The Rise of Silas Lapham | Page 3

the method you already use to calculate
your applicable taxes. If you don't derive profits, no royalty is due.
Royalties are payable to "Project Gutenberg Association / Illinois
Benedictine College" within the 60 days following each date you
prepare (or were legally required to prepare) your annual (or equivalent
periodic) tax return.
WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU
DON'T HAVE TO?

The Project gratefully accepts contributions in money, time, scanning
machines, OCR software, public domain etexts, royalty free copyright
licenses, and every other sort of contribution you can think of. Money
should be paid to "Project Gutenberg Association / Illinois Benedictine
College".
This "Small Print!" by Charles B. Kramer, Attorney Internet
([email protected]); TEL: (212-254-5093) *END*THE
SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN
ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END*
The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Rise of Silas Lapham by William
Dean Howells

THE RISE OF SILAS LAPHAM by William Dean Howells

I.
WHEN Bartley Hubbard went to interview Silas Lapham for the "Solid
Men of Boston" series, which he undertook to finish up in The Events,
after he replaced their original projector on that newspaper, Lapham
received him in his private office by previous appointment.
"Walk right in!" he called out to the journalist, whom he caught sight of
through the door of the counting-room.
He did not rise from the desk at which he was writing, but he gave
Bartley his left hand for welcome, and he rolled his large head in the
direction of a vacant chair. "Sit down! I'll he with you in just half a
minute."
"Take your time," said Bartley, with the ease he instantly felt. "I'm in
no hurry." He took a note-book from his pocket, laid it on his knee, and
began to sharpen a pencil.

"There!" Lapham pounded with his great hairy fist on the envelope he
had been addressing.
"William!" he called out, and he handed the letter to a boy who came to
get it. "I want that to go right away. Well, sir," he continued, wheeling
round in his leather-cushioned swivel-chair, and facing Bartley, seated
so near that their knees almost touched, "so you want my life, death,
and Christian sufferings, do you, young man?"
"That's what I'm after," said Bartley. "Your money or your life."
"I guess you wouldn't want my life without the money," said Lapham,
as if he were willing to prolong these moments of preparation.
"Take 'em both," Bartley suggested. "Don't want your money without
your life, if you come to that. But you're just one million times more
interesting to the public than if you hadn't a dollar; and you know that
as well as I do, Mr. Lapham. There 's no use beating about the bush."
"No," said Lapham, somewhat absently. He put out his huge foot and
pushed the ground-glass door shut between his little den and the
book-keepers, in their larger den outside.
"In personal appearance," wrote Bartley in the sketch for which he now
studied his subject, while he waited patiently for him to continue, "Silas
Lapham is a fine type of the successful American. He has a square,
bold chin, only partially concealed by the short reddish-grey beard,
growing to the edges of his firmly closing lips. His nose is short and
straight; his forehead good, but broad rather than high; his eyes blue,
and with a light in them that is kindly or sharp according to his mood.
He is of medium height, and fills an average arm-chair with a solid
bulk, which on the day of our interview was unpretentiously clad in a
business suit of blue serge. His head droops somewhat from a short
neck, which does not trouble itself to rise far from a pair of massive
shoulders."
"I don't know as I know just where you want me to begin," said
Lapham.

"Might begin with your birth; that's where most of us begin," replied
Bartley.
A gleam of humorous appreciation shot into Lapham's blue eyes.
"I didn't know whether you wanted me to go quite so far back as that,"
he said. "But there's no disgrace in having been born, and I was born in
the State of Vermont, pretty well up under the Canada line--so well up,
in fact, that I came very near being an adoptive citizen; for I was bound
to be an American of SOME sort, from the word Go! That was
about--well, let me see!--pretty near sixty years ago: this is '75, and that
was '20. Well, say I'm fifty-five years old; and I've LIVED 'em, too; not
an hour of waste time about ME, anywheres! I was born on a farm,
and----"
"Worked in the fields summers and went to school winters: regulation
thing?" Bartley cut in.
"Regulation thing," said Lapham, accepting this irreverent version of
his history somewhat dryly.
"Parents poor,