The Inside of the Cup | Page 9

most notable achievement, before he accomplished
the greater one of getting a new rector for St. John's, had been to
construct the "water-tight box" whereby the Consolidated Tractions
Company had become a law-proof possibility. But his was an esoteric
reputation, --the greater fame had been Eldon Parr's. Men's minds had
been dazzled by the breadth of the conception of scooping all the
street-car lines of the city, long and short, into one big basket, as it
were; and when the stock had been listed in New York, butcher and
baker, clerk and proprietor, widow and maid, brought out their
hoardings; the great project was discussed in clubs, cafes, and
department stores, and by citizens hanging on the straps of the very cars
that were to be consolidated--golden word! Very little appeared about
Nelson Langmaid, who was philosophically content. But to Mr. Parr,
who was known to dislike publicity, were devoted pages in the Sunday
newspapers, with photographs of the imposing front of his house in

Park Street, his altar and window in St. John's, the Parr building, and
even of his private car, Antonia.
Later on, another kind of publicity, had come. The wind had whistled
for a time, but it turned out to be only a squall. The Consolidated
Tractions Company had made the voyage for which she had been
constructed, and thus had fulfilled her usefulness; and the cleverest of
the rats who had mistaken her for a permanent home scurried ashore
before she was broken up.
All of which is merely in the nature of a commentary on Mr.
Langmaid's genius. His reputation for judgment--which by some is
deemed the highest of human qualities--was impaired; and a man who
in his time had selected presidents of banks and trust companies could
certainly be trusted to choose a parson--particularly if the chief
requirements were not of a spiritual nature. . .
A week later he boarded an east-bound limited train, armed with
plenary powers.
His destination was the hill town where he had spent the first fifteen
years of his life, amid the most striking of New England landscapes,
and the sight of the steep yet delicately pastoral slopes never failed to
thrill him as the train toiled up the wide valley to Bremerton. The
vision of these had remained with him during the years of his toil in the
growing Western city, and embodied from the first homesick days an
ideal to which he hoped sometime permanently to return. But he never
had. His family had shown a perversity of taste in preferring the sea,
and he had perforce been content with a visit of a month or so every
other summer, accompanied usually by his daughter, Helen. On such
occasions, he stayed with his sister, Mrs. Whitely.
The Whitely mills were significant of the new Bremerton, now neither
village nor city, but partaking of the characteristics of both. French
Canadian might be heard on the main square as well as Yankee; and
that revolutionary vehicle, the automobile, had inspired there a great
brick edifice with a banner called the Bremerton House. Enterprising
Italians had monopolized the corners with fruit stores, and plate glass

and asphalt were in evidence. But the hills looked down unchanged,
and in the cool, maple-shaded streets, though dotted with modern
residences, were the same demure colonial houses he had known in
boyhood.
He was met at the station by his sister, a large, matronly woman who
invariably set the world whizzing backward for Langmaid; so
completely did she typify the contentment, the point of view of an age
gone by. For life presented no more complicated problems to the
middle-aged Mrs. Whitely than it had to Alice Langmaid.
"I know what you've come for, Nelson," she said reproachfully, when
she greeted him at the station. "Dr. Gilman's dead, and you want our
Mr. Hodder. I feel it in my bones. Well, you can't get him. He's had
ever so many calls, but he won't leave Bremerton."
She knew perfectly well, however, that Nelson would get him, although
her brother characteristically did not at once acknowledge his mission.
Alice Whitely had vivid memories of a childhood when he had never
failed to get what he wanted; a trait of his of which, although it had
before now caused her much discomfort, she was secretly inordinately
proud. She was, therefore, later in the day not greatly surprised to find
herself supplying her brother with arguments. Much as they admired
and loved Mr. Hodder, they had always realized that he could not
remain buried in Bremerton. His talents demanded a wider field.
"Talents!" exclaimed Langmaid, "I didn't know he had any."
"Oh, Nelson, how can you say such a thing, when you came to get
him!" exclaimed his sister."
"I recommended him because I thought he had