The Main Chance

by Meredith Nicholson

  CHAPTER XIII

  BARGAIN AND SALE

  That is a disastrous moment in the history of any man in which heconcludes that the problems of life are easy of solution. Life has beenlikened by teachers of ethics to a great school, but the comparison isnot wholly apt. As an educational system, life is decidedly not up todate; the curriculum lacks flexibility, and the list of easy electivesand "snap" courses is discouragingly brief. A reputable poet holds that"life is a game the soul can play"; but the game, it should beremembered, is not always so easy as it looks. It could hardly be saidthat James Wheaton made the most of all his opportunities, or that hehad mastered circumstances, although his biography as printed in thedaily press on the occasion of his succession to the mock throne of theKnights of Midas gave this impression with a fine color of truth, andwith no purpose to deceive.

  The West makes much of its self-made men, and points to them with pride,whenever the self-making includes material gain. The god Success isenthroned on a new Olympus, and all are slaves to him; and when publicteachers thunder at him, his humblest subjects smile at one another, andsay that it is, no doubt, well enough to be reminded of such thingsoccasionally, but that, after all, nothing succeeds like success. Lifeis a series of hazards, and we are all looking for the main chance.

  James Wheaton's code of morals was very simple. Honesty he knew to bethe best policy; he had learned this in his harsh youth, but he had noinstinct for the subtler distinctions in matters of conduct. Behindglass and wire barricades in the bank where he had spent so many of histhirty-five years, he had known little real contact with men. He knewthe pains and penalties of overdrafts; and life resolved itself into aformal kind of accountancy where the chief thing was to maintain creditbalances. His transfer from a clerical to an official position hadwidened his horizon without giving him the charts with which to sail newseas. Life had never resolved itself into capital letters in hismeditations; he never indulged in serious speculation about it. It washardly even a game for the soul to play with him; if he had been capableof analyzing his own feelings about it he would have likened it to amechanical novelty, whose printed instructions are confusingly obscure,but with a little fumbling you find the spring, and presto! the wheelsturn and all is very simple.

  He tore up the note with irritation and threw it into the waste paperbasket. He called the Chinese servant, who explained that a boy had leftit in the course of the morning and had said nothing about an answer.

  The Bachelors' did not usually muster a full table at Sunday dinner. AllClarkson dined at noon on Sunday, and most of the bachelors werefortunate enough to be asked out. Wheaton was not frequently a dinerout by reason of his more slender acquaintance; and to-day all werepresent, including Raridan, the most fickle of all in his attendance. Ithad pleased Wheaton to find that the others had been setting him apartmore and more with Raridan for the daily discipline they dealt oneanother. They liked to poke fun at Raridan on the score of what theycalled his mad social whirl; there was no resentment about it; they werethemselves of sterner stuff and had no patience with Raridan'sfrivolities; and they were within the fact when they assumed that, ifthey wished, they could go anywhere that he did. It touched Wheaton'svanity to find himself a joint target with Raridan for the arrows whichthe other bachelors fired at folly.

  The table cheer opened to-day with a debate between Caldwell and CaptainWheelock as to the annual cost to Raridan of the carnation which hehabitually wore in his coat. This, in the usual manner of their froth,was treated indirectly; the aim was to continue the cross-firing untilthe victim was goaded into a scornful rejoinder. Raridan usually evenedmatters before he finished with them; but he affected not to belistening to them now.

  "I was reading an article in the Contemporary Review the other day thatset me to thinking," he said casually to Wheaton. "It was an effort toanswer the old question, 'Is stupidity a sin?' You may not recall that alearned Christian writer--I am not sure but that it was Saint Francis deSales,--holds that stupidity is a sin."

  The others had stopped, baffled in their debate over the carnation andwere listening to Raridan. They never knew how much amusement he gotout of them; they attributed great learning to him and were never surewhen he began in this way whether he was speaking in an exaltedspiritual mood and from fullness of knowledge, or was merely preparing apitfall for them.

  Warry continued:

  "But while this dictum is very generally accepted among learnedtheologians, it has nevertheless led to many amusing discussions amongmen of deep learning and piety who have striven to define and analyzestupidity. It is, however, safe to accept as the consensus of theiropinions these conclusions." He made his own salad dressing, and pausednow with the oil cruet in his hand while he continued to address himselfsolely to Wheaton: "Primarily, stupidity is inevitable; in the secondplace it is an offense not only to Deity but to man; and thirdly, beingincurable, as"--nodding first toward Wheelock and then towardCaldwell--"we have daily, even hourly testimony, man is helpless andcannot prevail against it."

  "Now will you be good?" demanded Wheaton gleefully. He had an air ofhaving connived at Raridan's fling at them.

  "Oh, I don't think!" sneered Caldwell. "Don't you get gay! You're not inthis."

  "In the name of the saints, Caldwell, do give us a little peace," beggedRaridan.

  Wheelock turned his attention to the Chinaman who was serving them, andabused him, and Wheaton sought to make talk with Raridan, to emphasizetheir isolation and superiority to the others.

  "That's good music they have at the cathedral," he said.

  Brown now took the scent.

  "Did you hear that, Wheelock? Well, I'll be damned. See here, Wheaton,where are you at anyhow? We've been looking on you as one of the sinnersof this house, but if you've joined Raridan's church, I see our finish."

  "Don't worry about your finish, Brown. It'll be a scorcher all right,"said Raridan, "and while you wait your turn you might pass the salt."

  There was no common room at The Bachelors', and the men did not meetexcept at the table. They loafed in their rooms, and rarely visited oneanother. Raridan was the most social among them and lounged in on one orthe other in his easy fashion. They in turn sought him out to deridehim, or to poke among his effects and to ask him why he never had anyinteresting books. The books that he was always buying--minor poems andminor essays, did not tempt them. The presence of _L'IllustrazioneItaliana_ on his table from week to week amused them; they liked to lookat the pictures and they had once gone forth in a body to the peanutvender at the next corner, to witness a test of Raridan's Italian, aboutwhich they were skeptical. The stormy interview that followed betweenRaridan and the Sicilian had been immensely entertaining and had provedthat Raridan could really buy peanuts in a foreign tongue, though thefine points which he tried to explain to the bachelors touching thedifferences in Italian dialects did not interest them. Warry himself wasinterested in Italian dialects for that winter only.

  Wheaton went to his room and made himself comfortable. He re-read theSunday papers through all their supplements, dwelling again on theevents of the carnival. He had saved all the other papers that containedcarnival news, and now brought them out and cut from them all referencesto himself. He resolved to open a kind of social scrap book in which topreserve a record of his social doings. The joint portraits of the kingand queen of the carnival had not been very good; the picture of EvelynPorter was a caricature. In Raridan's room he had seen a photograph ofEvelyn as a child; it was very pretty, and Wheaton, too, remembered herfrom the days in which she wore her hair down her back and waited in thecarriage at the front door of the bank for her father. She had lived ina world far removed from him then; but now the chasm had been bridged.He had heard it said in the last year that Evelyn and Warry wereundoubtedly fated to marry; but others hinted darkly that some Easternman would presently appear on the scene.

  All this gossip Wheaton turned over in his mind, as he lay on his divan,with the cuttings from the Clarkson papers in his
hands. He remembered acomplaint often heard in Clarkson that there were no eligible men there;he was not sure just what constituted eligibility, but as he reviewedthe men that went about he could not see that they possessed anyadvantages over himself. It occurred to him for the first time that hewas the only unmarried bank cashier in town; and this in itselfconferred a distinction. He was not so secure in his place as he shouldlike to be; if Thompson died there would undoubtedly be a reorganizationof the bank and the few shares that Porter had sold to him would nothold the cashiership for him. It might be that Porter's plan was to keephim in the place until Grant grew up. Again, he reflected, the man whomarried Evelyn Porter would become an element to reckon with; and yet ifhe were to be that man--

  He slept and dreamed that he was king of a great realm and that EvelynPorter reigned with him as queen; then he awoke with a start to findthat it was late. He sat up on the couch and gathered together thenewspaper cuttings which had fallen about him. He remembered theimperative summons which had been left for him during the morning; itwas already six o'clock. Before going out he changed his clothes to arough business suit and took a car that bore him rapidly through thebusiness district and beyond, into the older part of Clarkson. Thelocality was very shabby, and when he left the car presently it was tocontinue his journey in an ill-lighted street over board walks whichyielded a precarious footing. The Occidental Hotel was in the old partof town, and had long ago ceased to be what it had once been, the firsthostelry of Clarkson. It had descended to the level of a cheap boardinghouse, little patronized except by the rougher element of cattlemen andby railroad crews that found it convenient to the yards. Over the door adim light blinked, and this, it was understood in the neighborhood,meant not merely an invitation to bed and board but also to theOccidental bar, which was accessible at all hours of the day and night,and was open through all the spasms of virtue with which the cityadministration was seized from time to time. The door stood open andWheaton stepped up to the counter on which a boy sat playing with a cat.

  "Is William Snyder stopping here?" he asked.

  The boy looked up lazily from his play.

  "Are you the gent he's expecting?"

  "Very likely. Is he in?"

  "Yes, he's number eighteen." He dropped the cat and led Wheaton down adark hall which was stale with the odors of cooked vegetables, up asteep flight of stairs to a landing from which he pointed to an oblongof light above a door.

  "There you are," said the boy. He kicked the door and retreated down thestairs, leaving Wheaton to obey the summons to enter which was bawledfrom within.

  William Snyder unfolded his long figure and rose to greet his visitor.

  "Well, Jim," he said, putting out his hand. "I hope you're feelin' outof sight." Wheaton took his hand and said good evening. He threw openhis coat and put down his hat.

  "A little fresh air wouldn't hurt you any," he said, tipping himselfback in his chair.

  "Well, I guess your own freshness will make up for it," said Snyder.

  Wheaton did not smile; he was very cool and master of the situation.

  "I came to see what you want, and it had better not be much."

  "Oh, you cheer up, Jim," said Snyder with his ugly grin. "I don't knowthat you've ever done so much for me. I don't want you to forget that Idid time for you once."

  "You'd better not rely on that too much. I was a poor little kid andall the mischief I ever knew I learned from you. What is it you wantnow?"

  "Well, Jim, you've seen fit to get me fired from that nice lonesome jobyou got me, back in the country."

  "I had nothing to do with it. The ranch owners sent a man here torepresent them and I had nothing more to do with it. The fact is Istretched a point to put you in there. Mr. Saxton has taken the wholematter of the ranch out of my hands."

  "Well, I don't know anything about that," said Snyder contemptuously."But that don't make any difference. I'm out, and I don't know but I'mglad to be out. That was a fool job; about the lonesomest thing I everstruck. Your friend Saxton didn't seem to take a shine to me; wanted meto go chasing cattle all over the whole Northwest--"

  "He flattered you," said Wheaton, a faint smile drawing at the cornersof his mouth.

  "None of that kind of talk," returned Snyder sharply. "Now what you gotto say for yourself?"

  "It isn't necessary for me to say anything about myself," said Wheatoncoolly. "What I'm going to say is that you've got to get out of here ina hurry and stay out."

  Snyder leaned back in his chair and recrossed his legs on the table.

  "Don't get funny, Jim. Large bodies move slow. It took me a long time tofind you and I don't intend to let go in a hurry."

  "I have no more jobs for you; if you stay about here you'll get intotrouble. I was a fool to send you to that ranch. I heard about yourlittle round with the sheriff, and the gambling you carried on in theranch house."

  "Well, when you admit you're a fool you're getting on," said Snyder witha chuckle.

  "Now I'm going to make you a fair offer; I'll give you one hundreddollars to clear out,--go to Mexico or Canada--"

  "Or hell or any comfortable place," interrupted Snyder derisively.

  "And not come here again," continued Wheaton calmly. "If you do--!"

  It was to be a question of bargain and sale, as both men realized.

  "Raise your price, Jim," said Snyder. "A hundred wouldn't take me veryfar."

  "Oh yes, it will; I propose buying your ticket myself."

  Snyder laughed his ugly laugh.

  "Well, you ain't very complimentary. You'd ought to have invited me toyour party the other night, Jim. I'd like to have seen you doing stuntsas a king. That was the worst,"--he wagged his head and chuckled. "Aking, a real king, and your picture put into the papers along of themillionaire's daughter,--well, you may damn me!"

  "What I'll do," Wheaton went on undisturbed, "is to buy you a ticket toSpokane to-morrow. I'll meet you here and give you your transportationand a hundred dollars in cash. Now that's all I'll do for you, and it'sa lot more than you deserve."

  "Oh, no it ain't," said Snyder.

  "And it's the last I'll ever do."

  "Don't be too sure of that. I want five hundred and a regularallowance, say twenty-five dollars a month."

  "I don't intend to fool with you," said Wheaton sharply. He rose andpicked up his hat. "What I offer you is out of pure kindness; we may aswell understand each other. You and I are walking along different lines.I'd be glad to see you succeed in some honorable business; you're nottoo old to begin. I can't have you around here. It's out of thequestion--my giving you a pension. I can't do anything of the kind."

  His tone gradually softened; he took on an air of patient magnanimity.

  Snyder broke in with a sneer.

  "Look here, Jim, don't try the goody-goody business on me. You thinkyou're mighty smooth and you're mighty good and you're gettin' on prettyfast. Your picture in the papers is mighty handsome, and you looked realswell in them fine clothes up at the banker's talkin' to that girl."

  "That's another thing," said Wheaton, still standing. "I ought to refuseto do anything for you after that. Getting drunk and attacking mecouldn't possibly do you or me any good. It was sheer luck that youweren't turned over to the police."

  Snyder chuckled.

  "That old preacher gave me a pretty hard jar."

  "You ought to be jarred. You're no good. You haven't even beensuccessful in your own particular line of business."

  "There ain't nothing against me anywhere," said Snyder, doggedly.

  "I have different information," said Wheaton, blandly. "There was thematter of that post-office robbery in Michigan; attempted bank robberyin Wisconsin, and a few little things of that sort scattered through thecountry, that make a pretty ugly list. But they say you're not verystrong in the profession." He smiled an unpleasant smile.

  Snyder drew his feet from the table and jumped up with an oath.

  "Look here, Jim, if you ain't playin' square w
ith me--"

  "I intend playing more than square with you, but I want you to know thatI'm not afraid of you; I've taken the trouble to look you up. ThePinkertons have long memories," he said, significantly.

  Snyder was visibly impressed, and Wheaton made haste to follow up hisadvantage.

  "You've got to get away from here, Billy, and be in a hurry about it.How much money have you?"

  "Not a red cent."

  "What became of that money Mr. Saxton gave you?"

  "Well, to tell the truth I owed a few little bills back at Great Riverand I settled up, like any square man would."

  "If you told the truth, you'd say you drank up what you hadn't gambledaway." Wheaton moved toward the door.

  "At eight to-morrow night."

  "Make it two hundred, Jim," whined Snyder.

  Wheaton paused in the door; Snyder had followed him. They were the sameheight as they stood up together.

  "That's too much money to trust you with."

  "The more money the farther I can get," pleaded Snyder.

  "I'll be here at eight to-morrow evening," said Wheaton, "and you stayhere until I come."

  "Give me a dollar on account; I haven't a cent."

  "You're better off that way; I want to find you sober to-morrow night."He went out and closed the door after him.

  Two or three men who were sitting in the office below eyed Wheatoncuriously as he went out. The thought that they might recognize him fromhis portraits in the papers pleased him.

  He retraced his steps from the hotel and boarded a car filled withpeople of the laboring class who were returning from an outing in thesuburbs. They were making merry in a strange tongue, and theirboisterous mirth was an offense to him. He was a gentleman of positionreturning from an errand of philanthropy, and he remained on theplatform, where the atmosphere was purer than that within, which wascontaminated by the rough young Swedes and their yellow-hairedsweethearts. When he reached The Bachelors' the dozing Chinaman told himthat all the others were out. He went to his room and spent the rest ofthe evening reading a novel which he had heard Evelyn Porter mention thenight that he had dined at her house.

  The next day he bought a ticket to Spokane, and drew one hundred dollarsfrom his account in the bank. He went at eight o'clock to the Occidentalto keep his appointment, and found Snyder patiently waiting for him inthe hotel office, holding a shabby valise between his knees.

  "You'll have to pay my bill before I take this out," said Snydergrinning, and Wheaton gave him money and waited while he paid at thecounter. The proprietor recognized Wheaton and nodded to him. Questionswere not asked at the Occidental.

  At the railway station Wheaton stepped inside the door and pulled twosealed envelopes from his pocket. "Here's your ticket, and here's yourmoney. The ticket's good through to Spokane; and that's your train, thefirst one in the shed. Now I want you to understand that this is thelast time, Billy; you've got to work and make your own living. I can'tdo anything more for you; and what's more, I won't."

  "All right, Jim," said Snyder. "You won't ever lose anything by helpingme along. You're in big luck and it ain't going to hurt you to give me alittle boost now and then."

  "This is the last time," said Wheaton, firmly, angry at Snyder's hintfor further assistance.

  Snyder put out his hand.

  "Good by, Jim," he said.

  "Good by, Billy."

  Wheaton stood inside the station and watched the man cross theelectric-lighted platform, show his ticket at the gate, and walk to thetrain. He still waited, watching the car which the man boarded, untilthe train rolled out into the night.