A Captain in the Ranks: A Romance of Affairs

So Tandy went on for an hour. At the end of that time Temple felt himself sufficiently sure of his ground to venture a little further:

"I am inclined to think," he said, "that I shall want to take at least a little of the barrel-factory stock to-morrow, and possibly I may subscribe for some of the gas stock also; of that I am not yet sure. But before I take either, I must invest four or five thousand dollars in something absolutely secure. I have been going over the latest reports of your bank, and the other one – Hallam's – and they have impressed me with the conviction that the very best and safest investment a man of small means, like myself, can make in this town, is in bank stock. This city is a point at which so many lines of travel and traffic converge, that the exchange business itself must be sufficient to pay a bank's expenses. In fact it pays more, as the reports show. And then there is the larger business – lending money on sound enterprises, financing industrial companies, and especially advancing money on bills of lading for goods in transit. In view of all this it surprises me to learn that the stock in the two banks here stands only a trifle above par."

"Oh, that's because of two things. People here have got it into their heads that anything less than ten or twelve per cent., as a return for money invested, is ridiculously small. So they don't want bank stocks. On the other hand, the eastern capitalists have got it into their heads that anything which pays more than four or five per cent. must be risky, and so they don't set up banks here, as they surely would do but for their foolish timidity. The prospect of a big return for their money simply scares them out of their seven senses. So Hallam's bank and mine have a monopoly of as pretty a business as you'll find in a day's walk. Why, when the rush was on last winter, and twenty steamboats a day were leaving Cairo with full cargoes – to say nothing of great fleets of grain barges – Hallam and I both went to New York with our pockets full of government bonds, and borrowed money on them for sixty or ninety days. We paid six per cent. per annum for the money, and got from one-half to one per cent. a day on most of it by advancing on grain drafts, with bills of lading attached. It was as easy as falling off a log, and as safe as insuring pig-iron under water."

"I have some notion of all that," answered Temple, "and that's the sort of investment I'm looking for. I might take in some more speculative things, but I greatly want to invest a few thousand dollars in the stock of one or other of these two national banks. Could you find somebody willing to sell?"

Tandy had expected this, and had prepared himself for it. But he pretended to think for a moment before replying. Then he said:

"As to Hallam's bank, it's useless to try. Hallam and Stafford own the whole thing, except that they have put a share or two into the hands of members of their own families, just by way of qualifying them to serve as directors, as the law requires. Neither one of them would sell a share for twice its market price. The same thing is true, in a general way at least, of our bank. The stock is so good a thing that nobody who has got any of it ever wants to part with it. But it has always been our policy to interest the people in the bank by letting them hold some of its stock. So a good deal of it is held in small lots around town, and now and then one of these is put into my hands for sale. I have four shares now to sell. It belongs to a tug captain who is down on his luck just now, and must sell. He wants more than the market price, but the bank has lent him money on it nearly up to its face value, and so I can do pretty much as I please with it. Ordinarily I should buy it myself, but I'm in so many things just now, and besides, I'd like to have you with us."

Tandy did not say that since he had seen Temple in the afternoon, he had taken in these four shares of stock for debt, at three per cent. below par, with the fixed purpose of selling them to Temple at three per cent, above par.

"How many shares did you say there are of it?" asked Temple.

"Four, if I remember right. I really oughtn't to let it slip through my fingers, but – well, I'll tell you what I'll do – if you care to subscribe for a few shares of the barrel company – say one or two thousand dollars' worth – I'll let you have the bank stock at a hundred and three."

Temple was eager to close the bargain, but he resolutely repressed his eagerness. He asked a score of questions, as if in doubt, and at last he hesitatingly agreed to make the purchase. The details were to be arranged on the next day, and so Tandy took his leave, and Temple lay awake all night, as he had done on the night before.

At four o'clock the next afternoon Temple strolled into the Hallam office to report results. He threw the papers upon a desk and sank into a chair like one exhausted. He was in fact almost in a state of collapse. He had not been conscious of strain at any time during his negotiations. He had, indeed, rather enjoyed the playing of such a game of wits with so wily an adversary as Tandy was. But all the while his anxiety to succeed in what he had undertaken had kept his nerves so tense that his mind had known no rest. All the time he had been painfully conscious that the smallest slip on his part, the smallest indiscretion, the slightest mistake in look, or tone, or act, would bring failure as a consequence. And he had all the time been agonizingly conscious of the fact that no less a thing than Guilford Duncan's reputation was the stake he played for – that Guilford Duncan's entire future was in his hands. There were reasons more vital to him than his friendship for Duncan, for regarding success in this matter as an end that must be achieved at all hazards, and at all costs. For years ago these two had quarreled as rivals in love, after being friends of the closest sort from infancy, and only Duncan's great generosity of mind had made forgiveness and reconciliation possible. Dick Temple knew that in the matter out of which the quarrel grew, he had grievously wronged his friend, and that knowledge had been to him a veritable thorn in the flesh, robbing even such happiness as had come to him of half its quality of joy. He had longed above all other things for an opportunity to make atonement, and that longing had been intensified since the meeting at the mine, by the generous treatment he had received at Duncan's hands. His Mary shared it in full measure, too, as she shared every worthy impulse of his soul. It had been a grief to the gently generous wife that the man she loved must live always under so distressing an obligation to the friend who had so magnanimously forgiven.

When this opportunity of repayment came to him, therefore, his first thought was of Mary. He wrote to her immediately after his first conference with Hallam, telling her of the matter in a way that filled her soul with gladness and fear – gladness that the opportunity was his at last, and sleepless fear lest he should be baffled and beaten. So when at last success was his, when he received from Tandy's hands the papers that secured his purpose, his first act was to telegraph to Mary the message:

Glory to God in the highest! I have paid my debt to Guilford Duncan.

It was fire minutes later when he entered the Hallam offices and laid the papers before the head of the house, saying only:

"I've secured the stock." When he sank into the chair, Hallam was quick to see his condition.

"Go up to Duncan's rooms and go to bed," he urged. "You've not been sleeping."

Recovering himself quickly, Temple answered:

"No, I think I'd rather not. If you've no further use for me, I think I'll go home by the train that starts an hour hence. There'll be time enough between now and then for me to render you an account of money spent, and give you my check for the balance in Tandy's bank. I don't want to see Duncan just now."

Hallam understood. "Very well," he answered, as Temple turned to a desk. "You've saved Duncan, and there's nothing more for you to do here. But you must come back for the final grand tableau just a week hence. I'll leave this stock in your name till then, and you shall walk with me into the stockholders' meeting and help me salivate old Napper Tandy. We'll teach him not to play tricks."

Captain Hallam spoke no word of commendation for the way in which Temple had done his work. Words were unnecessary.

"I hope I made no mistake in subscribing for that barrel company stock," said Temple as he passed the completed papers over to Hallam. "At any rate, I'd like to keep that myself, if I may, whether it ever proves to be worth anything or not. I've accumulated enough money to pay for it."

"Oh, as to that," answered Hallam lightly, "the stock will be good enough. I'll make it so by taking a majority interest in the company and consolidating it with my own. You see, we simply must do something for Old Napper Tandy."

XXVI

A Pact With Barbara

That evening Guilford Duncan was summoned to Hallam's house for supper. With only Mrs. Hallam for auditor, Hallam wished to tell the young man all that had occurred, for Duncan had not been permitted to know aught of it, since Hallam had turned him out of his room, in order that the conference with Dick Temple might be a strictly private one.

Nor had Duncan seemed very greatly concerned to inquire. He had not expected Hallam and Temple to succeed in accomplishing anything, and at this time his fate was at crisis in another and, to him, a dearer way. His interview with Barbara had been held, as we know, at the precise time when Hallam and Temple were in consultation with regard to the matter of Tandy's accusation. In some degree, at least, the painful character of that interview with Barbara, and its unsatisfactory result, had dulled his mind to the other trouble. In view of Barbara's seemingly final rejection of his wooing, he was not sure that he greatly cared what might become of his reputation, or his career. He was too strong a man in his moral character, however, to remain long in a state of such indifference, but for the time being he found it impossible to regard his future as a matter of much consequence, now that Barbara refused to share that future with him.

"There is still one more chance," he reflected, "one more interview with Barbara, one more hope that I may win her. If that fails, the other thing won't matter much. I'll horsewhip Tandy and then go away. No, I won't go away. I won't desert in the presence of the enemy. I won't – oh, I don't know what I will or won't do. All that must wait till I know my fate with Barbara."

This was on the morning after his evening with Barbara – the morning on which Temple first made acquaintance with Tandy. Duncan was sitting idly in his office, mechanically toying with a paper cutter. Presently he overturned the inkstand, spilling its contents over some legal papers that he had drawn upon the day before.

"That's fortunate!" he ejaculated, as with blotting pads he sought to save what he could of the documents. "It gives me something better to do than sit here idly mooning. Those papers must go off by the afternoon mail, and I must rewrite them first."

He set to work at once, and close application to the task for several hours brought him into a healthier condition of mind. When he had finished the task and had taken the papers to the postoffice he realized that his state of mind had been a morbid one. He realized, too, that he must end the suspense as quickly as possible, in order that he might take up work and grow sound of soul again.

Returning to his office he sent a note to Barbara:

I shall go to see you to-night, unless you forbid. I must hear what more you have to tell me, and I must in my turn tell you something of myself. When that is done, I shall renew my efforts to win you to myself. Please send me word that I may come.

For answer, he got the single word "Come," written in the middle of a page, without address or signature. Thus it came about that while Temple was sitting in his hotel room, in negotiation with Tandy over a matter that involved Duncan's future more vitally than any other event had ever done, Duncan himself sat with Barbara, trying to adjust another matter which seemed to him of even greater consequence.

Barbara had her emotions in leash, now. Without hesitation, and with a bravely controlled utterance, she went at once to the marrow of the matter.

"I told you," she began, "that I am the daughter of a Thief. My father was trusted absolutely by my grandfather. He betrayed the trust. He made use of his authority as a member of the banking house, not only to wreck it in speculation, but also to rob all the people who had entrusted their money to it. I don't understand such matters very well, but, at any rate, my father ruined the firm and robbed its customers. At a single stroke he reduced his father to poverty and forever disgraced his honorable name. When he found that the facts must become known at once, my father went home and blew his brains out. I was born that day, and my mother died of shock and grief within the hour. My poor grandfather lived for a month, without speaking a word to anybody. Then he quit living."

"It is a terribly sad story," said Duncan. "I should not have let you tell it, poor child."

"Oh, but I was obliged to tell you," she interrupted. "It was my duty. You see – well, you have been so good to me, and I am obliged to say 'no' to what you asked me before you knew this horrible thing. It wouldn't have been fair just to say 'no,' and not tell you of a thing that explains, a thing that must make you wish you hadn't asked me that."

"But it does not make me wish anything of the kind, Barbara. It makes me more eager than ever to win you, in order that I may devote my life to the loving task of making you forget the horror of this thing. Oh, Barbara! I never loved you half so madly as I love you now. And you love me. I know it, but you must say it. You love me, Barbara! Say it! Say it – now!"

The girl hesitated for no more than a moment, while her whole body quivered.

"God help me!" she said then, "I do love you! I love you too well to let you link your life with mine, to let you take upon yourself the shadow of my disgrace."

"But you have no disgrace. You are innocent. The fault is not yours that your father betrayed his trust a score of years ago – before you were born."

"Listen!" she interrupted with passionate determination. "If you were to marry me I should become the mother of your children. That would make them the grandchildren of a Thief."

The two were standing now.

"I want you to sit down while I answer you, Barbara," said Duncan, with almost unimaginable tenderness in his tone. "No, not in that straight-backed chair, for I want you to listen to all I have to say, and to be at ease while you listen. Sit here," pushing an easy chair forward, "sit here where you can see my face as I speak. I want you to see in my eyes the sincerity of my soul."

Barbara obeyed and listened.

"I was born and brought up," he said, "in a region where all the old traditions had full sway over the minds of men and women, enslaving them. During four years of war I learned much, but I unlearned far more. I learned to look facts in the face, and to accept them at their just value. I learned to judge of others and of their worth by what they are, not by what their fathers or grandfathers may have been. I unlearned the false teaching of tradition that aught else than personal character and personal conduct goes to the making up of any human being's account with his fellow man. I had a true democracy forced upon me when I saw men of the humblest extraction winning high place for themselves, and being set to command men of the loftiest lineage – all because of personal character and fitness, and in spite of their lack of caste. No sane man can contemplate the character and career of Mr. Lincoln, for example, without finding in it an object lesson in democracy which should make a very laughing-stock of all the fables of aristocratic tradition. I tell you truly that I have put all those things behind me, as all Americans must who truly believe in the fundamental principles of our Republic. Every man must be accepted for what he is, not for what his father or his grandfather may have been. We read that lesson in the lives of such men as Ben Franklin, and Abraham Lincoln, and Grant, and a score of other notables. We read it even more clearly in everyday life. No banker extends credit to a worthless man on the ground that he was born to high social repute. No banker withholds credit from a man of integrity because his father was not to be trusted. All day, every day, men everywhere are acting upon a clear perception of the truth that each human being must be judged by what he is, and not by what some other person has been.

"Now I know you, Barbara, for what you are, and I love you for that alone. What your father may have done or been, twenty years ago, is to me a matter of entire indifference, except that the knowledge of it gives you pain and sorrow. It makes no difference to me; it in no way alters or lessens my love for you, and it never will. Knowing it all, I am more earnest than ever in my purpose to make you my wife if I can persuade you to that after I have told you something about myself that may very justly seem to you a real bar to my hopes."

"Go on, please," said the girl. "Tell me what you will, but I shall never believe anything ill of you. I know better."

"Thank you for saying that, dear," he responded with a tremor in his tone. "But unhappily others may believe it. If they do, then the career you have expected for me must be at an end at once. My reputation for integrity will be gone for good, and I must be content to surrender all my ambitions. That is why I must tell you of this ugly thing before again asking you to be my wife."

"Go on," she said again. "But I shall believe nothing bad of you, even though an angel should tell me."