John Rawn, Prominent Citizen

CHAPTER XI
THE TEST

I

In the most commonplace way in the world, and quite as though he had always done this very thing, Mr. Henry Warfield Standley, president of the I. & D. A. Railway Co., warned in advance by Mr. Rawn's telephone, came to the door himself. Presently the three, Rawn, Halsey and the president of the company for which both so long had worked, sat at the long glass-covered table, where lay many papers. The president pushed a button and ordered the attendance of Mr. Theodosius Ackerman, the general traffic manager; so that now they made four in company. The G.T.M., as he was known, had suffered great abrasion of the nerves by the delay of Mr. Rawn to produce a machine done up in a newspaper or in any way whatsoever, and he had joined the president in a disgusted belief that in some way he had been made foolish. He frowned now savagely at John Rawn, and John Rawn now, his hat on his head, frowned quite as savagely at him.

Very little was said, but after a time young Halsey nervously removed the newspaper from his little machine, and displayed it uncovered on the table, a ribbed and coiled and toothed little model, showing file marks here and there, and resembling nothing in particular in the world. They four regarded it calmly, curiously, this machine destined in the belief of some to double the length of the workman's day, to halve the distance around the world, to make or break fortunes, to make or break a country. The president started to jest, but his voice shook a trifle after all. To the general traffic manager the contrivance seemed absurdly small and inadequate. He choked so much he could not talk. Rawn did not smile. He continued his heavy frown. Young Halsey, tacitly elected spokesman by Rawn, cleared his throat as he addressed the president of the road, for whom he still felt naught but awe.

"We have put our receiver in tune with the dynamo in the basement of this building, Mr. Standley," began he, finally. Both the magnates frowned at Mr. Halsey's presumption and turned to Mr. Rawn. The latter waved a large gesture.

"I forgot to say, gentlemen, that Mr. Halsey has aided me in working out my model, and it is just as well he should explain my idea." Halsey therefore went on:

"And now you can see right here, on the table before you, about all the rest of it that we have. It isn't attached to anything at all. There is no wired connection of any sort whatever. Now if we can run that electric fan over there with 'juice' that we can take right out of the air—with the second current which we take out of the motor in the basement—just as well as the primary current wired to the fan will run it, why, then, it looks to me as though our receiver here ought to be accepted as a working device."

The room was silent now. They sat looking at him. He resumed:

"Besides, this receiver is more powerful than you think. I suppose I could burst that fan wide open with it, by just wiring the two, after disconnecting the original wiring of the fan to the house dynamo."

Halsey spoke very calmly, yet the hands of the president of the road, resting on the edge of the table, trembled slightly. The fighting red had disappeared from the face of the G.T.M. He was bluish gray, as though deathly ill. He was, however, the first to recover. "Well, why don't you burst it, then?" he exclaimed savagely, mopping at his forehead.

II

"Very well," said Halsey quietly. "But first I suppose I ought to explain just a little about the basic idea under this whole proposition. You see that table there—we regard it as motionless. As a matter of fact, it is full of nothing but motion, so tremendously rapid that we are unconscious of it. That wall yonder is nothing but a continuous series of vibrations, of inconceivable rapidity. This floor is full of force, of energy. It's all around us—energy, force, motion.

"In your studies in physics, gentlemen, you learned that heat and motion are convertible. And you learned about the resultant of power—which always, so far as any accepted law of physics goes, is in ratio to the distance through which applied.

"Now, what I've done," said Halsey—John Rawn frowned and coughed heavily, but no one noticed him, and Halsey himself was unconscious of using the first personal pronoun—"is just to cut off all need of considering the distance through which force is applied. Now, I don't know whether I can make it entirely plain to you, except by physical demonstration, but what I've done here is to carry further the idea of wireless telegraphy. We have here, to use an understandable figure of speech, a receiver which is the equivalent of a sounding-board—a sounding-board in tune to the vibrations of the second or free current of electricity.

"Gentlemen, our idea was, in terms, that of harnessing up molecular activity. If we have done that, we have, of course, tapped the one exhaustless reservoir of power."

III

The president of the railway had grown yet paler; but he nodded wisely, and Halsey went on:

"There isn't any miracle in science that ought to cause us any wonder. It took science a long time to learn that heat and motion are interchangeable. I strike a cold piece of iron with a moving hammer, and the iron gets hot. It was cold before, and there hasn't been any fire near it. That's just as wonderful a thing—although we all accept it without question—as all that I've got here on the table before you. If I can stop some of the free energy that is vibrating all around us, I'm going to get either motion or heat out of it, and that's simple. We have gone far enough to know that this little receiver here, gentlemen, will arrest the free current of electricity, force, energy, whatever you care to call it, that's in the air and which can be multiplied and transmitted through the air. Why and how it does that, I can't just tell, myself. No one has ever been able to explain everything about the magnetic needle, but we use it just the same. We don't so much care what it is if we can use it."

"Not a damned bit!" growled the G.T.M. "But can we? Why don't you get busy with that fan?"

Halsey rose and went over to the electric fan and snipped off a length of the wire, so that the fan stood free and unattached on its shelf. The loose wire he now busied himself in attaching to the fan and in turn to the little model on the table.

"To my mind," said he, after finishing this work, and arresting a finger above a little connecting lever in the side of the receiver, "it's a very beautiful thought that underlies all this. The forces which run through this receiver will never grow tired. Labor will be a joy for them, a delight, as labor ought to be in any form. Mr. Rawn and I don't always quite agree about that," he smiled, still with his finger above the little lever. "What I hope to do is to change the working-man from being an object back into being a man, so that labor may be a joy and not a dread."

"Then we don't want it," grinned the president, feebly essaying a jest. "Mr. Rawn and I were agreed that it would do just the other thing!"

"Well, go on with it!" growled Ackerman. "I'm a busy man. To hell with the story! We want results!"

Every man present sprang back from the little instrument on the table. There came a slowly increasing purr of the motor, a series of intense blue sparks showing at the toothed points of reception. The blades of the fan began to revolve faster and faster; so fast that at length both eye and ear ceased to record their doings. Then, after sight and sound had failed to serve, there came a crash!

There was no fan on the shelf where it had stood. Fragments of metal were buried in the woodwork, in the wall. John Rawn wiped the blood from a cut on his cheek. No one said anything. It was quite commonplace, after all.

IV

"You wished to see what it would do," said Halsey grimly. "The power seems to be there. Any time you like, any amount you like. And you saw that it didn't come in here by wire—it was only transmitted from the receiver, not to it. The fan is broken, but the receiver is just the way we left it. Well, it looks as though we had settled a few questions, doesn't it?"

Standley, pale, could only gasp, "Why, it's—it's dangerous!" he said. "It's devilish! Look there!" He pointed at the blood on Rawn's face. Rawn remained silent.

"There is no use applying undue force to a minor purpose," said Halsey, "any more than there is in throwing on the high speed of a car going down hill. But our reserve is there, gentlemen, just the same. By increasing the size of our receivers we can develop power to turn any amount of machinery that can be geared together—any number of machines, large or small, at any place. I only wanted to show what the real power is in this device of ours. Our receiver is very small, you see."

They all remained silent for a time. Standley at last drew a long breath.

"We're saved!" said he. "What do you say to it, Jim?" This to Ackerman.

"It looks like a go," said the latter, drawing a deep sigh. "We've seen enough right here to make good with our people back East; and we've got enough right now to get the public in."

The president turned an agitated eye upon John Rawn. "Mr. Rawn," said he, "referring to the tenor of our earlier conversation, I desire to say that we are not in the habit of giving the lion's share to anybody—"

"Suit yourself," said John Rawn, smiling.

"But in this case, as I said to you at first, there's so much in this if there's anything at all, that there's no use splitting hairs over it." He receded rapidly from the position he coveted but saw he could not hold.

"We ought to begin work at once. Er—Mr. Rawn, do you happen to have any present need for any money—personally?"

"No," answered John Rawn calmly, "I am in no need of funds. When the organization is completed, and I begin my work as president of the power company, I shall be glad to go on the pay-roll, of course. I should add now that I expect Mr. Halsey to be my general manager in the mechanical department."

"In regard to salaries," said the president, hesitating, "we might roughly sketch out something—"

"My own salary will be a hundred thousand dollars a year," said Mr. Rawn quietly. "I don't think we should ask Mr. Halsey to work for less than five thousand. Do you, gentlemen?"

"I've worked for less, myself," said Ackerman grimly.

"There shall be no haggling, gentlemen, no haggling," said the president blandly. "It shall be as Mr. Rawn suggests. By the way, a near call that, Rawn."

He waved a hand at the bloody cut on our hero's face. That gentleman drew a half sigh of unconscious triumph. It was the first time any one in that office had ever dropped the "Mister" from his name! He saw himself entering into the charmed circle.

"Suppose it had come a half inch closer?" suggested the president.

"It didn't," said John Rawn. "It was never meant to."

"That's the talk!" drawled Ackerman. "I'll tell you, Rawn, come in to-morrow. We'll get the patent lawyers and our corporation counsel, and begin work on this thing."

V

That was all there was about it, the proceedings being wholly prosaic and commonplace. Mr. Halsey found again his newspaper, again wrapped up his machine therein, took it under his arm, and hesitatingly turned toward the door, the palest now, and most unhappy of them all. He had denied his own first-born. He had publicly disclaimed ownership in this idea. Rawn was to have a hundred thousand dollars a year, he only a twentieth of that. Just where and how was Rawn twenty times as valuable as himself, when all the time it had been he.—But then, what matter? Five thousand dollars a year and Grace! What more could any man desire than that? He forced that to console him, forced himself to believe it sordid to haggle on the price of love; and so passed down in the elevator, out through the corridors to the street, without much further speech to any.

"Charles," said his intended father-in-law, as they approached the nearest corner, "do you happen to have a quarter left? I feel somewhat hungry, and for the time I have no money at all with me."

CHAPTER XII
THE HELPMEET

I

After all, Charles Halsey still was young enough to be happy. There are really very few delights for the man nearing middle age. The period of joy in living is confined to what time, passing upon the crowded street, the young man notes the sidelong, half-concealed glance of the unknown young woman, unconsciously taking in his goodliness, his god-like-ness, such as that may be; or to what time the young woman, in turn, after some such incident, turning by merest chance to look at some passing cloud, or to note the brightness of the sky, finds that some young man whom she but now passed also has turned about, by mere chance, to examine the colors of the sky, and so by accident has fastened gaze upon her instead! As the grasshopper cometh on to be a burden, the time arrives when this or that gray-browed man may gaze at passing damsel and elicit no reward in turn. Sitting in crowded vehicle he glances above the rim of his paper, and suddenly smiles to himself that his mature charms have riveted the attention of the young girl across the aisle. Happy moment—were it not that closer scrutiny would prove the young girl's eye to be fixed, not upon middle age, but upon ruddy-faced youth in the seat beyond!

No hope for Graybeard after middle age, when the grasshopper is a burden; save such hope as may be his through the power of money. Thenceforth perhaps remain for him only such self-deceits as that money may purchase fidelity, joy, love, happiness of any sort; which deceits end later on, in that hour of severe self-searching which remains for each of us just before we depart for other spheres. As for this particular obloid sphere and its tenantry, there are two seasons—a season of growth and flower, a season of seeding and decaying. As for delights, life passes at that indefinite period, from twenty-five to fifty-five years of age, let us say, when the opposite sex, passing us unknown upon the street, turns no longer the inadvertent sidelong gaze!

II

When John Rawn walked toward his home after the events of the meeting last foregoing described, he cast few sidelong glances, and received few. If that were faithfulness to a worthy wife, make the most of it. Upon the other hand note that, as Mr. Halsey trod the air on his way to Kelly Row, his newspaper bundle under his arm, there did not lack abundance of young women who saw him from the corner of the eye as he passed on. Forsooth, he was a young man of very adequate physical appearance, clean, hard, high of cheek, square of shoulder, his hair dark and long, his eye gray, direct, kindly. His life hitherto had been so narrow that he had lived well and wisely. His powers were well preserved, he remained physically clean and fit. Rather a decent chap, you would have called him, as he passed now, his strong chin well forward, his eye shaft-like and strong in its glances. Not an extraordinary young man, perhaps, but certainly serving well enough to show that youth speaks to youth; and that, when youth is past, all is past. Excepting—as John Rawn would have noted—the making of money; which means not much to youth itself, but which means all to middle age.

Of all this very wise and useful philosophy, be sure, Mr. Halsey was ignorant, or regarding it, was indifferent. He had forgotten that almost his last silver coin had furnished Mr. Rawn his last meal, in which Halsey himself had not joined. Grace! That was in his mind. He was young. Success was now at hand; because presently he should have five thousand dollars a year in salary, and be married to the dearest girl in all the world. It is, always the dearest girl in all the world, for men when they are less than thirty-five, say twenty-five years of age. But Halsey did not philosophize. He was guided only by some unconscious cerebration when he descended from the street-car and bent his way toward Kelly Row. He pulled up at the stoop of the third house in that homely procession of brick abodes which rented for twenty dollars a month—with no repairs by the landlord.

III

He found Grace at home, Mrs. Rawn also at home. They came to meet him, laid hold of him before he was well into the narrow little hall. There was that in his face, in his eyes, in his soul which told them that success at last had come to Kelly Row.

He put his hand in Mrs. Rawn's, his arm about Grace's waist. They two were young, they were very happy. Their hands were interclasped when presently they all passed from the hall into the little parlor. The eyes of Grace Rawn became soft, luminous, tender. The young man had come into her life. She was very happy. She was young. Ambition was as yet unknown to her. Her coin-current was not yet money; which of all things has the very least of purchasing power. She was almost beautiful now.

Mrs. Rawn, grave, thin, careworn, bent by many trials, her hair gray above her temples, her eyes dark-rimmed and, sunken somewhat under her dark-arched brows, had seated herself upon the opposite side of the room, waiting, her own joy visible in the silent illumination of her face. She, too, was very happy in her way; or rather, mildly contented. While almost every woman, at one or other period of her life admires what is known as a wicked young man; the average mother having a daughter about to be married admires rather what is known as a good young man. And Charles Halsey was what may be called comprised within that loose and indefinite description, not always covering admirable or manly qualities, but in this case serving very well.

"You've won, Charley," said Laura Rawn at last. "It is true! Thank God!"

For these blessings about to be received, Mr. Rawn thanked himself; Grace thanked Charles; Charles thanked Grace; only Laura Rawn had nothing left to thank excepting an impersonal and remote deity.

IV

They sat for a time thus in the little parlor, amid an abomination of desolation in black walnut horrors, tables done after a French king who must have revolved in his grave at contemplation thereof, chairs requiring nice feats in balancing upon their slippery haircloth floors, a sofa of like sort, too large for one, yet not large enough for two. There gazed down upon their love—as though in admiration as to love's consequences—rows of bisque shepherdesses and china dogs. The Dying Gaul also bent on them a saddened gaze. None the less, in spite of all, young Halsey shamelessly maintained his position on the perilous sofa, an arm around young Miss Rawn's waist.

V

Laura Rawn sat across the room, something still dangling from her grasp which had been there when she met Halsey in the hall. Halsey at length caught sight of this object. Glancing from the mother's hands toward those of the daughter, Halsey caught up the latter, looking with close scrutiny at what was now to be his own. He found the ends of Grace's fingers blackened and rough. He glanced back again to her mother's hands, worn with toil. The ends of her fingers, also, grasping this loose something, were blackened and rough.

"No more work for Grace," said he, lovingly tightening his clasp on the fingers in his own.

"But I say—" this to Grace—"what makes your fingers so rough, dear? I never did notice that before."

"You've not noticed anything for two months!" said Grace chidingly. "Why, it's sewing, of course, that does it. A needle roughens up one's finger in spite of a thimble, don't you know?"

"You were sewing—for us?" he ventured daringly, yet blushing as he spoke. "A girl has a lot of sewing to do, I suppose—when she's—getting ready. But, Grace—I'm to have five thousand dollars a year! Five thousand! No more sewing then for Grace, I'm thinking."

"Yes?" said Grace, smiling in her slow way. "I think Ma and I would be glad to believe we'd never have to see a needle again. She kept me at it. You see, Charley, we've been keeping the wolf from the front door and the kitchen door, while you and Father were guarding the woodshed."

"What do you mean?" Then suddenly, "You don't tell me—you don't mean that—? Was that what made your hands so rough, yours and Mrs. Rawn's yonder? What have you got there, Mrs. Rawn—something in silk? Oh, a pair of braces, eh? For me? How nice of you."

Grace smiled again. "I'll be jealous of Ma. Shall I go and get my own work to show you?"

"You mean for your father, of course—"

"Indeed, no. Neither Pa nor you can afford silk embroidered braces, Charles! I've done six pairs this week, and Ma—well Ma must have done a dozen. She's wonderful."

"But what do you mean?" asked the young man, still puzzled. Grace said nothing further, but held up her blackened finger-tips and looked him in the eye. A blush of comprehension came to his face.

"You women!" he exclaimed. "You've worked as hard as we did; and we didn't know!"

"We had to do something," said Mrs. Rawn quietly. "I tried a number of things. We could earn practically nothing in the sweatshop work. Grace addressed envelopes here at home at night, for a while—but that's what every other girl in all the city's doing, I think. I saw some of these embroidered things in the window of a men's furnishing shop. I went in and told the man I could do them as well as that for twenty-five cents a pair. We've had as much as thirty cents for some of our best ones. Why, dear me! I hadn't done any work in silk for years and years; but it all came back. We earned quite a bit here. It kept the table."

"My God!" said Halsey. "And I've been eating here!"

VI

"It was our part," said Laura Rawn. "It was all we could do. A woman just has to do the best she can, you know. Well, we helped."

"A woman has to do the best she can," repeated Laura Rawn gently, seeing that this left Halsey awkward. "If she's a true woman, she tries to help. I want that Grace should always think of it in just that way."

That, it seemed, was the foolish philosophy of Laura Rawn; a philosophy not often written on the docket of divorce courts, to be sure. Perhaps it is—or once was—inscribed on dockets elsewhere.

END OF BOOK ONE

BOOK TWO

CHAPTER I
THE NEW MR. RAWN

I

Some wise man has said that a man changes entirely each seven years of his life, becoming wholly different in every portion, particle and atom of his bodily bulk and losing altogether what previously were the elements, parts, portions or constituent molecules which made himself. So much as to the physical body. In respect of epochal changes in a man's character we may wholly approve the dictum of the philosopher, though perhaps not agreeing to any specific seven-years period. Thus, in the case of John Rawn, the first stage of his career, in which he lived without any very great alteration, occupied some seven and forty years. Yet it was a wholly different John Rawn who, at forty-eight, found himself seated at the vast and shining desk of the president of the International Power Company, in the city of Chicago. The past was so far behind him that he could not with the utmost mental striving reconstruct the picture of it. He was a wholly new, distinct and different man. The old and deadly days were gone. There never had been such a place as Kelly Row. Fate had performed its miracle. Here was John Rawn, where alone he ever could have belonged—in a place of power.

Surrounded by a delicious sense of his own fitness and competence, smug, urbane, well-clad, basking in the balmy glow of his own glory, exulting in his own proved ability to conquer fate, John Rawn, on his first day as chief executive of the International Power Company, paused for a time and leaned back in his chair, giving himself over to luxurious imaginings.

II

There is no peculiar delight in owning power unless one may exercise that power. There being no dog present which he might kick out of the way, John Rawn essayed other divertisements. The harness of business system was still rather new to him, at least the harness which pertains to this stage of a business system. He was happily unaware that he was a lay figure here, with few actual duties beyond those of looking impressive—happily ignorant that shrewder and more skilled minds than his had seen to it that his official duties should be few and well hedged about. He had not as yet ever worked at a desk blessed with a row of push buttons, and was ignorant as yet, and very naturally, in regard to the particular function of each of these several buttons whose mother of pearl faces now confronted him. Resolving to take them seriatim, he pushed the one farthest to the right; which, as it chanced, was the one arranged to call to him his personal stenographer.

The door opened silently. John Rawn, looked up and saw standing before him a young woman whom he had never seen before. "I beg pardon, Madam," said he, half rising. "I didn't know you were there. How did—is there anything I can do for you?"

"I am the stenographer assigned for your work, Mr. Rawn, until you shall have concluded your own arrangements in the office," answered the young woman. Her voice was even and well controlled, her enunciation perfect. She was not in the least confused over this contre-temps, else had the self-restraint not to notice it. She stood easily, note-book in hand, with no fidgeting, in such fashion that one must at once have classified her as a well-poised human being.

Or, again, one might have said that here was a very beautiful human creature. She was almost tall, certainly and wholly shapely; young, but fully and adequately feminine; womanly indeed in every well curved line. Her hands and feet, her arms—the latter now disclosed by half sleeves—all were of good modeling. Her hair, piled up in rather high Grecian coiffure and confined by a bandeau of gold-brocaded ribbon, was perhaps just in the least startling. But you might not have noticed that with disapproval had you seen the shining excellence of the hair itself, brown, either dark or blonde as the light had it. Her forehead was oval, her chin also oval, the curve of the cheek running gently into the chin like the bow moulding of a racing yacht. Her teeth were even and brilliant, her lips well colored, her eyes large and just a trifle full, with thin lids, and in color blue; as you might have said with hesitation, just as you might have been uncertain regarding the blondness of her hair. Over the eyes the brows were straight, brown, well-defined. Her nose—since one must particularize in all such intimate matters—was a trifle thin, high in the bridge; thus completing what lacked, if anything, to convey the aspect of a woman aristocratic, reserved and dignified.

III

Virginia Delaware, Mr. Rawn's personal stenographer, was born the daughter of a St. Louis baker. She had, however, passed through that epoch of her development and by some means best known to herself and her family, had attained a good education, ended by three years in a young ladies' finishing school in the East. By what process of reasoning she had considered that this was the proper field for her ambitions, is something which need not concern us. She was here; and as she stood thus, easy, beautiful, competent, she was as much a new and different Virginia Delaware from the Virginia Delaware of seven years earlier date as was this new John Rawn different from the old. The world moves. Especially as to American girls does it move.

"I am the stenographer assigned to you, Mr. Rawn, until you shall have concluded your own arrangements." She spoke very quietly. Rawn recovered himself quickly.

"I was just about to say," he went on, "that I intended to have the boy get my car ready. Would you tell him to have it at the door in fifteen minutes? Then come back. There are one or two little letters."

A few moments later the young woman was seated at a small table near the end of the desk. Without any nervousness she awaited his pleasure.

"I'll trouble you for that newspaper, if you don't mind, Miss—?"

"Miss Delaware."

"Yes, Miss Delaware. Thank you!"

He glanced down the columns of the market reports. "Take this," he said, turning to the young woman.

"Chandler and Brown, Brokers, City. Dear Sirs: Sell me two hundred Triangle Rubber at three forty. Yours truly."

She was up with him before he had finished his first official act. He turned again:

"Kitter, Moultrie & Johnson, Bakersfield, California. Gents: Cinch all the Guatemala shares you can at eight cents and draw on me if you need any money. Yours truly."

Mr. Rawn could not think of anything else. Few details had been allowed to reach his desk. He was the last sieve in a really well-arranged series of business screens. But even in this brief test he had a feeling that the new stenographer would prove efficient. In three or four minutes more he was yet better assured of that fact; for before he could find his coat and hat she entered gently and laid the completed letters on his desk:

"Messrs. Chandler and Brown, 723 Exchange Building, Chicago: Gentlemen: Please sell for my account two hundred (200) shares Triangle Rubber, at three hundred and forty dollars ($340) or the market, obliging, Yours very truly."

"Messrs Kitter, Moultrie & Johnson, Bakersfield, California. Gentlemen: Please buy for my account all the Guatemala Oil which you can pick up at eight cents (8c). You are at liberty to draw on me as you require funds. Allow two points margin. Yours very truly."

"Very good," said Mr. Rawn. A slight perspiration stood on his forehead. The young woman silently disappeared. "Two points!" said Mr. Rawn. "By Jove!"

IV

Mr. Rawn remained well assured of several things. First, that he was going to make sixty-eight thousand dollars out of the Triangle Rubber shares, which had been given him practically as a present, or as "bonus," or as tribute, by Standley and Ackerman and their friends at the inception of the International Power Company; second, that he might perhaps make a quarter of a million out of his inside knowledge derived from these same sources, regarding plans in Guatemala Oil; third, that his new stenographer seemed to have a good head, and was not apt to be forward.

Whereupon, having concluded his first wearying day's labor, Mr. Rawn donned his well-cut overcoat and shining top hat, and with much dignity passed out the private door of his office. The elevator was crowded with common people, among them, several persons of the lower classes. Mr. Rawn felt that the president of a great corporation like International Power ought by all rights to have an elevator of his own. This conviction of the injustice wrought upon presidents was so borne in upon him that, when he stepped up to the long and shining car which the chauffeur held at the curb, his face bore a severe frown and his lower lip protruded somewhat. Feeling thus, he rebuked the chauffeur, who touched his hat.

"You kept me waiting!" said John Rawn, glowering. "I wait for no one."

The chauffeur touched his hat again. "Very good, sir. If you please, where shall I drive?"

"Take me to the National Union Club," growled Mr. Rawn. Already it may easily be seen that one of Mr. Rawn's notions of impressing the world with his importance was to be rude to his servants—a not infrequent device among our American great folk.

The chauffeur touched his hat once more and sprang to his seat after closing the door of the car. In a few minutes Mr. Rawn was deposited at the wide stairway of one of the most estimable clubs of the city; where his name had been proposed by members of such standing in the railway and industrial world that the membership committee felt but one course open to them.

A boy took his hat and coat, following him presently with a check into a wide room, well furnished with great chairs and small tables. Rawn stood somewhat hesitant. He knew almost nobody. Moreover, his club frightened him, for it was his first, and it differed largely from Kelly Row. A fat man in one group gathered about a small table recognized him and came forward to shake his hand. "Join us, Mr. Rawn?" he asked. Some introductions followed, then another question, relative to the immediate business in hand.

"You may bring me a Rossington," said Mr. Rawn, with dignity, "but please do not have too much orange peel in it." He spread his coat tails with perhaps unnecessary wideness as he pushed back into the great chair. You or I might not have had precisely his air in precisely these surroundings, but John Rawn had methods of his own.

"I've never liked too much orange peel," said he gravely, putting the tips of his fingers together. "The last time, I thought they had just a trace too much. A suspicion is all I ever cared for."

They listened to him with respect. As a matter of fact, Mr. Rawn had never tasted alcoholic beverages of any sort whatever until within the year last past. All the better for his physique, as perhaps one might have said after a glance at these pudgier forms adjacent to him now. All the better, too, for his nerves. But it is not always the case that the beginner in alcohol can drink less than one of ancient acquaintance therewith; the reverse is often true. In John Rawn's system strong drink produced only a somber glow, a confident enlargement of his belief in his own powers. It never brought levity, mirth, flippancy into his demeanor.

V

His acquaintances saw now in Mr. Rawn, the last member received into their august affiliations, a man of breeding, long used to good things in life, and trained to a nice discrimination. Perhaps the fact that he was the new president of the new International Power Company, a concern capitalized at many millions and reputed to have one of the best things going, may have brought added respect to the attitude of some of those who sat about the little table. Thus, one passed a gold cigarette-box; yet another proffered selections from divers cigars, of the best the club could provide; which was held thereabouts to be the best that any club could provide.

"I was just telling Mason, here, when you came in, Rawn," said the large man who had risen to greet him, "that at last it looks as though that jumping-jack, Roosevelt, was down and out for good. I always said he'd get his before long. Good God! When you stop to think about it, hasn't he been a menace to the prosperity of this country?"

"He certainly has been, the everlasting butter-in," ventured a by-sitter.

"In my belief," said Rawn solemnly, "he hasn't the ghost of a show for the nomination—not the ghost of a show!"

"Certainly not," assented the large man. "He's been politically repudiated in his own state and city for years, and now it's just soaking into the heads of western men that he won't do. He's been the Old Man of the Sea on all kinds of business development. In my belief, half the labor troubles in this country are traceable to him—anyhow to him and the confounded newspapers that keep stirring things up. Progress! If these progressives had their way, I reckon we'd all be progressing backwards, that's where we'd be. Look at all these new men, too! It makes me sick to think how our Senate is changing." He spoke of "our" Senate with a fine proprietary air.

"But there is talk that Roosevelt'll run again," said another speaker, reaching for his second cocktail.

"No chance!" said the large man, who had had his second. "This whole fool movement for unsettling business is going to come to an end. There never was a time when unsuccessful people were not discontented. Let the people growl if they like. They haven't got any reason. Talk's cheap. Let 'em talk."

"Money talks best," ventured John Rawn oracularly, nodding his head. The others solemnly assented to this very original proposition.

"The business of this country," went on the large man, "has got nothing to do with Teddy's ten commandments."

"I have no doubt," said John Rawn, "that Mr. Roosevelt has, as you say, been the most disturbing cause in the unsettling of labor conditions all over the country. I've been following his speeches. He's always putting out that same old foolish doctrine about the equality of mankind—a doctrine exploded long ago. It's nothing short of criminal to talk that way to the lower classes to-day—it only makes them more unhappy. What's the use in misleading the laboring man and making him think he's going to get something he can't get? I tell you, I believe that at heart Roosevelt is a Socialist. Anyhow, he's a stumbling-block to the progress of this republic. Why, in our own factory—"

"You're right," interrupted the first speaker. "Absolutely right. That sort of talk means ruin to the country. I'd like to know what all the men that make up these labor unions would do if we were to shut down all the mills and factories and offices—where'd they get any place to work if we didn't give it to them? Yet they bite the very hand that feeds them."

"It sometimes looks as though we'd lost almost the whole season's work in the Senate," gloomily contributed another of the group. "We've got the tariff framed up to suit us, but how long will it last? Besides, what's the use of a tariff, if we're going to have strikes that practically are riots and revolutions, all over the country? Our laboring men are not willing to work. That's the trouble, I tell you—all this foolishness about the brotherhood of man. Oh, hell!"

"You have precisely my attitude, my friend," said John Rawn, turning to him gravely. "Precisely. I have always said so."

VI

They all nodded now gravely as they sipped their second or third cocktails. Here and there a face grew more flushed, a tongue more fluent. The large man, colder headed, presently turned to Mr. Rawn.

"By the way, Rawn," said he, "I hear it around the street all the time that you've got about the best thing there is going—this International Power. What's the meaning of all this talk, anyhow? It's leaking out that you're going to revolutionize the business world with all this power-producing scheme of yours. Some crazy newspaper child got lit up the other day and printed a fake story about your plan of running wires from the river over to Chicago! Anything in that?—but of course there isn't."

"Not as you state it," said John Rawn. "We have a very desirable proposition, however, in our belief."

—"Say yes!" broke in the smaller man across the table. "But it looks like you've got the Ark of the Covenant concealed, you keep it so close. None of the stock seems to get out. You haven't listed anything, and nobody can guess within a million dollars what a share is worth."

"No," said John Rawn sententiously, "you couldn't. I couldn't, myself. I couldn't yet guess large enough."

"But they tell me it's reviving commerce all up and down the river—in the old towns."

Mr. Rawn nodded assentingly, smiling.

"Newspaper story was that there was going to be some fly-by-night, over-all, free-for-all wireless transmission, and all that! I say, that was deuced good market work, wasn't it! We all want in on that killing when it comes. But how are we going to get in on the killing if there isn't any stock to be had, and if it isn't listed so the public can be got in?"

"Standley and Ackerman got the lion's share," grumbled the large man, explanatorily.

"Did they?" smiled John Rawn, showing his teeth a trifle.

"Well, of course that's the talk—I don't know anything about how the facts are. But when the time comes, let us in."

"Certainly," said Rawn easily. "But we're not saying much just yet, of course. Just beginning."

"But now, was there anything in that crazy fool's newspaper story?"

"We're working on that idea," Rawn admitted, still smiling.

VII

They threw themselves back in their chairs and joined in a burst of laughter. "You're a wonder, Rawn!" said the large man admiringly.

The second cocktail had served to steady John Rawn. "Why?" he inquired evenly.

"Why, according to that story, every one of us manufacturers would be put out of business. We'd literally have to come and feed from your hand when we wanted power, according to that."

"It would figure that way on one basis," admitted Rawn. "That would be something, wouldn't it? Almost rather."

"Almost rather!" repeated the small man. "I say, that's pretty good, isn't it? Well now, I'll tell you what; we'd almost rather you'd let us in on the ground floor, m'friend! No more coal bills, no more walking delegates, no more strikes, no more Roosevelt 'n LaFol't! Just touch button. Too bad, Rawn, you didn't go into fiction yourself—it must have been you 'nvented that newspaper story, o' course."

"You have another guess," said John Rawn. "But you haven't guessed big enough yet. I told you, I myself couldn't guess big enough."

The large man laughed, reached into his pocket and handed out a bunch of keys. "Take 'em along," said he. "I might as well give you the key to my office, also to my home—and maybe one or two others." Some smiled at this last remark.

"My keys against yours," said John Rawn keenly. "You can take everything I've got if the time doesn't come when our company will do everything you're laughing at now. But we're not after our friends. Why couldn't we get together—and together get the public?"

"Fine! Now you converse," smiled the large man.

"I don't deny I've got an idea up my sleeve, and have had," continued Rawn. "I don't deny that we may make some tremendous changes in business methods. When you tell me we can't do these things, that my idea won't make good, and all that, why, you almost make me talk. Not that I'm a talking man. But International Power isn't after its friends.

"But I'm just starting home now," he concluded. "I only dropped in for a moment. We're just getting things begun and I'm rushed day and night. I'm rather a new man here in town as yet. But I'll see you often."

"The central offices will be here, then?" inquired the large man.

"Yes, our main headquarters will be here for a time."

"Oh, joy! I'll drop in some time and have you do me up a choice line of philosopher's stones, so that I can turn things into gold. Why pay rent?" The large man laughed largely.

"Oh, all right," rejoined Rawn, also laughing. "But our invention is not so very wonderful. The only wonder is, that 't hasn't been thought of before. Nothing is wonderful, you know."

"By Jove! I'm just going to come in with you there," assented the last speaker, suddenly sitting up in his chair. "There isn't anything stranger in the world than things that happen right along, every day. Look here."

He pulled out of his waistcoat pocket some blue strips of paper. "Tickets to the Aviation Meet. Fifty-cent gate. What do you see? Why, you see men doing what men couldn't have been supposed to do a little while ago. It's easy now—and they do that—they really fly. I tell you, fellows, when you get about four drinks in you and begin to think, this ain't just the world our daddies knew; and if it ain't, what sort of world is it going to be that our sons will know?"

"Precisely," assented John Rawn, with affability. "For instance, I'm going out now to take my car home. Nobody wonders at that. What would we all have thought of such speed ten or twelve years ago? Speed, gentlemen, speed—and power! The man who has those has got the world in the hollow of his hand." With a nod, half negligent, he turned away.

VIII

"Ave Cæsar!" irreverently remarked a man with a gray mustache as Rawn passed toward the cloak room.

"He sets me thinking, just the same," commented the large man grumblingly. "That fellow's a comer. He's building him a fine place, up the North Shore, they tell me. His family must have had money, 'though it's odd, I never heard of him till just lately. Who's going to pay for his house? Why, maybe we are!"

"Believe I'll go home for dinner to-night myself. Haven't been home for three days," yawned one.

—"And nights," added a smiling friend.

"Naturally. But let's have another little drink. I'm telling you, fellows, that fellow Rawn has got me guessing, too."

CHAPTER II
GRAYSTONE HALL

I

Mr. Rawn's long and shiny car was waiting for him when he stepped with stately dignity down the broad stair of the National Union Club. His chauffeur once more touched his hat, as he saw the hat of Mr. Rawn, so much taller and shinier than his own.

Threading its path through the crowded traffic of the side streets, the car presently turned up the long northbound artery of the great western city. Surrounded by a large and somewhat vulgar throng of similarly large and shiny cars, it floated on, steadily, almost silently, until most of the noises and the odors of the city were left behind; until at last the blue of the great lake showed upon the right hand through ranks of thin and straggling trees, supported by a thin and sandy soil. Now appeared long rows of mansions, fronting on the lake, their amusingly narrow and inadequate grounds backing out upon the dusty roadway with its continual traffic of long, shiny and ofttimes vulgar cars. Miles of cars carried hundreds of men to miles of mansions. In less than an hour, from town to home, John Rawn also pulled up at the entrance to his home. Speed limits are not for such as Mr. Rawn. This residence, yet another of these pretentious mansions, top-heavy on its inadequate delimitations, and done by one of the most ingenious architects to be found for money, was as new, as hideous, as barbarous as any that could be found in all that long assemblage of varied proofs of architectural aberrations. It was as new as Mr. Rawn himself. The brick walks were hardly yet firmly settled, the shrubs were not yet sure of root, the crocus rows in the borders still showed gaps. Large trees, transplanted bodily, still were sick at heart in their new surroundings. The gravel under the new porte cochêre still was red and unweathered. As to the house itself, it combined Japanese, Colonial and Elizabethan architecture in nice modern proportions, the architect having been resolved to earn his fee. Many who passed that way turned and pointed approving thumbs at the residence of Mr. John Rawn, president of the International Power Company, a new man who had come in out of the West, and who evidently was possessed of wealth and taste.

II

Mr. Rawn knew that many occupants of other cars were noting him. His dignity was perfect as he left his car, not noticing that the chauffeur once more touched his hat. His dignity remained unbroken as he walked up the Elizabethan steps, flanked by Japanese jars, and paused at the Colonial door. The door swung open softly. His dignity was such that he scarcely saw the man who took his coat and hat, and who received no greeting from his master. Calm, cold and scornful, as one well used to such surroundings, he passed through the long central halls and stood before the doubly glazed French window whose wide expanse fronted upon the lake. He came from inland parts, and he enjoyed this lake view he had bought. He did not hear the quiet footfall which approached over the heavy rug. Laura Rawn needed to speak to him the second time.

"Well," said he, turning and sighing, "how's everything?"

"Very well, John."

"Not so bad, eh?" He jerked a thumb to indicate the lake.

"It's grand!" said his wife, yet with no vast enthusiasm in her tone.

"I should say it was grand! Anyhow, there's nothing grander around Chicago. There's not very much here in the way of scenery. Of course, in New York—"

"Oh, don't let us talk of New York, John."

"Why?"

"I don't see how I could stand anything bigger or grander than this."

"Stand anything more? Ha-hum! Well, that's just about what I expected you to say, Laura. Sometimes I wonder if there ever was a man more handicapped than I am. Look at this! What have I done for you? Why, I changed your whole life for you, as much as though you'd died and been born into another world. You couldn't have had all this if it hadn't been for me. You don't enjoy it. You've got no use for it. I don't set even this for my limit. I've got ambition, and I'm going up as far as a man can go in this country. If that means New York, all right, when the time comes. But what does my wife say? 'Oh, I couldn't stand that!' Stand it—why, I half believe, Laura, you wish you were back in Kelly Row right now—I believe that's right where you'd be this minute, if you had your choice."

"I would, John; if things could be the way they once were."

He only growled as he turned away petulantly.

"Of course I want to see you do well, get ahead, John, as far as ever you can go. And of course you'd never be happy to go back there again."

"Happy?—me—Kelly Row? You'd see John Rawn dead and buried first! I'd go jump in the lake if I thought I'd ever have to live again the way we used to."

"I wonder how they are doing back there now," said Mrs. Rawn, in spite of all, as though musing with herself. "It's evening now, and the men are just coming home from work. I wonder if Jane English, next door to us, has another baby this year. She always had, you know. And there's the young woman, Essie Hannigan, who always used to wait on the steps for her husband. And the dogs; and the babies in the street. And the little trees without very many leaves on them—why, John, I can see it all as plain as if it were right here. This house of ours here is so grand I can't understand it. How did we get it, John?—when we worked so long, so many years, and lived just like those others there? It all came at once. Have you earned all this—in a year or so? And how did you get it almost finished, before we moved up here, while we still were living in St. Louis—without either of us being here to watch the carpenters?"

"I did it with money, Laura, that's how. If you have money you can get anything done you want; and you don't have to do it with your own hands. But don't say 'carpenters'—it was an architect built this house."

"It cost a lot of money!"

"Not so much—I've not got in over two hundred and fifty thousand dollars yet, even with most of the furnishings in."

"You're always joking nowadays, John. Of course, you haven't made that much."

"Well, no; that's a lot of money to take out of the investments of a beginner. I had to get accommodation for three-fourths of it."

"Accommodation?—"

"Well, mortgage, then—that's what they'd call it in Texas or Kelly Row. I couldn't tie up all my capital—that isn't business. But what does it amount to? My salary is a hundred thousand a year; and I'm making more than that on the side. I didn't propose to come up here, president of the International Power Company, and go to living in a six-room flat. I wanted a house. You see." He swept a wide gesture again.

"It's not much like our little seven-room house in the brick block, is it, John?"

"And you wish you were back there? That's fine, isn't it? How can I do things for you if that's the way you feel? You've never got into the game with me, Laura,—you've never helped me; I've had to do it all. Yet look what I've done in the last two or three years!"

"Yes, John, I know I couldn't do much."

"You didn't do anything! You don't do anything now! You don't try to go forward, you never did try, you always hung back! You've always thought of your own selfish pleasure, Laura, and that's the trouble with you. A man busy all day with large matters, who comes home tired and worn out, looks for a little help when he gets home. What do I hear? 'I wish I was back in Kelly Row!' Fine, isn't it? I'll bet you a million dollars there isn't another woman in Chicago that would feel the way you do. You ought at least to have some sense of gratitude, it seems to me."

III

Grieved at the injustice of life, Mr. Rawn turned his troubled face and gazed out over the unexpressive expanse of water. Laura Rawn said nothing at the time, being a woman of large self-control. At length she laid a gentle hand upon her husband's shoulder.

"Why, John," said she, "I'd go to New York, if it was for the best. You ought to know that I have your interests at heart—really, you ought to know that, John. I don't want to hinder you, not the least in the world, John."

"But you do hinder me. You make me feel as though you were not in the game with me, that you were holding back all the time. I'm going a fast gait. I'm a rising man; but you ought to be in my company. A man doesn't like to feel that he's all alone in the world!"

"Why, John! Why, John!"

But he never caught the poignant anguish of her tone. "Why don't people come here to see you?" he demanded. "It's like a morgue. And by the time this place is done it'll cost pretty near another quarter of a million."

"John!" she gasped. "Where will you get it?"

He turned and waved at her an aggressive finger. "I made it!" said he, "and I'll make it. I made a clean sixty-eight thousand dollars, to-day, with a turn of my wrist. I'll make the price of this house in another two years, if all goes well. When it starts, it comes fast. There's nothing grows like money. It rolls up like a snowball—for a few men; and I'm one of the few! It's easy picking for strong men in the business world of America to-day—the game's framed up for them, when they get in. And one of these days I'm going in further. We'll see a life which will make all this"—he swept a wide hand about him—"look like thirty cents." His pendulous lower lip trembled in emotion, precisely as might that of his father have trembled when he addressed assembled and unrepentant gatherings of sinners.

"Well, John," said Laura Rawn, dropping into a chair and crossing her hands in her lap, "you've done a lot for me, that's sure, more than I have had any right in the world to expect. I can't do much. I'm only going to try just all I can to keep up with you. But now let's not bother or worry any more about things. Supper is just about ready."

"Dinner, you mean. Dinner, Mrs. Rawn!"

She flushed a trifle. "As I meant, dinner, yes. You'll have time to dress for dinner, if you like, but I wish you wouldn't, John. I don't mean to. The truth is, I had the cook make to-night something you used to be very fond of in the old days—a pot roast—shoulder of pork with cabbage. Somehow, it seemed to me that we wouldn't want to dress up just for that, John."

"My God, no!" The suffering John Rawn fell into a chair and dropped his face between his hands, shaking his head from side to side.

"Isn't it all right, John?" she asked anxiously "What else should I get?"

"Leave it to the cook, Laura—I mean the chef. That's what he's paid for. Is there anything too good for us?"

"Not for you, John. But I sometimes think," she went on slowly after a while, "that I'm not entitled to so much as we have, when others have so little—the same sort of people that we once were. I don't understand it. I don't see where we earned it. Why, back there where we came from, life is very likely just as hard as it ever was."

"Haven't earned it!" gasped John Rawn—"I haven't earned it? Well, listen at that, to my face! Well, I'd like to ask you, Laura, if I haven't earned this, what man ever did earn his money?"

"Don't take me wrong, John dear. I was just wondering how anybody could ever earn so much."

"Well, don't get the habit of wondering."

"I like my things," said she softly, gazing about her. "I've always wanted nice things, of course. I never thought we'd have a place like this. Then the trees, and the lake—why, it's like fairyland to me!"

IV

But Rawn turned a discontented face around at the ill-assorted furnishings of Graystone Hall—as he had named his quasi-country place. As in the case of the architect, the house decorator and furnisher had had full license, and each had done his worst.

"Somehow these things don't seem just the way they are down at the club!" he grumbled. "I've been at other houses along in here, once in a while, and somehow our things don't seem just like theirs. It's not my fault. Surely you must see how busy I am all the time—I've not got the time to take care of household matters, too."

He got up and took a turn or so about, gazing with dissatisfaction at his household goods. "They tell me that J. Pierpont Morgan picks up what they call collector's pieces. I've heard that lots of the big men have in their houses these collector's pieces. We've got to have some of them here. It won't do to have them say of us that we're anything back of Morgan or anybody else. If they think that of me, they don't know John Rawn."

"Dinner is served, Mrs. Rawn," said a low voice at the farther side of the room. The butler stood respectful, at attention.

"Mrs. Rawn!" grumbled the master of the place. "I'll train him different! Why don't he tell me?"

They passed into the wide dining-room, the butler now silently drawing together the double curtains which covered the windows fronting the lake. Rawn seated himself frowningly at the table, with the customary grumbling comment which he used to conceal his own lack of ease. In truth, he had never yet enjoyed a meal in his great house, and would at this moment have been far more comfortable in his shirt sleeves at the little table in Kelly Row, with the nearest butler a thousand miles away for all of him. The presence of this shaven, priest-like personage behind him always sent a chill up his spine. He half jumped now as that icy individual coughed at his side, poured a little wine into his first glass, and passed on to Mrs. Rawn. Laura Rawn declined, as was her custom, and the butler turned to fill his master's glass.

"You ought to drink wine, Laura," said the owner of Graystone Hall, regardless of the butler's presence. "Practically all the women do, I notice. Some smoke—cigarettes, I mean; not a corn-cob pipe. But then—" he raised his own glass and drained it at a gulp. The butler filled it again, and passed silently in quest of the beginnings of the banquet whose pièce de résistance had caused him and the second maid to exchange wide grimaces of mirth beyond the door.

V

It could not have been called a wholly happy family gathering, this at Graystone Hall. Indeed, it lacked perhaps three generations, possibly three aeons, of being happy.

With little more speech after the evening meal than they had had before, an hour, perhaps, was passed in the room which the architect called the library, Mrs. Rawn called the parlor, and Mr. Rawn called the gold room. Then Laura Rawn, as was her wont, passed silently up-stairs to her own apartments—or her bedroom, as she called it—widely removed, in the architect's plans, from those of her husband. One room, one couch, had served for both in Kelly Row.

The gray lake throbbed along its shore. Night came down and softened the ragged outlines of the scrawny trees which stood sentinels along the front of this pile of stone and steel and concrete and wood, which paid men had striven so hard to render into lines of home-likeness. A soft wind passed, sighing. The lights of Graystone Hall went out, one by one, while the evening still was young.