Alive! "I said. "That!
" Come on," I said again. " The first thing
you've got to do is get home. He's dead," I said.
" You know that as well as I do ! Jump in
now! " I said, taking her around the waist, and
pushing her toward my car.
" Come on," I told her, when she stopped.
" Look aren't your hands cut any? "
" No," she said.
"Sure?"
" Yes," she said, and shuddered.
" Wipe them off," I said, " on the grass there
what you can! And come! Come on," I said,
starting pulling her again. " Be sensible."
" What are you going to do? " she said, holding
back. " Leave him ! Leave him ! "
" Yes."
" But suppose," she said again.
" There's no supposing about it," I said. " You
know it! You saw him!"
And she shivered against me.
" Somebody'll be along in a few hours," I said,
pulling her, " anyway. And you can thank God
they haven't been along before. Before I did!
And now, the quicker we get out of here the bet-
ter!"
The Missing Runabout 277
"Where are you going? What are you do-
ing?" she said, resisting me all she could when
I put her in my runabout.
" You're going home," I said, " with me! He's
dead. But you aren't. Nor the rest of us !
You're going home. You're going home and get
ready for that dinner party!
" You know what will happen," I said, holding
her, when she started struggling again, " if you
ain't there. If they all come there and find
you're out here in a car, with him smashed up
against a tree joy riding! You know what it
will mean.
' You're no fool," I said. " You know what's
been brewing about this and how long. This
will be the end."
" What do I care? " she said to me, in a kind of
low voice " what they say? "
[t It isn't what you care," I said, " now. It's
what we care the rest of us. You've got to
care for us ! "
But she wouldn't give in still.
" And the newspapers," I said. "Think of it!
Smearing it all over the face of the earth on all
of us. Come, you've got to! "
" And sit up there hours at dinner, and
smile!"
" Yes."
" At that Mrs. Billings and those others
those awful things! " she said, drawing back.
" You've got to. You've got to go home and go
through with it."
278 The Biography of a Million Dollars
" No, sir, I can't," she said. " I won't."
" Zet," I told her, taking her wrists. " be a sport.
Remember," I said, shaking her. "You ain't the
only one that's got a stake in this. Remember the
rest of us. Remember Pasc "
" But what's the use ! " she asked me. " What's
it for?"
" We're going to take a chance," I said, " that
nobody'll ever know that you were here. It's a
long one, but we're going to take it just the same."
She let up some on her drawing back. I felt her
body yield a little.
" Come," I kept urging, "Zet! You've got to.
Think of the rest of us if you don't of yourself.
If you ever want to hold your head up again in
this town," I said, " or Pasc! Pasc," I said.
" Come on," she called out all at once, sitting
back in the car without my holding her.
" That's right," I told her. " That's the girl.
Now," I said, closing the door, " we'll get home as
quick as God'll let us. We'll snatch the head of
it!"
" Don't talk! " said Zetta, in this strange voice.
"Don't talk to me!"
I turned and started with a bang jumped
into high and went! Around the corner, away
from those two bright green spots, those ugly head-
lights cocked up into the trees out into the dark !
Down the crooked country road we went I let
her out for home racing as if the devil was after
us. Saying nothing, either one of us.
CHAPTER XXII
A HOUSEWARMING
" Bill ! " said Zetta, just before we got there.
" Yes."
" Not a word. Not a word to Pasc, until it's
over. Unless we have to ! "
" You're right," I said.
" I'm afraid he couldn't stand it. He couldn't
go through with it especially the way he's been
feeling lately. He'd show it someway."
"What'll we tell him?" I said thinking for
the first time how it was going to affect him the
shock of it.
" You leave that to me," said Zetta.
' What will you tell him about your dress and
hands?"
" I'm going to stop at your house a second
and wash up. You go on ahead of me," she said,
" so the servants won't see me."
And I got her in we walked right in, with my
latchkey, nobody the wiser.
" Polly's over to your house," I said.
" Get her on the 'phone," she told me, " while
I'm washing."
So I did.
"What is it?" said Polly.
" It's all right," I said. " Just tire trouble.
280 The Biography of a Million Dollars
" It was more than that," I said, lowering my
voice. " But you tell Pasc that ! "
" Yes," said Polly, whispering herself. " She's
all right?"
"Absolutely yes. It's him!" I whispered
back. " But now, listen she's going to walk
over now from here, to the side door. She said not
to let the servants see her."
"That's all right," said Polly. "That's all
right, anyhow. I lied. I told the servants she
was over at my house, resting, to get rid of the ex-
citement. But hurry up ! Hurry up ! Hurry up !
There's only half an hour now! And you'd better
come over with her, I think and take care of
Pasc for a minute."
" Come now," said Polly, at the door when we
got there. "Hurry up. Have you overslept?"
she said louder. " You crazy thing? "
And they two went upstairs together.
"What was it, anyhow?" said Pasc.
" Tire trouble," I told him.
"Oh?" he said, back in that absent-minded way
again.
;; Well, I certainly was glad you helped me out
got her home in time ! " he said as if it was
all right, and the most usual thing in the world for
a woman to drift in at that time for her first big
dinner party in her own house.
u I've got to run back and change my own
clothes," I said, when I'd told him that Powers
would be back with the car later.
' You're good friends, good neighbors," said
A Housewarming 281
Pasc, letting me out "you and Polly. I don't
know what we'd do without you."
I had to rush my head off at that, especially
without Polly there to help me dressing. I was one
of the last ones to get in. Zetta was down all
dressed up and fixed up and Polly was standing
with her.
" Christmas," I said to myself, when I first saw
them. " Women certainly are the great things
at a time like this ! "
I never saw Zetta look so well in my life her
eyes so bright or her lips so blood red. And I
never heard her talk more or easier. And Polly
just the same! And yet I could see, myself
looking at her that she knew ! That Zetta'd
told her.
It was different with me. I was all in all over
myself. I almost started eating my oysters with a
teaspoon, thinking. Thinking of that light, cocked
up in the trees, calling for help and wondering
when the telephone would ring. I didn't say any-
thing much.
" She's such a very lively woman, isn't she? " said
the woman next to me, looking up that old man
Rutherford's wife that made his money on mail
boxes; that woman who gushed so much over every-
body, and then went off and bit them in the back.
"Who?" said I, coming back to earth again.
I'd just thought I heard the telephone! "Who?
Mrs. Thomas? You bet. She's the liveliest thing
that ever happened."
" So vigorous," she said.
282 The Biography of a Million Dollars
" Yes," I answered, listening still.
" So vigorous so full of life. She scarcely
knows how to keep it in, does she? " she said, giv-
ing me a look to see how I would take it.
It made me shiver, listening, to think what they'd
do with her, the women if they once got their
teeth in this thing.
" Bubbling over," she said, sheering off when she
didn't get any rise out of me. " Especially tonight,
and her dress is so lovely. That wonderful color
so striking! "
" Yes, indeed," said I, talking like an idiot.
I was wondering all the time whether I ought to
have left that light going in that car whether
somebody would find it too soon. And yet it
wouldn't have worked right what I wanted to do
unless I'd done just what I did.
I sat listening for that telephone, all the time.
Polly had given them orders to call me; she'd told
me that just before we started in to dinner. " Look
out for it now," she said, " every minute ! "
I sat and listened, all the time, like a fireman
waiting for a third alarm taking a glance, every
now and then, at my watch, under the table.
" This thing," I said to myself, " ought to be
over by eleven o'clock. And it might be they
wouldn't run across him, or they wouldn't recognize
him till afterwards way out there ten miles
away.
" Lord, I hope so," I said to myself, and hung
on, waiting.
" She seems to be having such a lively time to-
A Housewarming 283
night, doesn't she?" said this Mrs. Rutherford.
" I love to see her. She's so lovely to look at and
kind of unaffected. That's what I like about her.
And your wife, Mr. Morgan," she said, laying it on
as thick as she knew how. " I think she is so
lovely."
" Glad you do," said I, sitting up. For just then
the telephone rang.
One of the servant girls they had waiting on them
came around and spoke to me.
" Hello," said this big husky voice at the tele-
phone. " Your name Thomas'? "
" Yeah," I said, right off taking a chance at
what was coming.
" You missed your car? "
"No. Why?" said I.
"What's your number plate?" he wanted to
know.
And I gave him Pasc's.
" That's the one. It's yours all right. That's
the one ! " said this fellow on the 'phone, talking up
as if he was glad to know it. ' Your chauffeur's
been out this evening on a joy ride. Once too
often."
" Too often! " said I, after him.
" A red-headed man a young fellow? "
" That's the one," said I, getting hoarser and
hoarser, as I talked.
" Well, he won't bother you any more."
"Why not?" said I.
"He's got his this time! "
" Got his," I said, hoarser still. " How bad? "
284 The Biography of a Million Dollars
" Dead," said the voice. " All ground up under
the car. What'll we do about him," he said, " and
the car."
" Who are you? " I asked him.
" The police office," he said, " out in Rocky
Cove."
So I told him what to do, and where to send the
body, and the car. " I can't come out tonight," I
told him. " I'm giving a dinner party."
"Ah-ha," he said. "That's how it happened!
He thought he'd take the car out on you? You'd
think they'd learn more, after awhile, but they
don't!"
" I can't get out," I said. " But you take care of
me, will you neighbor," I said to him; " all you
can? I can't get out, so I'm going to ask you to
look out for us. Take care of me, will you? " I re-
peated. " We all need a friend now and then," I
told him.
" You bet we do," said he.
" Well, this is the time I need one. Your time
might come later."
" That's right too, Mr. Thomas," said he.
" Well, you'll know where to find one," I said,
and he didn't say anything.
"All right then; I leave it to you. You won't
lose anything by it," I said. And I got his name.
" And if you want to know anything later, and call
again, just call for William Morgan."
" I know," said the voice again.
" He's the man who'll take care of you."
" All right, boss."
A Housewarming 285
" I won't forget this," said I. " I ain't that
kind."
" Don't mention it, Mr. Thomas," said the cop.
"And oh say!" I said. "Don't say any-
thing about it to the newspaper boys yet ! Hold it
up a little for us. Don't give it out to the news-
papers until after we're through here."
"How long?"
" Oh, say eleven thirty."
" Sure."
" And when you do send them around, or have
them call have them call for Morgan, too, see? "
" Sure. I'm on," said the cop at Rocky Cove.
I knew that was all right there, anyway. And 1
went back and sat down again. I found myself stick-
ing my napkin in at my neck, and Polly glaring at me,
before I caught myself.
" Business, I suppose," said this Mrs. Ruther-
ford, next to me, making eyes. " Oh, you men
you men ! " she said, getting giddy. " Can't you
let it alone for a minute?"
And we went on through it all. I'm proud of it
sometimes right through from oysters to cigars,
sitting there, we three, pushing her through like
little majors Zetta and Polly making a better
show than I ever saw them. Right up in G, laugh-
ing and talking. I kept watching them to see what
I was going to do, whenever there was any doubt.
And finally we got them all out to the front door
every one of them.
" Listen," I said to Billings, catching him on the
piazza, as he was going. " There's been an acci-
286 The Biography of a Million Dollars
dent while we were in here. That damn fool
chauffeur you know, that Powers has taken
advantage and been out on a joy ride with their
runabout and killed himself! "
He whistled to himself. " Dead! " he said.
" Deader than a smelt," I told him. " Under
the car. I got it on the 'phone."
" They don't know it," he said " the family? "
" No," I said. " I got up and answered the
'phone myself. You saw me."
" Yes."
" It wouldn't do," I said. " It wouldn't do for
the women to know while this was going on."
" No," he said and stopped, thinking.
"Dead!" he said, and whistled again, and lifted
up his eyebrows. " You did exactly right," he
told me.
" But now," I said, " of course, when you're out,
I wish you'd tell Mrs. Billings; and you two can
tell any of the others if you think it's the best
thing. I'll leave that to you," I said.
" It serves him right," said Billings, looking at
me, thinking it out, " in a way; that kind of chauf-
feur, taking an expensive car out like that with-
out your consent. It's a lesson, to the rest of them.
You can't be sure now whether you've got a car left
or not. I'll tell Mrs. Billings," he said, and went off
to his car.
I saw that end of it was all right, too. Mrs.
Billings would tell everybody first; and that would
be the story that she'd tell and stick to, whatever
happened.
A Housewarming 287
And right after that the newspaper boys called,
and I gave them the right steer.
u I'm speaking for Mr. Thomas in this," I said,
coming to the door. They all knew me, of course.
" You can't see him," I said. " He's all broken
up by this thing. You know what that boy did for
us, when we first started riding a machine. He
thought the world of him, and it's got him pretty
bad. He ain't very well, just now, anyway.
" Come on over to the house, boys," I said,
" just across the lawn, and I'll tell you all about
it."
So I took them over, and handed out the cigars,
and sat down with them, and gave them their
story.
" That's what comes of being a Speed King,"
said the tall, long-legged one, with the pale face,
and black stringy hair, who pocketed my cigar and
smoked his own cigarettes.
"You've got that right! " said I.
" They all get it, sooner or later," said another
one.
" Right," said I, and tapped him on the shoulder.
" There's a good story in that," said the white-
faced one, with the black hair the older one.
" The New York papers would take that. He had
quite a reputation as a rider."
" Yes, but keep it down, boys, all you can, will
you? It would be a great favor to us. I don't
want to dictate to you, but you can see how we all
feel about it. It was an awful shock happening
just while this party was going on, full blast, and
everything.
288 The Biography of a Million Dollars
" Do what you can, boys, anyway," I said.
" And any time you want anything more on it," I
said, " you just come to me. Do that much. Mr.
Thomas ain't well at all."
" Sure," they said. " We'll see to that."
" And any time I can do anything else for you,
boys," I told them, letting them out the door, " you
come right to me. Don't you hesitate a minute.
Ease up on this, boys," I said, " what you can. I'll
appreciate it, and I might be able to do something
for you sometime. You never can tell."
I saw then that that was all right watching
them. They hadn't gotten anything, and they
wouldn't, unless something slipped.
So I went back again to Pasc's house.
" We've got it fixed, I guess," I said to Polly, in
the front hall " my end. How is it here? How
about the servants?"
' They don't know anything about it," said Polly.
" They believe me what I told them, that she
was over to our house."
" Then we've done it," said I. " We've kept the
thing quiet." And I sat down in the chair in the
hall and wiped my forehead. " Gripes, what a
wrestle ! "
It seemed as if I'd been stretched out on a rack
for months.
'They in there?" I whispered, after a minute,
nodding toward the library.
And she nodded back.
"She told him?" I whispered. "How did he
take it?"
A Housewarming 289
" Pretty hard," said Polly. " He's terribly
broken up."
"About what?" I said, whispering. "About
the boy?"
And Polly nodded her head again.
And then I heard Zetta's voice in the other room,
as if she'd just heard me come in. " Bill," she
called, "is that you? Come in here. And you
too, Polly."
So we went in. Pasc sat there, hunched up in
the chair. She stood there before him, waiting
standing up with that gay expensive flame-colored
dress on her shoulders white, and her face, and
her great wonderful lot of dark hair over it.
" Now you're here, Bill," she said, standing
straight and still, " I want to thank you for to-
night. Something I guess I can never thank you for
really. You saved me my reputation, Bill. I
can see that now. I appreciate it."
And Pasc made a noise in his throat, as if he was
trying to say something and couldn't.
" Oh, forget it, Zet," I said. " It's been a hard
night for all of us. What we need now is bed."
But she stood there, not moving, looking at me,
standing stiff, with the white rims of her eyes show-
ing all around those deep black pupils.
" That isn't all, Bill," she said, holding out that
smooth white arm of hers for me to stay there.
"That isn't all. Now I've said that now it's
done I want to know something else. I want to
ask you something all of you. But you and
Pasc especially.
290 The Biography of a Million Dollars
" Did either of you ever think I was crooked
with that boy?" she said, looking me straight in
my eyes.
" Zetta ! " said Pasc, with a kind of hoarse voice,
coming up on to his feet.
" Zet," I said. " For God's sake ! "
" I mean it," she said.
"Zet," I said, warning her with my eyes try-
ing to, about Pasc. " You must be crazy. What
makes you ask such a question? What do you
think we are? "
" Because I had to," she went on, paying no at-
tention to me. " Because you might think some-
thing else. You had a right to."
"A right to!" Polly cried out loud. I caught
my breath, staring.
" Yes," said Zetta, watching me. " Because you
were right, and I was wrong."
"What about?"
I looked at Pasc. His face was terrible, waiting
to hear.
" About him ! " she kept on. " About that
you told me."
I stood stock-still; we all did waiting. Pasc
looked like a man you see sometimes struck in the
head.
" I was driving," she said in this low voice, like
somebody talking in their sleep. " Rather fast.
Coming back. He had been perfectly still all
the ride.
"All at once," she said and her face got red-
der than that flame-colored dress, " All at once.
THAT S WHY I THOUGHT YOU WKBK ALWAYS WRONU HECAUSB
you HATED HIM!" Page 291.
A Housewarming 291
he tried he tried He said something. He
must have been crazy I "
I watched Pasc. It was awful. His eyes, and
his face, like old yellow wax all the blood out of
it. But she went right along. " He must have
been crazy! " she said, stopping, and looking ahead
of her.
" Or drunk," I said, cursing him.
" I struck him," she said, staring at me, for
breaking in on her. " In the face. I forgot
everything. I struck him. Both hands ! Just as
we hit the corner. I killed him, I killed him! " she
said. "And I'm glad of it!"
" Forget it," I said. " The damned dog. He
isn't worth it."
" I do," she said, her breast rising and falling.
" I will. But I've got to say this now."
I looked at Pasc. The blood had started com-
ing back in his face now with a rush.
" Never before ! " she said, staring straight at
me. " In all that time. Not a word from him.
Not a suggestion. He was like a young boy I al-
ways knew, and wanted to be good to. Never be-
fore till tonight. Not one sign. Do you be-
lieve me? "
" Certainly I believe you," I said. " Why
wouldn't I?"
" In all that time," she went on. u That's why
I thought you were always wrong because you
hated him! But that's why now I thought, now
you thought, perhaps " she said, and faced
me.
292 The Biography of a Million Dollars
" Never in my life ! " I answered, looking her in
the eyes.
If you'd ever had an idea she was wrong, you
wouldn't any longer, looking into those eyes.
" And nobody else that knew you," said Polly.
" I was a fool! " she said. " I was a fool! But
did you ever any of you, think that about me for
a minute? "
" Zetta ! " said Polly. " How could you say
that!"
" Never," I said. " For a minute."
"I wanted to know!" she said, and her lips
twitched, just a little, for the first time. " It means
something to me with you three ! "
" Zet," I said, speaking with my lips and
moved my head over a little! " Pasc! "
For I'd seen him standing there then catching
at the table.
He began to sink back towards his chair. But
he'd hardly slouched back into it, before she was at
him, all over him.
"Pasc," she said, clutching at him, "Pascl
Have I hurt you? Have I hurt you, Pasc? Have
I hurt you ? "
And Polly ran upstairs for the spirits of am-
monia.
He came right around again.
" It's time we went home," I said to Polly, after
a few minutes. " You don't want me to help you
upstairs, or anything? " I asked Pasc.
" No," he said, with that quick old disappearing
smile of his. " It's nothing."
A Housewarming 293
" I'll get him up. I'll take care of him," said
Zetta. She looked bigger and stronger than he did
at that.
So we let ourselves out of the house, and she
stayed there with him in the library. When we got
our things on, and went by their door, through the
hall, she was there beside him on her knees, kind of
straining him to her. Patting him on his cheeks
like a little girl pats her doll, or a young kitten, or
anything it thinks is weak and needs mothering.
" Whew! God! " I said to Polly, when we two
were outside.
" Did you notice him? " she asked me.
"Why?"
" He acted to me just like a man who's had a
little shock."
" He did to me for a second," said I " just for
the minute. But I don't believe he did."
" It won't help him any," said Polly. " His
health. That's the way you'll be some day! " she
said all of a sudden; her voice getting sharp.
" If you keep on going."
" Drop it! " I said. " Don't you start that to-
night! "
And we let ourselves in the house, and went up-
stairs, and went to bed.
I just lay there and rolled around. And sud-
denly I sat up! And wanted to light up. I saw
that thing I saw with my pocket searchlight under
the automobile.
"What is it?" said Polly, sitting up too.
" Can't you get to sleep, any way?"
294 The Biography of a Million Dollars
" No more than you can," I said.
" I know," she said.
"It served him right! " I said, finally to say
something about him. I had to!
Polly lay still, and said nothing.
" It served them both right in a way."
But she didn't answer yet anything; lay there
thinking, apparently.
"What a mess it's been," I said "the whole
thing. If he'd been satisfied to go to work, that
boy, like other people. If she hadn't had to go
chasing around like a crazy woman, top speed, a
hundred miles an hour, hurrying around, looking
for excitement all the time out after something
new this thing would never have happened.
" But after all," I said, rolling back again, " why
should we care? He just got what was coming to
him the damned dog ! "
"No," said Polly, finally lying still answer-
ing after awhile, speaking with long breaks in her
talk the way she did when she was thinking.
" No. He wasn't to blame entirely nor she."
"He wasn't," I said "or she! Who was,
then?"
" Everything," she said thinking.
"Everything!"
"The life we lead the speed we've all been
going at."
And she stopped and lay absolutely still.
" Speed," she said then, after awhile. " All of
us. Faster and faster all together! Speed!"
she said. " Everywhere everywhere always.
A Housewarming 295
Faster, faster just a little faster 1 It seems some-
times as if we were all going crazy."
And then she kept still.
I lay there on my back, staring till morning
seeing that boy of Tom's there under that car.
CHAPTER XXIII
A MILLION DOLLARS HUH I
I was raw, every way, those next few days all
over; as if I had been scrubbed bleeding with sand-
paper. We had it all covered up about Zetta
and the accident so far as the newspapers and
the rest were concerned. I was sure of that the
next day.
But I couldn't get the thing off my mind es-
pecially after Polly and I had been down the next
morning to see Tom Powers and his wife.
Pasc wasn't any better for the thing, either,
though he claimed he was all right enough, after
a day or two. But I could tell from his motions
around the yard, and more so after Polly called
my attention to it. He didn't walk right, she
claimed not quite straight, after that. I never
could tell, myself, whether it was her imagination
or not.
My mind kept turning day and night. I lay
nights thinking this thing over the business, and
my selling out and going to Detroit to live, and
my row with Polly. The more I thought of it all,
the sorer I got; and the more I wished I'd just
stayed there, in the place where I was born, and
run my own business that I'd built up myself.
; ' What's a million dollars," I said, " any dif-
ferent than what I've got now ? I'll have to reinvest
A Million Dollars Huh! 297
it somewhere and lose it maybe ! And what will I do
myself? I'll go out there, under these fellows, and
be somebody else's hired man, when I'd been used to
running my own business to suit myself. How sure
do you suppose they'll be to keep me, after my
contract's up ? How do I know how I'll get along,
working under somebody else?"
I got sorer every time I thought of it, and sicker
of my bargain. And I felt rotten especially
after that thing happened. My digestion wasn't
any better. I was all out of joint everywhere
uglier than a bear; and worst of all when I was in
talking the change over the arrangements for the
transfer of the business with Proctor Billings.
He was so devilish cold and fishy about the whole
thing and particularly some of the folks that
had worked with us a good while, and couldn't get
out to Detroit. He didn't care a hoot what did
become of them.
I remember asking him, as one special favor, to
keep old Tom Powers at something because he
couldn't break loose at his age, naturally and his
lifting up his eyebrows and saying that he'd see !
" That's the way they get," to myself, " when
they've always had everything; and never knew
what it was to be down with the rest of the folks.
They ain't human."
He sat there, still and polished, beside his vase of
flowers on his desk. Orchids, they were now his
new orchids, from his own greenhouse. He got on
me wrong, all the time but especially that last
day!
298 The Biography of a Million Dollars
I went over from the bank to the office in my ma-
chine, and found two fellows waiting for me there,
two men in the automobile business I knew pretty
well one from New York and one from town.
And I took them out to lunch.
" What do you say if we go over to Lembachs',"
I said, " and get some of Hansie's Wurtz-
burger? "
And they said that suited them.
" Now what do you see, boys? " I said, when we
got there. " Look her over. Guilford clams,
deviled crabs or say a porterhouse. They're all
good, eh, Hansie?" said I.
" Sure ! " said the old Dutchman, nodding.
" I'll take a plain porterhouse," I said, " when
it comes to me. But nix on the beer, Hans. Get
me a good stiff drink of rye a good one. You
know! I guess that'll fix me. I'm uglier than the
devil's grandmother. I'm all out of joint, still."
" You ugly ! " they said, jollying me. " You've
got a fine right to be ugly. Just knocking down a
million, or two and a whale of a big salary! "
" Well, I've a good right to be up in the air
some," I said; "you'd think so, if you knew what
I'd been through lately."
I still felt as mean as a man could. And I sent
out Hans to the bar for another whiskey.
;< This steak is bum," I said, pushing it away.
" Can't you cook anything here, any more? "
" I'm sorry, Mr. Morgan; can't I get you some-
thing else," said -old Hans, fussing around.
II No. Nothing," I said. " You can't cook here,
A Million Dollars Huh! 299
that's all. You're on the skids the whole place.
Get me a cigar."
And I put down my other whiskey.
" Gee, you have got a grouch on today," said
Chunky Newman.
" Everything's going to sixes and sevens with me
over this thing," I said. " Laugh. Go ahead,
damn you. But it's so. For fifty cents," I said,
" I'd chuck the whole thing over. My wife is crazy
about going. We're in a regular cat and dog row
over it. And I'm sorry myself about pulling up
breaking up everything, and leaving. And when
you come down to it, I believe I've made a mis-
take. I believe you'd say so, if you were in my
place."
" Sure. Yes," said Chunky, laughing till his col-
lar choked him. " I wouldn't take their million
dollars. I'd slap them in the face with it. Take
it away! " he said, laughing and choking up again.
"Take it away!"
" That's all right," I said. " But I believe right
now, it was too little money. I believe I could sit
right here, and make more for myself finally than
go out and be somebody else's hired man in Detroit.
I mean it.
" And there's another idea," I said then, " you
fellows don't get. But it counts just the same.
You've got to remember, we made this business
right here. Pasc Thomas and I. It was our baby,
and we raised it; and, by Cripes, it don't come so
easy now to give it up, boys, when you come right
down to doing it."
300 The Biography of a Million Dollars
" Listen," said Chunky. ' This is a new one.
Bill's getting sentimental in his old age."
"Maybe I am," I said; "I don't know. But
that's the way I feel.
" And there's still another thing, too, that's been
getting me lately worse and worse; and that's
that Proctor Billings. He gets on my nerves.
He's as cold blooded as a mermaid's mother-in-law.
I don't like him, I never did."
And I told them a little about the way he was,
about the old employees in the plant.
" I never did like that kind of fellow," I said.
' You can't really trust him. And I've always got
my suspicions of him, too. I've always got a sneak-
ing idea he's getting more out of this thing, right
now, than I am. I couldn't prove it probably, but
I believe he is."
" It wouldn't be him," said Doc Snyder, " if he
didn't."
" He ain't human, I know that," I said, thinking
of that morning and our talk over the busi-
ness.
" I suppose," I said, " there's nothing to it. I
suppose it will go through, and these fellows down
your way those great big bankers have got to get
it, and put k together with that other thing, that
big one."
; ' They're the big fellows, all right," said Chunk.
' Top notchers. What they say goes."
' They're big people yes," said I. " But look
what a cinch they've got. They've got a regular
machine, stretched out all over the country, even
A Million Dollars Huh! 301
in places like this They and the local men are
watching all your loans, monkeying with you. Get-
ting the inside dope on everything that happens in
the country."
' That's right too," said Doc Snyder.
" I'd like to know about them," I said " how
they work. I'd like to get a look into that game.
I've got some idea now how fellows like Billings
in a town like this operate get up and declare
themselves in on everything that comes along. I've
got my finger in, once or twice myself. But these
Wall Street bankers these ten-million-dollar
boys, from that lower end of New York, get me.
I'd like to get a look into that big game once! "
" A great big game," said Doc Snyder.
' You bet it is," I said. " They never seem to
stop. Sooner or later they seem to get their fingers
into every good thing in the whole country. I'd
like to learn it. I'd like to take a crack at it. And
I could learn it, I believe and you could. We're
not so damned much duller than these fellows at that,
if we got their start. I'd like to get down there,
and try it some time. I bet I'd put some salt on
their tails before they got away from me some of
those fly birds! "
" I don't know about that," said Doc.
" Well, I do," I said, " if you don't. I'm not
afraid of them. I don't care two hoots in hell for
the whole outfit. You and I are their equals, when
you come down to it."
" I bet you could at that, Bill," said Chunk, pat-
ting me on the back. " You could take care of
302 The 'Biography of a Million Dollars
them. But you'd better stick to your own trade at
that."
" I agree with you, there," I said. " That's what
I'm talking about now. That's what I wish I'd
done stayed home here.
"And there's still another thing," I said "I'm
thinking of: what do I want to go out to Detroit
for, where I don't know anybody and haven't got a
friend, even to the fellows that will work for
me?"
" You'll make plenty," he said.
" I don't know," I told him. " But yet, if I just
sold out and stayed here, what in Judas' name would
I do with myself? "
" Look here," said Chunk to me, " do you mean
to say you'd get out of it, if you could now? "
" I sure would," I said, getting sorer and sorer
the more we talked about it. " If I could, I'd go
right over there now to that icebox in the bank, and
see Proctor Billings, and call it off. If I ever found
a loophole if I ever caught him doing me the
slightest way; turning something extra out of this
for himself I could break this thing wide open
in a minute by agreement. And I'd do it too ! "
The more I talked, the more I felt that way.
' You can't help him besting you some," said Doc
Snyder.
"Why not can't I?"
' Well, he's got to make some extra through his
bank."
" Placing Universal Motors stock locally, you
mean," said I. " You can't help that."
A Million Dollars Huh! 303
' Yes. But there's something more than that in
it, for him," he said. " So I understand."
"What's that?"
" There's an extra per cent, or two in it for him,
the other fellows that place it don't get for his
bank."
"What's that for? "said I.
'What would it be for? Just a little grease;
a little salve on the side for putting your deal
over."
" Like hell it is," I said.
" Oh, you can't beat 'em," said Chunky, laughing.
" I got that straight," said Doc Snyder to me.
" From a man who ought to know."
" Is that right?" I said.
" It sure is," he told me.
" We'll see about that," I said. And I got my
hat, and got up right away.
"Where are you going," they both asked
scared.
"I am going to see Billings," I said, "now I"
" Come here," said Doc. " Sit down! "
" Let me loose," I said. " What do you think
I care for him? "
" It wouldn't be that, now ! " said Chunky, getting
my other arm. " You'd be up against something
different now from Billings!"
"What do I care for them?" I said. "They
can't scare me."
" Come here, Bill," said Doc, pulling at me.
" Sit down. You're crazy with the heat. You
can't afford to get out against those people I Or
304 The Biography of a Million Dollars
anybody else! They're the biggest thing in this
country."
" Why not, can't I? " said I, pulling away.
" Because they're too big. You can't afford to
get them out against you; and get them mad."
" You watch me," I said.
" Bill, you wild fool," said Chunky. " Don't
don't! You don't know what you're up against.
They'd crack you like a flea between two finger
nails."
" I'll show you whether they will or not," I said.
And I broke away from them. " They can't scare
me," I said.
" Well," they told me, " if you're going to be
such a lunatic, don't bring us into it."
" Don't fret," I said. " I won't. I'll take care
of you and them too."
And I started out.
I wasn't drunk a particle. I was as straight as
a string. I was just ugly from that pain from
my indigestion, and those two drinks of whiskey in
me without the slightest effect on it, except to make
it worse. I was just plain ugly. I walked right
over to Billings' bank, all primed ready to eat
raw rattlesnakes.
" If he's double-crossed me," I said to myself,
" here's where he hears something! "
And I went out back into that still room, where
the little pictures of sheep were, that private re-
ception room outside his door.
" I want to see Mr. Billings," I said to that sec-
retary of his. " And I want to see him right now ! "
A Million Dollars Huh! 305
' You may have to wait," he said, staring at me.
"Wait, hell! " I said. I just jerked him aside
and went in.
11 What is this? " asked Proctor Billings, standing
up and looking at me, with that mean, lean face of
his a little white.
" How-do-do," I said. And sat down. I wasn't
drunk a particle. I may have been just a little
touched, but nothing more than that. I know it. I
was just pure ugly.
" I want to ask you something," I said, sticking
my finger out at him.
" Well? " he said, still standing up.
" Are you putting anything over on the side on
me," I said, "in this deal of ours?"
: ' What do you mean?" he said, stiffening up.
" I refuse to answer such a question."
' You remember that part in that agreement of
ours; that one, if we sold out, we sold together, split
equally share and share alike ! And if there was
anything wrong, by either of us, it bust the option,
and we went back to where we were."
" I do."
"That holds, don't it?"
" Yes," he said, sitting down finally, watching
me.
" Well, I just heard today you were getting an
extra rake-off through your bank."
" I don't care for your way of expressing it
much," said Billings.
" All right," I said. " We'll express it any way
you want to. But \ want to know. Do you, or
306 The Biography of a Million Dollars
don't you, get something extra for your bank out
of this?"
" I'm placing some of the Universal Motors'
securities here, as you know when they're
issued," he said, giving me those blank steel eyes
again.
" I know that," I said. " Now we're getting at
it. But we ain't quite there. Did you," I said,
" or didn't you, get an extra percentage that other
banks selling that stock didn't get, because you made
that agreement, when you sold out your part of our
stock to them? "
" If I did or the bank what then ? " he said,
not moving his steel eyeballs or his still face a
fraction of an inch.
" I'll tell you what then," I said. His frozen
face didn't make any impression on me. " If you
did, you've broken your agreement with me, and
this whole thing's off.
" I built up this thing another man and I. It's
my business. It's me just as if it were part of
me built into me. I worked and sweat and bled
for it, and built it up. And when I get it along
where you want it, you come and declare yourself
in, and now you'll take it and sell it and double-cross
me on the proceeds. You may think you will; but
you won't! You've got the wrong pig by the tail
this time. You don't know me ! " I said, and
pounded on the chair.
" Are you through," he said, looking at me
colder and whiter than ever. " If you are, I'll tell
you something. Whatever this bank gets or doesn't
A Million Dollars Huh! 307
get, is my concern, my friend, and that of the other
stockholders in it not yours."
" It is, eh? " I said. " Well, I'll show you dif-
ferent. I'll show you I'm not the kind that'll lay
down and let you walk over them. I'm a different
kind of a boy."
" Don't start on your personal history again," he
said. " It doesn't interest me."
"It don't, eh?" I said. "Well, I'll tell you
something that will interest you. This agreement
of ours to sell our stock is off from now on. Be-
cause you've broken it. I've been kind of sick of
this for some time. I knew I wasn't getting what
I should, but I stuck because I said I would. But
now this rake-off of yours let's me out. It gives
me just the loophole I was looking for. Now you've
broken it, you can take the consequences. I'm
through. This business will stay just as it was un-
der our old three-year agreement."
" What about your written option through me to
these New York people?" he asked me, cool as
ever.
" It's off," I said, looking him in the eye.
" With a million dollar offer," he asked, " for your
stock? And your salary? "
" All off," I said, " I'm through."
"Is it?" said Billings. "Are you sure?" he
said, getting up on his feet. " If I were you I'd
give it a little more thought. I'd go off and let my
head clear."
" If I were you," I came back, mocking him
when he said that to me, " if I were you, I'd give
308 The Biography of a Million Dollars
my face a vacation. Gripes," I said, looking at
him, " I should think, once in a while, once a year
anyway you'd take a vacation off somewhere, and
have one good natural expression on your face. Go
off and enjoy yourself let loose one smile. Be a
devil of a fellow, and have one good honest smile.
And give that damned, still, polite treacherous face
of yours a rest ! "
" It may be," he said, going on 'as if he hadn't
heard me, " it maybe you're making a mistake. It
may be some time before you'll have a million dol-
lars offered to you again for that stock of yours
when you let this go ! "
His face was white and his eyes were harder
than ever. I got up myself red-hot now, uglier
than ever at him waiting there, beside his vase
of flowers hinting to me that I was drunk, and
that I'd better get out.
"We'll see about that," I said. "A million
dollars ! " I said. " That ain't the only million dol-
lars in the world."
" Do I understand you don't want it? " he said,
colder and stiller all the time."
"That's what you do!" said I. "Exactly.
Yes. That's what I do mean. You can take your
million and poke it in your eye. My property is
worth more than that to me right now. And
you've broken your option to take it."
He was getting whiter and whiter all the time, I
noticed, and finally he broke loose, cutting out every
word with his lips, like a die.
' You've swelled up too much, my friend," he
A Million Dollars Huh! 309
said to me. ' You've gone too far, too fast, the
last few years. You think you can do about what
you please, but you're mistaken. You can't play
fast and loose with signed agreements. You've
reached your limit. You've run into something you
don't understand.
" And now," he said, standing there, looking
supercilious at me, " if I were you, I'd go straight
home, and take a cold plunge."
" If I were you," I said, " I'd go sit down." And
I pushed him in his chest with my open hand, over
on that vase of flowers on the desk.
" You quarrelsome barnyard brute," he said,
straightening up, and pointing to the door. ' You'll
pay for this. Now get out! Go!"
And he took out his handkerchief to wipe the
water off him from the vase. I had to laugh.
" Pay for it! " said I. " Go. For you ! "
And stepped up to him again.
" I caught you in the act finally, my friend," I said.
" I've got you with your hands in my pockets. It's
no go. You can't do it. You can't sell me out, ac-
cording to our agreement or yourself either
now.
" Just for greens," I said, drawing off at him.
" I'd like to hand you one once. I've owed it to
you for some time."
And he crowded back on his desk again.
" But I won't," I said. " Don't be afraid. I
won't hurt you, like I would a man. I wouldn't
dare to, for fear you'd splash. You ain't a man,"
I said. " You're nothing but a kind of still soft
310 The Biography of a Million Dollars
bug, that grows where they keep money a fat
white worm that grows on greenbacks.
" You ! " I said, keeping him backed back. " You
soft-handed, white-fingered, hard-faced crook," I
said. " You and your options, and your sleight-of-
hand performances, and your ten-million-dollar boys
from New York, and what they'll do to me ! Bring
them on," I said. "I'm not afraid of you the
whole bunch of you. Bring them on," I said. " I'll
fight. I'll fight the whole outfit."
And I went out and left him sitting on his desk
on an orchid.
" A million dollars, huh! " I said, when I got in
the street. " I'd rather have my little old business
any day! "
CHAPTER XXIV
MY LAWYER
I got the best lawyer I could. I went right over
from the bank, and told him my case, and told him
I wanted to fight it. He whistled a second or two.
' They're big people! " he said.
" I wouldn't be afraid of them," I told him, " if
they were twice as big."
" I don't doubt that," he said.
" Have I got a case? " I asked him.
" I'm not going to say that," he said, looking at
me, the way lawyers have bluffing, when they don't
really know. " That I'll let you know later. But I
expect from what you say, you might make them
some trouble, especially just now at this stage of the
game, when they want to get this into their new con-
cern right away."
" That ain't enough," I said. " I believe I've
got a case that'll beat 'em! "
" You don't want to compromise," he said, look-
ing at me, " for a little more money? " He kind
of grinned hinting that I was holding them up for
more.
" No," I told him. " That ain't it, now. What
I want is to keep where I am now. And buy out
Billings myself, when we get this thing broken if
he can be gotten to sell out to me."
312 The Biography of a Million Dollars
" Well, we'll see," said my lawyer.
" I want you to jam it," I said.
" I understand," he said to me.
And I went over to tell Polly about it.
"I I was afraid you'd do something like that,"
she said, her face whiter and her voice sharper than
it had been before.
" You ought to be satisfied," I said to her.
' You've got your own way. You don't have to go
to Detroit."
" I'd rather go to Detroit than this."
"Good God," I said, "why? Is there anything
you women can be reasonable on? First, you say
you won't go to Detroit, and now you say you don't
want to stay here. What do you want, do you
know?"
' You know what I want," she said. " I want
you to stop. Not get into more trouble and rows
and hard work! I want you to stop, before you kill
yourself."
" Kill myself," I said, " that's likely. A man as
strong as I am ! "
" Or somebody else. The way you did this morn-
ing! That shows you," she said, "whether you're
all right; whether you're fit to go on with your work.
The way you're going now. D-do you think you'd
have done that five years ago . . . ? "
" Oh, shut up," I said, getting tired of hearing
her. ' When it comes to changes, think of your-
self. Your nose and your tongue get sharper every
day."
" Or say that to me ! " she said, staring in my eyes,
My Lawyer 313
and then turning and going upstairs and locking
herself in her room.
" I tell you what I'll do," I said, going upstairs
afterwards. For I knew I'd been acting ugly as sin
about the thing. " I tell you what I'll do with
you " when she let me into her room upstairs
finally. " I'll go and see a doctor if that'll do
you any good."
" If you did," she said, coming around so that
she looked at me a little, " you probably wouldn't
believe what he told you, or do anything about it."
' That depends what he told me," I said, jollying
her along, trying to make her feel better. " I
wouldn't have him send me abroad for a year, travel-
ing the way he did Pasc."
The doctor had started him off that week right
after the accident. Or the doctor and Zetta had
together.
" He says that was a good deal of a shock to him,"
said Zetta to me " with his nerves as they were
anyway. And he thinks it may tend to take his
mind off his carburetor or whatever he's got it
on now. The doctor says that only for this think-
ing night and day, about these ideas of his, he'd be
all right. And maybe over there, after awhile, he
could drop them and rest.
" What'll happen," she said, with a kind of flash
of her old way, " we'll go and sit on the Alps and
think about it there. It's just as well, too. He's
never planned a carburetor on the Alps. It would
be a new experience to him."
And she laughed.
314 The Biography of a Million Dollars
" And for me too," she said. " But I want him
to go," she said, looking up with those straight eyes
of hers. " I want to do everything I can to get him
on his feet. He he don't get any better," she
said; and got up all of a sudden and went away.
"She acted scared about him to me," I said.
" She is," said Polly.
" She's changed, herself, quite a lot, since that
happened," said I.
" Yes," she told me. " A good deal more sub-
dued."
" I like her better," I said. " And I like to see
her back with Pasc more again looking after
him."
" She's always thought her eyes of him," said
Polly.
" She didn't always act that way," said I.
" There's a limit," she answered me, " even for
a woman."
" Do I take that twice? " I asked her.
"Twice?"
" Once for him, and once for me."
" If you want to," she said.
And we went over that next week, and saw them
start, and shut up that brand new house of theirs.
" I God," I said, when they were gone, " I'd cer-
tainly like that, traveling around the face of the earth
to keep alive and keep from thinking of your
business."
' You may know something about it sometime,"
said Polly. And she asked me then, for the dozenth
time, if I'd seen that doctor yet.
My Lawyer 315
I was a little surprised I must say when I
did see him. I knew I was feeling off color some,
my stomach and my sleep, but it never struck me
there was anything very dangerous about it.
' The best of them come to it," he said, " sooner
or later, the way we Americans live. You've got to
quit, that's all or you'll quit some day, all of a
sudden ! "
"What did he say to you?" said Polly, looking
in my face the minute I came into the house.
" Oh, nothing much," I said, feeling kind of blue
over it. " Only my nerves and digestion."
" Didn't he say it was worse for a big, full-blooded
man like you? " she asked me.
" How did you strike on to that? " said I.
"Who wouldn't," said Polly, "that had any
sense? Didn't he say you'd have to quit the kind
of thing you're doing now? "
" Well, he told me I wanted to take care of my-
self," I said. I wasn't going to tell her everything
he said.
" And get out of too much extra work and ex-
citement? "
" Well, something like that," I said.
But I lied to her some. I wouldn't tell her it
was anything very much, naturally, especially when
I was tied up with that lawsuit, and had to see it
through.
I was having quite a little discussion with my
lawyer over it. " It's all right, I guess," he said.
" I can make a fight, of course hold it up, as I
told you."
316 The Biography of a Million Dollars
" We certainly can keep them from getting my
stock, anyhow."
" Well, yes," he said. " I don't think the diffi-
culty will come there."
" And we can stop him from giving final title to
his under our agreement," I said. " I don't see
why not."
" I don't know! " he told me. " You've got to
prove a good deal."
" I don't see it," said I.
" As far as delivering your stock goes, there may
not be any trouble. They may not even try to
press you there at all."
"Why not?"
' They'll have the majority of the company with-
out it. If their theory of the case holds."
" It won't," I said, " I don't believe it."
" Well," he told me. " You've got to face it, for
the court may uphold them. It's quite likely to.
You can never tell. They've got a good case, and
they seem pretty confident of it. And if they
win"
" I'm a minority stockholder I understand
that!"
" Exactly. And more than that," he said, " I've
got a feeling I've had it for some time
they might be out to punish you if they once
get you for what they consider a breach of
faith."
" What could they do to me? "
11 Nothing. Sit still. Put you under pressure,
My Lawyer 317
maybe. Absent treatment!" he said and laughed.
" You mean you'd settle? "
" They're big people," he told me.
"Ah-hah," I said. "You fight!"
CHAPTER XXV
A TRAVELER RETURNS
We would have, too, if it hadn't been for that
cable from Pasc Thomas. I got it that very next
day from Liverpool.
" Hold up," it said, " everything on suit. Back
first boat. Answer."
" What's this? " I said to myself when I first got
it. "Pasc Thomas' coming into this thing! This
is something strange and new."
I couldn't make any sense out of it. He hadn't
been in this row at all, in any way.
But I answered him and said I'd wait. I
would, naturally, if Pasc asked me to. I'd have
stood on my head till he came. But I couldn't
guess what he had on his mind.
He looked pretty bad, I thought, when I met
them and brought them up to our house. It bumped
me a little seeing him. The trip had been hard
on him, Zetta said. He didn't take to the ocean
very well. He had that kind of settled, solemn
look, a pretty sick man gets, now, most of the time.
" I guess you'll think I'm crazy, coming back
here," he said, when we went off and sat down in
my library together. And when he said it, he peeled
off another piece of his old slippery elm, and
put the rest back in his pants pocket. And I
laughed.
A Traveler Returns 319
44 Well, that looks natural," I said.
And then he grinned, and went on and told me
what brought him back; about this young fellow he
met on the boat, from that big New York banking
house of ours.
"One of the firm?" I asked him.
' Yes, the one that had charge of this Universal
Motors deal. He wasn't more than forty-two or
three," he said. " He didn't look more than thirty-
five.
" He'd heard about me," said Pasc, " it seems,
and he wanted to talk to me about that new Uni-
versal Company, and about the principles of gas
engines in general, and what improvements to ex-
pect. He was a smart one smarter than a steel
trap."
" I suppose so," I said. " They can get them."
" And from that," said Pasc, " I got him to talk
about the company about you and the Hoodlum
Company."
"What'dhesay?"
" He said there was nothing to say, except they
were going to smash you."
" Smash nothing! " said I, and I laughed at him.
" Pasc," I said, " you're easy. You always were.
What do you know about business fights? "
" Not much, maybe," he said, " I know. But I
could see this. He showed it to me perfectly
plain. They've got you, Bill. This thing is going
against you."
"Going against me? How do you know or
they?"
320 The Biography of a Million Dollars
" They've got their ways," he said. ' They
know."
" Well, I suppose they have. I'll admit that
much; everybody says so anyhow," said I, thinking
for a minute how big these fellows were, and the
wires they had out everywhere. " They certainly
can buy the very best legal advice in the coun-
try."
" It's more than that," said Pasc.
"More?"
" The courts will go against you," said Pasc.
" How do they know that? "
" Oh, they know! " said Pasc.
" Maybe they do, and maybe they don't," said I.
" And anyhow," he went on, " they've got to
the courts decide against you, as far as I can see;
from what he said just from the law of it. What
did your lawyer tell you anything different? Did
he want to go on ? Did he say you had a first-class
case?"
" Never mind what he said now," I answered him,
getting a little huffy. " You tell me what they're
going to do."
" He didn't encourage you your lawyer I
can see that now ! " said Pasc, looking at me for a
minute or so before he started on talking. " And
what they're going to do is just do nothing. Just
tie you up indefinitely legally. All they got to do is
tie you up, and sit still. He laughed about you,
Bill," he said, " to tell the truth. He said at first
you were just a hot-headed fool that was trying to
hold them up from out here in the country."
A Traveler Returns 321
" Hold them upl " I said, and cursed them out.
" I told him better than that," said Pasc. " But
it took me some time to convince him."
" What did he claim he'd do to me did he
say?"
" Nothing," he said. " They were through with
you. He laughed about your claim you could hold
back Billings from selling his stock to them on ac-
count of what his bank did. He said they had the
control of the company without you that was all
with Billings, and the rest. The worst that could
happen to them, they would have a majority of the
stock over you."
" I could give them quite a fight," I said, " even
as a minority stockholder."
u You wouldn't be that, even, as he puts it."
"Why not?"
"Because however it comes out finally
they're going to fight you everywhere, through all
the courts, up and down hill, for that stock of yours.
They're going to fight you to a finish."
" All right," said, " let them."
But it made quite a dent in me, just the same, think-
ing of what I might be up against.
" And in the meanwhile, they'll have that stock of
yours tied up solid in the court, so you can't con-
trol it."
" We'll see about that, too," I said.
And we stopped awhile.
"They're big people," said Pasc, finally.
" Yes, I know that," said I. " But this is a free
country, too."
322 The Biography of a Million Dollars
" That's true enough," he told me. " But there's
a great difference in the power people have here
we all know that."
" I suppose we do," said I, and we sat thinking
again.
"And there's another thing," said Pasc; "in a
way there's more than just your stock in this thing
to Magnus and Company."
"What?"
" I think they mean to punish you in a way
for not keeping your agreement. Tie you up
cut off your income from the stock; damage you
every way they can. Punish you. He didn't say
so exactly. He said they were going after you
for the principle of the thing as an object les-
son."
"They'll go after me all right; they'll punish
me if Billings can make them."
"They've got you bad," said Pasc. "They'll
have a kind of foul hold on you. Your salary will
be gone, your principal property tied up in the courts,
and you'll be fighting about the biggest power in
the country. When I saw just what was coming,"
said Pasc, " it scared me."
And I didn't say anything. I looked down, feel-
ing ugly.
" So I asked him," he went on, finally, " to hold
off, and I'd see you. I got him to hold off and
give me a chance to see you, and offer you that
million dollars again for the last time! "
' No job in Detroit, I suppose, now."
"No, they withdraw that."
A Traveler Returns 323
' They do, huh? " said I, and stopped.
" What difference does that make," said Pasc.
" You wouldn't take it anyhow."
" No, I don't suppose I would," said I, and looked
up at him.
' You mean to say," I said, " you turned around
from where the doctor sent you, and came back
here, feeling as weak as you did for this? "
" I'd have got out of my grave," he said, " and
come. If I couldn't come any other way."
I didn't say anything back, but it made more of
an impression on me, just that his coming back
and the way he looked than anything that had
been said or done to me before.
" You oughtn't to have done it," I said.
" Oh, that's nothing."
" Gripes," I said to myself, watching him how
sick and tired he looked; " that fellow must have con-
vinced you, all right! "
It made me stop and hesitate in the thing for the
first time.
But I wouldn't say so to him.
" Well, Pasc," I told him after awhile, " I'm much
obliged, but I'm sorry you did it."
And he didn't say anything.
41 Why didn't you cable? " I said.
" Because that wouldn't accomplish what I was
after."
" It won't make any difference, I'm afraid," I
said, " in the outcome."
" Yes, it will, too," said Pasc. " I'm going to
get what I came for."
324 The Biography of a Million Dollars
" You ought to know me better than that," I told
him.
" I know you," he said.
' You ought to know that when I say I'll fight,
I'll fight."
" I do. I know you," he went on. " And I
know you're no fool, too. I knew that when I
started back. I knew you were bound to fight
if you once got started, till somebody showed you.
And I knew if any one could talk sense to you, I
could. So I came."
' You took a good deal on yourself," I started
to say. And then I didn't. The look on his face
prevented me.
" Now you're going to sign with these folks," he
said, " while you can, and get out. Take your
money and stop the way you ought to."
; ' Who says so," said I.
" I do," he said, very quiet. " I do. Because
I'm right, and what's more," he said, watching me,
" you know it, too. Don't try to say you don't.
Because you do. You know it's time for you to
quit.
" Everybody's told you. Your wife has told you.
Your doctor has told you. Your lawyer's told you.
And now I come back from across the pond," he said,
and gave me this long, serious look, " and I tell you
the same thing. It's time for you to quit aside
from this entirely. Before you make my mistake,"
he said. " Before you stay too late. I've got a
right to warn you," he said, fixing those old ghostly
eyes of his on me " more ways than one! "
A Traveler Returns 325
And I stopped then. I didn't answer then. I
saw something in those old blue eyes of his that
scared me, for the minute. I saw what he really
thought about himself !
But he only waited for a few seconds, looking at me.
' You ain't strong enough to fight those fellows,"
he said. " Not now. You're a sick man, really."
" Oh, rats," I told him.
" But if you were four times as strong, it wouldn't
do you any good. They got you wrong, in the first
place, just because you were such a fighter, naturally.
They've got your name on a paper, and now you're
trying to withdraw it. But the main thing is, that
now they've got you! All they've got to do is sit
still, and tie you up, and let you bang yourself to
pieces. You can't hurt them. You can tear and
rear, but that's all you can do. You can bite and
snarl. But it's no use. No more use you'll make
no more impression on these people, Bill than "a
bulldog biting a mountain 1 "
I grinned a little then, finally, watching him, sit-
ting there, saying that with a serious face. I
grinned, and he saw me.
" I tell you what I want you to do, Bill," he said
to me then. He knew in a minute, of course, what
it meant to get me grinning.
"What?" I said, still smiling. I couldn't help
myself.
" I want you to go to your lawyer with me, to-
morrow morning, and see if he don't say so just
exactly what I tell you. Will you do it?" said
Pasc."
326 The Biography of a Million Dollars
" Well, yes," I said after awhile. " I guess maybe
I will."
" And will you do what he tells you to? "
" Yes," I said, thinking. " Yes, I'll do that too."
And I knew when I said it what my lawyer would
tell me. He'd told it to me already, as far as I
would listen to it. That meant practically that I
was through. But I wasn't going to show it to
Pasc then.
" But there's nobody else in the world would have
got that much out of me," I said, " but you ! "
" That's what I came back again for," said Pasc.
" Gripes," I said to myself, with a kind of a start,
watching his lean face and thin temples. " All I
hope is you didn't kill yourself doing it I "
CHAPTER XXVI
MEMORIES
" How do you like my library now? " I said to
Pasc, finally, after we'd sat there thinking. I had
got me two or three new things since he'd been gone.
He sat there in front of the fireplace, and looked
around.
" Fine," he said.
I had it fixed up pretty near to suit me now. I'd
just got this big new oil painting down in New York
of some girls in swimming, a corker ! And that
big elk's head over the fireplace, with those little
electric lights in its eyes that novelty I put in to
surprise callers with, and make some amusement.
" It's good!" said Pasc.
" I think so myself," said I.
We sat around then, after that, quite a little while,
visiting.
" You're a funny one, Bill," said old Pasc, going
back to that deal again. " You have to fight just
so much anyhow. It's ridiculous all of us stand-
ing around you, your wife and your doctor and
your lawyer; all begging you for Misery's sake to
take a million dollars and enjoy it, and not kill your-
self. And these other fellows getting mad and try-
ing to ram it down your throat. It is ridiculous,
now, ain't it? "
328 The Biography of a Million Dollars
" We'd have thought so," I said, " five years ago.
I can see you now," I said, " I God, I have to
laugh. I can see just the way you looked when you
first stepped in that old office door in that butternut-
colored overcoat."
And then we grinned and shut up for a minute.
" Did you keep it, Pasc? " I asked him. " That
coat ? Oh, you ought to have kept it and have it
stuffed. Put up somewhere as a monument."
" Or a warning," said Pasc.
" I wish I was back, quite often," I said, " just
you and I, starting there over again ! "
" So do I," said Pasc.
" I guess we're that way, some, both of us. I
guess most of us are who were raised in a machine
shop. We all like to be our own boss, puttering
around in our own place. We're too independent.
That was one trouble with me in this thing."
" I suppose so," said Pasc, and stopped thinking.
" It was our baby, Pasc," I said to him for the
thousandth time. " We raised it from nothing."
* Yes," he said, staring into the fireplace.
And after that awhile, he started and asked me
about everybody in the shop, including old Tom
Powers and his wife.
"How's the old Miracle getting on for him?"
Pasc asked me.
" He's still puttering around on it," I said.
II Watching nights, and pecking away with his left
hand on the thing discovering perpetual motion.
It's funny, ain't it?"
" Yes, it is," said Pasc, looking off, remembering.
Memories 329
" And he won't take a dollar from anybody. I've
tried him several times."
" I know you have."
" He's proud; the old man's proud," I said.
" He'll work till his last gasp fooling with that
old contraption, to keep his mind busy on the side."
" He ain't suffering for anything! " said Pasc.
" No," I said, " I'd see to that, anyhow. But
I'm sorry for the old man, Pasc, especially since that
thing the boy ! I wouldn't say so," I said.
" But I will now. I always felt a little responsible
for that thing."
And when I said it, I saw I hadn't ought to. I
saw his hand go up to his head thinking of it
again.
" Responsible no," he said. " It wasn't any-
body's fault, I guess," he said, kind of slow. " It
happened, that's all; because it had to! The way
things do. We're all to blame some ! "
And I changed the subject, and got back, talking
of old times, when we started.
" The fact was, I suppose, we got in it just
about right, when we did," I said. " We struck it
rich."
" Better than gold and rubies and precious
stones."
44 Yes."
" Yes," said Pasc, nodding his old head, " we had
that right at first that's where the gold mines are
today. That's the thing they've got to have
everybody."
"What's that?" I asked him.
330 The Biography of a Million Dollars
" Speed. That's where the money is now. Look
at it in telegraphs, telephones, bicycles, railroads,
automobiles. In them, or the stuff to build them !
Speed," he said. " There's where the money's been
for fifty years: saving people's time; crosscuts!
The American people have got to hurry."
" By and by," I said, " if they don't look out, they
may get going too fast, some of them ! "
And he grinned that sudden disappearing grin
and went on again.
" They're getting up into the air now," he said.
" The next things are flying machines. We're going
to see great changes in the next ten years. We're
going off of wheels, up in the air! "
" Hitting her up two hundred miles an hour, I
suppose."
" Easy," he said. " I'm working on that some,
now."
And he dug out his pencil and old envelope again
and started to draw me a diagram of what he was
doing now on a carburetor; and a counterbalancing
idea to keep those aeroplane engines from heating
up, and keep them from grinding themselves to
pieces.
' There'll be a barrel of money in that some day,"
I said, " maybe for somebody ! "
'* There will, probably," he said.
" It's a darn funny thing, ain't it," I said, " when
you think of it, how money's made."
" It is," said Pasc.
' Two fellows like you and me," I said, " get a
hold of one of these Miracles that old Tom talks
Memories 331
about and grab on to it. And it pulls them along
up with it."
" As long as they hang on," said Pasc.
" And the fellow that hangs on longest, and has
it last, gets the most," I said. " And that ain't
fair, either, generally. Look at you and me. You
got up this thing and I get my half from you.
And you get a third of a million and I get a mil-
lion!"
And then I stopped. And he grinned, and I
grinned, when I realized what I'd said. We both
knew that what I would do was settled now !
" Whatever I do fight or sell," I said, correct-
ing myself. " I get more than you. And that ain't
exactly fair."
" Oh, I don't know," said Pasc. " Money isn't
given out that way, as awards of merit exactly. It
can't be. Who'd give it? "
" But it ain't distributed right, just the same.
You know that, and I know it. We earned our
money. You can't say anything against that. The
man who gets up a thing like this," I said, " and the
man who stands by and jams her through don't get
anything more than is coming to him."
" What about the fellow working on it, nine hours
a day in the shop. The way you and I were, you
might say, both of us, before this? " he asked me.
" They get all that's coming to them."
"I don't know!"
" You ain't getting to be one of these socialists? "
I asked him.
" No. I don't know as I am," said Pasc.
332 The Biography of a Million Dollars
" Well, I'm not," I told him. " And I don't take
any stock in them. I never knew one yet that would
do a full day's work in his life. They're the talkers,
not the workers," I said. " I can go right down to
any machine shop and pick out the socialists by the
amount of work they do or they don't do, you'd
better say. They're the talkers not the work-
ers!"
" Maybe they might do us some good," said Pasc.
" Talking us into doing something different."
" You don't believe in that stuff, do you? " I asked
him again.
" No," he answered me. " I don't know as I do.
I just think they might be something different
some way."
" Maybe," I said. " But the thing that makes
me mad is these damned still-faced dudes in the
bank we've been talking about; these fellows that
have got control of all the money there is, here and
down on Wall Street.
' You puff and grunt, and break your back, and
sweat blood, and get a thing just about up and totter-
ing on its legs, the way we did and they come
along and reach out their lily hand, as the fellow
says, and take it away from you ! Look you in
the face, with that damned mean expressionless look,
and walk off with it, as if they were entitled to it.
Some time or other sooner or later, they'll grab it
away from you ! If it isn't here at home if it gets
big enough, it'll be one of those fellows that runs one
of these million-dollar machines on Wall Street.
" What kind of a fellow was this," I asked him,
Memories 333
breaking off, " that you saw on the steamer that
had charge of this Universal Motors for Magnus
and Company. He's never come to see me only
his head agents, once or twice. Billings even hasn't
got to him a great many times."
" Oh, he's the same kind as Billings is, in a way
but smarter looking, with smarter eyes," said
Pasc.
"All dressed up like Sunday evening all the
time, I suppose. And manners like an actor walk-
ing out in the afternoon. And a face you could
crack nuts on."
" Not quite so bad," said Pasc, grinning.
" And back of him," said I, " as I understand it
are the old crooks like old Magnus was, and
Stoneman and old Backus, with faces stiller than a
mummy; and brains in back going thirty-five hundred
revolutions a minute, thinking what they can pick up
and carry off out of the country next. Those old
devils sitting in back there that nobody ever sees.
" I God," I said. " They're the boys we're all
working for, when it comes down to the facts in the
case. All of us, all over the country. I've watched
that game, what I could. I've always wondered,
more or less, about these ten million and hundred
million and five-hundred-million boys down in Wall
Street, waiting, waiting, for everything to drift in
there. I never understood it quite. All I know,
and everybody else does, is they've got it all fixed
right for themselves.
" Is it all crooked, do you think, or does it just
have to be ? Do any one set of men have to have so
334 The Biography of a Million Dollars
much power? What do you think? Or did you
ever think about it? "
" He explained it to me," said Pasc, " a little
on the steamer, that partner. It sounds all natural
as water running down hill."
"To hear him tell it," I said.
" It's just like Billings' bank in a way here in
town. They've got the money."
" So I might get control of all the water in the
county," I said. " But that wouldn't make it right."
" They've got the money; and sooner or later bus-
iness things drift into them. They've got to
from all over."
" We know that," I said. " Ourselves, from ex-
perience. Right here. Never once from the time
we started has the finger of somebody with money
been off us."
" And especially as things like ours get bigger,"
said Pasc, " and grow faster they're always fewer
to get the money from. Especially when they get
up to a certain size. Then they have to all drift into
one place."
" New York?"
' Yes," said Pasc, " yes. And he explained that
to me just the same as the other. That's the only
place they can go. The only place with money
enough. They've got to, sooner or later, come in
there."
" And they sit there," I said, " with their faces
still and their eyes still and their hands still, till it
gets just right. And then Zip they grab it! "
" Yes," said Pasc.
Memories 335
" For they've got the only million-dollar machine
in the country."
" Stock machine," said Pasc. " Stock factory, I
should call it."
" Maybe," I said. " But it all comes to the same
thing. It's money they turn out of it finally for
themselves."
1 Yes, it all comes to that finally," said Pasc,
thinking. " Has to. He admitted that."
" And they keep their eyes out too, watching." I
said, " all the time. Don't forget that! "
'' They have fellows like Billings, of course," said
Pasc, "all over the country, who know them in the
banking business. And they have to come to them,
when they get anything big in their own neighbor-
hood."
" Sure," I came back. " Just as I always said.
They've got their wires out, and their spies watch-
ing, watching, watching, all over the country feel-
ing of everything that comes up."
" It is a regular machine little wheels and big
wheels, all meshed in together," said Pasc.
1 That's what I always thought about it. All run-
ning along in oil."
" That's just what it is," said I, "a regular ma-
chine a million-dollar machine, run to turn out
hundreds of millions, like Proctor Billings would a
hundred thousand. A billion machine, more likely
a billion machine," I said, "with its little cogs
and big cogs turning day and night all over the coun-
try, coining money on the quiet, out of what we all
do.
336 The Biography of a Million Dollars
" We've got about as much show against it," I
said; " you and I in the end, as a fly holding up a
steam roller."
" Just about," said Pasc.
" I God," I said. " There's nothing in the world
I'd like so much as a peep in the inside of how they
work that big money machine of theirs down there in
Wall Street.
" To tell you the truth," I said, " what I never
said to any other man in my life. I'm afraid of it!
And I guess I'm not the only one either."
" You're not," said Pasc. " Everybody is, I
guess, more or less."
And after that we quit and went to bed. I could
see Pasc was getting tired.
"Don't he look dreadful to you?" said Polly,
after we got upstairs. ' Those eyes I "
" There's nothing else to him," said I. " It re-
minds me of what we thought when we were boys
in the country sometimes an old pair of eyes, with
nothing in back of them, wandering around a grave-
yard in the dark."
" That's not what he reminds me of, exactly," said
Polly. " He reminds me always of a man pos-
sessed. With a spirit in him destroying him like
the man in the Bible."
" Yes," I said, " that's right, too. He does me,
tearing him, wearing him out! "
CHAPTER XXVII
SUNDAY AFTERNOON
We saw them back to the train Polly and I
about a week after that, when Pasc had got what
he came after and I'd agreed to sign up finally.
Polly and I sat there going home, each one in our
own corner of the limousine.
' You want to remember one thing, Bill," said
Polly, putting her hand on my arm, kind of softly,
after we'd got nearly home. " You mustn't be sur-
prised if you hear bad news some time from Pasc."
And I looked at her.
" He's a pretty sick man, I'm afraid," she said.
' We've got to get prepared for most anything."
And I didn't say anything for a minute.
" All I hope is," I said finally, " that coming over
here hasn't made him worse. I hope I won't be re-
sponsible for anything! "
" You don't want to get that idea on your mind,"
said Polly. " That's the thing Zetta has now all the
time, and can't get rid of about herself."
" That's so, I suppose," I said.
" I sometimes think we ain't any of us responsible
for anything," said Polly.
" We ain't much, either," said I, thinking.
338 The Biography of a Million Dollars
" Zetta is changed, isn't she? " I said after awhile.
" Yes," said Polly. " Scarcely a loud laugh out
of her while she was here."
" You can't blame her."
' There never was a day in her life," said Polly,
" she didn't worship the ground he walked on."
" I suppose not," said I.
And I sat back, thinking of Pasc and the days we
started out and worked together.
I thought of him again that next day Sunday
afternoon, it was when I went into the factory
office to pick up and clear out my desk. We weren't
going to clean up the business and make the final
transfers till Tuesday. But it was as good as done,
and I thought I'd go in and get through and get out
again, when I had the place to myself, and there
wasn't anybody else there to watch me.
I went over about three o'clock after dinner.
And left the car in back, and went in the back way
through the factory. It was cold in there. They'd
let the fire go down over Sunday; and the place
seemed extra still and lonesome, coming in as a
factory always does Sundays, anyhow. All those
big heavy machines that make so much crash and
jangle week days standing still, and all the men gone.
Nothing left. Just the big vacant white-washed
place, all sprawled full of stuff pulleys and belts
and levers, dark where the soiled hands of the work-
men had been. All standing still and idle wait-
ing!
Most of the machines, of course, were new. But
some of them, I could see, were the original old ma-
Sunday Afternoon 339
chines we started with in the old place. I stopped
and took hold of one and worked the lever.
Then I went along. It was in March pretty
cold still. It wasn't any too warm in the office.
I hustled around then, getting everything out as
fast as I could. I didn't want to stay around there
much now I was going. I wanted to get out and
get through. I always did kind of hate to move out
of anywhere for the last time.
I shoved everything into a couple of bags finally,
and looked around to see if there was anything else
I'd overlooked. I stood there and looked around
and it struck me : " This is the last time, I'll
ever be here probably ! "
It gave me a kind of a twist. I don't deny it.
It would, I guess, to anybody, going out that way
leaving a business you'd built up the way I did. The
way Pasc and I built up that one.
" Well, after all," I said, " you ain't like a man
that's going to be hung! " And I clapped on my
hat and started.
But I couldn't help thinking when I started out,
again: " It's the last time! And it's not only the
last time for you, but in two months more there
won't be any factory here at all. It will be all out
in Detroit all gone ! All vanished, as if it never
was in existence.
" Let's get out of this! " I said. And I took up
my two bags, and started out back again.
The sun was getting pretty well down now. It
looked empty as the devil out there. The still old
crooked shadows of the machinery lay tangled up
340 The Biography of a Million Dollars
against the whitewashed walls marked out by the
late pinkish March sunset shining in the windows
opposite.
I went along, getting out as fast as I could, when
who should come out from one of the tin doors in
the fire wall but old Tom Powers, poking around,
looking out for the place.
" Why, hello, Tom ! " I said, and dropped my
grips. It seemed good and natural to see him again.
" I didn't know but what I had a burglar here,"
he said, and grinned that little old wrinkled
deaths-head smile of his.
" I will be after this week," I said. " They'll
arrest me if they find me in here."
" You're getting through," said Tom, " as boss.
So I hear. Well, I'm sorry to hear it."
" I'm sorry, too," I said. " When you've been
hitched up to a thing the way I have been to this,
Tom, it comes kind of hard giving it up."
" It does," said Tom.
" But it can't be helped," I said. " It might be a
lot worse."
" It might," said Tom, peering at me with his
little eyes. " And Mr. Thomas. Where is he
now? "
" Gone abroad again. He ain't very well."
" I'm sorry to hear that," said Tom. " He was
a good man."
" Well, we can't have everything," I said.
" No," he said. " It might be worse. You're
both rich men, so I hear. It's made you both rich
the old Hoodlum."
Sunday Afternoon 341
" Yep," I said, " Tom. We two cashed in on
our Miracle. It's your turn next. What about
you? " I asked him. " Did Mr. Billings fix you up
get you a new job, when they moved the plant out
to Detroit."
* Yes, I'm going to stay here for a while anyhow,
watching this place for him while they empty it
out. And I guess right along after."
" He told me he'd look out for you," I said.
" He treated me all right," said Tom.
" Look here," I said to him. The old man
looked pretty wabbly to me. " Don't you think yet
you've got enough of being night watchman? "
" No, I don't know as I've had," he said, looking
up at me. "What else would I do? Besides, it
gives me a place to work on my invention, odd times,
I wouldn't get anywhere else. The boys always
leave me their tools or they have."
" You won't have them now."
11 No. But I'll get along."
" How is she now? " I said, smiling. " How is
the old Miracle?"
11 She's all right," he said, smiling back, like a
good-natured old mummy.
" Still the coming thing? " I asked him.
" Just as I always said," he answered me.
you see," he asked me, that old kind of eager, in-
ventor's look coming back into his eyes " did you
see how they're flying abroad now hundreds of
miles in those aryplanes the Wright boys and
them they sold them to. Flying in the air better
and better all the time thousands of them!
342 The Biography of a Million Dollars
What do you think of that? What did you think
of it ten years ago?
" They're flying in the air all over," he said, his
eyes getting brighter and brighter. " Is it any fun-
nier for you and me, then," he asked me, " to get
the power out of the air, than for them to be flying
around in it? "
" No, I guess not," I said. It seemed to me the
old man got a little looser and queerer every year
on that thing of his. Why wouldn't he, working
away at it with that old left hand of his, night after
night, in that old dark lonesome factory?
" Don't you ever get sick of it," I said, " walking
around here at night? "
" No," he said. " I got something all the time
to occupy my mind."
" That's more than I'll have now," I said. " But
I'll tell you what I'll do," I told him. " What I'm
looking forward to now," said I, taking up that old
joke of ours together. " When you get around to it,
I'll just about take up that option of ten thousand
shares of stock in the old Miracle. That's a million
dollar's worth.
"Or I tell you what I will do," I said, getting
serious. " I'll put in ten thousand dollars right
now, on account. I'll back you to that extent, when-
ever you want to get through here and take me
up!"
' You're a damned good man, Bill Morgan," said
old Tom, staring at me. " You always was. The
men all liked you," he said, and stood staring at me
a little while.
Sunday Afternoon 343
" But it ain't no use. You can't do that to me,"
he said, with a kind of crafty smile. I think he
was just a little touched in the upper story now
beginning to be. ' You can't do that to me. You
can't make me take your money while I can earn my
own. What would I do with it if I had it? Sit
around the house with the old woman? "
' You could work there," said I, " on the Mir-
acle."
" Not so well as I could here. And besides, what
would I stop for when I'm still able to support
myself and get along? I'll tame my own Miracle,
and harness her up by the grace of God," he said.
And laughed that cracked old laugh of his. " And
some day," he said, "when I get a good thing
when I've got her worked out, under control, I'll
ride her over to your place. I'll put her on wheels
and ride over to see you. And you can put your
money in her then ! "
The sun got in back of the corner of one of the
small shops across the road, and went out entirely,
then; and the crooked shadows of the machinery
died off the white brick wall. All at once it seemed
kind of blue and chilly in there. I knew I'd got to
go pretty quick, anyhow.
" All right. I'll be looking for you, riding up,"
I said, getting up my grips. And I went along, and
left him, standing there in the aisle between the ma-
chines.
The dusk was coming in fast; the place was lone-
lier than Tophet. I looked back once before I shut
the door. The old man still stood there where I
344 The Biography of a Million Dollars
left him like an old ghost in the place. Some-
thing that belonged there, and couldn't get away.
He stood there, watching, till finally I shut myself
out of my factory that last time.
I never went back in there afterwards. I never
wanted to.
CHAPTER XXVIII
TWO PIECES OF PAPER
' This is the day," said Polly to me, both of us
waking up early.
" Yes," I said, and lay there till breakfast time,
staring at the ceiling, thinking.
I was over at Billings' bank, with my lawyer at
eleven o'clock, according to agreement anxious to
get my money, and get it over with; and see this
man from Magnus and Company. Just one of the
younger ones but a partner just the same !
He stood back to me when I came in the door,
looking at one of the pictures of the sheep on the
walls of the private reception room. I couldn't tell
much about him, except he was tall, and looked
pretty young with just a little grey hair in his
head!
" Yes," said Billings, talking to him, giving me his
back as long as possible. " They were my father's
choice. He was born on a farm; he was always
fond of pictures of sheep. He was an austere man
on the outside but he had quite a vein of sentiment
in him, down deep. He didn't show it to many
people only to my mother and myself. But he
developed quite a taste for painting in his late life
especially for these things, which reminded him of
his early associations."
S46 The Biography of a Million Dollars
" They're very good," said the man from Mag-
nus and Company.
" Yes," said Billings. " They are I think.
The old man had no education in art, of course. Or
in any other way really. He was not an educated
man in the narrow sense of the word. What he did
was by sheer will power and mental ability."
" I have heard Mr. Magnus speak of him, before
his death," said the other man, " as a man of great
natural powers."
" I'm glad to know that," said Billings. " He
was that, exactly a diamond in the rough."
" Mr. Magnus was a New Englander, of course,
himself," said the New Yorker.
" I know," said Billings.
And then they heard me, or pretended to, and
turned around; and Billings introduced us. And we
went in and sat down in Billings' private office, under
his father's old picture. And I watched the two of
them close, while we went through with it.
There was nothing to do much, but sign and take
my money. It had all been fixed by the lawyers in
advance.
' You don't want me," said my lawyer. He was
kind of a rough talking, hearty kind of fellow, " any
more than two tails. This is all right from our
standpoint. The other people are the ones to look
out. They're the buyers."
; ' We're perfectly satisfied," said the Magnus
partner. " We don't think Mr. Morgan would
cheat us." And smiled.
He had a pleasant agreeable smile on him an
Two Pieces of Paper 347
easy kind of way He was a good looking young-
ish fellow not a day over forty-two or three.
Tall and slim like Billings. A quiet dresser. There
wasn't a diamond on him anywhere. Not even a
scarfpin; but his clothes showed the money all right
made him look young, the way those New York
clothes do. He was kept up every way, you could
see that, like a fine race horse.
" So this is the kind that runs us," I thought to
myself keeping my eye on him, watching just
what he did.
He had this easy way with him, and all the time
in the world apparently. The thing he was up to
didn't worry him at all a million more or less.
He was willing to talk about anything, from business
to Billings's flowers.
I talked with him myself quite a little, while they
were getting some of the papers together outside.
We got to talking about our line of business.
" In some ways," he said to me, " I've always
thought your line was the biggest thing in the coun-
try; your manufacturing sections like this, and the
people that grow up in them and these different
machine shops, real expert machinists, I mean, now.
" They speak of farmers," he told me, " as the
foundation of everything in this country from the
beginning. But in a way these people these ma-
chinists are more American than they are.
More thinkers more outspoken and independent. 1
" I God, yes," I said. " That's the trouble with
us, I guess. Too much outspoken."
And he laughed.
348 The Biography of a Million Dollars
And Proctor Billings, who was listening, smiled a
kind of frosty smile all below the nose.
" But a good workman," I said, " we always say,
is apt to be crochety."
" I believe you," he said. " Men have got to be
more or less that do their own thinking have
to, in their own business, day after day."
" Too much thinking makes a man cross, anyway,"
said I.
The Magnus partner laughed again.
" I believe you," he said.
" You thought I was crooked," said I, looking at
him. " Didn't you? You thought I was holding
you up."
" That's putting it a little bluntly," he answered
me.
" Put it any way you want to. You thought so !
But I wasn't. All it was, when it came down to giv-
ing up my business, and not being my own man I
found I couldn't make up my mind to do it. I've
wanted to be independent always. I guess it's in our
blood us fellows raised in a machine shop, the
way I was."
" I think you may be right," he said.
" I know I am. The truth is," I told him, " I'd
be fighting you now in spite of my wife and my
doctor and my lawyer if my old partner and
the best friend I ever had hadn't come back from
Europe and shown me I was making a fool of
myself.
" And I don't know now but he killed himself do-
ing it ! " I said and stopped.
Two Pieces of Paper 349
' Mr. Thomas, you mean," said he.
'Yes," I said. "The best fellow that ever
lived."
"He seemed a very unusual man," he said.
' What little I saw of him."
1 You bet he is," said I. " And the straightest
haired man in this world."
And then we got talking about Pasc and the Hood-
lum. And I told him how Pasc had drawn the whole
machine, you might say, out of his head; about his
envelope and stub, and his bench in the shop; and his
absent-minded eyes, and his never resting or being
satisfied until he had a thing perfect.
" I don't know as you have ever seen men down
your way just like him," I said. " Those old-time
workmen old-fashioned machinists ! Those bony
sober-faced fellows in overalls."
He nodded his head. " I've seen them," he said,
thinking, " those faces. When I was a boy. I
knew one man, in particular. . . . You see them
now, sometimes," he said, " staring out the door of
a garage with those eyes! "
" And a smudge on the end of their nose."
" Yes," he said, and laughed.
" They are the salt of the earth," I said. " They
keep this country going on, as you say, more than
anybody."
" You're right," he said. " That's just what they
do. I believe it," he said. " In a great many v
these men with the metal gauges in their hands have
changed the face of the world more than the man
with the hoe and the axe, that found and broke in
350 The Biography of a Million Dollars
our continents. And they are going to still more.
They'll be our chief pioneers from now on."
"How?" Billings asked him, coming into the
talk.
" In the air, for instance," he explained to him.
" Pioneers, not in continents in unknown things
big forces."
" I get you," I said. " Working with them, day
after day; fighting them, off in the air somewhere!
That's what happened to Pasc. He got hold of
something out there too big for him. It wore him
out."
And the talk stopped a minute.
" If the truth was told," I said, starting it up
again, " I did the same thing in my way. I got
hold of something that was too big for me. And
now I have got to drop it myself."
" It is pretty big, for anybody," said the Magnus
man " a sudden new industry, like this."
" It doesn't seem too big for you people," I said
to him. " You people with the money and the
banks. Or anything else ! You take them all as
they come."
" All we can do really is what you did in another
way," he said; "watch a thing and direct it and
keep it going."
" Ah-ha," I said, listening to him explain it
through. " But that ain't my theory of it exactly."
"What is?" said he.
" My theory is," I told him, " that you've got the
biggest machine of all. You've got the money ma-
chine the billion machine, that all this other ma-
Two Pieces of Paper 351
chinery works for, finally." And I told him a little
about the way Pasc Thomas and I used to discuss it.
He laughed again.
" I never heard it put just that way before," he
said.
" It takes a machinist to catch a machinist," said
Proctor Billings, loosening up a little now.
' Yes," said the other man.
" I never saw very far into it," I said. " It was
always a mystery to me your machine and how it
worked, and the control you've got over everything.
I'd rather know about it now than anything I can
think of."
" Come on down some time," said the Magnus
man, smiling. " And I'll try to show it to you
what I know about it. It's a considerable mystery
to me," he said, " while we're starting telling the
truth. I'm always working, trying to learn it, like
your friend with the motor."
And then they brought in the last papers finally.
And he cast his eyes over them for a minute or two,
while I watched him.
He was easy but you could sec, when his face
went still, he was the same thing as Proctor Billings
the same still-faced tribe, when you got down un-
derneath. All the look of knowing something you
didn't and holding it back on you; putting everything
up to you all the time; and watching you, to grab
you when you went wrong. I watched those two -
Billings and him talking to one another back of
those masks those bankers' faces; their own kind
of talk. This New Yorker was too much for him ;
352 The Biography of a Million Dollars
his mind went leading Billings' mind around all the
time like a dog on a rope.
" What's this? " said the Magnus partner, point-
ing out something in the agreement to Billings.
" Oh ! I don't see how that happened," said
Billings. You could see he was flustered in spite
of himself. " My mistake," he said, " I'll have it
corrected at once."
" It would be better, I think," said the man from
New York kind of low and polite.
That was all he said. But it did my heart good.
He was giving Billings a call-down a punishment.
Not a voice, nor an eyebrow lifted. But you could
hear it coming down as plain as an Italian woman
spanking a baby. You could see how deathly afraid
of him Proctor Billings was.
" Gripes, what power he must have ! " I said to
myself, watching him what showed through that
still face of his. But never able, of course, to see
back of that man's mask all quiet and still and
polite ! He was too much for me ; I had to acknowl-
edge it to myself sitting there waiting for my
check.
That was the thing really now my check; my
million, they were going to give me now. I'd been
thinking of it, naturally, all the time those days be-
fore that going over everything. What it would
have meant to me five years before; all the fight we
had; what had happened. Now, here I was getting
it!
He just reached his hand into his pocketbook,
when the time came, and took out this big check
Two Pieces of Paper 353
.this white piece of paper and handed it to me I
had to laugh almost about like passing you a
cigar.
It makes no more impression on them than
that," I said to myself. " They have to hand out
these millions so often these fellows they get
awful tired of it! "
" Certified," he said. " From Magnus and Com-
pany."
I grinned; I had to. " That ought to be safe," I
said; " what do you think about it? "
"Hadn't it?" he said and laughed that quick
laugh of his, showing his teeth.
" One million and sixty-five thousand, three hun-
dred and seventeen dollars and thirty-seven cents,"
I said reading.
' With some minor adjustments! "
" I God," I said. " I think you're cheating me.
I made it out thirty-eight cents myself."
And we laughed again, and I got up and put it
in my pocket.
" I'm going to take it home," I said, " and show
it to the wife. And then I'm going to bring it
back here for Billings to take care of for me for a
minute or two. Then I'm coming down to buy you
folks out."
" Come on. Do," he said and held out his
long hand, smiling. " We need energetic men down
there."
" Well," I said, " give my regards to all the rest
of the boys down there. And especially young
Magnus ! "
354 The Biography of a Million Dollars
11 I'll do that, too," he said.
" So long," I said. " Good-by."
Whatever he was, or whatever he could do to
Billings, to the banks, or the railroads, or the coun-
try in general, I wasn't going to let him see I thought
he was any different from any other man.
" Good-by," he said, and leaned over forward
and shook hands with me, as if he was shaking
hands with the King of England. And stood smiling
at me as I went out.
When I reached the door, I caught one last
glimpse of him turning around. His smile
stopped, and his still mask fell down again like the
outside curtain at the ending of a play. I drove
straight home. When I got there, Polly was out on
the piazza by the porte-cochere.
" Here it is," I said, coming up taking it out,
and waving it at her. " One million dollars I And
a little over for a hat," I said, kissing her.
" That's fine," she said, taking me by the coat
lapels. I thought then there was something, from
the way she looked !
:i That's fine. Come on into the house."
As we were going in, I noticed that other paper
that yellow one in her hand.
" I've got some news for you, Bill," she said,
standing inside the hall. " Not quite so good."
"What is it?"
" Pasc Thomas."
" Dead ! " said I all at once turned hoarse.
And she bowed her head down.
" Oh, Bill," she said, grabbing me like a child in
Two Pieces of Paper 355
the dark. " I'm I'm so thankful it wasn't you! "
And she started crying a little.
" Pasc Thomas ! " I said, looking off over her
head. My lips were kind of numb.
We stood there quite awhile, then I looked down
happened to. Those two pieces of paper the
white one and the yellow one had fallen from
our hands and lay there together on the floor.
" I tell you what I'd do," said Polly, that next
week after that always planning and always look-
ing out for me. More than ever nowl
"What? "said I.
" Look," she said. " It isn't everybody that
makes a million. Now why don't you, while you're
resting, and it's all fresh in your memory, get ahold
of some of these newspaper boys you know, and
dictate what you remember, and have them fix it
up into a story for you."
" That's not so bad! " said I. My digestion was
better; the doctor said I was doing pretty well.
But I did hate to sit around so. How I did miss
my little old business! "That's not a bad idea,"
I told her.
" No, is it? " she said. " It would occupy your
mind keep you from sitting around smoking too
much get you interested in something before we
go off traveling."
" It might at that," said I, thinking.
" A good plain story, in good plain language, for
ordinary plain-spoken people like us to read. And
I've got a name for it! " she said.
356 The Biography of a Million Dollars
"What's that?"
" You know all those biographies they get out.
About different men? All the things they've done,
and are responsible for? Well, I'd have this dif-
ferent from that."
"How?"
" I'd call it the biography of a million dollars.
Not just the story of a man; but the business
everything.
"You you see?" she said, hurrying, explain-
ing. " Make it a little different from these things
you read in the biographies, or the newspapers when
a rich man dies. Show how it really happened."
" I God, yes," I said, sitting up. " You'd think
to read one of those things that some of those
old devils with square chin whiskers just reached
out and took up a piece of mud and made the world
out of it, with their own hands alone."
' Yes yes. That's what I meant. You try
it," said Polly. " Write it."
" I will, I believe ! " said I, making up my mind.
So I have, in a kind of a way.
But the trouble is, I've only told about half the
story not half. I don't know about the other
end those bankers; those silent boys in the banks
all over the country heading up down there in
Wall Street. They're the fellows I want somebody
to tell me about those still-faced men that run
that billion-dollar machine down in Wall Street
and grab off their slice of everything that comes up
in the country. They're the fellows we're all work-
ing for if we only knew it I
5WVAD Q
By the author of "Limpy"
THE HOUSE OF WHISPERS
By WILLIAM JOHNSTON
Illustrated. 12mo. Cloth. $1.40 net
In this up-to-date mystery story the author has success-
fully transplanted to a modern, luxurious apartment house,
the interest-inspiring ghostly atmosphere of a ruined castle.
Rich old Rufus Gaston and his wife, terrorized by the strange
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of Nelson for murder. Mr. Johnston has written a real my-
tery story with an original plot laid in novel surroundings,
with enough excitement and suspense to satisfy the moat
exacting reader of entertaining 6ction.
LITTLE, BROWN & CO., PUBLISHERS
34 BEACON STREET, BOSTON
"Darby the Yank" fightt with the Tankt
A YANKEE IN THE
TRENCHES
By CORPORAL R. DERBY HOLMES
OF BOSTON
Latt of the 22d London Battalion of the Queen s Royal West
Surrey Regiment
12mo. Illustrated. $1.35 net
The actual life of a soldier on the Western front in billets,
in the trenches, over the top, across no-man's land and in
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army, until, twice wounded, he was invalided home. Cor-
poral Holmes fought in the battles of the Somme where he
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LITTLE, BROWN & CO., PUBLISHERS
34 BEACON STBEET, BOSTON