Rockhaven

by Charles Clark Munn

  CHAPTER XXXV

  THE WHEEL OF FORTUNE

  For weeks Winn lived an aimless life without occupation, which to himmeant misery. He walked the streets to be jostled by people in a hurry,and wished that he also was. He looked into shop windows where dummiesstood clad in beautiful garments, and wondered how Mona would look ifrobed in such. He met people hurrying home from their work at night andalmost envied them. In his club he felt so ill at ease that games,conversation, and even the raillery of Jack Nickerson bored him. He hada pleasant home, where his aunt always thought of his comfort; heescorted her to church with regularity; read the daily papers; called onEthel occasionally, to find her always the same sweet temptation. Sheneither allured nor repelled, but was always the same piquant and yetsympathetic friend, well poised and sensible, who judged all men andspoke of them as a mixture of nobility and selfish conceit in unequalparts, with the latter predominating. To Winn she sometimes talked asthough he were still a big boy who needed guidance, and then again as ifhe were more than mortal and out of place in a bad world.

  "You are discontented," she said to him one evening, "and out of yoursphere among the city men. You take right and wrong too seriously andare like an eagle caged with jackdaws. City men are such in the main,thinking more about the cut of their coats, the fit of their linen, andcolor of their ties than of aught else. You are as unlike them as whenyou came here a big boy with countryisms clinging to you and the scentof new mown hay perfuming your impulses; you were always out of placehere, and the three months on that island has made you more so."

  It was a truthful and yet somewhat flattering portrayal of Winn as hereally did seem to her, but it only added to his discontent.

  "What you say may be true enough," he answered, "but what shall I do? Ican't go into an office again and be content, the taste of being my ownmaster on the island has spoiled me for that. I would go into somebusiness if only I had the capital, but I haven't; and I wouldn't ask myaunt to loan me any, even under the existing circumstances."

  "I wish I could advise you," she replied in the sympathetic tone soeasily at her command. "I certainly would if I could. But whatever youdo, don't go into the stock gambling. I respect you now, and I might notthen."

  The time came when she wished that she had refrained from thatexpression.

  But a different trend of advice came to Winn later from Jack Nickerson.

  "Why don't you open a bucket shop, my boy," said that cynic, "and makesome money? I'll back you for a few thousand to start, since you werefoolish enough to part with all Page made for you out of the Rockhavenflurry, and it's a dead sure thing. Then again you have won quite alittle notoriety out of this Weston & Hill fiasco, and men on the streetsay you have a cool, level head. I tell you, open up one of those jointsand let these smart Alecs who want to get rich quick come in and losetheir money. If you keep moping around another month you will go daft,or fall in love with Ethel Sherman over again, which means the same. Ihear you are a frequent caller there."

  "I've got to spend my time somewhere," answered Winn, rather doggedly,"and Ethel's good company."

  Jack eyed him curiously.

  "How the moth will flutter around the candle," he said.

  "I'm in no danger there," asserted Winn, "so don't worry. Once bit,twice shy; and as for the bucket shop, I'll have none of it. I'd as soonopen a faro bank."

  "And why not?" queried Jack. "All the world loves to gamble, and most ofthem do in one way or another. Even the good people who pray can'tresist grab bags and fish ponds, and until a few ultra prudes guessed itwas gambling, they were all the rage at church fairs. Even now, insociety of the best, bridge whist and whist for prizes, afternoon andevening, flourishes on all sides. Oh, it's gamble, my boy, go where youwill; and you might as well take a hand in it and make money."

  "But a bucket shop is disreputable," replied Winn, "or has thatreputation, and on par with gambling dens in fact, though protected bylaw. It is worse than those in one way, for men who go in feel forced toput up margins to save themselves, and in the end go broke. Look at theembezzlements that crop out almost daily, and nine out of ten traceableto a bucket shop. The law ought to force them to put up a sign, 'All yewho enter here will lose.'"

  "You have matured rapidly since you came from the island, my boy,"laughed Nickerson, "and now you are fit to do business. Put your newscruples in your pocket and join the crowd. Only those who make moneyare considered anybody. And how they make it matters little. Make it youmust, or walk in this world; and those who walk, get kicked."

  And Winn, conscious that a bitter truth lurked in his friend's words,went his way more disconsolate than ever.

  But the memory of Rockhaven was still strong in him, and the eyes ofMona and the heart-burst that marked their parting an ever presentmemory.

  And no answer had yet come to his letter.

  One evening a little later, when a November storm, half rain, halfsleet, made the street miserable, Winn was pushing his way homeward whenhe saw a girl, poorly clad, a thin summer wrap her only extra garment,looking wistfully into a store window where tropical fruits tempted thepassers. He recognized her at once as the stenographer who had servedWeston & Hill.

  "Why, Mamie," he said, halting, "how are you and what are you doing herein the storm?"

  "I was just wishing I could afford a basket of grapes for mother," sheanswered, smiling at the sight of a friendly face, "but I can't. I'vebeen out of work now since the firm failed, you see."

  "I've wondered what became of you," said Winn, his sympathy aroused atonce, "and how you were getting on. Where are you working now?"

  "Nowhere," she answered. "I've been looking for a place for two monthsand can't find one. Mother gave the firm all her money to invest, andit's gone, and she is very ill. I am completely discouraged."

  Then once more a righteous curse aimed at Weston almost escaped Winn'slips.

  "I am very sorry for you, Mamie," he said, "and I wish I could helpyou."

  "If you could only find me a place," she replied eagerly, catching atthe straw of hope, "I should be so grateful. We are very poor now."

  "I'll do what I can for you," he said kindly, "and maybe I can help you.I, too, was left stranded by that thief Weston;" and without anotherword he stepped inside the store and, buying a good supply of fruit,joined the girl outside.

  "I am going home with you, Mamie," he said cheerfully, "and take yourmother some grapes. I've an idea of writing up a history of the Weston &Hill swindle, and I want her story."

  It was the first time he had thought of it, but it served as a readyexcuse. Then with one hand and arm loaded with bundles, and linking theother around the shivering girl's as if she were a child, the twostarted toward her home.

  "We have had to move," said the girl, as she directed their way towardthe poorer quarters of the city, "and I am ashamed to take you to myhome. We have only two rooms now."

  "Oh, you mustn't mind me," answered Winn, briskly. "I am afellow-sufferer with you now, you know."

  When her home was reached in a narrow side street and up three flightsof stairs at that, poverty and a woman coughing her life away beside thekitchen stove told the tale. Winn noticed that the supper awaiting thegirl was of bread, butter, and tea only.

  "It was very kind of you to come, Mr. Hardy," said the mother, in analmost tearful voice, when he was introduced; "and if you can find aplace for Mamie, it will help us very much."

  And then she told her story.

  It need not be repeated--its counterpart may be found by the score inany city where legalized thieving like Weston's scheme ever dupes thecredulous, and is as common as the annals of simple drunks. To Winn itwas new, for he had no idea his former employer could be so vile as toinduce a poor widow to invest her all to meet inevitable loss.

  And be it said here, that if the world at large could realize how manysharks are ready to prey upon them with the tempting bait of countlessschemes, promising sure and rich returns, big interest for their money,guarant
ees of all kinds (on paper), and flanked by long lists of names,they would look at "farm-mortgage bonds," "gold-mining stocks," "oilstocks," "cumulative gold-bearing bonds," and the whole list of trapsset for the unwary, as so many financial perils.

  And be it said also, that if the securities held as collateral by halfthe banks could be scrutinized, and the foundations they rested uponunderstood by all the confiding depositors in these banks, a panic wouldensue that would sweep this land of credulity like a typhoon.

  Winn Hardy, who by sheer good luck had saved his aunt's fortune,listening to this poor widow's tearful recital of her woes, gnashed histeeth at the departed J. Malcolm Weston and vowed that he would show himup in the press.

  When he bade good-by to the girl and her mother, promising to look outfor a place for the former, he stopped on his way home at a market andpaid for an ample supply of necessaries to be sent them on the morrow.More than that, he went to Page and, telling the tale, insisted that hegive the girl a chance to earn a livelihood.

  And to no one, not even his aunt, did he tell what he had done.