Part 2. The Book Of Life - It Might Have Been - Chapter 14

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_ PART II. THE BOOK OF LIFE - IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN
CHAPTER XIV

From the Plaza upward, the blank stare of the avenue was awakening into renewed signs of habitation. Burglar-proof doors had come down and boarded windows had yielded to curtained sashes. Already in the park the trees were turning. Banners of crimson, yellow and burgundy flaunted where the foliage had been sunburned and heat-corroded. The walks and Mall had for scorching weeks been a breathing refuge, and the sheep-pasture a sleeping place, for shirt-sleeved men who panted like dogs. Haggard women and sunken-cheeked children--all heat-fagged and exhausted--had held possession; but now the bridle-path echoed to hoof-beats, and smartly togged equestrians galloped there, while along the driveways droned a purr of motors.

The sun, which had assaulted, blighted and killed, now caressed a revived city, for autumn had come with her clarifying elixirs and her fever-cooling frosts.

Shop windows, freshly decked, tempted the passerby with foretastes of the season's styles in gowns and hats and furs. All was color and sparkle and activity. Soft tones awoke at sunset on old and seasoned walls. Gilt street signs blazed and shaft-like buildings stood out in splintered strips of a dozen hues against skies that were unsullied turquoise.

In the veins of Hamilton Burton, as he motored up-town, a heady exhilaration mounted like wine. As his car bowled up the avenue he watched the human mosaic, and the drive seemed a progress through Bagdad. He was finding it all the city of his dreams:

"--a city blazoned like a missal book,
Black with oaken gables, carven and enscrolled.
Every street a colored page: every sign a hieroglyph,
Dusky with enchantments: a city paved with gold."

Then as he entered his own house he remembered. Tonight he must go to the opera and the prospect bored him. To Paul, of course, it was as wine to the drunkard, but to Hamilton it meant a tedious evening. It was in a way a duty and one of his few concessions to Society's requirements. Had it not been written of another great figure, "the Emperor sat in his box that night?" He would leave early and later in the evening he could console himself with a matter of greater importance.

Yet when he arrived at the Metropolitan he forgot to be bored--until the overture ended, and Music was enthroned in the place of Fashion.

Here at the opera each moment, so long as the house-lights blazed, brought its own tribute of flattery to the Titan of the Street. The men and women from whom these tributes came were the men and women whom the world envied, and cursed--and worshiped. Hamilton Burton realized, as he passed easily from box to box, chatting with this multi-millionaire and that jewelled lady, that no single figure was more often signaled out by pointing and envious fingers than his own. When he handed Mary out of her limousine the street policeman had made the passage clear before him. Ushers had kowtowed and the heads of fashionable women had nodded and smiled. His way had been a march of triumph. To Hamilton Burton it was all like the sniffing of frankincense and myrrh. His inner emotions were those of a great tiger, purring like a house-cat.

That at his back, when he had passed on, these immaculately clad gentlemen muttered derogatory oaths only flattered him further; their hate, too, was a tribute to his power.

He came into Society's world as a monarch walks among the proletariat, to receive homage and return to places where a monarch has better things to do.

But at last the overture ended and the curtain rose. The opera had begun.

For Paul the evening was just beginning, but for Hamilton it was done. He stifled a yawn and rose from his seat, effecting his escape unobserved from the box. From that point on his mind shook off the lethargy of the incensed atmosphere and became dynamic. He looked at his watch and found that his next appointment gave him an hour's leisure.

To his chauffeur he said, "Drive me to my mother's house."

Hannah Burton would be the only member of the household at home and with her nephew would spend this leisure hour. He knew she would be there because she was rarely elsewhere. The man who flashed the searchlight of his thought into so many places at such broad angles smiled as he thought of his Aunt Hannah, but it was a tender smile. He had transplanted and remodeled his family--but Aunt Hannah he had been powerless to alter.

The room where she received him was an anomalous hermitage, for in spite of the generous comfort it reflected, there broke out here and there jarring notes from many survivals of the old order; things from which she refused to be parted. Upon a mantel over which hung a Gobelin tapestry stood a tin alarm clock. It was an old companion which had once shrilly announced that it was time to drag her rheumatic bones from bed and take up her daily round of dusting and sweeping. Among carefully chosen paintings a screaming chromo issued by the Middle Fork general store proclaimed the superior quality of its staple and fancy groceries, hardware, queensware and feed.

The old lady herself, though silk-gowned, wore her white hair drawn severely back over parchment temples, as though repudiating the pomps and vanities of this wicked world.

It was Ham's time-honored custom to tease his aunt, and while she snorted and sniffed, she enjoyed it, for whatever she thought of a Babylonian life, she secretly worshiped this brilliant young nephew who so well fitted its stress and turmoil.

"Were you down-stairs at dinner tonight, flirting with the grand dukes and big-wigs?" he demanded as he kissed her pale cheek.

"As if you didn't know," she austerely rebuked, "that, when company comes, I always have supper right here in my own room."

It would have been a surrender of principle for Hannah Burton to call "company" guests, or the evening meal "dinner."

"There were some very smart people down-stairs, I'm told," the man heckled with twinkling eyes. "Divorcees in numbers and affinities galore."

The old lady shuddered.

"Ham, I wish you wouldn't run on in that ungodly fashion. I'm sure it's no laughing matter. I pray for you day and night, but when a body's blinded by wealth and imagining vain things they're in mortal danger."

Her nephew's face softened. "As long as you're praying for me, Aunt Hannah," he assured her, "I still have a fighting chance."

"Ham," she said suddenly with a shadow of deep anxiety in her eyes, "ain't your father playing cards more than's good for him? I've worried considerable about that here of late. He used to read his Scriptures regular. Now he don't do it. Instead he gambles."

"Father only plays in amiable little games, for the sake of charity, Aunt Hannah." Hamilton smiled indulgently as he enlightened her. "You could hardly call it gambling. In gambling there is an element of chance. Father merely contributes."

The old lady shook her head. "This town ain't much different from Tyre and Sidon and Babylon, so far as I can see," she mournfully asserted.

"They were said to be live towns in their day," he admitted.

Then for the rest of his spare hour he chatted with her and teased her solemnity into laughter, and before he left, because she asked it and complained that her eyes were poor, he read to her a chapter from the New Testament and kissed her good-night. Ten minutes later he was in his own library and was directing that two gentlemen, whom he was expecting, be ushered there to talk business.

The two were alike only in that each had a versatile and executive brain. One was elderly and stout, and, though two decades of established success had polished his original crudity into a certain dignity, there survived in his eyes the darting shiftiness of glance that had settled there in days when his one asset was an almost diabolical cleverness as a criminal lawyer.

An old trick of badgering witnesses with a brow-beating stare from half-closed lids clung unpleasantly to him, discounting his acquired distinction of bearing. This was Isaac Ruferton, of the firm of Ruferton and Willow. From criminal lawyer to corporation-scourge and from corporation-scourge to corporation counsel are logical stages of development. From clients who need, and can pay for, a mind of unusual resource, as formerly from vagabond's in police-court cages, he earned what he was paid.

The second visitor was younger. Mr. Tarring was also a specialist in ideas and from his confidence of bearing one seemed to derive a snap of electric energy. In many ways Hamilton Burton found him serviceable and on the smaller scale of his delegated functions he operated as Hamilton himself did along the broader front; with dash, determination and the belief that nothing is impossible.

"Gentlemen," began Burton crisply, when the three were seated, "I sent for you this evening to outline a simple matter--but one calling for a nicety of execution. It can neither afford delay nor premature undertaking. It must be done at its own instant. When the stock-holders' meeting of Coal and Ore is called to order I must be in a position to assume control."

Tarring leaned forward in his chair and fixed his gaze on a bronze statuette. This casual announcement meant nothing less than a making over of a map: the map of High Finance. Ruferton was never surprised. He twirled his shell-rimmed glasses at the end of their broad tape and nodded. "And you find yourself at this juncture short of just the requisite balance--though you know where it is held?" Mr. Ruferton always made a point of anticipating his client's next statement--if possible. It was a small thing, but at times valuable. It indicated that he was keeping not only abreast, but a step ahead of what was being told him. Hamilton smiled.

"I still need a block held by Henry of the Deposit Savings and a block held by Fairley of the Metallic National. These gentlemen think they won't turn loose. To see that they do so is Tarring's work. It must be accomplished by tomorrow evening."

Tarring said nothing. Under his imperturbable guise he found himself stunned.

Burton turned to the attorney. "You know G.K. Hendricks?"

Mr. Ruferton's answer followed the question with no margin of a pause. "State senator for three terms. At present candidate for the appellate bench; Tammany's choice. Was very valuable when the charter of Coal and Ore was before the assembly. Has increased his stock-holdings since he acquired his first block as--er--the reward of merit."

For an instant Hamilton Burton eyed the lawyer keenly.

"I must also have his proxy by tomorrow evening. That, Ruferton, is your work."

"Then you didn't know that Hendricks is up-state? He's out at his farm on a narrow-gage branch that runs a train a day from Barry Spa. You are cutting it fine, Mr. Burton. Too fine, perhaps."

The announcement brought to the eyes of the planning strategist a nonplused shadow, but it lingered briefly.

"I have already told you that the moment had to be precisely timed. Hendricks might run to Malone if given a margin of leisure. You can go home and change your evening-clothes. Meantime I shall arrange for a special train. Your instructions are to get that stock or the proxy. If you can't handle him bring him to me; have him in this room at this hour tomorrow evening."

Mr. Isaac Ruferton rose from his chair, and stood looking into the face of his employer as though searching for some indication of incipient lunacy. What he read was inflexible command.

"Mr. Burton," he said slowly, "I'm where I am in life because I have been willing to undertake various things at various times. Other men would have shied at some of them, and even I have my limits. Will you suggest to me how I am, within twenty-four hours, to travel twenty hours by rail, and compel an unwilling man to deliver, merely because you order it, stock which he has no wish to sell?"

Burton's answer rose to anger as he spoke. "If you can't trade with him--and I have given you _carte blanche_--I have already told you to bring him here. I'll do the rest."

"In God's name, how? Can I drag him out of his own house and load him like a trussed pig in a railway car?"

"The details are up to you. You are supposed to be a clever lawyer. The man is in a political campaign and you know enough of his record to give weight to your suggestions. You say he doesn't want to sell--make him want to! My plans are rather too large to admit of 'buts' and 'ifs.' Presumably I employ men who can override them."

Ruferton continued to stare blankly. "But--surely--"

Hamilton had already turned to Tarring and he wheeled with a snap in his voice.

"Ruferton," he exclaimed, "in a moment more you will irritate me. I said get his Coal and Ore, or get him. I don't give a damn how you do it. Tell him, if you like that all Tammany can't boost him on to the appellate bench if I go after him. If you prefer, gag him and drag him here. Do what you like--except waste time by gaping at me. Succeed and name your reward. Fail and--" Hamilton Burton shrugged his shoulders.

Slowly a light crept into the resourceful eyes of Mr. Ruferton, driving out the vacancy. The matter by its very desperateness began to appeal to him, and already a formula of campaign was shaping itself in his constructive mind. This extraordinary man's hypnotic dominance of personality had carried other audacious days and now it swept the lawyer with its tide of confidence. Mr. Ruferton became at once the man who recognizes the value of seconds and minutes. "I will be here tomorrow evening at this hour," he categorically announced. "And I shall bring with me a proxy or a senator--or his remains. Kindly arrange for my train. I go direct to the Grand Central."

Hamilton Burton smiled at the door through which his emissary had departed.

"He made as much furore about it as though I had required him to do something really difficult," he commented to the lieutenant who still awaited his orders. "Now for your part.... The Metallic National and the Deposit Savings." Between sentences he picked up the desk-telephone and called a private number.

"I want to talk to Mr. Carter.... Not at home! Where is he?... Doesn't want to be disturbed--he's got to be.... Yes, this is Hamilton Burton.... At the opera, you say? Thank you."

The snap of the receiver under his finger was abrupt and decisive as he again called central, and while he waited he talked to Tarring.

"What funds have we in those banks?... Hello! I want Bryant 1146, yes, the Metropolitan Opera.... Hello! Please have Mr. Carter brought from his box to the 'phone. This is Hamilton Burton, talking ... a matter that can't wait.... Tarring, I must have the stock those banks hold. You must have them here tomorrow night.... Hello, is that you Carter? I need a special train for Barry Spa in thirty minutes, and another to meet it there for Lake Mosoc."

There was a moment's silence, then Burton's voice came with violent explosiveness.

"Impossible? It seems to me that every man I talk to prates vacantly about impossibilities. Damn it, when I need a train I need a train.... You understand me, don't you, Carter?"

Again there was the interruption of the voice at the further end. As Burton listened his eyes kindled afresh under blackly drawn brows, but when he spoke it was in a clear and cold voice, more unpleasant to hear than a tirade of passion.

"To hell with explanations, Carter! I want action. Do I get my train? You are burning time.... Kindly listen because I mean this to the last syllable.... Unless you can achieve this highly impossible matter of accommodation--" suddenly the voice leaped to a higher scale and shot out its ultimatum like canister--"I will throw you out of the presidency and the damned road-bed into the river and the shops into the junk heap.... All right, please hurry." He clapped down the receiver, then resumed his second thread of thought as though there had been no interruption.

"I want those bankers here. That is your job, Tarring. They need know only that it is of vital importance and that our meeting must be attended with the strictest confidence. Intimate that my object is the averting of ruinous runs which must follow unless we stop them--and worse disasters."

Tarring rose. His task, as compared with the other he had seen assigned, appeared easy. "Shall I come with them?" he inquired.

Burton nodded. "You are a notary. It may be necessary for you to take acknowledgments." _

Read next: Part 2. The Book Of Life - It Might Have Been: Chapter 15

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