Works of Robert W Chambers

by Robert W. Chambers

  “We lost no time, you see,” added Orchil, caressing the long pomaded ends of his kinky moustache and trying to catch a glimpse of them out of his languid oriental eyes. He had been trying to catch this glimpse for thirty years; he was a persistent man with plenty of leisure.

  “We lost no time,” repeated Draymore, “because it’s a devilish unsavoury situation for us. The Siowitha Club fully realises it, Captain Selwyn, and its members — some of ’em — thought that perhaps — er — you — ah — being the sort of man who can — ah — understand the sort of language we understand, it might not be amiss to — to—”

  “Why did you not call on Mr. Neergard?” asked Selwyn coolly. Yet he was taken completely by surprise, for he did not know that Neergard had gone ahead and secured options on his own responsibility — which practically amounted to a violation of the truce between them.

  Draymore hesitated, then with the brutality characteristic of the overfed: “I don’t give a damn, Captain Selwyn, what Neergard thinks; but I do want to know what a gentleman like yourself, accidentally associated with that man, thinks of this questionable proceeding.”

  “Do you mean by ‘questionable proceeding’ your coming here? — or do you refer to the firm’s position in this matter?” asked Selwyn sharply. “Because, Draymore, I am not very widely experienced in the customs and usages of commercial life, and I do not know whether it is usual for an associate member of a firm to express, unauthorised, his views on matters concerning the firm to any Tom, Dick, and Harry who questions him.”

  “But you know what is the policy of your own firm,” suggested Harmon, wincing, and displaying his teeth under his bright red lips; “and all we wish to know is, what Neergard expects us to pay for this rascally lesson in the a-b-c of Long Island realty.”

  “I don’t know,” replied Selwyn, bitterly annoyed, “what Mr. Neergard proposes to do. And if I did I should refer you to him.”

  “May I ask,” began Orchil, “whether the land will be ultimately for sale?”

  “Oh, everything’s always for sale,” broke in Mottly impatiently; “what’s the use of asking that? What you meant to inquire was the price we’re expected to pay for this masterly squeeze in realty.”

  “And to that,” replied Selwyn more sharply still, “I must answer again that I don’t know. I know nothing about it; I did not know that Mr. Neergard had acquired control of the property; I don’t know what he means to do with it. And, gentlemen, may I ask why you feel at liberty to come to me instead of to Mr. Neergard?”

  “A desire to deal with one of our own kind, I suppose,” returned Draymore bluntly. “And, for that matter,” he said, turning to the others, “we might have known that Captain Selwyn could have had no hand in and no knowledge of such an underbred and dirty—”

  Harmon plucked him by the sleeve, but Draymore shook him off, his little piggish eyes sparkling.

  “What do I care!” he sneered, losing his temper; “we’re in the clutches of a vulgar, skinflint Dutchman, and he’ll wring us dry whether or not we curse him out. Didn’t I tell you that Philip Selwyn had nothing to do with it? If he had, and I was wrong, our journey here might as well have been made to Neergard’s office. For any man who will do such a filthy thing—”

  “One moment, Draymore,” cut in Selwyn; and his voice rang unpleasantly; “if you are simply complaining because you have been outwitted, go ahead; but if you think there has been any really dirty business in this matter, go to Mr. Neergard. Otherwise, being his associate, I shall not only decline to listen but also ask you to leave my apartments.”

  “Captain Selwyn is perfectly right,” observed Orchil coolly. “Do you think, Draymore, that it is very good taste in you to come into a man’s place and begin slanging and cursing a member of his firm for crooked work?”

  “Besides,” added Mottly, “it’s not crooked; it’s only contemptible. Anyway, we know with whom we have to deal, now; but some of you fellows must do the dealing — I’d rather pay and keep away than ask Neergard to go easy — and have him do it.”

  “I don’t know,” said Fane, grinning his saurian grin, “why you all assume that Neergard is such a social outcast. I played cards with him last week and he lost like a gentleman.”

  “I didn’t say he was a social outcast,” retorted Mottly— “because he’s never been inside of anything to be cast out, you know.”

  “He seems to be inside this deal,” ventured Orchil with his suave smile. And to Selwyn, who had been restlessly facing first one, then another: “We came — it was the idea of several among us — to put the matter up to you. Which was rather foolish, because you couldn’t have engineered the thing and remained what we know you to be. So—”

  “Wait!” said Selwyn brusquely; “I do not admit for one moment that there is anything dishonourable in this deal! — nor do I accept your right to question it from that standpoint. As far as I can see, it is one of those operations which is considered clever among business folk, and which is admired and laughed over in reputable business circles. And I have no doubt that hundreds of well-meaning business men do that sort of thing daily — yes, thousands!” He shrugged his broad shoulders. “Because I personally have not chosen to engage in matters of this — ah — description, is no reason for condemning the deal or its method—”

  “Every reason!” said Orchil, laughing cordially— “every reason, Captain Selwyn. Thank you; we know now exactly where we stand. It was very good of you to let us come, and I’m sorry some of us had the bad taste to show any temper—”

  “He means me,” added Draymore, offering his hand; “good-bye, Captain Selwyn; I dare say we are up against it hard.”

  “Because we’ve got to buy in that property or close up the Siowitha,” added Mottly, coming over to make his adieux. “By the way, Selwyn, you ought to be one of us in the Siowitha—”

  “Thank you, but isn’t this rather an awkward time to suggest it?” said Selwyn good-humouredly.

  Fane burst into a sonorous laugh and wagged his neck, saying: “Not at all! Not at all! Your reward for having the decency to stay out of the deal is an invitation from us to come in and be squeezed into a jelly by Mr. Neergard. Haw! Haw!”

  And so, one by one, with formal or informal but evidently friendly leave-taking, they went away. And Selwyn followed them presently, walking until he took the Subway at Forty-second Street for his office.

  As he entered the elaborate suite of rooms he noticed some bright new placards dangling from the walls of the general office, and halted to read them:

  “WHY PAY RENT!

  What would you say if we built a house for you in Beautiful Siowitha Park and gave you ten years to pay for it!

  If anybody says

  YOU ARE A FOOL!

  to expect this, refer him to us and we will answer him according to his folly.

  TO PAY RENT

  when you might own a home in Beautiful Siowitha Park, is not wise. We expect to furnish plans, or build after your own plans.

  All City Improvements

  Are Contemplated!

  Map and Plans of

  Beautiful Siowitha Park

  Will probably be ready

  In the Near Future.

  Julius Neergard & Co.

  Long Island Real Estate.”

  Selwyn reddened with anger and beckoned to a clerk:

  “Is Mr. Neergard in his office?”

  “Yes, sir, with Mr. Erroll.”

  “Please say that I wish to see him.”

  He went into his own office, pocketed his mail, and still wearing hat and gloves came out again just as Gerald was leaving Neergard’s office.

  “Hello, Gerald!” he said pleasantly; “have you anything on for to-night?”

  “Y-es,” said the hoy, embarrassed— “but if there is anything I can do for you—”

  “Not unless you are free for the evening,” returned the other; “are you?”

  “I’m awfully sorry—”

  “Oh, all r
ight. Let me know when you expect to be free — telephone me at my rooms—”

  “I’ll let you know when I see you here to-morrow,” said the boy; but Selwyn shook his head: “I’m not coming here to-morrow, Gerald”; and he walked leisurely into Neergard’s office and seated himself.

  “So you have committed the firm to the Siowitha deal?” he inquired coolly.

  Neergard looked up — and then past him: “No, not the firm. You did not seem to be interested in the scheme, so I went on without you. I’m swinging it for my personal account.”

  “Is Mr. Erroll in it?”

  “I said that it was a private matter,” replied Neergard, but his manner was affable.

  “I thought so; it appears to me like a matter quite personal to you and characteristic of you, Mr. Neergard. And that being established, I am now ready to dissolve whatever very loose ties have ever bound me in any association with this company and yourself.”

  Neergard’s close-set black eyes shifted a point nearer to Selwyn’s; the sweat on his nose glistened.

  “Why do you do this?” he asked slowly. “Has anybody offended you?”

  “Do you really wish to know?”

  “Yes, I certainly do, Captain Selwyn.”

  “Very well; it’s because I don’t like your business methods, I don’t like — several other things that are happening in this office. It’s purely a difference of views; and that is enough explanation, Mr. Neergard.”

  “I think our views may very easily coincide—”

  “You are wrong; they could not. I ought to have known that when I came back here. And now I have only to thank you for receiving me, at my own request, for a six months’ trial, and to admit that I am not qualified to co-operate with this kind of a firm.”

  “That,” said Neergard angrily, “amounts to an indictment of the firm. If you express yourself in that manner outside, the firm will certainly resent it!”

  “My personal taste will continue to govern my expressions, Mr. Neergard; and I believe will prevent any further business relations between us. And, as we never had any other kind of relations, I have merely to arrange the details through an attorney.”

  Neergard looked after him in silence; the tiny beads of sweat on his nose united and rolled down in a big shining drop, and the sneer etched on his broad and brightly mottled features deepened to a snarl when Selwyn had disappeared.

  For the social prestige which Selwyn’s name had brought the firm, he had patiently endured his personal dislike and contempt for the man after he found he could do nothing with him in any way.

  He had accepted Selwyn purely in the hope of social advantage, and with the knowledge that Selwyn could have done much for him after business hours; if not from friendship, at least from interest, or a lively sense of benefits to come. For that reason he had invited him to participate in the valuable Siowitha deal, supposing a man as comparatively poor as Selwyn would not only jump at the opportunity, but also prove sufficiently grateful later. And he had been amazed and disgusted at Selwyn’s attitude. But he had not supposed the man would sever his connection with the firm if he, Neergard, went ahead on his own responsibility. It astonished and irritated him; it meant, instead of selfish or snobbish indifference to his own social ambitions, an enemy to block his entrance into what he desired — the society of those made notorious in the columns of the daily press.

  For Neergard cared only for the notorious in the social scheme; nothing else appealed to him. He had, all his life, read with avidity of the extravagances, the ostentation, the luxurious effrontery, the thinly veiled viciousness of what he believed to be society, and he craved it from the first, working his thick hands to the bone in dogged determination to one day participate in and satiate himself with the easy morality of what he read about in his penny morning paper — in the days when even a penny was to be carefully considered.

  That was what he wanted from society — the best to be had in vice. That was why he had denied himself in better days. It was for that he hoarded every cent while actual want sharpened his wits and his thin nose; it was in that hope that he received Selwyn so cordially as a possible means of entrance into regions he could not attain unaided; it was for that reason he was now binding Gerald to him through remission of penalties for slackness, through loans and advances, through a companionship which had already landed him in the Ruthven’s card-room, and promised even more from Mr. Fane, who had won his money very easily.

  For Neergard did not care how he got in, front door or back door, through kitchen or card-room, as long as he got in somehow. All he desired was the chance to use opportunity in his own fashion, and wring from the forbidden circle all and more than they had unconsciously wrung from him in the squalid days of a poverty for which no equality he might now enjoy, no liberty of license, no fraternity in dissipation, could wholly compensate.

  He was fairly on the outer boundary now, though still very far outside. But a needy gentleman inside was already compromised and practically pledged to support him; for his meeting with Jack Ruthven through Gerald had proven of greatest importance. He had lost gracefully to Ruthven; and in doing it had taken that gentleman’s measure. And though Ruthven himself was a member of the Siowitha, Neergard had made no error in taking him secretly into the deal where together they were now in a position to exploit the club, from which Ruthven, of course, would resign in time to escape any assessment himself.

  Neergard’s progress had now reached this stage; his programme was simple — to wallow among the wealthy until satiated, then to marry into that agreeable community and found the house of Neergard. And to that end he had already bought a building site on Fifth Avenue, but held it in the name of the firm as though it had been acquired for purposes purely speculative.

  About that time Boots Lansing very quietly bought a house on Manhattan Island. It was a small, narrow, three-storied house of brick, rather shabby on the outside, and situated on a modest block between Lexington and Park avenues, where the newly married of the younger set were arriving in increasing numbers, prepared to pay the penalty for all love matches.

  It was an unexpected move to Selwyn; he had not been aware of Lansing’s contemplated desertion; and that morning, returning from his final interview with Neergard, he was astonished to find his comrade’s room bare of furniture, and a hasty and exclamatory note on his own table:

  “Phil! I’ve bought a house! Come and see it! You’ll find me in it! Carpetless floors and unpapered walls! It’s the happiest day of my life!

  “Boots!!!! House-owner!!!”

  And Selwyn, horribly depressed, went down after a solitary luncheon and found Lansing sitting on a pile of dusty rugs, ecstatically inspecting the cracked ceiling.

  “So this is the House that Boots built!” he said.

  “Phil! It’s a dream!”

  “Yes — a bad one. What the devil do you mean by clearing out? What do you want with a house, anyhow? — you infernal idiot!”

  “A house? Man, I’ve always wanted one! I’ve dreamed of a dinky little house like this — dreamed and ached for it there in Manila — on blistering hikes, on wibbly-wabbly gunboats — knee-deep in sprouting rice — I’ve dreamed of a house in New York like this! slopping through the steaming paddy-fields, sweating up the heights, floundering through smelly hemp, squatting by green fires at night! always, always I’ve longed for a home of my own. Now I’ve got it, and I’m the happiest man on Manhattan Island!”

  “O Lord!” said Selwyn, staring, “if you feel that way! You never said anything about it—”

  “Neither did you, Phil; but I bet you want one, too. Come now; don’t you?”

  “Yes, I do,” nodded Selwyn; “but I can’t afford one yet” — his face darkened— “not for a while; but,” and his features cleared, “I’m delighted, old fellow, that you have one. This certainly is a jolly little kennel — you can fix it up in splendid shape — rugs and mahogany and what-nots and ding-dongs — and a couple of tabby cats and a good
dog—”

  “Isn’t it fascinating!” cried Boots. “Phil, all this real estate is mine! And the idea makes me silly-headed. I’ve been sitting on this pile of rugs pretending that I’m in the midst of vast and expensive improvements and alterations; and estimating the cost of them has frightened me half to death. I tell you I never had such fun, Phil. Come on; we’ll start at the cellar — there is some coal and wood and some wonderful cobwebs down there — and then we’ll take in the back yard; I mean to have no end of a garden out there, and real clothes-dryers and some wistaria and sparrows — just like real back yards. I want to hear cats make harrowing music on my own back fence; I want to see a tidy laundress pinning up intimate and indescribable garments on my own clothes-lines; I want to have maddening trouble with plumbers and roofers; I want to—”

  “Come on, then, for Heaven’s sake!” said Selwyn, laughing; and the two men, arm in arm, began a minute tour of the house.

  “Isn’t it a corker! Isn’t it fine!” repeated Lansing every few minutes. “I wouldn’t exchange it for any mansion on Fifth Avenue!”

  “You’d be a fool to,” agreed Selwyn gravely.

  “Certainly I would. Anyway, prices are going up like rockets in this section — not that I’d think of selling out at any price — but it’s comfortable to know it. Why, a real-estate man told me — Hello! What was that? Something fell somewhere!”

  “A section of the bath-room ceiling, I think,” said Selwyn; “we mustn’t step too heavily on the floors at first, you know.”

  “Oh, I’m going to have the entire thing done over — room by room — when I can afford it. Meanwhile j’y suis, j’y reste. . . . Look there, Phil! That’s to be your room.”

  “Thanks, old fellow — not now.”

  “Why, yes! I expected you’d have your room here, Phil—”

  “It’s very good of you, Boots, but I can’t do it.”

  Lansing faced him: “Won’t you?”

  Selwyn, smiling, shook his head; and the other knew it was final.