The Banker and the Bear

by Henry Kitchell Webste

  Not until Judge Hayes had read the will to the last signature and tossed it back into his desk, did John speak.

  “ If I have caught the gist of it,” he said, “ my father has left me nearly all of his fortune “

  “ The greater part of it,” corrected the lawyer.

  “ Which amounts to something less than three million dollars “

  “Somewhat less, yes; considerably less.”

  “ But that it is all trusteed,” John went on quite evenly, “ so that I can’t touch a cent of it, except part of the income.”

  “ Not without the express consent of the trustees,” said Judge Hayes.

  “ The same conditions,” said John, with a faint smile, “ which would apply to my touching your money. As I understand it, these three trustees are allowed the widest discretion ; they may do with my property just what they think best “

  The lawyer nodded.

  “ Even to the extent of turning it over to me unconditionally.”

  Here the lawyer smiled. “ Even to that extent,” he said.

  “They vote my bank stock just as though they owned it,” said John.

  “ Precisely.”

  “ Suppose they disagree ? “

  “Then it can’t be voted at all.”

  “ Well,” said John, rising, “ I guess I under- stand. How soon shall we be able to get the will proved ? “

  “ If everything goes smoothly,” said the Judge, “that is, if there is no contest and no irregularity of any sort, we should be able to prove it in a week or two.”

  “There will be no contest, I imagine,” said John. “ Good day.”

  As the door closed behind John, Judge Hayes swung back to his desk, put his elbows on it, and his chin on his hands, and for the next ten minutes he meditated upon the attainments and the prospects of the man who had just left him. For the past half hour he had tried all that long experience and a fertile mind could suggest to tear off what he felt to be John’s mask of indifference. He knew what a blow that will must be, and he wanted to see how the real man, the man inside the shell, was taking it. He felt sure that the composure was a veneer, and he had done his best to rasp through it. “Well,” he concluded, as he reluctantly turned to something else, “the coating is laid on confounded thick.”

  As for John, he was walking swiftly up the street with the unmistakable air of a man who is about to attempt something, and intends to succeed in it. And yet, to all appearances, the situation was hopeless. His father had held a majority of the stock in the bank ; the rest was in the hands of investors who had been attracted by the eminent respectability and conservatism of the policy the old man had established, and it was not likely they would look with favor on anything in the way of a change. And the three trustees whom old Mr. Bagsbury had selected were men after his own heart, crusty, obstinate, timorous. They controlled John’s stock a majority of all the stock of the bank as absolutely as if they were the joint owners of it.

  But an ironical providence has ordained that excessive caution shall often overreach itself, and the old man’s attempt to make safer what was already safe, gave John his opportunity. Had there been but one trustee, John’s case would indeed have been hopeless ; but old Mr. Bagsbury, finding it impossible to trust any one man utterly, had trusted three.

  In a flash of intuition John had seen his chance and had asked Judge Hayes the ques- tion, whose significance the lawyer had failed to grasp, even as he answered it. As John walked along the street he smiled over a proverb which was running in his head. Doubtless it was a wild injustice to think of three blameless old men as rogues, but in their falling out lay John’s hope of coming into his own. For if the trus- tees should disagree as to the way his stock should be voted at the annual meeting, it could not be voted at all ; and if John and his friends could get control of more than half the stock now in the hands of outsiders, he could put himself where, he knew he belonged, at the head of Bagsbury and Company’s Savings Bank.

  One “if” is enough to bring most men anx- iety and sleepless nights; two “if’s,” both of them slender ones, may well drive a brave man to despair. But there was no thought of fail- ure in John’s mind ; he meant to win.

  John was one of the best bankers in the city, which is another way of saying that he knew men as well as he knew markets. Not men in a general, philosophical sort of way Men, with a big letter; he had no interest in “ types.” But he knew Smith and Jones and Robinson right down to the ground. He knew the customers of Dawson’s bank and of other banks too men who came to him to persuade him to lend them money; he knew their tricks and their tempers as well as their balances. And in all the years of waiting he had not been ignorant of the way things were going with Bagsbury and Company. He knew his father’s customers, his friends, such as they were, and he knew the three old trustees, Meredith, Cartwright, and Moffat.

  He knew that you couldn’t talk to Cart- wright ten minutes without having Meredith quoted at you, or to Meredith without hearing some new instance of Cartwright’s phenome- nally accurate judgment; that each thought the other only the merest hair’s breadth his inferior, and that they could be relied on to agree and continue to agree indefinitely.

  And Moffat? John smiled when he thought of him. The one thing in the world which Moffat couldn’t tolerate was obstinacy; and as nearly everybody Moffat knew was disgust- ingly wrong-headed, old Mr. Moffat found it difficult to get on smoothly with people. Mof- fat could not explain why men should be so cock-sure and so perversely deaf to reason, but certainly he found them so. It was most un- fortunate, because though by intention one of the most peaceable of men, he was constantly being driven by righteous indignation into quarrels.

  When John left Judge Hayes, he headed straight for Mr. Moffat’s office. The old gen- tleman welcomed him cordially, for he had always held Mr. Bagsbury in the highest esteem, and was prepared, if he should find in

  John his father’s common sense, to think well of him, too.

  John talked freely about the will, and con- fessed his disappointment that his father had not thought him capable of administering the fortune himself. He added, however, that his wish was the same as his father’s, that the estate should be kept safe, and that he had no doubt it would be in the hands of the three trustees his father had chosen. They chatted on for some time, John feeling his way cautiously about among the old man’s opinions, dropping a word now and then about Cartwright or Meredith, until finally he drew this remark from Mr. Moffat:

  “I have only the barest acquaintance with my fellow-trustees. Do you know them well ? “

  “I’ve known them for a good many years,” John answered, “though I can’t say that I know them well. They’re thoroughly honora- ble, and they have some ability, too. You’ll find they have a disagreeable habit of backing each other up, though. In that respect, they’re like a well-trained pair of setter dogs. If one points, the other will too, and he’ll stick to it whether he sees anything or not. But I’ve no doubt you’ll be able to get along with them well enough.”

  With that he shifted the subject abruptly on another tack, and a few minutes later took his leave. He was well satisfied with the after- noon’s work, for he felt confident that the Bags- bury holdings would not be voted at the next stockholders’ meeting. It was a little seed he had sown, but it had fallen into good ground.

  He went straight home after that and found Dick curled up in the big chair in the library, reading. She glanced up at him, and as he spoke to her there was a vibrant quality in his voice that made her close her book and ask him what had happened.

  “ I’m just going to telephone to Sponley,” he said. “ Listen, and you’ll hear part of it. That’ll save telling it twice.”

  Over the telephone he told Sponley all about the terms of the will, adding that his only chance now lay in getting control of the outsidestock. He asked Sponley to come to the house that night after dinner to talk things over.

  Then he rang off, and sitting down on
the desk he told Dick what he had not told Spon- ley, all about his interview with M off at. And though Dick nodded her pretty head apprecia- tively, and seemed thoroughly to grasp the situa- tion, yet when he finished her face still wore a puzzled frown.

  John was too busy making his plans to think much of it, but he wondered vaguely what she had failed to understand.

  CHAPTER IV

  A VICTORY

  DICK was, indeed, somewhat bewildered and disappointed. Had the events of Christmas Eve and the few following days occurred during the first month of her stay with the Bagsburys, she would have made no attempt to look beneath the surface, but would have packed her trunks and fled out of that grimy atmosphere with the least possible delay; and poor Jack Dorlin would have had to pull up his stakes and follow, who knows whither. But in the six months she had developed an affection for both John and Alice. She could not have told you why. They were totally different from her other friends. But our affections are based on no analysis. We like or love, not at all because we see in this person or that a certain combination of qualities, no more than we like beefsteak because it contains carbon and hydrogen and other uninviting elements 59 in a fixed proportion. Perhaps Dick liked John and Alice because they had become so fond of her, because they gave her their confidences, or because she had brought a sweeter, fresher influence into their lives than either had known before, like a breath of country air in a smoky factory.

  She thought a good deal in the course of the first weeks following old Bagsbury’s death and the reading of the will. She could not forget the scene she had witnessed, and in which she had finally taken a part, in the dingy little private office at the bank. She felt keenly the pathos of the old man’s death there, over the desk which held his whole world ; his head among the papers which had received all the affection that his withered soul could give. But it was not the old man’s death that had made her cry that night as she drove home alone in the jolting carriage ; it was the look she had seen in the son’s face as he stood there, his back to the still figure on the sofa, and his eyes fastened greedily on those same papers. In this sordid presence even death seemed to lose its dignity. Yes, Dick had cried all the way home, simply with an uncontrollable disgust.

  And afterward, so soon afterward, she had seen his father’s will become for John simply a legal document, which stood in his way, which was to be evaded, if possible, because evasion was swifter and surer than direct attack. For accomplishing his purpose no tool seemed too small, no way too devious. His disappointment over the will was not at all because it showed that he had not gained his father’s confidence, but simply because it postponed or perhaps made impossible his getting control of his father’s fortune.

  Dick knew how this would have affected her six months before. She was puzzled and a little ashamed to find herself justifying it now, and she feared that her friendship for John was blinding her.

  None the less it came about that Dick entered enthusiastically into the fight for the control of the stock. Hers was a spectator’s part, and night after night, when around the big desk in the library sat John and Robins and Sponley, and sometimes old Dawson, who had retired from business, but whom John continued to regard as a sort of commercial godfather ; when the cigar smoke eddied thick about the read-ing lamp, she would sit in the easy-chair in the darkest corner of the room, listening to the tele- graphic sentences which were shot back and forth.

  Then there were the evenings, and these too were frequent, when Jack Dorlin would come over and listen with what grace he could to Dick’s account of the progress of the struggle. It did not interest him particularly ; but as Dick would not be induced to talk of anything else, he had to make the best of it.

  But one night his self-control gave way. Dick had been telling him, with great gusto, how more and more of the outside stock was either coming under John’s control or was being promised to his support, and how old Mr. Moffat had already quarrelled violently with Mr. Mere- dith and Mr. Cartwright, and that he was coming round to John’s side in a most satisfactory man- ner. She narrated it, as she did nearly every- thing, with just the lightest possible stress on the humorous aspect of it ; but Jack sat through it all with unshaken solemnity.

  “ I don’t see that it’s particularly funny,” he said at last.

  Dick flushed quickly, glanced at him and then back to the fire. But he was not looking at her, and after a little pause he went on :

  “ It seems to me pretty small business, all round. It’s rather different from anything I’ve ever known you to be interested in before. I can’t quite understand your enthusiasm over it.”

  “ No,” said Dick, “ I don’t suppose you can.”

  Jack was warming to his subject, and he mis- read her words into an acknowledgment that he was right.

  “ I’ve known you longer than John Bagsbury has,” he went on, “ and I think that I’ve as good a claim to your friendship ; but I’d like to know what you’d think of me if I should do a trick like that, go round and deliberately stir up a row so that I could profit by it.”

  “ I should think you were a cad,” she said calmly, “ and I should ask you not to call here in the future.”

  “ I should like to be able to see what makes the difference.”

  “ Why, this is the difference,” Dick answered slowly ; “ John Bagsbury is the sort of man that does things; and you’re well, you’d rather watch other people do them,”

  She paused and glanced at his face ; then with a smile she went on :

  “ It’s like a football game. If you’re stand- ing in the side lines, you aren’t allowed to punch people’s heads, or kick shins, but if you’re run- ning with the ball, why nobody minds if you forget to be polite.”

  “ That’s a bit rough,” he said musingly, “ but I’m not sure that you’re not right and that I’m not just about as useless as that.”

  “I didn’t say that,” she retorted, “and I don’t mean it. It takes both sorts of people, of course, and I like you a great deal better than I do JohnBagsbury; but I find there’s rather more to life than I could see when I first came here ; and when a man’s strong, as he is, and ambitious, and has a sort of courage that’s more than just the love of a fight, and when he’s honest with himself and lives up to what he knows, why, I admire him and I can forgive him if he has some callous spots. And I don’t think that people who’ve never had his ambitions or temptations or anything can afford to look down on him.”

  When she stopped she was breathing quickly, and her eyes were unusually bright, There was a long silence, and then she added, with a little laugh,

  “ I never knew before that I could make a speech.”

  He said nothing, and after a moment she glanced at him almost shyly, to discover if she had offended him. He did not look up, but kept his eyes fixed thoughtfully on the fire, so, secure in his preoccupation, she watched his face intently. Their comradeship had, for years, held itself to be above the necessity of conversa- tion; but to-night, as the silence deepened and endured, it brought to Dick a message it had not borne before.

  At length he spoke, “That’s your ultima- tum, is it, Dick ? “

  There was something in his voice she had never heard before, and now she knew that ever since one evening long ago she had been wait- ing to hear it. Her heart leaped, and a wave of glad color came into her face, but she answered very quietly,

  “Yes, I suppose it is.”

  For a little while he sat there looking at the fire, then he rose, and, standing beside her chair, let his hand rest lightly on her shoulder.

  “ Good night, Dick,” he said simply.

  Next evening Robins and Bessel and Sponley came before John had fairly finished his dinner, and in the library the smoke was thicker and the talk choppier than ever before, and Dick, in her dark corner, listened more intently. The time for preparation was growing short; the decisive day was drawing very near. It could easily be seen now that the voting at the stock- holders’ meeting would
be close, horribly close, provided always that the trustees of John Bagsbury’s stock could not agree as to how it should be voted.

  Leaving that out of the question, the fortunes of the day hung upon a large block of stock, which, according to the secretary’s book, was the property of Jervis Curtin. How he meant to vote it, how he could be persuaded to vote it for John’s faction, was the question which the four allies were met to discuss this evening.

  “ Can’t understand where he got money enough to buy a big chunk like that,” said Robins.

  “ Queer thing,” Sponley answered. “ Must have made some strike we don’t know about.

  Anyhow, it seems he’s got it, and the Lord only knows how he means to vote it. I’ve been talking to him till I’m tired, but I can’t make him commit himself.”

  “ Know any reason any personal reason why he’s holding back ? “ asked Bessel.

  Sponley shook his head. “ Never met him before this business came up,” he answered.

  Melville Sponley was playing badly. He was a strong believer in the efficacy of truth, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, and when forced to deviate from the truth he always tried to make the deviation as narrow as possi- ble. But just this once, to adopt fencer’s par- lance, he parried wide ; he told more of a lie than was necessary, and by one of those haz- ards which are not astonishing only because they occur so frequently, by the veriest fluke in the world, Dick Haselridge knew he had lied. This is how it happened. A day or two before, Dick had gone to a song recital, and as the pro- gramme proved unexpectedly short, she found when she came out that the Bagsbury carriage had not yet come. While she was debating whether to wait for it or to try her fortunes in the elevated, Mrs. Jervis Curtin had offered to take her home. Dick had met her just once and had not liked her, but the rain was pouring, and it was so much easier to accept than to decline that she did the former. On the way home Mrs. Curtin asked Dick to come home with her first and have a cup of tea, and Dick, who had been thinking hard about something else, assented before she thought.