Kitabı oxu: «Young Wallingford», səhifə 10

CHAPTER XVIII

WALLINGFORD SPECULATES IN THE CHEAPEST REAL ESTATE PROCURABLE

That evening, after supper, Wallingford sat on one of the broad, cane-seated chairs in front of the Atlas Hotel, smoking a big, black cigar from his own private store, and watched the regular evening parade go by. They came, two by two, the girls of the village, up one side of Maple Street, passed the Atlas Hotel, crossed over at the corner of the livery stable, went down past the Big Store and as far as the Campbellite church, where they crossed again and began a new round; and each time they passed the Atlas Hotel they giggled, or they talked loudly, or pushed one another, or did something to enlarge themselves in the transient eye. The grocery drummer and the dry-goods salesman sat together, a little aloof from J. Rufus, and presently began saying flippant things to the girls as they passed. A wake of giggles, after each such occasion, frothed across the street at the livery-stable corner, and down toward the Campbellite church.

Molly presently slipped out of the garden gate and went down Maple Street by herself. Within twenty minutes she, too, had joined the parade, and with her was Fannie Bubble. As these passed the Atlas Hotel both the drummers got up.

“Hello, Molly,” said the grocery drummer. “I’ve been waiting for you since Hector was a pup,” and he caught her arm, while the dry-goods salesman advanced a little uncertainly.

“You ’tend to your own business, Joe Cling,” ordered Molly, jerking her arm away, but nevertheless giving an inquiring glance toward her companion. That rigid young lady, however, was looking straight ahead. She was standing just in front of Wallingford.

“Come on,” coaxed the grocery drummer; “I don’t bite. Grab hold there on the other side, Billy.”

Miss Bubble, however, was still looking so uncompromisingly straight ahead that Billy hesitated, and the willing enough Molly, seeing that the conference had “struck a snag,” took matters into her own vigorous hands again.

“You’re too fresh,” she admonished the grocery drummer. “Let go my arm, I tell you. Come on, Fannie,” and she flounced away with her companion, turning into the gate of the hotel garden. Miss Fannie cast back a curious glance, not at the grocery drummer nor the veteran dry-goods salesman, but at the quiet J. Rufus.

The discomfited transients gave short laughs of chagrin and went back to their seats, but the grocery drummer was too young to be daunted for long, and by the time another section or two of the giggling parade had passed them he was ready for a second attempt. One couple, a tall, thin girl and a short, chubby one, who had now made the circuit three times, came sweeping past again, exchanging with each other hilarious persiflage which was calculated to attract and tempt.

“Wait a minute,” said the grocery drummer to his companion.

He dashed straight across the street, and under the shadow of the big elm intercepted the long and short couple. There was a parley in which the girls two or three times started to walk away, a further parley in which they consented to stand still, a loud male guffaw mingled with a succession of shrill giggles, then suddenly the grocery salesman called:

“Come on, Billy!”

The dry-goods man half rose from his chair and hesitated.

“Come on, Billy!” again invited the grocery drummer. “We’re going down to wade in the creek.”

A particularly high-pitched set of giggles followed this tremendous joke, and Billy, his timid scruples finally overcome, went across the street, a ridiculous figure with his ancient body and his youthful clothes. Nevertheless, Wallingford felt just a trifle lonesome as he watched his traveling companions of the afternoon go sauntering down the street in company which, if silly, was at least human. While he regretted Broadway, Bob Ranger, dressed no whit different from his attire of the afternoon, except that his sleeves were rolled down, came out of the hotel and stood for an undecided moment in front of the door.

“Hello, Bob!” hailed Wallingford cordially, glad to see any face he knew. “Do you smoke?”

“Reckon I do,” said Bob. “I was thinkin’ just this minute of walkin’ down to Bud Hegler’s for some stogies.”

“Sit down and have a cigar,” offered Wallingford, producing a companion to the one he was then enjoying.

Bob took that cigar and smelled it; he measured its length, its weight, and felt its firmness.

“It ain’t got any band on it, but I reckon that’s a straight ten-center,” he opined.

“I’ll buy all you can get me of that brand for a quarter apiece,” offered Wallingford.

“So?” said Bob, looking at it doubtfully. “I reckon I’d better save this for Sunday.”

“No, smoke it now. I’ll give you another one for Sunday,” promised Wallingford, and he lit a match, whereupon Bob, biting the end off the cigar with his strong, white teeth, moistened it all over with his tongue to keep the curl of the wrapper down.

With vast gratification he sat down to enjoy that awe-inspiring cigar, and, by way of being entertaining, uttered comment upon the passing parade – frank, ingeniously told bits of personal history which would have been startling to one who had imbibed the conventional idea that all country folk are without guile. Wallingford was not so much shocked by these revelations, however, as he might have been, for he had himself been raised in a country town, though one not so small as Blakeville.

It was while Bob was in the midst of this more or less profane history that Molly and Fannie Bubble came out of the gate.

“Come here, Molly,” invited Bob; “I want to introduce you to a friend of mine. He’s going to stop here quite a long time. Mr. Wallingford – Molly; Miss Bubble – Mr. Wallingford. Come on; let’s all take a walk,” and confidently taking Molly’s arm he started up the crossing, leaving Miss Bubble to Wallingford.

“It’s a beautiful evening, isn’t it?” said Fannie, as Wallingford caught step with her.

Wallingford had to hark back. Time had been when the line of conversation which went with Miss Bubble’s opening remark had been as familiar to him as his own safety razor, but of late he had been entertaining such characters as Beauty Phillips, and conversation with the Beauty had consisted of lightning-witted search through the ends of the earth and the seas therein for extravagant hyperbole and metaphor. Harking back was so difficult that J. Rufus gave it up.

“Lovely evening,” he admitted. “I’ve just been thinking about this weather. I’ve about decided to build a factory to put it up in boxes for the Chicago Market. They’d pay any price for it there in the fall.”

Miss Fannie considered this remark in silence for a moment, and then she laughed, a quiet, silvery laugh that startled J. Rufus by its musical quality.

“I don’t see why you should laugh,” protested Wallingford gravely. “If a man can get a monopoly on weather-canning it would be even better than the sleep-factory idea I’ve been considering.”

“What was that like?” asked Fannie, interested in spite of the fact that these jokes were not at all the good old standards, which could be laughed at without the painful necessity of thought.

“Well,” Wallingford explained, “I figured on building an immense dormitory and hiring about a thousand fat hoboes to sleep for me night and day. Then I intended to take that sleep and condense it and put it up in eight-hour capsules for visitors to New York. There ought to be a fortune in that.”

Again a little silence and again that little silvery laugh which Wallingford found himself watching for.

“You’re so funny,” said Miss Fannie.

“For a long time I was divided between that and my anti-bum serum as a permanent investment,” he went on, glancing down at her as he extended himself along the line which had seemed to catch her fancy. She was looking up at him, her eyes shining, her lips half parted in an anticipatory smile, and unconsciously her hand had crept upon his arm, where it lay warm and vibrant. “You know,” he explained, “they inoculate a guinea-pig or a sheep or something with disease germs, and from this animal, somehow or other, they extract a serum which cures that disease. Well, I propose to get a herd of billy-goats boiling spifflicated, and extract from them the jag serum, and with that inoculate all the rounders on Broadway at so much per inoc. Then they can stand up in front of an onyx bar and guzzle till it oozes out of their ears, without any worse effects than a lifting pain in the right elbow.”

This time the laugh came more slowly, for here was a lot of language which, though refreshing, was tangled in knots that must be unraveled. Nevertheless, the laugh came, and at the sound of it Wallingford involuntarily pressed slightly against his side the hand that lay upon his arm. They were passing Hen Moozer’s General Merchandise Emporium and Post-Office at the time, and upon the rickety porch, its posts, benches, and even floors whittled like a huge Rosetta stone, sat a group of five young men. Just after the couple had cleared the end of the porch a series of derisive meows broke out. It was the old protest of town boy against city boy, of work clothes against “Sunday duds,” of native against alien; and again J. Rufus harked back. It only provoked a smile in him, but he felt a sudden tenseness in the hand that lay upon his arm, and he was relieved when Bob and Molly, a half block ahead of them, turned hastily down a delightfully dark and shady cross street, in the shelter of which Bob immediately slipped his arm around Molly’s waist. J. Rufus, pondering that movement and regarding it as the entirely conventional and proper one, essayed to do likewise; but Miss Fannie, discussing the unpleasant habit of her young townsmen with some indignation but more sense of humor, gently but firmly unwound J. Rufus’ arm, placed it at his side and slipped her hand within it again without the loss of a syllable.

Wallingford was surprised at himself. In the old days he would have fought out this issue and would have conquered. Now, however, something had made this bold young man of the world suddenly tame. He himself helped Miss Fannie to put him back upon grounds of friendly aloofness, and with a gasp he realized that for the first time in his life he had met a girl who had forced his entire respect. It was preposterous!

Unaccountably, however, they seemed to grow more friendly after that, and the talk drifted to J. Rufus himself, the places he had seen, the adventures he had encountered, the richness of luxury that he had sought and found, and the girl listened with breathless eagerness. They did not go back to Maple Street just now, for the Maple Street parade was only for the unattached. Instead, they followed the others down to the depot and back, and after another half-hour détour through the quiet, shady street, they found Bob and Molly waiting for them at the corner.

“Good night, Fannie,” said Molly. “I’m going in. To-morrow’s ironing day. Good night, Mr. Wallingford.”

“Good night,” returned Miss Fannie, as a matter of course, and again Wallingford harked back. He was to take Miss Fannie home. Quite naturally. Why not?

It was a long walk, but by no means too long, and when they had arrived at the big, fret-sawed house of Jonas Bubble, J. Rufus was sorry. He lingered a moment at the gate, but only a moment, for a woman’s shrill voice called:

“Is that you, Fannie? You come right in here and go to bed! Who’s that with you?”

“You’d better go right away, please,” pleaded Fannie in a flutter. “I’m not allowed to be with strangers.”

This would have been the cue for a less adroit and diplomatic caller to hurry silently back up the street, and, as a matter of fact, this entirely conventional course was all that Mrs. Bubble had looked for. She was accordingly shocked when the gate opened, and in place of Fannie coming alone, J. Rufus, in spite of the girl’s protest, walked deliberately up to the porch.

“Is Mr. Bubble at home?” he asked with great dignity.

Mrs. Bubble gasped.

“I reckon he is,” she admitted.

“I’d like to see him, if possible.”

There was another moment of silence, in which Mrs. Bubble strove to readjust herself.

“I’ll call him,” she said, and went in.

Mr. Jonas Bubble, revealed in the light of the open door, proved to be a pursy man of about fifty-five, full of importance from his square-toed shoes to his gray sideburns; he exuded importance from every vest button upon the bulge of his rotundity, and importance glistened from the very top of his bald head.

“I am J. Rufus Wallingford,” said that broad-chested young gentleman, whose impressiveness was at least equal to Mr. Bubble’s importance, and he produced a neatly-engraved card to prove the genuineness of his name. “I was introduced to your daughter at the hotel, and I came down to consult with you upon a little matter of business.”

“I usually transact business at my office,” said Mr. Bubble pompously; “nevertheless, you may come inside.”

He led the way into a queer combination of parlor, library, sitting-room and study, where he lit a big, hanging gasolene lamp, opened his old swinging top desk with a key which he carefully and pompously selected from a pompous bunch, placed a plush-covered chair for his visitor, and seated himself upon an old leather-stuffed chair in front of the desk.

“Now, sir,” said he, swinging around to Wallingford and puffing out his cheeks, “I am ready to consider whatever you may have to say.”

Mr. Wallingford’s first action was one well-calculated to inspire interest. First he drew out the desk slide at Mr. Bubble’s left; then from his inside vest pocket he produced a large flat package of greenbacks, no bill being of less than a hundred dollars’ denomination. From this pile he carefully counted out eight thousand dollars, and put the balance, which Mr. Bubble hastily estimated at about fifteen hundred, back in his pocket. This procedure having been conducted with vast and impressive silence, Mr. Wallingford cleared his throat.

“I have come to ask a great favor of you,” said he, sinking his voice to barely above a whisper. “I am a stranger here. I find, unfortunately, that there is no bank in Blakeville, and I have more money with me than I care to carry about. I learned that you are the only real man of affairs in the town, and have come to ask you if you would kindly make room for this in your private safe for a day or so.”

Mr. Bubble, rotating his thumbs slowly upon each other, considered that money in profound silence. The possessor of so much loose cash was a gentleman, a man to be respected.

“With pleasure,” said Mr. Bubble. “I don’t myself like to have so much money about me, and I’d advise you, as soon as convenient, to take it up to Millford, where I do my banking. In the meantime, I don’t blame you, Mr. Wallingford, for not wanting to carry this much money about with you, nor for hesitating to put it in Jim Ranger’s old tin safe.”

“Thank you,” said Wallingford. “I feel very much relieved.”

Mr. Bubble drew paper and pen toward him.

“I’ll write you a receipt,” he offered.

“Not at all; not at all,” protested Wallingford, having gaged Mr. Bubble very accurately. “Between gentlemen such matters are entirely superfluous. By the way, Mr. Bubble, I see you have a large swamp on your land. Do you intend to let it lie useless for ever?”

“What else can I do with it?” demanded Mr. Bubble, wondering. That swamp had always been there. Naturally, it would always be there.

“You can’t do very much with it,” admitted Wallingford. “However, it is barely possible that I might see a way to utilize it, if the price were reasonable enough. What would you take for it?”

This was an entirely different matter. Mr. Bubble pursed up his lips.

“Well, I don’t know. The land surrounding it is worth two hundred dollars an acre.”

Wallingford grinned, but only internally. He knew this to be a highly exaggerated estimate, but he let it pass without comment.

“No doubt,” he agreed; “but your swamp is worth exactly nothing per square mile; in fact, worth less than nothing. It is only a breeding-place of mosquitoes and malaria. How many acres does it cover?”

“About forty.”

“I suppose ten dollars an acre would buy it?”

“By no means,” protested Mr. Bubble. “I wouldn’t have a right of way split through my farm for four hundred dollars. Couldn’t think of it.”

It was Wallingford’s turn to be silent.

“Tell you what I’ll do,” he finally began. “I think of settling down in Blakeville. I like the town from what I’ve seen of it, and I may make some important investments here.”

Mr. Bubble nodded his head gravely. A man who carried over eight thousand dollars surplus cash in his pocket had a right to talk that way.

“The matter, of course,” continued Wallingford, “requires considerable further investigation. In the meantime, I stand ready to pay you now a hundred dollars for a thirty-day option upon forty acres of your swamp land, the hundred to apply upon a total purchase price of one thousand dollars. Moreover, I’ll make it a part of the contract that no enterprise be undertaken upon this ground without receiving your sanction.”

Mr. Bubble considered this matter in pompous silence for some little time.

“Suppose we just reduce that proposition to writing, Mr. Wallingford,” he finally suggested, and without stirring from his seat he raised his voice and called: “Fannie!”

In reply two voices approached the door, one sharp, querulous, nagging, the other, the younger and fresher voice, protesting; then the girl came in, followed closely by her stepmother. The girl looked at Wallingford brightly. He was the first young man who had bearded the lioness at Bubble Villa, and she appreciated the novelty. Mrs. Bubble, however, distinctly glared at him, though the eyes of both women roved from him to the pile of bills held down with a paper weight on Mr. Bubble’s desk. Mr. Bubble made way for his daughter.

“Write a little agreement for Mr. Wallingford and myself,” directed Mr. Bubble, and dictated it, much to the surprise of the women, for Jonas always did his own writing. They did not understand that he, also, wished to make an impression.

With a delicate flush of self-consciousness in her occupation Fannie wrote the option agreement, and later another document, acknowledging the receipt of eight thousand dollars to be held in trust. In exchange for the first paper J. Rufus gravely handed Mr. Bubble a hundred-dollar bill.

“To-morrow,” said he, “I shall drop around to see you at your office, to confer with you about my proposed enterprise.”

As Wallingford left the room, attended by the almost obsequious Bubble, he caught a lingering glance of interest, curiosity, and perhaps more, from the bright eyes of Fannie Bubble. Her stepmother, however, distinctly sniffed.

Meanwhile, Wallingford, at the gate, turned for a moment toward the distant swamp where it lay now ebony and glittering silver in the moonlight, knitted his brows in perplexity, lit another of his black cigars, and strolled back to the hotel.

What on earth should he do with that swamp, now that he had it? Something good ought to be hinged on it. Should he form a drainage company to restore it to good farming land? No. At best he could only get a hundred and fifty dollars an acre, or, say, six thousand dollars for the forty. The acreage alone was to cost him a thousand; no telling what the drainage would cost, but whatever the figure there would not be profit enough to hypothecate. And it was no part of Wallingford’s intention to do any actual work. He was through for ever with drudgery; for him was only creation.

What should he do with that swamp? As he thought of it, his mind’s eye could see only its blackness. It was, after all, only a mass of dense, sticky, black mud!

Still revolving this problem in mind, Wallingford went to his bedroom, where he had scarcely arrived when Bob Ranger followed him, his sleeves rolled up again and a pail of steaming water in each hand.

“The old man said you was to have a bath when you come in,” stated Bob. “How hot do you want it?”

“I think I’ll let it go till morning and have it cold,” replied Wallingford, chuckling.

“All right,” said Bob. “It’s your funeral and not mine. I’ll just pour this in now and it’ll get cool by morning.”

In the next room – wherein the bed had been hastily replaced by two chairs, an old horsehair lounge and a kitchen table covered with a red table-cloth – Wallingford found a huge tin bath-tub, shaped like an elongated coal scuttle, dingy white on the inside and dingy green on the outside, and battered full of dents.

“How’d you get along?” asked Bob, pausing to wipe the perspiration from his brow after he had emptied the two pails of water into the tub.

“All right,” said Wallingford with a reminiscent smile.

“Old Mrs. Bubble drive you off the place?”

“No,” replied Wallingford loftily. “I went in the house and talked a while.”

“Go on!” exclaimed Bob, the glow of admiration almost shining through his skin. “Say, you’re a peach, all right! How do you like Fannie?”

“She’s a very nice girl,” opined Wallingford.

“Yes,” agreed Bob. “She’s getting a little old, though. She was twenty her last birthday. She’ll be an old maid pretty soon, but it’s her own fault.”

Then Bob went after more water, and Wallingford, seating himself at the table with paper and pencil, plunged into a succession of rambling figures concerning Jonas Bubble’s black swamp; and he figured and puzzled far into the night, with the piquant face of Miss Fannie drifting here and there among the figures.