CHAPTER THREE: The Arrested Philanthropy of Mr. Tomlinson
"This, Mr. Tomlinson, is our campus," said President Boomer as theypassed through the iron gates of Plutoria University.
"For camping?" said the Wizard.
"Not exactly," answered the president, "though it would, of course,suit for that. _Nihil humunum alienum_, eh?" and he broke into a loud,explosive laugh, while his spectacles irradiated that peculiar form ofglee derived from a Latin quotation by those able to enjoy it. Dr.Boyster, walking on the other side of Mr. Tomlinson, joined in thelaugh in a deep, reverberating chorus.
The two had the Wizard of Finance between them, and they were marchinghim up to the University. He was taken along much as is an arrested manwho has promised to go quietly. They kept their hands off him, but theywatched him sideways through their spectacles. At the least sign ofrestlessness they doused him with Latin. The Wizard of Finance, havingbeen marked out by Dr. Boomer and Dr. Boyster as a prospectivebenefactor, was having Latin poured over him to reduce him to theproper degree of plasticity.
They had already put him through the first stage. They had, three daysago, called on him at the Grand Palaver and served him with a pamphleton "The Excavation of Mitylene" as a sort of writ. Tomlinson and hiswife had looked at the pictures of the ruins, and from the appearanceof them they judged that Mitylene was in Mexico, and they said that itwas a shame to see it in that state and that the United States ought tointervene.
As the second stage on the path of philanthropy, the Wizard of Financewas now being taken to look at the university. Dr. Boomer knew byexperience that no rich man could look at it without wanting to give itmoney.
And here the president had found that there is no better method ofdealing with businessmen than to use Latin on them. For other purposesthe president used other things. For example at a friendly dinner atthe Mausoleum Club where light conversation was in order, Dr. Boomerchatted, as has been seen, on the archaeological remains of theNavajos. In the same way, at Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown's Dante luncheons, hegenerally talked of the Italian _cinquecentisti_ and whether Gian Gobbodella Scala had left a greater name than Can Grande della Spiggiola.But such talk as that was naturally only for women. Businessmen aremuch too shrewd for that kind of thing; in fact, so shrewd are they, asPresident Boomer had long since discovered, that nothing pleases themso much as the quiet, firm assumption that they know Latin. It is likewriting them up an asset. So it was that Dr. Boomer would greet abusiness acquaintance with a roaring salutation of, "_Terque quaterquebeatus_," or stand wringing his hand off to the tune of "_Oh etpresidium et dulce decus meum_."
This caught them every time.
"You don't," said Tomlinson the Wizard in a hesitating tone as helooked at the smooth grass of the campus, "I suppose, raise anything onit?"
"No, no; this is only for field sports," said the president; "_suntquos curriculo_--"
To which Dr. Boyster on the other side added, like a chorus, "_pulveremOlympicum_."
This was their favourite quotation. It always gave President Boomer achance to speak of the final letter "m" in Latin poetry, and to saythat in his opinion the so-called elision of the final "m" was moreproperly a dropping of the vowel with a repercussion of the two lastconsonants. He supported this by quoting Ammianus, at which Dr. Boysterexclaimed, "Pooh! Ammianus: more dog Latin!" and appealed to Mr.Tomlinson as to whether any rational man nowadays cared what Ammianusthought?
To all of which Tomlinson answered never a word, but looked steadilyfirst at one and then at the other. Dr. Boomer said afterwards that thepenetration of Tomlinson was wonderful, and that it was excellent tosee how Boyster tried in vain to draw him; and Boyster said afterwardsthat the way in which Tomlinson quietly refused to be led on by Boomerwas delicious, and that it was a pity that Aristophanes was not thereto do it justice.
All of which was happening as they went in at the iron gates and up theelm avenue of Plutoria University.
The university, as everyone knows, stands with its great gates onPlutoria Avenue, and with its largest buildings, those of the facultiesof industrial and mechanical science, fronting full upon the street.
These buildings are exceptionally fine, standing fifteen stories highand comparing favourably with the best departmental stores or factoriesin the City. Indeed, after nightfall, when they are all lighted up forthe evening technical classes and when their testing machinery is infull swing and there are students going in and out in overall suits,people have often mistaken the university, or this newer part of it,for a factory. A foreign visitor once said that the students lookedlike plumbers, and President Boomer was so proud of it that he put thephrase into his next Commencement address; and from there thenewspapers got it and the Associated Press took it up and sent it allover the United States with the heading, "Have Appearance of Plumbers;Plutoria University Congratulated on Character of Students," and it wasa proud day indeed for the heads of the Industrial Science faculty.
But the older part of the university stands so quietly and modestly atthe top end of the elm avenue, so hidden by the leaves of it, that noone could mistake it for a factory. This, indeed, was once the wholeuniversity, and had stood there since colonial days under the nameConcordia College. It had been filled with generations of presidentsand professors of the older type with long white beards and rusty blackclothes, and salaries of fifteen hundred dollars.
But the change both of name and of character from Concordia College toPlutoria University was the work of President Boomer. He had changed itfrom an old-fashioned college of the by-gone type to a university inthe true modern sense. At Plutoria they now taught everything.Concordia College, for example, had no teaching of religion exceptlectures on the Bible. Now they had lectures also on Confucianism,Mohammedanism Buddhism, with an optional course on atheism for studentsin the final year.
And, of course, they had long since admitted women, and there were nowbeautiful creatures with Cleo de Merode hair studying astronomy atoaken desks and looking up at the teacher with eyes like comets. Theuniversity taught everything and did everything. It had whirlingmachines on the top of it that measured the speed of the wind, and deepin its basements it measured earthquakes with a seismograph; it heldclasses on forestry and dentistry and palmistry; it sent life classesinto the slums, and death classes to the city morgue. It offered such avast variety of themes, topics and subjects to the students, that therewas nothing that a student was compelled to learn, while from its ownpresses in its own press-building it sent out a shower of bulletins andmonographs like driven snow from a rotary plough.
In fact, it had become, as President Boomer told all the businessmen intown, not merely a university, but a _universitas_ in the true sense,and every one of its faculties was now a _facultas_ in the realacceptance of the word, and its studies properly and truly _studia_;indeed, if the businessmen would only build a few more dormitories andput up enough money to form an adequate _fondatum_ or _fundum_, thenthe good work might be looked upon as complete.
As the three walked up the elm avenue there met them a little stream ofstudents with college books, and female students with winged-victoryhats, and professors with last year's overcoats. And some went pastwith a smile and others with a shiver.
"That's Professor Withers," said the president in a sympathetic voiceas one of the shivering figures went past; "poor Withers," and hesighed.
"What's wrong with him?" said the Wizard; "is he sick?"
"No, not sick," said the president quietly and sadly, "merelyinefficient."
"Inefficient?"
"Unfortunately so. Mind you, I don't mean 'inefficient' in every sense.By no means. If anyone were to come to me and say, 'Boomer, can you putyour hand for me on a first-class botanist?' I'd say, 'Take Withers.'I'd say it in a minute." This was true. He would have. In fact, ifanyone had made this kind of rash speech, Dr. Boomer would have givenaway half the professoriate.
"Well, what's wrong with him?" repeated Tomlinson, "I suppose he ain'tquite up to the mark
in some ways, eh?"
"Precisely," said the president, "not quite up to the mark--a veryhappy way of putting it. _Capax imperii nisi imperasset_, as no doubtyou are thinking to yourself. The fact is that Withers, though anexcellent fellow, can't manage large classes. With small classes he isall right, but with large classes the man is lost. He can't handlethem."
"He can't, eh?" said the Wizard.
"No. But what can I do? There he is. I can't dismiss him. I can'tpension him. I've no money for it."
Here the president slackened a little in his walk and looked sidewaysat the prospective benefactor. But Tomlinson gave no sign.
A second professorial figure passed them on the other side.
"There again," said the president, "that's another case ofinefficiency--Professor Shottat, our senior professor of English."
"What's wrong with _him_?" asked the Wizard.
"He can't handle _small_ classes," said the president. "With largeclasses he is really excellent, but with small ones the man is simplyhopeless."
In this fashion, before Mr. Tomlinson had measured the length of theavenue, he had had ample opportunity to judge of the crying need ofmoney at Plutoria University, and of the perplexity of its president.He was shown professors who could handle the first year, but werepowerless with the second; others who were all right with the secondbut broke down with the third, while others could handle the third butcollapsed with the fourth. There were professors who were all right intheir own subject, but perfectly impossible outside of it; others whowere so occupied outside of their own subject that they were uselessinside of it; others who knew their subject, but couldn't lecture; andothers again who lectured admirably, but didn't know their subject.
In short it was clear--as it was meant to be--that the need of themoment was a sum of money sufficient to enable the president to dismisseverybody but himself and Dr. Boyster. The latter stood in a class allby himself. He had known the president for forty-five years, ever sincehe was a fat little boy with spectacles in a classical academy,stuffing himself on irregular Greek verbs as readily as if on oysters.
But it soon appeared that the need for dismissing the professors wasonly part of the trouble. There were the buildings to consider.
"This, I am ashamed to say," said Dr. Boomer, as they passed theimitation Greek portico of the old Concordia College building, "is ouroriginal home, the _fons et origo_ of our studies, our faculty of arts."
It was indeed a dilapidated building, yet there was a certain majestyabout it, too, especially when one reflected that it had been standingthere looking much the same at the time when its students had troopedoff in a flock to join the army of the Potomac, and much the same,indeed, three generations before that, when the classes were closed andthe students clapped three-cornered hats on their heads and were off toenlist as minute men with flintlock muskets under General Washington.
But Dr. Boomer's one idea was to knock the building down and to buildon its site a real _facultas_ ten storeys high, with elevators in it.
Tomlinson looked about him humbly as he stood in the main hall. Theatmosphere of the place awed him. There were bulletins and time-tablesand notices stuck on the walls that gave evidence of the activity ofthe place. "Professor Slithers will be unable to meet his classestoday," ran one of them, and another "Professor Withers will not meethis classes this week," and another, "Owing to illness, ProfessorShottat will not lecture this month," while still another announced,"Owing to the indisposition of Professor Podge, all botanical classesare suspended, but Professor Podge hopes to be able to join in theBotanical Picnic Excursion to Loon Lake on Saturday afternoon." Youcould judge of the grinding routine of the work from the nature ofthese notices. Anyone familiar with the work of colleges would not heedit, but it shocked Tomlinson to think how often the professors of thecollege were stricken down by overwork.
Here and there in the hall, set into niches, were bronze busts of menwith Roman faces and bare necks, and the edge of a toga cast over eachshoulder.
"Who would these be?" asked Tomlinson, pointing at them. "Some of thechief founders and benefactors of the faculty," answered the president,and at this the hopes of Tomlinson sank in his heart. For he realizedthe class of man one had to belong to in order to be accepted as auniversity benefactor.
"A splendid group of men, are they not?" said the president. "We owethem much. This is the late Mr. Hogworth, a man of singularly largeheart." Here he pointed to a bronze figure wearing a wreath of laureland inscribed GULIEMUS HOGWORTH, LITT. DOC. "He had made a greatfortune in the produce business and wishing to mark his gratitude tothe community he erected the anemometer, the wind-measure, on the roofof the building, attaching to it no other condition than that his nameshould be printed in the weekly reports immediately beside the velocityof the wind. The figure beside him is the late Mr. Underbugg, whofounded our lectures on the Four Gospels on the sole stipulation thathenceforth any reference of ours to the four gospels should be coupledwith his name."
"What's that after his name?" asked Tomlinson.
"Litt. Doc.?" said the president. "Doctor of Letters, our honorarydegree. We are always happy to grant it to our benefactors by a vote ofthe faculty."
Here Dr. Boomer and Dr. Boyster wheeled half round and looked quietlyand steadily at the Wizard of Finance. To both their minds it wasperfectly plain that an honourable bargain was being struck.
"Yes, Mr. Tomlinson," said the president, as they emerged from thebuilding, "no doubt you begin to realize our unhappy position. Money,money, money," he repeated half-musingly. "If I had the money I'd havethat whole building down and dismantled in a fortnight."
From the central building the three passed to the museum building,where Tomlinson was shown a vast skeleton of a Diplodocus Maximus, andwas specially warned not to confuse it with the Dinosaurus Perfectus,whose bones, however, could be bought if anyone, any man of largeheart; would come to the university and say straight out, "Gentlemen,what can I do for you?" Better still, it appeared the whole museumwhich was hopelessly antiquated, being twenty-five years old, could beentirely knocked down if a sufficient sum was forthcoming; and itscurator, who was as ancient as the Dinosaurus itself, could bedismissed on half-pay if any man had a heart large enough for thedismissal.
From the museum they passed to the library, where there werefull-length portraits of more founders and benefactors in long redrobes, holding scrolls of paper, and others sitting holding pens andwriting on parchment, with a Greek temple and a thunderstorm in thebackground.
And here again it appeared that the crying need of the moment was forsomeone to come to the university and say, "Gentlemen, what can I dofor you?" On which the whole library, for it was twenty years old andout of date, might be blown up with dynamite and carted away.
But at all this the hopes of Tomlinson sank lower and lower. The redrobes and the scrolls were too much for him.
From the library they passed to the tall buildings that housed thefaculty of industrial and mechanical science. And here again the samepitiful lack of money was everywhere apparent. For example, in thephysical science department there was a mass of apparatus for which theuniversity was unable to afford suitable premises, and in the chemicaldepartment there were vast premises for which the university was unableto buy apparatus, and so on. Indeed it was part of Dr. Boomer's methodto get himself endowed first with premises too big for the apparatus,and then by appealing to public spirit to call for enough apparatus tomore than fill the premises, by means of which system industrialscience at Plutoria University advanced with increasing and giganticstrides.
But most of all, the electric department interested the Wizard ofFinance. And this time his voice lost its hesitating tone and he lookedstraight at Dr. Boomer as he began,
"I have a boy--"
"Ah!" said Dr. Boomer, with a huge ejaculation of surprise and relief;"you have a boy!"
There were volumes in his tone. What it meant was, "Now, indeed, wehave got you where we want you," and he exchanged a me
aning look withthe professor of Greek.
Within five minutes the president and Tomlinson and Dr. Boyster weregravely discussing on what terms and in what way Fred might be admittedto study in the faculty of industrial science. The president, onlearning that Fred had put in four years in Cahoga County Section No. 3School, and had been head of his class in ciphering, nodded his headgravely and said it would simply be a matter of a _pro tanto_; that, infact, he felt sure that Fred might be admitted _ad eundem_. But thereal condition on which they meant to admit him was, of course, notmentioned.
One door only in the faculty of industrial and mechanical science theydid not pass, a heavy oak door at the end of a corridor bearing thepainted inscription: Geological and Metallurgical Laboratories. Stuckin the door was a card with the words (they were conceived in thecourteous phrases of mechanical science, which is almost a branch ofbusiness in the real sense): Busy--keep out.
Dr. Boomer looked at the card. "Ah, yes," he said. "Gildas is no doubtbusy with his tests. We won't disturb him." The president was alwaysproud to find a professor busy; it looked well.
But if Dr. Boomer had known what was going on behind the oaken door ofthe Department of Geology and Metallurgy, he would have feltconsiderably disturbed himself.
For here again Gildas, senior professor of geology, was working amonghis blue flames at a final test on which depended the fate of the ErieAuriferous Consolidated and all connected with it.
Before him there were some twenty or thirty packets of crumpled dustand splintered ore that glittered on the testing-table. It had beentaken up from the creek along its whole length, at even spaces twentyyards apart, by an expert sent down in haste by the directorate, afterGildas's second report, and heavily bribed to keep his mouth shut.
And as Professor Gildas stood and worked at the samples and tied themup after analysis in little white cardboard boxes, he marked each onevery carefully and neatly with the words, PYRITES: WORTHLESS.
Beside the professor worked a young demonstrator of last year'sgraduation class. It was he, in fact, who had written the polite noticeon the card.
"What is the stuff, anyway?" he asked.
"A sulphuret of iron," said the professor, "or iron pyrites. In colourand appearance it is practically identical with gold. Indeed, in allages," he went on, dropping at once into the classroom tone andadopting the professional habit of jumping backwards twenty centuriesin order to explain anything properly, "it has been readily mistakenfor the precious metal. The ancients called it 'fool's gold.' MartinFrobisher brought back four shiploads of it from Baffin Land thinkingthat he had discovered an Eldorado. There are large deposits of it inthe mines of Cornwall, and it is just possible," here the professormeasured his words as if speaking of something that he wouldn'tpromise, "that the Cassiterides of the Phoenicians contained depositsof the same sulphuret. Indeed, I defy anyone," he continued, for he waspiqued in his scientific pride, "to distinguish it from gold without alaboratory-test. In large quantities, I concede, its lack of weightwould betray it to a trained hand, but without testing its solubilityin nitric acid, or the fact of its burning with a blue flame under theblow-pipe, it cannot be detected. In short, when crystallized indodecahedrons--"
"Is it any good?" broke in the demonstrator.
"Good?" said the professor. "Oh, you mean commercially? Not in theslightest. Much less valuable than, let us say, ordinary mud or clay.In fact, it is absolutely good for nothing."
They were silent for a moment, watching the blue flames above thebrazier.
Then Gildas spoke again. "Oddly enough," he said, "the first set ofsamples were undoubtedly pure gold--not the faintest doubt of that.That is the really interesting part of the matter. These gentlemenconcerned in the enterprise will, of course, lose their money, and Ishall therefore decline to accept the very handsome fee which they hadoffered me for my services. But the main feature, the real point ofinterest in this matter remains. Here we have undoubtedly a sporadicdeposit--what miners call a pocket--of pure gold in a Devonianformation of the post-tertiary period. This once established, we mustrevise our entire theory of the distribution of igneous and aqueousrocks. In fact, I am already getting notes together for a paper for thePan-Geological under the heading, Auriferous Excretions in the DevonianStrata: a Working Hypothesis. I hope to read it at the next meeting."
The young demonstrator looked at the professor with one eye half-closed.
"I don't think I would if I were you." he said.
Now this young demonstrator knew nothing or practically nothing, ofgeology, because he came of one of the richest and best families intown and didn't need to. But he was a smart young man, dressed in thelatest fashion with brown boots and a crosswise tie, and he knew moreabout money and business and the stock exchange in five minutes thanProfessor Gildas in his whole existence.
"Why not?" said the professor.
"Why, don't you see what's happened?"
"Eh?" said Gildas.
"What happened to those first samples? When that bunch got interestedand planned to float the company? Don't you see? Somebody salted themon you."
"_Salted_ them on me?" repeated the professor, mystified.
"Yes, salted them. Somebody got wise to what they were and swopped themon you for the real thing, so as to get your certified report that thestuff was gold."
"I begin to see," muttered the professor. "Somebody exchanged thesamples, some person no doubt desirous of establishing the theory thata sporadic outcropping of the sort might be found in a post-tertiaryformation. I see, I see. No doubt he intended to prepare a paper on it,and prove his thesis by these tests. I see it all!"
The demonstrator looked at the professor with a sort of pity.
"You're on!" he said, and he laughed softly to himself.
* * * * *
"Well," said Dr. Boomer, after Tomlinson had left the university, "whatdo you make of him?" The president had taken Dr. Boyster over to hishouse beside the campus, and there in his study had given him a cigaras big as a rope and taken another himself. This was a sign that Dr.Boomer wanted Dr. Boyster's opinion in plain English, without any Latinabout it.
"Remarkable man," said the professor of Greek; "wonderful penetration,and a man of very few words. Of course his game is clear enough?"
"Entirely so," asserted Dr. Boomer.
"It's clear enough that he means to give the money on two conditions."
"Exactly," said the president.
"First that we admit his son, who is quite unqualified, to the seniorstudies in electrical science, and second that we grant him the degreeof Doctor of Letters. Those are his terms." "Can we meet them?"
"Oh, certainly. As to the son, there is no difficulty, of course; as tothe degree, it's only a question of getting the faculty to vote it. Ithink we can manage it."
* * * * *
Vote it they did that very afternoon. True, if the members of thefaculty had known the things that were being whispered, and more thanwhispered, in the City about Tomlinson and his fortune, no degree wouldever have been conferred on him. But it so happened that at that momentthe whole professoriate was absorbed in one of those great educationalcrises which from time to time shake a university to its base. Themeeting of the faculty that day bid fair to lose all vestige of decorumin the excitement of the moment. For, as Dean Elderberry Foible, thehead of the faculty, said, the motion that they had before themamounted practically to a revolution. The proposal was nothing lessthan the permission of the use of lead-pencils instead of pen and inkin the sessional examinations of the university. Anyone conversant withthe inner life of a college will realize that to many of theprofessoriate this was nothing less than a last wild onslaught ofsocialistic democracy against the solid bulwarks of society. They mustfight it back or die on the walls. To others it was one more step inthe splendid progress of democratic education, comparable only to suchepoch-making things as the abandonment of the cap and gown, and theomission of the word "sir" in speaking t
o a professor.
No wonder that the fight raged. Elderberry Foible, his fluffed whitehair almost on end, beat in vain with his gavel for order. Finally,Chang of Physiology, who was a perfect dynamo of energy and was knownfrequently to work for three or four hours at a stretch, proposed thatthe faculty should adjourn the question and meet for its furtherdiscussion on the following Saturday morning. This revolutionarysuggestion, involving work on Saturday, reduced the meeting to a mereturmoil, in the midst of which Elderberry Foible proposed that thewhole question of the use of lead-pencils should be adjourned till thatday six months, and that meantime a new special committee of seventeenprofessors, with power to add to their number, to call witnesses and,if need be, to hear them, should report on the entire matter _de novo_.This motion, after the striking out of the words _de novo_ and theinsertion of _ab initio_, was finally carried, after which the facultysank back completely exhausted into its chair, the need of afternoontea and toast stamped on every face.
And it was at this moment that President Boomer, who understoodfaculties as few men have done, quietly entered the room, laid his silkhat on a volume of Demosthenes, and proposed the vote of a degree ofDoctor of Letters for Edward Tomlinson. He said that there was no needto remind the faculty of Tomlinson's services to the nation; they knewthem. Of the members of the faculty, indeed, some thought that he meantthe Tomlinson who wrote the famous monologue on the Iota Subscript,while others supposed that he referred to the celebrated philosopherTomlinson, whose new book on the Indivisibility of the Inseparable wasjust then maddening the entire world. In any case, they voted thedegree without a word, still faint with exhaustion.
* * * * *
But while the university was conferring on Tomlinson the degree ofDoctor of Letters, all over the City in business circles they wereconferring on him far other titles. "Idiot," "Scoundrel," "Swindler,"were the least of them. Every stock and share with which his name wasknown to be connected was coming down with a run, wiping out theaccumulated profits of the Wizard at the rate of a thousand dollars aminute.
They not only questioned his honesty, but they went further andquestioned his business capacity.
"The man," said Mr. Lucullus Fyshe, sitting in the Mausoleum Club andbreathing freely at last after having disposed of all his holdings inthe Erie Auriferous, "is an ignoramus. I asked him only the other day,quite casually, a perfectly simple business question. I said to him.'T.C. Bonds have risen twenty-two and a half in a week. You know and Iknow that they are only collateral trust, and that the stock underneathnever could and never would earn a par dividend. Now,' I said, for Iwanted to test the fellow, 'tell me what that means?' Would you believeme, he looked me right in the face in that stupid way of his, and hesaid, 'I don't know!'"
"He said he didn't know!" repeated the listener contemptuously; "theman is a damn fool!"
* * * * *
The reason of all this was that the results of the researches of theprofessor of geology were being whispered among the directorate of theErie Auriferous. And the directors and chief shareholders were busilyperforming the interesting process called unloading. Nor did ever afarmer of Cahoga County in haying time with a thunderstorm threatening,unload with greater rapidity than did the major shareholders of theAuriferous. Mr. Lucullus Fyshe traded off a quarter of his stock to anunwary member of the Mausoleum Club at a drop of thirty per cent, andbeing too prudent to hold the rest on any terms, he conveyed it at onceas a benefaction in trust to the Plutorian Orphans' and Foundlings'Home; while the purchaser of Mr. Fyshe's stock, learning too late ofhis folly, rushed for his lawyers to have the shares conveyed as a giftto the Home for Incurables.
Mr. Asmodeus Boulder transferred his entire holdings to the Imbeciles'Relief Society, and Mr. Furlong, senior, passed his over to a Chinesemission as fast as pen could traverse paper.
Down at the office of Skinyer and Beatem, the lawyers of the company,they were working overtime drawing up deeds and conveyances and trustsin perpetuity, with hardly time to put them into typewriting. Withintwenty-four hours the entire stock of the company bid fair to be in thehands of Idiots, Orphans, Protestants, Foundlings, Imbeciles,Missionaries, Chinese, and other unfinancial people, with Tomlinson theWizard of Finance as the senior shareholder and majority control. Andwhether the gentle Wizard, as he sat with mother planning his vastbenefaction to Plutoria University, would have felt more at home withhis new group of fellow-shareholders than his old, it were hard to say.
But, meantime, at the office of Skinyer and Beatem all was activity.For not only were they drafting the conveyances of the perpetual trustsas fast as legal brains working overtime could do it, but in anotherpart of the office a section of the firm were busily making theirpreparations against the expected actions for fraud and warrants ofdistraint and injunctions against disposal of assets and the wholebattery of artillery which might open on them at any moment. And theyworked like a corps of military engineers fortifying an escarpment,with the joy of battle in their faces.
The storm might break at any moment. Already at the office of the_Financial Undertone_ the type was set for a special extra with aheading three inches high:
COLLAPSE OF THE ERIE CONSOLIDATED ARREST OF THE MAN TOMLINSON EXPECTED THIS AFTERNOON
Skinyer and Beatem had paid the editor, who was crooked, two thousanddollars cash to hold back that extra for twenty-four hours; and theeditor had paid the reporting staff, who were crooked, twenty-fivedollars each to keep the news quiet, and the compositors, who were alsocrooked, ten dollars per man to hold their mouths shut till themorning, with the result that from editors and sub-editors andreporters and compositors the news went seething forth in a flood thatthe Erie Auriferous Consolidated was going to shatter into fragmentslike the bursting of a dynamite bomb. It rushed with a thousandwhispering tongues from street to street till it filled the corridorsof the law courts and the lobbies of the offices, and till every honestman that held a share of the stock shivered in his tracks and reachedout to give, sell, or destroy it. Only the unwinking Idiots, and themild Orphans, and the calm Deaf mutes and the impassive Chinese heldtight to what they had. So gathered the storm, till all the town, likethe great rotunda of the Grand Palaver, was filled with a silent "callfor Mr. Tomlinson," voiceless and ominous.
And while all this was happening, and while at Skinyer and Beatem'sthey worked with frantic pens and clattering type there came a knock atthe door, hesitant and uncertain, and before the eyes of the astoundedoffice there stood in his wide-awake hat and long black coat the figureof "the man Tomlinson" himself.
And Skinyer, the senior partner, no sooner heard what Tomlinson wantedthan he dashed across the outer office to his partner's room with hishyena face all excitement as he said:
"Beatem, Beatem, come over to my room. This man is absolutely thebiggest thing in America. For sheer calmness and nerve I never heard ofanything to approach him. What do you think he wants to do?"
"What?" said Beatem.
"Why, he's giving his entire fortune to the university."
"By Gad!" ejaculated Beatem, and the two lawyers looked at one another,lost in admiration of the marvellous genius and assurance of Tomlinson.
* * * * *
Yet what had happened was very simple.
Tomlinson had come back from the university filled with mingled hopeand hesitation. The university, he saw, needed the money and he hopedto give it his entire fortune, to put Dr. Boomer in a position topractically destroy the whole place. But, like many a modest man, helacked the assurance to speak out. He felt that up to the present thebenefactors of the university had been men of an entirely differentclass from himself. It was mother who solved the situation for him.
"Well, father," she said, "there's one thing I've learned already sincewe've had money. If you want to get a thing done you can always findpeople to do it for you if you pay them. Why not go to those lawyersthat manage things for the company and get them to arr
ange it all foryou with the college?"
As a result, Tomlinson had turned up at the door of the Skinyer andBeatem office.
* * * * *
"Quite so, Mr. Tomlinson," said Skinyer, with his pen already dipped inthe ink, "a perfectly simple matter. I can draw up a draft ofconveyance with a few strokes of the pen. In fact, we can do it on thespot."
What he meant was, "In fact, we can do it so fast that I can pocket afee of five hundred dollars right here and now while you have the moneyto pay me."
"Now then," he continued, "let us see how it is to run."
"Well," said Tomlinson, "I want you to put it that I give all my stockin the company to the university."
"All of it?" said Skinyer, with a quiet smile to Beatem.
"Every cent of it, sir," said Tomlinson; "just write down that I giveall of it to the college."
"Very good," said Skinyer, and he began to write, "I, so-and-so, andso-and-so, of the county of so-and-so--Cahoga, I think you said, Mr.Tomlinson?"
"Yes, sir," said the Wizard, "I was raised there."
"--do hereby give, assign, devise, transfer, and the transfer is herebygiven, devised and assigned, all those stocks, shares, hereditaments,etc., which I hold in the etc., etc., all, several and whatever--youwill observe, Mr. Tomlinson, I am expressing myself with as greatbrevity as possible--to that institution, academy, college, school,university, now known and reputed to be Plutoria University, of thecity of etc., etc."
He paused a moment. "Now what special objects or purposes shall Iindicate?" he asked.
Whereupon Tomlinson explained as best he could, and Skinyer, workingwith great rapidity, indicated that the benefaction was to include aDemolition Fund for the removal of buildings, a Retirement Fund for theremoval of professors, an Apparatus Fund for the destruction ofapparatus, and a General Sinking Fund for the obliteration of anythingnot otherwise mentioned.
"And I'd like to do something, if I could, for Mr. Boomer himself, justas man to man," said Tomlinson.
"All right," said Beatem, and he could hardly keep his face straight."Give him a chunk of the stock--give him half a million."
"I will," said Tomlinson; "he deserves it."
"Undoubtedly," said Mr. Skinyer.
And within a few minutes the whole transaction was done, and Tomlinson,filled with joy, was wringing the hands of Skinyer and Beatem, andtelling them to name their own fee.
They had meant to, anyway.
* * * * *
"Is that legal, do you suppose?" said Beatem to Skinyer, after theWizard had gone. "Will it hold water?"
"Oh, I don't think so," said Skinyer, "not for a minute. In fact,rather the other way. If they make an arrest for fraudulent flotation,this conveyance, I should think, would help to send him to thepenitentiary. But I very much doubt if they can arrest him. Mind you,the fellow is devilish shrewd. You know, and I know that he plannedthis whole flotation with a full knowledge of the fraud. _You_ and _I_know it--very good--but we know it more from our trained instinct insuch things than by any proof. The fellow has managed to surroundhimself with such an air of good faith from start to finish that itwill be deuced hard to get at him."
"What will he do now?" said Beatem.
"I tell you what he'll do. Mark my words. Within twenty-four hourshe'll clear out and be out of the state, and if they want to get himthey'll have to extradite. I tell you he's a man of extraordinarycapacity. The rest of us are nowhere beside him."
In which, perhaps, there was some truth.
* * * * *
"Well, mother," said the Wizard, when he reached the thousand-dollarsuite, after his interview with Skinyer and Beatem, his face irradiatedwith simple joy, "it's done. I've put the college now in a position itnever was in before, nor any other college; the lawyers say sothemselves."
"That's good," said mother.
"Yes, and it's a good thing I didn't lose the money when I tried to.You see, mother, what I hadn't realized was the good that could be donewith all that money if a man put his heart into it. They can start inas soon as they like and tear down those buildings. My! but it's justwonderful what you can do with money. I'm glad I didn't lose it!"
So they talked far into the evening. That night they slept in anAladdin's palace filled with golden fancies.
And in the morning the palace and all its visions fell tumbling abouttheir heads in sudden and awful catastrophe. For with Tomlinson's firstdescent to the rotunda it broke. The whole great space seemed filledwith the bulletins and the broadside sheets of the morning papers, thecrowd surging to and fro buying the papers, men reading them as theystood, and everywhere in great letters there met his eye:
COLLAPSE OF THE ERIE AURIFEROUS
THE GREAT GOLD SWINDLE
ARREST OF THE MAN TOMLINSON EXPECTED THIS MORNING
So stood the Wizard of Finance beside a pillar, the paper fluttering inhis hand, his eyes fixed, while about him a thousand eager eyes andrushing tongues sent shame into his stricken heart.
And there his boy Fred, sent from upstairs, found him; and at the sightof the seething crowd and his father's stricken face, aged as it seemedall in a moment, the boy's soul woke within him. What had happened hecould not tell, only that his father stood there, dazed, beaten, andstaring at him on every side in giant letters:
ARREST OF THE MAN TOMLINSON
"Come, father come upstairs," he said, and took him by the arm,dragging him through the crowd.
In the next half-hour as they sat and waited for the arrest in thefalse grandeur of the thousand-dollar suite-Tomlinson, his wife, andFred-the boy learnt more than all the teaching of the industrialfaculty of Plutoria University could have taught him in a decade.Adversity laid its hand upon him, and at its touch his adolescent heartturned to finer stuff than the salted gold of the Erie Auriferous. Ashe looked upon his father's broken figure waiting meekly for arrest,and his mother's blubbered face, a great wrath burned itself into hissoul.
"When the sheriff comes--" said Tomlinson, and his lip trembled as hespoke. He had no other picture of arrest than that.
"They can't arrest you, father," broke out the boy. "You've donenothing. You never swindled them. I tell you, if they try to arrestyou, I'll--" and his voice broke and stopped upon a sob, and his handsclenched in passion.
"You stay here, you and mother. I'll go down. Give me your money andI'll go and pay them and we'll get out of this and go home. They can'tstop us; there's nothing to arrest you for."
Nor was there. Fred paid the bill unmolested, save for the prying eyesand babbling tongues of the rotunda.
And a few hours from that, while the town was still ringing with newsof his downfall, the Wizard with his wife and son walked down fromtheir thousand-dollar suite into the corridor, their hands burdenedwith their satchels. A waiter, with something between a sneer and anobsequious smile upon his face, reached out for the valises, wonderingif it was still worth while.
"You get to hell out of that!" said Fred. He had put on again his roughstore suit in which he had come from Cahoga County, and there was adangerous look about his big shoulders and his set jaw. And the waiterslunk back.
So did they pass, unarrested and unhindered, through corridor androtunda to the outer portals of the great hotel.
Beside the door of the Palaver as they passed out was a tall officialwith a uniform and a round hat. He was called by the authorities a_chasseur_ or a _commissionaire_, or some foreign name to mean that hedid nothing.
At the sight of him the Wizard's face flushed for a moment, with a lookof his old perplexity.
"I wonder," he began to murmur, "how much I ought--"
"Not a damn cent, father," said Fred, as he shouldered past themagnificent _chasseur_; "let him work."
With which admirable doctrine the Wizard and his son passed from theportals of the Grand Palaver.
* * * * *
Nor was there any arrest eit
her then or later. In spite of theexpectations of the rotunda and the announcements of the _FinancialUndertone_, the "man Tomlinson" was _not_ arrested, neither as he leftthe Grand Palaver nor as he stood waiting at the railroad station withFred and mother for the outgoing train for Cahoga County.
There was nothing to arrest him for. That was not the least strangepart of the career of the Wizard of Finance. For when all the affairsof the Erie Auriferous Consolidated were presently calculated up by thelabours of Skinyer and Beatem and the legal representatives of theOrphans and the Idiots and the Deaf-mutes they resolved themselves intothe most beautiful and complete cipher conceivable. The salted goldabout paid for the cost of the incorporation certificate: thedevelopment capital had disappeared, and those who lost most preferredto say the least about it; and as for Tomlinson, if one added up hisgains on the stock market before the fall and subtracted his bill atthe Grand Palaver and the thousand dollars which he gave to Skinyer andBeatem to recover his freehold on the lower half of his farm, and thecost of three tickets to Cahoga station, the debit and credit accountbalanced to a hair.
Thus did the whole fortune of Tomlinson vanish in a night, even as thegolden palace seen in the mirage of a desert sunset may fade before theeyes of the beholder, and leave no trace behind.
* * * * *
It was some months after the collapse of the Erie Auriferous that theuniversity conferred upon Tomlinson the degree of Doctor of Letters _inabsentia_. A university must keep its word, and Dean Elderberry Foible,who was honesty itself, had stubbornly maintained that a vote of thefaculty of arts once taken and written in the minute book became asirrefragable as the Devonian rock itself.
So the degree was conferred. And Dean Elderberry Foible, standing in along red gown before Dr. Boomer, seated in a long blue gown, read outafter the ancient custom of the college the Latin statement of theaward of the degree of Doctor of Letters, "Eduardus Tomlinsonius, virclarrisimus, doctissimus, praestissimus," and a great many other thingsall ending in _issimus_.
But the recipient was not there to receive. He stood at that momentwith his boy Fred on a windy hillside beside Lake Erie, whereTomlinson's Creek ran again untrammelled to the lake. Nor was the scenealtered to the eye, for Tomlinson and his son had long since broken ahole in the dam with pickaxe and crowbar, and day by day the angrywater carried down the vestiges of the embankment till all were gone.The cedar poles of the electric lights had been cut into fence-rails;the wooden shanties of the Italian gang of Auriferous workers had beentorn down and split into fire wood; and where they had stood, theburdocks and the thistles of the luxuriant summer conspired to hide thetraces of their shame. Nature reached out its hand and drew itscoverlet of green over the grave of the vanished Eldorado.
And as the Wizard and his son stood upon the hillside, they saw nothingbut the land sloping to the lake and the creek murmuring again to thewillows, while the off-shore wind rippled the rushes of the shallowwater.
Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich Page 3
