CHAPTER IX
He endeavored, while dressing, to map out a plan of campaign, butthe map was but a meaningless whirligig of lines leading nowhere whenPrimmie called from the foot of the stairs that breakfast was ready.During breakfast he was more absent-minded than usual, which is saying agood deal, and Martha herself was far from communicative. After themeal he was putting on his hat and coat preparatory to going out for hisusual walk when Primmie came hurrying through the hall.
"She wants you," said Primmie, mysteriously, her eyes shining withexcitement. "She wants to see you in the settin' room. Come on, come on,Mr. Bangs! What are you waitin' for?"
As a general rule Galusha's thoughts started upon the morning ramblesome little time before he did and recalling them was a rather slow andpatience-taxing process. In this case, however, they were already in thesitting room with Martha Phipps and so had a shorter road home. But theycame slowly enough, for all that.
"Eh?" queried Galusha, peering out between the earlaps of his cap. "Eh?What did you say, Primmie?"
"I say Miss Martha wants to see you a minute. She's in there a-waitin'.I bet you she's goin' to tell you about it. Hurry! hurry!"
"Tell me?... About what?"
"Why, about what 'tis that's worryin' her so. About that Raish Pulciferand all the rest of it.... Oh, my Lord of Isrul! Don't you understandNOW? Oh, Mr. Bangs, won't you PLEASE wake up?"
But Galusha was beginning to understand.
"Dear me! Dear me!" he exclaimed, nervously. "Do you think that--Did shesay she wished to see me, Primmie?"
"Ain't I been tellin' you she did? Now you talk right up to her, Mr.Bangs. You tell her I don't want no wages. Tell her I'll stay rightalong same as ever and--You TELL her, Mr. Bangs."
Martha was standing by the stove in the sitting room when her lodgerentered. She turned to greet him.
"I don't know as I'm doin' right to keep you from your walk, Mr. Bangs,"she said. "And I won't keep you very long. But I did want to talk withyou for just a minute or two. I wanted to ask your advice about--about abusiness matter."
Now this was very funny indeed. It would have been hard to find a richerjoke than the idea of consulting Galusha Bangs concerning a matter ofbusiness. But both parties to this consultation were too serious to seethe joke at that moment.
Galusha nodded solemnly. He faltered something about being highlyhonored and only too glad to be of service. His landlady thanked him.
"Yes," she said, "I knew you would be. And, as I say, I won't keep youvery long. Sit down, Mr. Bangs. Oh, not in that straight up-and-downthing. Here, in the rocker."
Galusha lifted himself from the edge of the straight-backed chair uponwhich he had perched and sat upon the edge of the rocking-chair instead.Martha looked at him sitting there, his collar turned up, his cap brimand earlaps covering two thirds of his face and his spectacles at leasthalf of the remaining third, his mittened hands twitching nervously inhis lap, and, in spite of her feelings, could not help smiling. But itwas a fleeting smile.
"Take off your things, Mr. Bangs," she said. "You'll roast alive if youdon't. It's warm in here. Primmie forgot and left the dampers open andthe stove was pretty nearly red-hot when I came in just now. Yes, takeoff your overcoat and cap, and those mittens, for mercy sakes."
Galusha declared that he didn't mind the mittens and the rest, but sheinsisted and he hastily divested himself of his wrappings, droppingthem upon the floor as the most convenient repository and being greatlyfussed when Miss Phipps picked them up and laid them on the table.
"I--I beg your pardon," he stammered. "Really, I DON'T know why I amso thoughtless. I--I should be--ah--hanged or something, I think. Thenperhaps I wouldn't do it again."
Martha shook her head. "You probably wouldn't in that case," she said."Now, Mr. Bangs, I'm going to try to get at that matter I wanted toask your opinion about. Do you know anything about stocks--stockmarketstocks, I mean?"
Her lodger looked rather bewildered.
"Dear me, no; not a thing," he declared.
She did not look greatly disappointed.
"I didn't suppose you did," she said. "You--well, you don't look likea man who would know much about such things. And from what I've seenof you, goodness knows, you don't ACT like one! Perhaps I shouldn't saythat," she added, hastily. "I didn't mean it just as it sounded."
"Oh, that's all right, that's all right, Miss Phipps. I know I ama--ah--donkey in most matters."
"You're a long way from bein' a donkey, Mr. Bangs. And I didn't sayyou were, of course. But--oh, well, never mind that. So you don't knowanything about stocks and investments and such?"
"No, I don't. I am awfully sorry. But--but, you see, all that sort ofthing is so very distasteful to me. It bores me--ah--dreadfully. And soI--I dodge it whenever I can."
Martha sighed. "Some of the rest of us would like to dodge it, too," shesaid, "if we only could. And yet--" she paused and regarded him with theodd expression she had worn more than once when he puzzled her--"and yetI--I just can't make you out, Mr. Bangs. You say you don't know anythingabout money and managin' money, and yet those Egypt trips of yours mustcost a lot of money. And somebody must manage them. SOMEBODY must 'tendto payin' the bills and the wages and all. Who does that?"
Galusha smiled. "Why, I do," he admitted, "after a fashion. But it is avery poor fashion. I almost never--I think I may safely say never comein from one of those trips without having exceeded the--ah--estimate ofexpenses. I always exceed it more or less--generally more."
He smiled again. She looked more puzzled than ever.
"But some one has to pay the extra, don't they?" she asked. "Who doespay it, the museum people?"
"Why--ah--no, not exactly. It is--ah--ah--generally provided. But," headded, rather hastily, as if afraid she might ask more questions alongthis line, "if I might make a suggestion, Miss Martha--Miss Phipps, Imean--"
"Plain Martha will do well enough. I think you're the only one inEast Wellmouth that calls me anything else. Of course you can make asuggestion. Go ahead."
"Well--ah--well, Miss Phipps--ah--Miss Martha, since you permit me tocall you so.... What is it?"
"Oh, nothin', nothin'. I was goin' to say that the 'Miss' wasn'tnecessary, but never mind. Go on."
"Well--ah--Mar--ah--Miss Martha, I was about to suggest that you tell mewhat you intended telling me. I am very anxious to help--ah--even if Ican't, you know. Only I beg of you not to think I am actuated by idlecuriosity."
She shrugged her shoulders.
"Even if you were I don't know that I shouldn't want to tell you, justthe same," she observed. "The fact is I've just GOT to talk this overwith some one. Mr. Bangs, I am so worried I don't know what to do. It isa money matter, of course, that's worryin' me, an investment father madea little while before he died. Mr. Bangs, I don't suppose it's likelythat you ever heard of the Wellmouth Development Company? No, of courseyou haven't."
And yet, as she looked into her lodger's face, she was surprised at itsexpression.
"Why, you never have heard of it, have you?" she demanded.
Galusha stroked his chin. "That day in the cemetery," he murmured. "Thatday when I was--ah--behind the tomb and heard Captain Hallett and Mr.Pulcifer speaking. I may be mistaken, but it seems to me that theymentioned the name of--ah--ah--"
"The Development Company? Of course they did and you told me so when yougot home. I remember now. Well, Cap'n Jeth and Raish were both mixed upin it along with father. Yes, and Doctor Powers and a lot more, thoughnot so much. Raish, of course, was at the back of it in the beginnin'.He got 'em all in it, got himself into it, as far as that goes. You see,it was this way."
She told the story of the Wellmouth Development Company. It--thestory--began when the Eagle Fish Freezing Company of Denboro, a concernthen running and operating one large cold storage plant in that village,were looking about for a favorable spot upon which to build a second.The spot which appealed to their mind to purchase was the property atthe mouth of Skoonic Creek in East Wel
lmouth.
"It's a real pretty place," said Martha, "one of the prettiest spotsalongshore, and the view from the top of the bluff there is justlovely. You can see miles and miles out to sea and all up and down theshore--and back over the village, for that matter. But, come to think ofit, you know the place, Mr. Bangs. It's only a little way from the oldBaptist buryin' ground."
Galusha nodded. "Isn't it where my--ah--late lamented hat set sail?" heasked.
"Why, of course it is. Just there. Well, the Eagle Fish folks made theirplans to buy all that property, the hills on both sides, and the lowland down by the creek. It was just the place for 'em, you see. And theywere quietly makin' arrangements to pick up the different parcels ofland from the owners here and there, when Raish Pulcifer got wind of it.There's precious little goin' on down this part of the Cape that Raishdoesn't get wind of, particularly if it's somebody else's secret. He'sgot a reg'lar pig's nose for rootin' up other people's private concerns.Well, Raish found out what the Eagle Company was up to and he startedbein' up to somethin' himself."
Mr. Pulcifer, so Miss Phipps went on to say, conceived the idea ofbuying the Skoonic Creek property before the Eagle Company could do so.The principal difficulty was that just then his own limited capital wastied up in various ways and he lacked ready money. So, being obliged toborrow, he sought out Captain Hallett, got the shrewd old light keeper'scupidity aroused--not a very difficult task at any time--and CaptainJethro agreed to help finance the deal.
"It didn't need a whole lot of real money," explained Martha. "Mostfolks that owned that land had owned it for mercy knows how long and haddone nothin' but pay taxes on it, so they were glad enough to sell forsomethin' down to bind what Raish and Jethro called 'options.' Anyhow,when the Eagle people finally started in to put their grand plan intoworkin', they bumped bows on into a shoal, at least that's the wayfather used to tell about it. They found that all that Skoonic Creekland was in the hands of Raish Pulcifer and Cap'n Jeth Hallett; thosetwo either owned it outright or had options where they didn't own."
At first the Eagle Company declined to have anything to do with the newowners. They declared the whole affair off, so far as the SkoonicCreek location was concerned, and announced their intention of goingelsewhere. But there was no sufficiently attractive "elsewhere" to go.There followed much proposing and counter-proposing and, at last, anentirely new deal. A new corporation was formed, its name The WellmouthDevelopment Company.
"I don't know a great deal about it," confessed Martha, "that is, notabout the reasons for it and all, but, as near as I can make out, Raishand Jethro wouldn't sell outright to the Eagle Company, but wanted tocome in on the profits from the cold storage business, which werepretty big sometimes. And they couldn't get into the reg'lar Eagle FishFreezing Company, the old one. So they and the Eagle folks togetherundertook to form this new thing, the Development Company, the namemeanin' nothin' or a whole lot, 'cordin' to how the developmentdeveloped, I presume likely. The capital stock--I know all this becauseCap'n Jethro and father used to talk it over so much between 'em andCap'n Jeth and I have talked so much since--was fifty thousand. An awfullot of money, isn't it, Mr. Bangs?"
Her tone was awe-stricken as she mentioned the amount. Galusha gravelyadmitted that it was an "awful lot of money." All sums were awful tohim; he would have agreed if the Wellmouth Development Company had beencapitalized from one thousand to a million. Miss Phipps went on.
"They put out the stock somethin' like this: The Eagle folks took prettynear half, somewhere around twelve hundred shares, I think they had.And Raish he took five hundred shares, and Cap'n Jeth four hundred, andfather--after listenin' to Jethro and Raish talk about dividends andprofit sharin' and such till, as he said, the tar on his top riggin'began to melt, he drew out money from the savin's bank and sold someother bonds and stocks he had and went in for two hundred and fiftyshares. Twenty dollars a share it was; did I tell you that? Yes, fivethousand dollars father put into that Development Company. It seemedlike a lot even then; but, my soul and body, WHAT a lot it seems to menow!"
She paused for an instant, then sighed, and continued.
"If you've figured this all out in your head, Mr. Bangs," she said,"which I suppose you haven't--?"
Galusha, surprised by the direct question, started, colored, andguiltily admitted the correctness of her supposition.
"I--I haven't," he faltered. "Dear me, no. In fact I--ah--doubt if I amcapable of doing such a thing."
"Well, never mind, you don't have to. What it amounted to was that theEagle folks had twelve hundred shares and Raish and Jeth and father hadeleven hundred and fifty together. You see, neither side would let theother have more'n half, or even quite half, because then whichever hadit could control things. So the remainin' one hundred and fifty shareswas sold around Wellmouth and Trumet. Doctor Powers has a few sharesand Eben Taylor's got some, and so have lots of folks, scattered aroundhere. You see, all hands were anxious to get in, it looked like a realgood investment.
"'But,' says father--right here in this very room I heard him say itone night--'it's that one hundred and fifty shares that worry me. Ifthe Eagle crowd ever COULD buy up those shares they would control, afterall, and freeze us out. Freezin' is their business, anyhow,' he said,and laughed that big laugh of his. Seems as if I could hear him laughnow. Ah, hum!... But there, let's get under way again or you'll go tosleep before the ship makes port. I declare, that was father's word,too, I'm always quotin' him.... Let me see.... Oh, yes.... When fathersaid that about the one hundred and fifty shares controllin' Cap'nJethro looked at Raish and Raish looked at him. Then Raish laughed, too,only his laugh isn't much like father's.
"'_I_ got those extra shares taken up,' he said, 'and I was particularwho took 'em. There's mighty few of those shares will be sold unlessI say the word. Most of the folks that bought those shares are underconsider'ble obligation to me.' Just what he meant by that I don't know,of course, but I can guess. Raish makes it a point to have peopleunder what he calls 'obligations' to him. It comes in handy for him, inpolitics and other ways, to have 'em that way. He lends money and holdsmortgages and all that, and that's where the obligations come in....Well, anyhow, that's what he said and, although father didn't look anytoo happy at the time and wouldn't talk about it afterward, it seemedto settle the objection about the hundred and fifty shares. So the newcompany got under way, the stockholders paid their money in, old Cap'nEbenezer Thomas of Denboro was made president and Raish Pulcifer wasvice president and Judge Daniel Seaver of Wellmouth Centre was secretaryand treasurer. The Judge was Wellmouth Centre's biggest gun, rich--atleast, that's what everybody thought then--and pompous and dignified andstraight-backed as an old-fashioned church pew.
"Well, I'm pretty near to the end, although it may not seem that way.For the first few months all hands were talkin' about what great thingsthe Wellmouth Development Company was goin' to do. Then Judge Seavergave 'em somethin' else to talk about. He shot himself one night, andthey found him dead and all alone in the sittin' room of his big house.And when they came to look over his papers and affairs they found that,instead of bein' rich, he hadn't a cent in the world. He had lost allhis own money gamblin' in stocks, and, not only that, but he'd lost allthat other folks had given him to take care of. He was treasurer of theEagle Fish Freezin' Company and he'd stolen there until that company hadto fail. And, bein' secretary and treasurer of the Wellmouth DevelopmentCompany, he had sent the fifty thousand its stockholders paid in afterthe rest of his stealin's. All there was left of that new DevelopmentCompany was the land over here by Skoonic Creek. He couldn't steal thatvery well, although, when you think of the stealin' he did do, it's awonder he hadn't tried to carry it off by the wheelbarrow load.
"It isn't worth while my tellin' you all the hullabaloo that came afterthe smash. It would take too long and I don't know the ins and outs ofit, anyway. But the way it stands now is this: The Eagle Fish Freezin'Company is out of business. Their factory is run now by another concernaltogether. The Wellmou
th Development Company is still alive--at leastit's supposed to be, but nobody but a doctor could tell it wasn'tdead. The Denboro Trust Company has the Eagle Company's twelve hundredshares--I don't know how it got 'em; a long snarled-up tangle of loans,and security for loans, and I don't know what--and the rest of us havegot ours. All that's back of those shares--all that the DevelopmentCompany owns--is that Skoonic Creek property and that is goin' to beworth a lot some day--maybe. But I guess likely the some day will be along, long time after MY day. There, Mr. Bangs, that's the story of theWellmouth Development Company. And I presume likely you're wonderin' whyI tell it to you."
Galusha, who had been faithfully endeavoring to grasp the details ofhis hostess' narrative, passed a hand in bewildered fashion across hisforehead. He murmured that the story was--ah--very interesting, veryinteresting indeed--yes. Martha smiled faintly.
"I'm glad you think so," she said. "It is interestin' enough to some ofus here in Wellmouth, those of us who have our money tied up in it, butI shouldn't think a stranger would find much in it to amuse him.But, you see, Mr. Bangs, I didn't tell it to amuse you. I told itbecause--because--well, because, I--I wondered if in any way you knew,or could find out, how I could sell my two hundred and fifty shares.You see, I--I've GOT to sell 'em. At least, I've got to get more moneysomehow or--or give up this house. And I can't tell you what it wouldmean to me to do that."
Galusha murmured something, something meant to be sympathetic. MissPhipps' evident distress and mental agitation moved him extraordinarily.He wanted to say many things, reassuring things, but he could not at themoment think of any. The best he could do was to stammer a hope that shewould not be obliged to sell the house.
She shook her head. "I'm afraid I shall," she said. "I don't see howI can possibly keep it much longer. When father died he left me, so hethought, with enough income to get along on. It wasn't much--fact is, itwas mighty little--but we could and did get along on it, Primmie andI, without touchin' my principal. But then came the war and ever sincelivin' costs have been goin' up and up and up. Now my income is the sameas it was, but what it will buy is less than half. It doesn't cost muchto live down here, but I'm afraid it costs more than I can afford. If Ibegin to take away from my principal I'll have to keep on doin' it andpretty soon that will be all gone. After that--well, I don't want tolook any further than that. I shouldn't starve, I presume likely; whileI've got hands I can work and I'd manage to keep alive, if that was all.But it isn't all. I'd like to keep on livin' in my own home. And I can'tdo that, Mr. Bangs. I can't do that, as things are now. I must eitherget some more money somehow, or sell this house, one or the other."
Galusha leaned eagerly forward. He had been waiting for an excuse andnow he believed he saw one.
"Oh, Miss Phipps," he cried, "I--I think I can arrange that. I doindeed. You see, I have--ah--more money than I need. I seldom spend mymoney, you know, and--"
She interrupted him and her tone was rather sharp.
"Don't, Mr. Bangs," she said. "Don't say any more. If you've got theidea that I'm hintin' for you to LEND me money--you or anybody else--younever was more mistaken in your life. Or ever will be."
Galusha turned red. "I beg your pardon," he faltered. "Of course I knowyou were not hinting, Miss Martha. I--I didn't dream of such a thing. Itwas merely a thought of my own. You see, it would be such a favor to meif you would permit me to--to--"
"Don't."
"But, Miss Phipps, it would be doing me such a GREAT favor. Really, itwould."
He was so very much in earnest that, in spite of her own stress of mind,she could not help smiling.
"A great favor to help you get rid of your money?" she asked. "Youhavin' such a tremendous lot of it, I presume likely."
"Yes--ah--yes, that's it, that's it."
Her smile broadened. "And 'twas because you were so dreadfully rich thatyou came here to East Wellmouth to live, I suppose. Mr. Bangs, you'rethe kindest, best-hearted man that ever stepped, I do believe, but trulyI doubt if you know whether you're worth ten dollars or ten hundred.And it doesn't make the least difference, so far as I am concerned. I'llnever borrow money while I'm alive and I'll try to keep enough one sideto bury me after I'm dead. So don't say any more about lendin'. That'ssettled."
Galusha reluctantly realized that it was. He tried a new idea.
"I fear," he stammered, "that my being here may have been a contributorycause to your--ah--difficulties. Dear me, yes! I have realized since thebeginning that the amount I pay you is ridiculously small."
"WHAT? The board you pay SMALL? Rubbish! You pay me altogether too muchand what I give you to eat isn't worth half of it. But there, I didn'tmean to go into all this at all. What I told you all this long rigmarolefor was to see if you could think of any way for me to turn thoseDevelopment Company shares of mine into money. Not what father paidfor them, of course, or even half of it. But SOME money at least. If Ithought they weren't worth anything I shouldn't think of tryin' to sell'em. I don't want to cheat--or steal. But they tell me they are worthsomethin', maybe will be worth quite a good deal some day and I mustwait, that's all. But, you see, that's what I can't do--wait."
She had been, she said, to every one she could think of, to Pulcifer,who would not give her any encouragement, declaring that he was "stuck"worse than she was and was only hoping some one might make a bid for hisholdings; to Captain Jethro, who, relying as usual upon his revelationsfrom the beyond, blandly told her to wait as he was waiting. It had beencommunicated to him that he was to sell his own shares at a profit; ifshe waited she might do likewise. The president of the Denboro TrustCompany had been very kind, but his counsel was not too encouraging.The Development shares were nonsalable at the present time, he said, butthat did not mean that they were valueless. The Skoonic Creek propertywas good. Shore land on the Cape was becoming more valuable every year.Some time--perhaps ten years from now--she might--
"And where will I be in ten years?" asked Martha, sadly. "Goodnessknows, Mr. Bangs, I don't. I tried to get the Trust Company man to takemy shares at almost any price and do the waitin' for me, but he didn'tsee it that way. Said the bank was goin' to hold on to what it had, butit certainly didn't want any more. So there I am.... And yet, and yet ifI COULD sell--if I COULD get two thousand dollars, yes, or even fifteenhundred just now, it might tide me over until the cost of livin' comesdown. And everybody says they ARE comin' down. Mr. Bangs, can you seeany way out for me? Can you think of any one who would know about--Oh,my soul and body! Look OUT!"
She sprang to her feet with a little scream. Her lodger's rocking-chair,with its occupant, had suddenly tilted over backward. Fortunately hisproximity to the wall had prevented a complete overturn, but there satGalusha, the back of the chair against the wall and his knees elevatedat a very acute angle. The alarming part of it was that he made noeffort to regain his equilibrium, but remained in the unusual, not tosay undignified, posture.
"What IS the matter?" demanded Miss Phipps, seizing him by the arm andpulling him forward. "What was it? What happened?"
Galusha's face was beaming. His eyes shone with excitement.
"It--it struck me at that moment," he cried. "At that very moment."
"Struck you?" Miss Phipps looked about the room. "What struck you?Where? Are you hurt?"
Mr. Bangs' beaming smile broadened.
"I mean the idea struck me," he declared. "Dear me, how odd that itdidn't do so before. Yes, he is exactly the right person. Exactly. Oh,dear me, this is VERY good!"
Martha said afterward that she never in her life felt more like shakinga person.
"What do you mean?" she demanded. "What was it that struck you?"
"Why, Cousin Gussie," announced Galusha, happily. "Don't you see? Hewill be EXACTLY the one."
Galusha the Magnificent Page 9
