Blow The Man Down: A Romance Of The Coast
against him, and he kicked it into a corner. He began to whack his fist
against a broad placard which was tacked up under his license as master.
The cardboard was freshly white, and its tacks were bright, showing that
it had been recently added as a feature of the pilot-house. Big letters
in red ink at the top counseled, “Safety First.” Other big letters
at the bottom warned, “Take No Chances.” The center lettering advised
shipmasters that in case of accident the guilty parties would feel all
the weight of Uncle Sam's heavy palm; it was the latest output from
the Department of Commerce and Labor, and bore the signature of the
honorable secretary of the bureau.
Mayo noted that his chief was wholly absorbed in this speechless
activity; therefore he pulled the bells which stopped the backward
churning and sent the freighter on her way. They passed the fisherman in
the Hampton boat; he was bailing his craft.
“That was a rather close call, sir! I am glad that I have been trained
by you to be a careful man. You took no chances!”
“And where have I got to by obeying the United States rules and never
taking chances, Mr. Mayo? At sixty-five I'm master of a freight-scow,
sassed by owners ashore and sassed on the high seas by fellows like that
one who just slammed past us! If that passenger-steamer had hit me the
lawyers would have shoved the tar end of the stick into my hands! It's
all for the good of the hellbent fellows the way things are arranged
in this world at the present time. I'll be lucky if he doesn't lodge
complaint against me when he gets to New York, saying that I got in his
way!” He cut off a fresh sliver of black plug and took his position at
the whistle-pull. “You'd better go get an heiress,” he advised his mate,
sourly. “Being an old-fashioned skipper in these days of steam-boating
is what I'm too polite to name. And as to being the other kind--well,
you have just seen him whang past!”
However, as they went wallowing up the coast, their old tub sagging with
the weight of the rails under her hatches, Mate Mayo felt considerable
of a young man's ambitious envy of that spick-and-span swaggerer who
had yelled anathema from the pilot-house of the _Triton_. It was
real steamboating, he reflected, even if the demands of owners and
dividend-seekers did compel a master to take his luck between his teeth
and gallop down the seas.
XVI ~ MILLIONS AND A MITE
To Tiffany's I took her,
I did not mind expense;
I bought her two gold ear-rings,
They cost me fifty cents.
And a-a-away, you santee!
My dear Annie!
O you New York girls!
Can't you dance the polka!
--Shanty, “The Lime Juicer.”
Mr. Ralph Bradish, using one of the booth telephones in the Wall Street
offices of Marston & Waller, earnestly asked the cashier of an up-town
restaurant, as a special favor, to hold for twenty-four hours the
personal check, amount twenty-five dollars, given by Mr. Bradish the
evening before.
Ten minutes later, with the utmost nonchalance and quite certain that
the document was as good as wheat, Mr. Bradish signed a check for one
million two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
That amount in no measure astonished him. He was quite used to signing
smashing-big checks when he was called into the presence of Julius
Marston. Once, the amount named was two millions. And there had
been numbers and numbers of what Mr. Bradish mentally termed “piker
checks”--a hundred thousand, two and three hundred thousand. And he had
never been obliged to request any hold up on those checks for want of
funds. Because, in each instance, there had been a magic, printed line
along which Mr. Bradish had splashed his signature.
Before he blotted the ink on this check Bradish glanced, with only
idle curiosity, to note in what capacity he was serving this time. The
printed line announced to him that he was “Treasurer, the Paramount
Coast Transportation Company, Inc.” He remembered that in the past
he had signed as treasurer of the “Union Securities Company,” the
“Amalgamated Holding Company,” and for other corporations sponsoring
railroads and big industries with whose destinies Julius Marston,
financier, appeared to have much to do. It was evident that Financier
Marston preferred to have a forty-dollar-a-week clerk do the menial
work of check-signing, or at least to have that clerk's name in evidence
instead of Marston's own.
That modesty about having his name appear in public on a check seemed to
attach to the business habits of Mr. Marston.
Mighty few person were ever admitted to this inner sanctuary where
Bradish sat facing his employer across the flat-topped desk. And men who
saw that employer outside his office did not turn their heads to stare
after him or point respectful finger at him or remark to somebody else,
“There's the big Julius Marston.” In the first place, Mr. Marston was
not big in a physical sense, and there was nothing about him which would
attract attention or cause him to be remarked in a crowd. And only a few
persons really knew him, anyway.
He sat in his massive chair; one hand propped on the arm, his elbow
akimbo, and with the other hand plucked slowly at the narrow strip of
beard which extended from his lower lip to the peaked end of his chin.
“Very well, Mr. Bradish,” he remarked, after the latter had lifted the
blotter from the check.
Bradish rose and bowed, and started to leave. He was a tall and shapely
young man, with a waist, with a carriage. His garb was up-to-the-minute
fashion--repressed. He was a study in brown, as to fabric of attire and
its accessories. One of those white-faced chaps who always look a bit
bored, with a touch of up-to-date cynicism! One of those fellows who
listen much and who say little!
“Just a moment, Bradish,” invited Marston, and the young man stopped.
“I like your way in these matters. You don't ask questions. You show no
silly interest in any check you sign.”
Bradish reflected an instant on the check in the restaurant cashier's
drawer, and pinched his thin lips a little more tightly.
“I'm quite sure you don't do any broadcast talking about the nature of
these special duties.” The financier pointed to the check. “I'll say
quite frankly that I didn't select you for this service until I had
ascertained that you did no talking about your own affairs in the office
with my other clerks.”
Bradish inclined his head respectfully.
“In financial matters it is necessary to pick men carefully. I trust
you understand my attitude. These transactions are quite legitimate.
But modern methods of high finance make it necessary to manipulate the
details a little. Your attitude in accepting these duties, as a matter
of course is very gratifying from a business standpoint. As a little
mark of our confidence in you, you will receive seventy-five dollars per
week hereafter.”
“Thank you.”
Mr. Martson allowed himself a quick, dry smile. “This isn't a bribe,
you understand. There is nothing attached to this nominal service which
requires bribing. We merely want to make it worth while for a prudent
and close-mouthed young man to remain with us.”
A buzzer, as unobtrusive as were all the characteristics of Financier
Marston, sounded its meek purr.
“Yes,” he murmured into the receiver of the telephone which communicated
with the watchful picket of the Marston & Waller offices. “Who? Oh, she
may come in at once.”
“Wait here a moment, if you please, Mr. Bradish. It is my daughter who
has dropped in for a moment's word with me. I have something more for
you to attend to.”
Bradish walked to one of the windows. He stared sharply at the girl who
hurried in. Her hat and face were shrouded in an automobile veil, and
the cloistered light of the big room helped to conceal her features.
But Bradish seemed to recognize something about her in spite of the
vagueness of outline. When she spoke to her father the young man's eyes
snapped in true astonishment.
“I couldn't explain it very well over the telephone, papa, so I came
right down. Do forgive me if I bother you for just a minute.” She
glanced quickly at the young man beside the window, but found him merely
an outline against the light.
“Only one of our clerks,” said her father. “What is it, my girl?”
“It's Nan Burgess's house-party at Kingston! There's to be an automobile
parade--all decorated--at the fête, and I want to go in our big car,
and have it two days. I was afraid you'd say no if I asked you over the
telephone, but now that I'm right here, looking you in the eyes with all
the coaxing power of my soul, you just can't refuse, can you, papa?”
“I think perhaps I would have consented over the telephone, Alma.”
“Then I may take the car?” Her playful tones rose in ecstatic crescendo.
The impulsiveness of her nature was displayed by her manner in accepting
this favor. She danced to her father and threw her arms about him.
She exhibited as much delight as if he had bestowed upon her a gift of
priceless pearls. The exuberance of her joy appeared to annoy him a bit.
“Gently, gently, Alma! If you waste your thanks in this manner for a
little favor, what will you do some day for superlatives when you are
really eager to thank some-body for a big gift?”
“Oh, I'll always have thanks enough to go around--that's my disposition.
The folks who love me, I can love them twice as much. You're a dear old
dad, and I know you want me to run along so that you can go to making a
lot more money. So I'll just take myself out from underfoot.”
When she turned she glanced again at the person near the window, and
this time she got a good look at his face. Even the veil could not
hide from Bradish the color which spread into her cheeks. She was so
conscious of her embarrassment and of her appearance that she did not
turn her face to her father when he spoke to her.
“One moment, Alma! Seeing that my big car is going to have a two days'
vacation in the country, I may as well make it do one last business
errand for me.”
He called Bradish to the desk by a side jerk of the head.
“I want that check put into the hands of the brokerage firm of Mower
Brothers as quickly as possible. My car is at the door, and it may as
well take you along. Alma, allow this young man of ours to ride with you
to the place where I'm sending him.”
He did not present Bradish to Miss Marston. Bradish did not expect the
financier to do so. But this dismissal of him as a mere errand-boy--with
the young lady staring him out of countenance in a half-frightened
way--did cut the pride a bit, even in the case of a mere clerk. And
this clerk was pondering on the memory that only the night before he
had clasped this young lady--then a party unknown who was evidently bent
upon an escapade _incog_.--had encircled this selfsame maiden with his
arms during many blissful dances in one of the gorgeous Broadway public
ball-rooms. And he had regaled her and a girl friend on viands for which
his twenty-five-dollar check had scarcely sufficed to pay.
Bradish was pretty familiar with the phases and the oddities of the
dancing craze, but this _contretemps_ rather staggered him.
They had asked no questions of each other during those dances. They had
been perfectly satisfied with the joy of the moment. She had looked at
him in a way and with a softness in her eyes which told him that she
found him pleasing in her sight. She had been enthusiastic, with that
same exuberance he had just witnessed, over his grace in the dance. They
had promised to meet again at the ball-room where social conventions did
not prevent healthy young folks from enjoying themselves.
“Good heavens!” she whispered to him, as she preceded him through the
door. “You work in my father's office?”