Old Ebenezer | Page 8

his brown beard. "So you have come here to joke, sir----"
"Oh, not at all," Lyman broke in, "this is a serious matter."
"It might be if I were to let you have the money."
"That isn't so bad," Lyman laughed. "But seriously, I am in much need of a hundred dollars, and if you'll let me have it for six months I will pay it back with interest."
"I can't do it, sir."
"You mean that you won't do it."
"You heard me, sir."
"I realize the bad form in which I present my case, Mr. McElwin, and I know that if you had made a practice of doing business in this way you would not have been nearly so successful, but I will pledge you my word that if you will let me have the money----"
"Good day, sir, good day."
Lyman walked out, not feeling so humorous as when he went in. He looked up and down the dingy, drowsy street. At first he might have been half amused at his failure, tickled with the idea of describing it to Caruthers and the newspaper man, but a sense of humiliation came to him. He knew that in the warfare of business his operation was but a guerrilla's dash, and he was ashamed of himself; and yet he reflected that his great enemy might have been gentler to him. He walked slowly down the street, without an objective point; he passed the group of village jokers, sitting in front of the drug store, with their chairs tipped back against the wall; he passed the planing mill, with its rasping noise, and in his whimsical fancy it sounded like the Town Council snoring. He loitered near a garden where plum trees were in bloom; he looked over at a solemn child digging in the dirt; he caught sight of a pale man with the mark of death upon him, lying near a window, slowly fanning himself. He spoke to the child and the wretched little one looked up and said: "I am digging a grave for my pa." Lyman leaned heavily upon the fence; his heart was touched, and taking out a small piece of money he tossed it to the boy. The grave digger took it up, looked at it a moment in sad astonishment, put it aside and returned to his work.
The office was deserted when Lyman returned. Caruthers had not hung a hope on the result of the attempted negotiations.
CHAPTER IV.
A FOG BETWEEN THEM.
The following afternoon when Lyman went to the office, having spent the earlier hours in the court house, to assure the Judge that he had no motions to make, and no case to be passed over to the next term--he found Caruthers with his feet on the table.
"Getting hot," said Caruthers.
"Is it? I thought we had been playing freeze-out," Lyman replied, throwing his hat upon the table and sitting down.
"Then you didn't do anything with his Royal Flush?"
"Brother McElwin? No. He fenced with his astonishment until he could find words, and then he granted me the privilege to retire."
"Wouldn't take a mortgage on the library?"
"No; he said it wasn't worth a hundred."
"But you assured him that it was."
"No; I had to acknowledge that it wasn't."
"You are a fool."
"Yes, perhaps; but I'm not a thief."
"No! But it's more respectable to be a thief than a pauper."
"It is not very comforting to be both--to know that you are one and to feel that you are the other."
"Lyman, that sort of doctrine may suit a long-tailed coat, a white necktie and a countenance pinched by piety, but it doesn't suit me."
"It suits me," Lyman replied. "I was brought up on it. I think mother baked it in with the beans."
"Watercolor nonsense!" said Caruthers. "My people were as honest as anybody, but they didn't teach me to look for the worst of it."
"But didn't they teach you that without a certain moral force there can be no real and lasting achievement?"
Caruthers turned and nodded his head toward the bank. "Is there any moral force over there? Did you notice any saintly precepts on his wall? I don't think you did. But wasn't there many a sign that said, 'get money'?"
"Caruthers, you join with the rest of this town in the belief that McElwin is a great man. I don't. He is a community success, a neighborhood's strong man, but in the hands of the giants who live in the real world he is a weakling."
"He is strong enough, though, not to tremble at the sound of a footstep at the door, and that's exactly what we sit here doing day after day. The joy of the hoped-for client is driven away by the fear of the collector." He was silent for a moment, and then he said: "I don't feel that there's any advantage in being