MR. FEENY'. SOCIAL EXPERIMENT
ON the street some one had handed Mike Feeny an oblong of pasteboard. Mr. Feeny stoked with the Gulf and Mexican Transportation Line.
“Is it a ticket to a show?” he asked, removing his pipe.
“It is; go on in and enjoy yourself.” And the donor laughed. He was a pleasant-looking young fellow in evening dress, much like the young fellows Mr. Feeny sometimes saw on the awning-covered promenade deck.
“I'm beholden to you,” said he, being a person of manners when sober.
And pocketing his blackened pipe, he strode into the brilliant foyer of the Music Hall where the many lights fully disclosed him as a stoop-shouldered man of large muscular development, clothed in respectable shore-going garments recently purchased at a bargain of a Jewish gentleman on the river-front. A great shock of violently red hair formed an aureole about his long sad face, and the drooping ends of a blond mustache reached well back toward the freckled lobes of his ears. Mr. Feeny was strictly Irish, with the large potentialities of his race.
Now Mr. Feeny did not know that the International Congress of Economics had assembled there to give expert testimony, and charting a careful course in new shoes that pinched somewhat, he followed the trickle of well-dressed humanity into the building, where an usher showed him to an aisle seat in the last row of orchestra chairs. The orchestra was finishing a classic prelude. This first attracted Mr. Feeny's attention. It was displeasing to his musical tastes, and he remarked in a husky whisper to the gentleman on his left:
“Say, buddy, them fiddles is on the bum——”
“Hush!” said the gentleman, raising a warning finger.
“What for should I hush?” demanded Mr. Feeny. “Cheese it yourself!”
Feeling the incident closed, Mr. Feeny's glance shifted in the direction of the stage, where a number of men and women were seated in a wide half circle.
“'Tis a white-faced minstrel show! But, oh, heavens, ain't them girls the hard-featured huzzies?” thought Mr. Feeny.
A gentleman had risen and was making a few introductory remarks, the exact drift of which was lost on Mr. Feeny, but as he subsided, his place was taken by another gentleman who smilingly acknowledged the decorous ripple of applause his name had evoked. He commenced to speak and Mr. Feeny gave him his undivided attention.
“He's a grand flow of words. I wonder he don't choke,” was his mental comment.
Eventually he became aware that he was listening to an account of the decay of the cottage industries of France. Laboriously following the speaker he possessed himself of this concrete fact in segments and was moved to instant contempt of the speaker's conclusions. He had never noticed this decay in industry; his personal observations led him to believe that while jobs were sometimes hard to obtain, there was always plenty of work after you got them.
He prepared to quit that spot with expedition, since he felt that any more economics would constitute a surfeit. But as he slid from his chair, the first gentleman advanced again to the center of the stage, and Mr. Feeny caught a name he knew, the magical name of MacCandlish.
“I'll see the next turn,” he told himself, as amidst a perfect storm of applause a cheerful little man of a portly presence approached the footlights.
“It's him all right, I seen him onct through the bull's-eye window of the smoking-room afore the mate cussed me out forward,—and him worth his hundred millions!” Mr. Feeny breathed hard.
There was the hush of expectancy. The little man smiled kindly, tolerantly, while the lights seemed to cast a golden halo about him.
“It is my privilege to appear before this congress to speak on the uses of wealth,” he began in a soft purring voice. “And I only regret that I have not had the leisure in which to prepare a paper on so interesting a theme. However—a few thoughts occur to me——”
Mr. MacCandlish paused for a brief space, and then once more that kindly voice flowed across the footlights. “It has always been my conviction that those who have lacked the opportunity to examine the operations of wealth are frequently led astray. In the first place, riches are invariably the direct result of great economic services undertaken for the good of mankind!”—and thus launched, Mr. MacCandlish began to deal not with the dead and dry of theories and panaceas, but with the living actualities of trade and production.
“Ain't it grand what the likes of him does for the likes of me!” thought Mr. Feeny in a pause, and then again that soft voice opened up fresh regions for him.
He saw that what Mr. MacCandlish called the law of supply and demand—which he seemed to hold in the very tenderest regard—regulated things. He saw, too, that millionaires were only far-sighted individuals who had mastered the fact that what the world tossed aside to-day it would urgently need to-morrow, and garnered this waste, exacting a small margin of profit for the service.
“It's great!” Mr. Feeny told himself in a spent whisper. “I go somewhere as far as I can get, and raise things—no matter what—and then one of these here capitalists comes along and says: 'Feeny, me boy, how are your crops? I've one end of a thousand miles of railroad track at your front gate for to haul 'em away with.' No wonder they're well paid... 'tis right they should be,—I begrudge 'em nothing.”
“And after all”—it was Mr. MacCandlish speaking—“let us see what actual advantages the millionaire has, what does his money buy him in excess of what another may have? A little better shelter perhaps, more costly clothes, and his three meals a day!”
“'Tis true,” thought Mr. Feeny. “They'd bust if they et oftener, the way they feed; and as for clothes, I've seen their lady friends with far less on than a workin' man's wife'd think decent.”
Mr. Feeny had entered that building a rather heedless person who got drunk at every port of call, and who knew the inside of every calaboose in every flea-bitten center of civilization along the Caribbean, but he was to quit it a groping intellectualist with a germ lodged in his brain that was to fructify.
Mr. Feeny boarded the Orinoco of the Gulf and Mexican Transportation Line a chastened spirit. His last hours ashore, and the last of his wages, had been spent in a second-hand book-shop where he had acquired three books that, under various titles, dealt with the burning question of why the other fellow happens to have it all; a condition that is much older than political economy, just as language is older than grammar. Now the Orinoco, newly scraped and painted as to staterooms and gilded saloons where the eye and foot of Mr. Feeny never penetrated, had been chartered for a mid-winter cruise. Mr. Feeny heard this directly from one of his mates, Tom Murphy, who had it from an oiler, who had it from the second assistant engineer.
“It's a party of magnates,” he explained. “We're to have close on to a billion dollars aboard,—live weight, you understand. MacCandlish, the big railroad man—you've heard of him in the papers, Feeny—is one of the bunch, and they've got a Protestant bishop along,—but I don't think much of the likes of him!” In theory, at least, Mr. Murphy was an ardent churchman.
“For what are they usin' this old hooker?” demanded Feeny.
“They're goin' down to have a look at mines in Mexico,” said Murphy.
Mr. Feeny's first keen lust for wisdom survived the days of heavy toil that were his portion.
“But I've read hotter stuff,” he told himself one black night when he had been at sea ten days. He lay in his bunk and listened to the heavy seas break under the Orinoco's quarter. This was varied by mighty shivers when the racing screw fanned the air. And then suddenly it was as if tons and tons of water with the weight of lead, and driven by some vast power, had dropped on the Orinoco. Mr. Feeny sprang from his bunk. His first instinct was to rush for the deck, but thoughts of his mates in the stoke-hole sent him down the iron ladders that gave access to the vitals of the ship. As he gained the engine-room, the stokers burst out of their steel-walled pen, and after them came a rush of steam.
“All out?” roared Feeny.
“All out,” some one bellowed in return, and they began swarming up the ladders, Feeny leaping from round to round in advance. At last, spent and breathless, they issued into the black night.
Then came a second shock. A mighty sea lifted the Orinoco, three thousand tons of steel and wood, and tossed her like a cork against something that did not yield to the terrific impact. Mr. Feeny picked himself up from among his fellows.
“She's aground,—and no thanks to her!” he bawled.
“The crew's gone with the boats!” said some one in his ear.
“Is that you, Tom Murphy? Let's see what's come of the millionaires!”
Mr. Feeny, chastely garmented in an undershirt, and with a wind-blown halo of red hair, invaded the smoking-room. His mates, naked to the waist and grimy from their toil, but showing patches of white skin here and there where the waves had touched them, slouched at his heels. They found that Capital was just getting on its feet. MacCandlish, his ruddy cheeks the color of Carrara marble, was crawling out from under a table where he had been thrown; the others of his party were variously scattered about the room.
“Yer left,” said Feeny dispassionately. “Like us, yer left,—for the captain's gone with his crew. I'd recommend you lifted the large armchair off the stomach of the fat gentleman on the floor in the corner, he's breathing hard and quite purple,” and Mr. Feeny having thus delivered himself, withdrew with his mates.
“'Twas a shame for the captain to leave 'em. I hope he drowns...” said Feeny. “For duty's duty,—which reminds me that I'm the oldest man in the stoke-hole with more tons of coal to my credit than you'll equal even if you're given length of days, so I'll serve notice on ye, one and all,—I'm skipper!”
A wan light was lifting out of the east. It spread over the tossing seas and under the low ragged clouds that the gale sent hurrying into the south.
“There's land!” cried Mr. Feeny. Peering through the saline reek of the storm, they saw first a narrow spit of land, and here and there a stunted palmetto. Then as the light spread, higher ground, dense with a tropic growth; while beyond was the sea again, a long restless line of blue that backed against the horizon.
Mr. MacCandlish and his friends issued from the saloon and worked their way along the bulwark to the group of stokers.
“Well?” said the millionaire, and he addressed himself to Feeny.
“I'm thinking, sir, we'd best leave the old hooker when the sea ca'ms down a bit. Yonder's one of the life-boats hanging to its davits. Presently we'll h'ist it over the side and go ashore,” said Feeny.
“Then you don't think we are in any imminent peril?” asked Mr. MacCandlish.
“That feelin' you got comes mainly from an empty stomach,” said Mr. Feeny soothingly. “Here, Tom Murphy! you see if you can get these gentlemen their breakfast.” He himself went below and accumulated a pair of trousers.
Then under his immediate direction breakfast was served in the saloon, while the stokers browsed about the forward deck. With hot coffee life took on a changed aspect; also Mr. Feeny's assured manner and the close proximity of the island combined to contribute their measure of hope to the minds and hearts of all. It was mid-morning, however, before Mr. Feeny declared it was not too great a hazard to attempt a landing, and to his “Easy, Murphy... easy, I say, Tom Murphy... Easy!” in a rising crescendo, the boat dropped into the water.
“Hurroar!” cried Mr. Feeny.
“Well done, my men!—very well done, indeed!” said Mr. MacCandlish.
“Splendid, true lads,—all of them!” murmured the bishop.
“If you'll step lively, sir, we'll have you dry shod on terry-firmy in a jiffy!” said Feeny.
Within an hour after they had effected a landing it had been definitely ascertained that the island was not inhabited.
“That bein' the case,” said Mr. Feeny, “I think I would best put the b'ys to work fetchin' off supplies. What do you think, sir?”
“Oh, by all means.” It was Mr. MacCandlish who answered him. He and his friends were peacefully resting in the shade of a group of palms. “And will you have an eye to our personal belongings? Our trunks and hand-bags, I mean?”
“I'll have them fetched off immediate,” said Mr. Feeny.
All that afternoon he and his mates tugged at boxes and bales, or sweated at the oars. At dusk they stopped for a bite to eat, and to rig up a shelter of awnings for the millionaires.
“I'm doubtful about the weather,” Mr. Feeny explained as he came up from the boat, his shoulders piled high with mattresses. “And bein' as there's a full moon to-night, we'll just bring off what more of the stores we can.”
And at midnight when Mr. MacCandlish strolled out under the tropic moon for a last look about before turning in, he heard the voice of Feeny and the voices of Feeny's mates as they raged at their work. If the stokers slept that night, none of the millionaires could have told the space of time Mr. Feeny allotted to them for repose; for in the rosy dawn, when they ran down to the shore for a plunge in the surf, there midway between the wreck and the island was the life-boat piled high with stores. And all that day the work went on without pause. Only Murphy, with frying pan and coffee pot, snatched a few moments from his toil to minister to the comfort of the party under the awnings.
That night the wind slued round to the south and blew a gale; and when morning broke, the Orinoco had vanished finally from the sight of men.
“'Tis organization I'm teachin' the b'ys,” explained Mr. Feeny.
“Ah!... organization,” said Mr. MacCandlish.
“I've knowed about it since that night in New York when I heard you give 'em the talk in the theayter. It was great!”
“Were you there, Feeny?” asked MacCandlish.
This was the most subtle flattery he had ever known.
“Was I there? Drunk or sober, it was Mike Feeny's best day ashore! I been a understandin', reasonin' man ever since I listened to you. Supply and demand,—the problem of civilization, the problem of distribution,—bearin' this in mind I've divided the work. Tom Murphy's something of a cook, so I've app'inted him to the grub division, with Sullivan and the Portuguese to help. Corrigan, and Pete, the Swede, will bring our supplies up as we need 'em from the point where the salvage is stored. And I've put O'.ara to oysterin' for the good of the community. The other lads will work as comes handiest.”
“You are showing excellent judgment, my man,” said MacCandlish warmly.
Just at dusk that night, Mr. Feeny, in the presence of the stokers, hoisted a queer-looking flag down by the camp where he and his mates lived. Then standing with bared head beneath the fluttering pennant, he said:
“I pronounce these here the United States of Ireland!... In conference with Mister Murphy, I've decided on a Declaration of Independence and a Constitution which you can ask about if you're at all curious. If you ain't—I'll say this much for it,—we're opposed to anarchy, communism and socialism. We believe in the sacred rights of property—which is only another name for salvage. We believe, too, that the law of supply and demand is a great law, and well adapted for to take healthy root in this climate. We will now proceed to vote for Mike Feeny for president; Tom Murphy, police judge; Jack Corrigan, alderman; and Pete, the Swede, cop. 'Tis right the foreigners we have should hold some of the jobs. And now the elections bein' happily over, we'll just leave the public at large to discover what's been done for to make life brighter and easier for it.”
Knowing nothing of those vicissitudes through which the island was passing, the public slept soundly, and after a refreshing plunge in the sea was ready for breakfast. But no smiling Murphy appeared. No Sullivan and no Portuguese came to do its bidding. Presently Mr. Feeny hove in sight swinging along the sands.
“Hurroar!” he cried. “We're organized,—completely organized! The law of supply and demand had adjusted herself to her surroundings, and Mike Feeny's the student of political economy what's done it!”
“Eh? What's all this, Feeny? And what's become of that loafer Murphy?” demanded Mr. MacCandlish.
“You go down with me to the new hotel tent, the St. Murphy-Feeny we call it, to typify the spiritual as well as the spirituous needs of man. Cooks is scarce,—they perform a necessary and useful function. So do waiters,—pickin' up food in the kitchen and distributin' it under the pa'ms. I hope you have your wads handy, for Mister Murphy's now doin' a cash business. Says he: 'We're a prosperous people. Things is naturally high; they'll be higher yet, by the grace of Heaven!'.rdquo;
“What is this crazy drivel?” said MacCandlish petulantly.
“Why hasn't breakfast been served us?” inquired the bishop, with marked asperity of manner. Feeny had fallen in his esteem.
“I am telling you what Mister Murphy says down at the Murphy-Feeny. Says he: 'Them great staples, Scotch whisky and bottled beer, is scarce, while such luxuries as bread and tinned stuff is reasonably abundant but firm in price, with every indication of a sharp advance. But,' says he, 'the per capita wealth of this nation's phenomenal, and it's evenly distributed—or will be in the near future.'.rdquo;
Mr. MacCandlish's brother-in-law laughed aloud at this. Since his marriage to the millionaire's sister, prices had not greatly troubled him; the cost of living could soar or sink, it was all one, and this cheerful optimism had packed the fat on his ample frame. But Mr. MacCandlish's business associates were built on more meager lines, and were of sterner stuff. They had, when expedient, ordered shut-downs and lock-outs with entire composure; and they had not scorned to profit by short crops to boost the price of bread. But MacCandlish shook his head. Feeny continued:
“I've vaccinated this coal-heavin' bunch with this here political economy serum, and it's took with every mother's son of 'em. They were ignorant cusses five days back, but now they are practical men of affairs.”
“If this is a joke—” began Mr. MacCandlish.
“Do I look like I'd joke?” demanded Mr. Feeny. “It's system I'm telling you about,—the elimination of haphazard methods of distribution, for one thing. Now there's Corrigan, a husky lad with a good back and a strong pair of arms, him and Pete, the Swede, has become common carriers for the good of all,—you'll find none commoner anywhere. The Portuguese's buildin' a fence about the bananas and cocoanuts preparatory to puttin' a price on 'em. He's a taste for farmin' and is aimin' to develop the natural resources of this island. By the same token, Corrigan's gone into the poultry business with them turtles, and O'.ara's adopted the oyster beds. He says there's a future in oysters. He looks for a short crop, as he's got no gum boots and is timid about gettin' his feet wet,—but with prices fair, and constantly tendin' higher round the R in February.”
They had reached what Mr. Feeny called the hotel tent. The Orinoco's awnings had been used with admirable effect, and across the front of the canvas edifice was displayed a sign with letters two feet high, “St. Murphy-Feeny. European Plan.” The humor of the situation seemed lost on Mr. MacCandlish and his party; only the stout brother-in-law laughed, but a hostile glance from the eye of a friend caused him to repress his mirth.
“Mister Murphy's prepared to cater for you at them prices that has the indorsement of the Hotel Trust,” said Mr. Feeny.
“I denounce this as an iniquitous outrage! It's downright piracy!” sputtered Mr. MacCandlish, very red in the face.
“Easy,” said Mr. Feeny soothingly. “We made a fair split with the salvage, but feelin' that you'd prefer to have the whole of your personal belongin's we let 'em offset the ship's stores. Now do you be reasonable! Mr. Murphy says he'll have no rough-house for his. Any man that's white and willin' to behave himself can feed here. For such as can't conform to these simple rules, Pete, the Swede, will do the bouncin'. 'twill be one, two, three and out ye go to the inquest. I little thought, Mr. MacCandlish, sir, I'd have to p'int out to you of all men the fairness of this arrangement,” continued Mr. Feeny severely. “Ain't it highly necessary you should be fed and looked after? You can't well do that for yourself, havin' outgrowed the habit; and you're too busy playing poker, when you ain't eatin' and sleepin', to rightly know what you do need——”
“Bridge!” snapped Mr. MacCandlish.
“It's cards, ain't it? Well, the b'ys and me have agreed to take the job of caring for you off your hands. Having saved the salvage from the sea, we are minded to turn an honest penny with it, but owin' to the scarcity of the necessities of life and bein' aware that none know better than yourselves that the value of a thing depends on how hard it is to get, the St. Murphy-Feeny will adopt a scale of prices that will compare favorably with what you're used to in New York, at them places that's run for the millionaire trade. I've heard in the papers of your eatin' meals costin' twenty dollars a plate, and that sometimes your lady friends dissolves pearls and di'monds in the apple vinegar for to take away that cheap taste; we can't give you di'monds and pearls, nor yet 'lectric lights, but we can give you prices—” Mr. Feeny rested a long forefinger against the side of his nose. “Maybe we can go 'em one better—Mister Murphy, how is it with ham and eggs this day?”
“With two eggs?” asked Murphy.
“With two eggs,” said Mr. Feeny.
“To be served one person?”
“To be served one person. I hope you'd have too much self-respect for to let a customer split his order!” said Mr. Feeny.
“I would,—I'd bust his crust,” said Murphy. “Twenty dollars if the eggs is fried on one side, thirty dollars if they're fried on both sides. The extra labor makes this slight difference in price. I would mention, too, that the privilege of shakin' the pepper castor onced on your vittles is five dollars. Rates for more extended service on application.”
“Well, no one has to eat here unless he wants to,” said Mr. Feeny.
“You never said a truer word, Mike Feeny. They can go hungry if they like.”
Now finance is a big subject, but Mr. Feeny and his mates attacked it' with the same energy they would have attacked a bunker of coal, consequently prices performed miracles in the way of change; but as Mr. Feeny had prophesied, they constantly tended higher; also their prevalence was wide-spread; for that red-headed student of political economy resolutely fixed a value to each service and to every necessity.
At first MacCandlish had been disposed to negotiate checks, with the disingenuous intention of later stopping payment on them, but Feeny held out firmly for cash.
“When that's all gone, we'll take over your paper,” he said. “I'm thinkin' of starting a bank for to accommodate it; but as long as your money lasts we'll just keep on doin' a nice cash business.”
And MacCandlish submitted, but with a very bad grace, to what he regarded as the iniquitous exactions of the stokers. Always before when prices had been high, he had directly benefited; indeed, high prices and good times had been synonymous terms with him.
It was an added strain that the castaways were his guests. Under the circumstances it required all that decision of character for which he was rightly famous to suggest that they stop eating. But he pointed out that if they did this, there must come inevitable collapse to Feeny's elaborate commercial system; it was merely a matter of principle, he explained; and early one morning he led his friends to the far end of the island, where they would be remote from temptation and the allurements of the St. Murphy-Feeny.
“We'll presently bring those scoundrels to their senses,” he said. “We'll freeze 'em out and dictate our own terms.”
“I think you've managed this all wrong!” said his brother-in-law gloomily.
“How so?” snapped the great man.
“I'd have started the boycott after breakfast. If we must starve for a principle, I for one should prefer not to do it on an empty stomach. I've always regarded breakfast as a most important meal—the keystone of the day, as it were. No, certainly I should not think of beginning to go hungry until after I had breakfasted,—it's an awful handicap!”
The bishop spoke dreamily of lunch. He made it clear that he rather sided with the brother-inlaw. He admitted that he had frequently gone without lunch; it could be managed where one had anticipated such a contingency—but breakfast and dinner—the good man sighed deeply.
“You'll probably have an opportunity to try going without both,” said MacCandlish tartly.
The bishop groaned outright at this, and fell to gathering wild flowers for his herbarium. He wandered farther and farther afield in his quest. After a time the brother-in-law observed that he had disappeared along the sands. A gleam of quiet intelligence flashed from his eyes. He rose languidly from the fallen log on which he had been sitting and sauntered off without so much as a glance at MacCandlish.
“Where are you going?” demanded MacCandlish sharply.
“I am going to look for the bishop,” said his brother-in-law with dignity, and he, too, vanished along the sands.
The sun soared higher and higher above the palms and burned splendidly in the blue western arch of the heavens. MacCandlish, watching its flight, reflected grimly but with satisfaction that he had shepherded his little flock safely past the luncheon hour. Presently one of the castaways expressed great anxiety concerning the bishop, and declared his purpose of going immediately in search of him. Two others of the party were quickened to sympathetic interest in this project and announced their willingness to share in it.
The sun sank toward the heaving restless blue of the ocean. In distant peaceful centers of life, happy millionaires were beginning to think of dinner. Realizing this, Mr. MacCandlish experienced a poignant moment, and felt his Spartan fortitude go from him. He turned to speak to one of his friends, and discovered that he was entirely alone. He glanced warily about him, and then stole off through the jungle in the direction of the St. Murphy-Feeny.
He was not wholly surprised when he found that his friends had preceded him thither. They were clustered sadly about Mr. Feeny, who was explaining that the St. Murphy-Feeny was temporarily closed to the public.
“They've gone on a strike, the b'ys have. Capital's in the kitchen and labor's out under the pa'ms, both full of principle and strong drink. It's a private matter between the two, only it's my belief you'll get no dinner this day. 'Compromise,' says I to Murphy. 'Compromise—nothin'.' says Murphy to me. 'I'll teach them dogs they can't run my business,—it's me private affair.' 'Think of your public,' says I. 'The public be damned!' says he. And there you are! It's the conflict of two opposin' ideas,—as they say in one of me books. Just like it is when the trolley's tied up and you have to walk five miles to get home.”
Mr. Feeny sighed. “I'm thinkin' Mister Murphy will have to h'ist his prices to make good this day's loss. 'Tis wonderful how easy political economy is to learn when you put your mind to it... but dinner's got a black eye.”
“What's the row about, Feeny?” asked Mr. MacCandlish. Hunger tempered the visible manifestations of his indignation, but a hard steely glitter lurked in the corners of his eyes. It boded ill for Mr. Feeny when they left that island.
“You upset the delicate balance holdin' supply and demand steady on their jobs, when you quit eatin' this mornin', Mr. MacCandlish. It immejiately provoked hard feelin's between Mister Murphy of the Hotel Trust and Mr. Sullivan and the Portuguese of the Labor Combine. As I've just been explainin' to your friends,—I hate these strikes,—there's the loss in wages to labor, and the cripplin' effect on capital. The Portuguese and Mister O'.ara of the Oyster Trust are figuring up what it's cost them, and Mister Corrigan of the Poultry Trust is hoppin' mad. Eggs is a natural breakfast food, he says, and he's the heaviest loser. They tell me, too, that he so far forgot himself as to put his foot in the Swede's face, closin' one eye and giving his nose a strong list to starboard. Just why he done so I ain't rightly learned, but it must have been along of feelin' peevish about the outlook for the poultry business. You see, I can do nothing,—and, anyhow, I'm thinkin' of foundin' a library where you can go for to improve your minds.... 'The Feeny Foundation,—Established by Michael Feeny, 1910. A University of the People, endowed by Michael Feeny.' Can you think where the name could be introduced again without seemin' a mere repetition? Mister Murphy's decided to have a 'Ospital for his. 'What's a Captain of Industry without his little fad?' says he. 'Vittles may cost a trifle more, but I'll have my 'Ospital,' he says.”
Mr. MacCandlish had forsaken the group that clustered about Feeny, and stolen to the back door of the St. Murphy-Feeny with burglarious intent; but he heard the voices of men within and the clink of glasses, and turned mournfully away. As he hid so his glance fell on Mister Murphy's garbage can. In that instant hunger overcame him. He snatched up the can and fled with it. He had almost reached a sheltering growth of palms when Feeny caught sight of him and raised the alarm.
Mr. MacCandlish's Marathon was soon run, for as he bounded into the bush he heard Feeny close at his heels, and a second later the stoker's muscular hand seized him by the collar of his coat.
“No violence!” panted the bishop, as, purplefaced, he gained a place at Feeny's side.
Mr. Feeny surveyed the millionaire with a glance of scornful pity.
“I little thought that you'd be the first to ignore the sacred rights of property, Mr. Mac-Candlish, sir,” he said. “'Tis no excuse that you're hungry. What's moral on a full stomach remains moral on a empty stomach. The eternal principles of right and wrong ain't made to fit the shape of a man's belly,—and the likes of you... the friend of presidents and kings... to swipe a garbage can!” concluded Feeny, but more in sorrow than in anger.
In the golden dawn a week later, a rapturous shout from Mr. MacCandlish called his friends from their tent. He was standing on the beach, frozen into a tense and rigid attitude.
“Look!” he gasped, pointing.
There, anchored off the end of the island, was a small and dingy-looking steamer, but the sight of it gladdened the hearts of the castaways. Pajama clad, they cavorted along the sands, whooping gleefully. Then, as they rounded a wooded point, they came on the stokers. Near at hand a ship's boat was beached, and two barelegged sailors were hunting turtle eggs; while a third stranger was engaged in earnest conversation with Feeny. Mr. MacCandlish swore.
“My dear friend...,” admonished the bishop, greatly shocked.
“It's an English tramp—the Nairn,” said Feeny pleasantly, as he turned toward them. “We sighted her along afore day and h'isted signals. This gentleman's her skipper. He was bound for Para, but he's taken a fresh charter and'll land us in New York inside of two weeks, barring the risk of the high seas and the acts of Providence—No, no, Mr. MacCandlish,” as the millionaire edged toward the Nairn's skipper, “a bargain's a bargain,—and the contract's signed. The ship's already under charter. But you'll find Mike Feeny always ready for to do business when he sees a chance to turn an honest dollar. I'm as willin' to speculate in transportation as in vittles. The Nairn ain't a Cunarder,—far from it,—but she'll land you in New York at two thousand a head; which gives us a nice profit.”
Two hours later the Nairn was steaming north, and Feeny was watching the island as it merged with the blue obscurity of sky and sea; while from the after deck Mr. MacCandlish cast menacing glances in his direction. It was evident that his feelings toward that self-taught political economist were unbenevolent in the extreme. Somewhere about him was concealed much cash, and those many, many checks, which he intended to recover when they reached New York and he could invoke the aid of the law.
Now Mr. Feeny cherished no illusions on this point; and one night, as the Nairn was steaming up the Jersey coast, he called his mates about him.
“I misdoubt me philantrophic friend, Mr. Mac-Candlish. He's showin' a peevish spirit, I'm thinkin'. After all, he's no real political economist, but just a cheap skate who's played a sure thing so long he's got no sportin' blood left. If we put them bits of paper in at the bank for to take our money out, we'll get pinched instead,—he told me as much.”
“What might you have it in your mind to suggest, Mister Feeny?” asked Mr. Corrigan.
“Go to some tall buildin' on Broadway, and have a talk with one of them big lawyers.”
Thus it came about that as Mr. Hargrew, whose specialty was corporation law, was glancing over his mail the next morning, a low-voiced clerk informed him that one Feeny earnestly desired speech with him.
“He's Irish, and has a couple of men with him. It looks like the executive council of some labor union,” the clerk added.
“Show them in,” said the lawyer.
“Mornin',” said Mr. Feeny.
“Good morning,” said the lawyer.
“Feeny's me name, and I'm a retired Captain of Industry from the United States of Ireland. If you've read the mornin' papers you've seen how that other great Captain of Industry, Mr. MacCandlish, and a party of friends was picked up off an island in the Gulf of Mexico.”
The lawyer nodded.
“Yes, I've read about that,” he said.
“We was the Orinoco's coal heavers. It's us that saved the lives of them babes of millionaires. We stood by them when the sailors had quit the ship, we salvaged the wreck, and fed and tended 'em. We done all the hard work, and organized a government, and made that island so homelike you couldn't have told it from New York. Everything was legal, and I ask you if the rise in the price of staples wasn't a natural rise, owin' to the law of supply and demand?”
The lawyer laughed and shook his head. “Wait!” said Mr. Feeny. “I'll say nothin' of the trouble it was to care for 'em, nor the spirit they showed,—how Mr. MacCandlish was caught escapin' into the pa'ms with a can from the back door of the St. Murphy-Feeny, where Mister Murphy of the Hotel Trust chucked his broken vittles—you might call it garbage and not misname it. When he was captured and fetched back penitent, I said to him: 'Mr. MacCandlish, I never thought you'd be one of the first to ignore the sacred rights of property,' and what he answered would be a case for libel if I had the mind to push it. Now, if stealin' isn't stealin', what is it?” The lawyer appeared to consider.
“I got a roll of their checks as big round as a strong man's arm, and I'm lookin' for a way to get 'em cashed without gettin' pinched meself,” said Mr. Feeny.
“And you wish me to arrange this if possible?” said the lawyer, smiling. “I am not sure I can, but if you like you may leave those checks with me and I'll see what I can do; wait a moment until I run them over, and give you an acknowledgment.” When he had done so, he looked up into Mr. Feeny's long sad face and whistled softly. Then he looked again at the bundle of checks and again at Mr. Feeny, who seemed to understand.
“We was a prosperous people,” he said.
“You were, indeed. Is this all, Mr. Feeny?”
“There was some cash... all they had, I remember to have heard them say,” answered Mr. Feeny.
“You may come this afternoon somewhere about four.”
And that afternoon when Mr. Feeny, punctual to the second, presented himself with Mr. Corrigan and Mr. Murphy, the first thing his sad eyes saw was a neat pile of bills on the corner of Mr. Hargrew's desk.
“The full amount is here, Mr. Feeny,” said the lawyer. “That incident of the garbage can was an important point in the adjustment of your claim. Yours must have been a profoundly interesting social experiment.”
“I dunno as I should call it that,” said Mr. Feeny modestly. “For it's my opinion there's nothin' easier than political economy. The mistake most people makes is in havin' the demands instead of the supply,” and Mr. Feeny permitted himself to smile.
ALL THAT A MAN HATH
I
THE pen slipped from Philip's fingers and unheeded rolled across the table, while with a sigh of weariness he abandoned himself to idleness. Resting his elbows upon the table, he sunk his chin into the palms of his hands and gazed listlessly out of the window on the street below. The cold gray light of the dull October afternoon was almost at an end; already the street-lamps were beginning to flare forth redly in bold relief against the gathering gloom of the coming night.
To Philip it was a dispiriting and cheerless prospect, heightened by the winter's first chill breath. He had seen it all so often; if he could only see the last of it. Each year brought back those same dull days, with their leaden skies to fit into his worst mood of despair and longing and unfulfillment. He felt himself starved in mind and experience. He was conscious always of a fierce desire for something different—that broader life to which he could not go, and which would not come to him.
*Written at the age of 20.
Slowly his eyes came back to the table and a settled seriousness stole into them as he looked at the manuscript lying upon it.
“I fancy it will be a go this time,” he thought, “but”—a bit sadly—“I have thought that so many times, and somehow I am just where I was in the start. No nearer success, no nearer anything—except perhaps the end of my hope and faith in myself.”
He had risen and now stood looking down at the table with its litter of paper, pens and letters... and rising from the midst of the disorder—a mountain of hope—the pile of manuscript. It had meant days and weeks of labor: days when he had striven with enthusiasm for its completion; days, too, that had been given up to the savage denying of his mistrust and doubt. Through these and his varying moods he had toiled, and at last his task was approaching its end.
Turning, Philip left the room and descended to the narrow hall below. Here it was already quite dark. He fumbled about until he found his hat and overcoat, and after getting into them made his way back through the parlor and sitting-room to the dining-room where his mother was arranging the supper table.
“Oh, it is you, Philip,” she said, glancing up from her work. “I heard you in the hall and thought it must be the girls returning.”
Mrs. Southard was a woman of fifty with a strong placid face that had taken comparatively few lines. Her dress was of the simplest black, and severely plain. It had been black ever since Philip could remember, for his father had died when he was a baby.
While Philip was conscious that his small world had changed much in the years that marked the limits of his memory, his mother was still precisely the same as he recalled her, returning to his first vague impression of people and things. She was not and had never been an intellectual woman perhaps, but to him she stood for that which was most steadfast and purposeful. Nor was she hard with all her splendid strength. Her judgments were infinitely more generous than those of most women.
“You are not going out, Philip?” his mother asked, observing that he was ready for the street. “It's almost supper-time.”
“I won't keep you waiting, mother; I am just going down-town to post some letters.”
“Yes, dear, but do be here for supper.”
“I shall be.”
He turned back into the sitting-room, intending to leave the house by the side door. His mother followed him, and on the threshold he faced her again.
“What is it?” he asked, “anything you want from down-town?”
“No, dear, only I haven't told you, and I wish to now. I expect Anson home to-night. He will remain over Sunday. Do be nice to him.”
She spoke appealingly, for Philip's face darkened at the news.
“Am I not always nice to him? I mean to be for your sake.”
“Yes, but you seem so far apart, and you are brothers.”
“Oh, it's all right, mother, and we get along peaceably enough, considering how we hate each other. There, dear, you can't reconcile the utterly unreconcilable, so don't spend your precious strength in trying to.”
And Philip, closing the door after him, went down the steps and into the street. “So,” he muttered, “Anson will be here to-morrow and I shall have to endure his presence for at least a part of one penitential day.”
The one cordial emotion that the brothers shared in common was hatred one for the other. As children they had eased this rancor by a frequent exchange of blows, but now, unhappily for their peace of mind, they were past that sort of thing.
The street Philip was following took him straight to the center of the town and into the midst of Saturday's crowd. It was such a gathering as one might see in almost any country town on the last day of the week: self-conscious and uncomfortable, in ugly ill-fitting “best clothes”. The business of the day was over, and the crowd paraded up and down the main street, or back and forth across the Square. Philip pushed his way into it with assertive elbows. He crossed the squalid Square with its soldier's monument and its few stunted trees that stubbornly declined to grow and as stubbornly refused to die. From the Square he turned into a side street that led past the post-office. Here he posted his letters and paused in front of the building, undecided where next to go. As he stood there a man who had been leaning against an iron railing that surrounded an area way left his position and slouched up to Philip's side. The latter scanned the shabby figure with some uncertainty, then he said: “Oh, it's you, Lester?”—and held out his hand. His greeting was so lacking in cordiality, however, that Lester ignored the proffered hand.
“If you prefer to be alone,” he growled, “why don't you say so?”
Where they stood the lamplight fell upon his face—the face of a lad of twenty-two or three—stupid and sullen and debased. But Philip saw a look of such abject loneliness in his eyes that he placed his hand on the boy's shoulder: “Come on, Lester,” he said, and together they went down the street and away from the town. “What are you doing?” Philip asked presently.
“What I have always done—nothing.”
“When one hasn't anything else to do it's about the most agreeable of all occupations,” Philip observed. He noticed that his companion's unsteady gait indicated a recent debauch, but this did not prejudice him since he attributed all moral delinquencies to a lack of sense, and so readily condoned them on the grounds of inferior judgment.
A boyish friendship, almost forgotten, was all they had in common. Philip searched his mind for some topic of conversation that might interest his companion, but finally gave it up and they trudged along in silence.
They reached the outskirts of the town in this manner and Philip was about to turn back.
“Let's go on to the end of the road,” said Lester with sudden interest. “It isn't far,” he added, for his companion hesitated.
“Oh, all right, only I hope you don't take this walk often, Lester,” Philip said with a laugh, for the road ended at the graveyard.
Five minutes later and they were standing before the cemetery gates. The pale light of the October moon fell among the naked trees, while the dead leaves rustled in the wind. There was the ghostly white of tombstone and monument and the dismal black of contrasting pine trees. Philip leaned against the fence and surveyed it all critically. He owned that he was grateful to Lester for having brought him there. It gave him a distinct sensation.
“I am rather set against graveyards as a rule, but this is nice and curious and lonely,” he said. Lester did not answer him and Philip continued: “I haven't been out here in years. I guess not since we buried Mr. Benedict. Do you remember when we buried Mr. Benedict, Lester? I recall it as one of the most gratifying events of my childhood. I got a whole day from school in honor of the affair.” Philip raised himself on tiptoe and peered over the fence.
Lester paid no heed to Philip nor to what he was saying. He leaned silent and sullen against a tree that stood by the path, and gazed off into the frosty distance in the direction of the town. Out of this distance there floated a confusion of sounds—harmonized and softened by time and place; while through it all, clinging to the heavy atmosphere, drifted the odor of burning leaves and the musty scent of dying vegetation. There was a touch of sad regret in the night as though something that had been beautiful was ended. The boy felt this in its kinship to the ruin he had wrought in his own life.
“You are no doubt wondering why I spoke to you,” he said at last.
Philip nodded his head: “You know, Lester, we haven't had much to do with each other in some while.”
“I want to talk with you.”
“Well, go ahead, for it has just occurred to me that I promised to be home in time for supper.”
Lester turned a pair of bloodshot eyes full on Philip and asked: “You think I have been a fool, don't you?”
Philip shifted his feet uneasily. He felt that truth played such an insignificant part in the exercise of civility.
“You think I have been a fool?” Lester repeated.
“Before I answer that I'd like to know why you ask. You see the reason that prompts an inquiry is more than apt to determine its answer with me. I always wish to give satisfaction.”
“I ask because I'd like to know what you think of me. I don't suppose you have any sort of use for me. You don't know, Philip, how bad I have wanted some one to talk to for days and days—some one who is not like myself. And when I saw you to-night, I made up my mind that you should hear what I have to say. I can't keep it any longer—my head will burst if I do—can you listen?”
“Go ahead,—I'm listening.”
“For the most part it's nothing but what you know. It's just about my being such a fool. Yes, yes—and it's more than that!”
Philip saw that he was powerfully excited, that there were tears in the eyes of this boy, with a man's heavy burden of sin on his shoulders.
“You know about the money I got when I came of age; the money my father left me when he died. I—you know what a circus I made of myself. How every last cent of it is gone?”
“Yes, it's the gossip—and I hear it.”
Lester paced back and forth in front of Philip for a moment, and then leaned dejectedly against a tree.
“When you talked about how it used to be when we were boys, I could have choked you. I wish I were back to it, with these last years to live over!” He paused, trembling with excitement and sorrow. “When I got hold of my money you shook me off and would have nothing more to do with me.”
“I hadn't the time, Lester. I was busy and you were not. Our tastes had ceased to be the same, that was all. You should not bear me a grudge on that score.”
“I don't—I like you the better for it—you are the only fellow I can talk to. I know if you have any sympathy for me it rests on what I was when we tramped around the country in vacation time. How I wish I might go back to it and be a boy once more—once more!”
With a gesture of anguish he drew his hand across his face. Perhaps he sought to hide some part of the pain that was plainly stamped upon his woebegone visage. He had been so proud of his very misdeeds—and now——
“I have a lot of sympathy for you, Lester; just a lot, and I am sorry for you, too.”
“Thank you, Philip; I suppose I deserve all I get. I have been such a cad!—such a cub! I spent in two years and less what it took my father all his life to save. It will be a long while before I get hold of such a lump again, and if I have to make it, probably never. You know how, when I came of age, I was taken up by fellows much older than myself. My head was completely turned by my popularity—well, it lasted for a while then quite suddenly I found myself with empty pockets and no friends. People discovered all at once that I was shockingly immoral. They might have known it all along if they had cared to. I never made any bones about it. I was no better and no worse than those I went with. Now I am an outcast. The fellows who helped me on to this don't see me any more. I have the road to myself when I go down-town: everybody gets out of my way, but this is nothing—if it were no more than this I should not mind.”
“What else is it that's wrong?” said Philip, beginning to find the boy's confession interesting.
He was feeling a certain solicitude for the harvester of wild oats. They had been close friends once, and at not so very long ago either. Lester's plunge into folly had terminated their intimacy—the friendship had become irksome to both—for months they had scarcely exchanged more than greetings when they chanced to meet, and all in an instant Lester was sweeping him back to the years when they had been inseparable. With a palpable effort Lester continued:
“I've got all sorts of habits that are ruining me, as sure as I stand here—they are—and I can't stop. If I can get the money I am going away. Maybe it will be better then.”
“Come, come—brace up! There is no good in running away. I doubt if it will improve matters.”
“No, I can't stay.”
“I should if I were you. I should wait for a fitting opportunity and get even with all my former acquaintances in some dazzling fashion.”
Philip spoke cheerfully enough, but the tone of his voice was pleasantly suggestive of manslaughter as the method he would recommend.
“What do I care for the damned Judases!” Lester burst out. “All I want is to see the last of them.” Then suddenly he relapsed into sullenness; “I don't know that it's worth the trouble,” he said. “I might just as well finish it off and be done with the whole thing one time as another. I have thrown my money to the dogs and my chances with it. I may as well let the rest follow.”
“Nonsense! You don't mean what you're saying. Stop drinking and behave yourself and you'll discover that you have plenty of friends left. It won't benefit you to whine about it. That you have played the fool concerns you alone. You can't make the town responsible for what you've done yourself.”
Philip being the older, had always in a manner dominated Lester. Even in the days of their youth Lester had required a large amount of encouragement to keep within the wide limits of what Philip had marked off as the straight and narrow path in the field of his moral perceptions. For Philip had never aspired to any close companionship with the sterner virtues and he was consistent in advising no lines of conduct he was not himself willing to follow.
“Damn the town and everybody in it! There is not another such spot on the face of the earth.”
Evidently Lester did not find being an outcast agreeable, and he viewed himself as an injured individual, since his behavior had offended no one, until his riches were gone. Philip passed his hand through Lester's arm and led him down the path.
“You go home and when morning comes, bringing with it a clear head, think it over and arrive at the only sensible conclusion within your reach... to go it straight and steady.”
“Do you think I am soft to unburden myself to you like this?” Lester asked.
“My dear boy, I regard you as the opposite of soft.”
On their entering the town, Lester reverted to his former silence and Philip, commenting on the change, thought: “It was the enlivening associations of the tomb that made him talkative.” Neither spoke until they separated in front of Lester's home. Then Philip said: “Good night, don't worry, it won't help you in the least.”
“Good night.”
“If you should happen to want some one to discuss your affairs with, look me up. I shall always be at your service.”
“Thanks,—I will.”
Lester turned from the gate by which he had been standing and went toward the house. Philip followed him with a sympathetic glance.
“Poor boy,” he thought, “he's in hard luck, and though there is no one to blame but himself, it doesn't make it easier to bear.”
Then he called aloud: “Good night. I'll expect to see you soon.”
Lester waved his hand as he paused in the sudden burst of light from the opened door. Then the door closed, and Philip stood alone, staring thoughtfully at the darkness where but a moment before the streaming light had been: “I am sorry for him—but, suppose he avails himself of the proffer of companionship I was rash enough to make and eats up hours and hours of my precious time—what's going to become of my work? This won't do. A wretched creature who has squandered his fortune in riotous living comes along, makes a brutal assault on my feelings, and I weakly succumb—amiable ass that I am!”
There never was a bridge Philip did not cross in advance of his coming to it—never a bridge he did not go back to and recross after he was once safely over. So he stood thinking of the hours he was no doubt destined to waste on the unhappy Lester. At last he went his way reproaching himself with the unwisdom of having displayed a tender and susceptible nature.
He reached home while still engaged in abusing himself; with his hand upon the knob he halted a moment before opening the door. He wished to put his faculties in a state of repose so that he could meet his brother pleasantly and with no outward sign that he desired to kick him. This generally demanded a previous arrangement with himself. Assured that it was accomplished, he pushed open the door. The sitting-room was empty, but the noise coming from the dining-room told him that the family was at supper. His mother, hearing him enter, called: “Is it you, Philip?”
“Yes, mother. I'm late. I really meant to be back long ago.” Then to Anson as he passed from one room to the other: “How are you, old fellow?”
Their mother's eye was upon them and the brothers exchanged greetings in a friendly enough fashion. Anson even declared himself as delighted to see Philip:—a gratuitous bit of lying for which the latter thanked him profusely as he took his seat. About the table was grouped the entire Southard family. Philip, his mother, Anson and the two girls—Katherine and Florence. The “inharmonious whole”—as Philip was wont to call them. Anson was the eldest—his brother's senior by five or six years and verging close on thirty—handsome, too, in his way, by all odds the most prepossessing member of the family. But his original advantages were somewhat marred by his unfortunate mannerisms, the result in part of his occupation—that of confidential clerk in the office of a manufacturing concern. His every act, serious or the reverse, was performed with a petty and aggravating secrecy. It was displayed in everything he did. He even ate in a confidential manner, seeming to tell a business secret to each mouthful he swallowed. Philip, stealing covert glances at him, decided that he had never seen him quite so abominable. Yet, it struck him for the first time that Anson was a disappointed man—the world had not yielded him all that he had been coached to think it would. He had been brought up in the belief that he was a marvel of human perfectibility. As a child, he had been so precocious in pursuit of the virtues, great and small, that much had been predicted of him. Now when the glamour of youthful goodness was changing into the fixity of a shining light, he was held to be a model worthy of prayerful emulation by all right-minded people—and so he was. If he had been stuffed with straw, he could not have been freer from flesh-begotten sin.
Despite this he was a disappointed man. He had been such a remarkable boy that when he reached maturity he was in much the same unhappy plight as a little Alexander with no more worlds to conquer. That which had been so astonishing in the child, that uncanny goodness that caused elderly females to throw up their hands at the mere mention of his name and launch forth in praise of him, excited no especial comment in the man. It never occurred to him that he had been nourished on thin air. His whole education was such a mistake—such an injustice—How could any one thrive beneath the load of useless rectitude he had set out to carry like a fool,—mainly because it placed him in the ranks of other highly proper monstrosities.
Philip, slowly eating his supper, came to a realization of this and something not unlike pity stole into his heart.
It was such a remote chance, so removed from the realm of the possible that Anson would ever succeed in distinguishing himself more than he had done, and what would become of him?
As he speculated on the outcome, the two girls and Anson talked back and forth across the table, and he stopped thinking to listen.
It was the usual discussion of ways and means they carried on. This bill to be met—its fellow to be evaded until the end of the month. The evidences of a not over-lovely existence, but hard and precarious—close to the ragged edge of want. The much spent on the worthless shams—the little on the solid comforts of a good living.
“As if any one is deceived or thinks us richer than we are,” Philip thought. “We are more or less like our neighbors and they estimate our income to the last penny, just as we do theirs.” There was something so hopeless about the aspect life took on, something so perilously near to the perpetual grind of downright poverty, that it made him revolt and he burst out angrily: “Why, in heaven's name, don't you find some more cheerful subject to discuss! Must it forever be debts and bills, as if there was only the one purpose in living—to squirm through somehow until the end of the month!”
“I guess,” Katherine, the elder of the girls, said, her eyes snapping viciously, “that some one has to think of such matters, though I am sure no one wants to; and Anson is here so seldom and he is the——”
“Katherine!” Her mother spoke sharply, warning her not to finish the sentence.
Philip looked down at his plate and bit his lips. He knew what his sister would have said had their mother not interfered—that Anson was the family's mainstay—but her mother's warning stopped her.
It was by no means a loving family, nor was there any special graciousness in their intercourse. Philip barely tolerated his sisters. Katherine was undeniably mean and spiteful. To her natural tendencies she had added an exceedingly bigoted habit of thought which she referred to as “her faith”.
Its acquirement, if she was to be credited with telling the truth, had cost her many sleepless nights and great self-sacrifice. It was exercised chiefly in a rabid criticism of her species in which she recently delighted.
Florence was rather better in sweetness of temper and disposition, but to hear her talk was maddening torture to him. She had all a woman's misplaced and indiscriminate adjectives. Everything was “grand” to her, from hot pop-corn to a clap of thunder.
The connecting link holding the four together was Mrs. Southard, whose force of will kept them united after love and affection had ceased to exist.
The first strong emotion they had known had been hate, one for the other. They were so different in every quality of soul and body; they saw and were on the opposite side of every conceivable question. But one thing they had in common, an admirable tenacity, which rendered them insensible to either courtesy or reason where their prejudices were at stake.
The home, such as it was, existed only by grace of Mrs. Southard's strength of character. For while their mutual dislike reached a degree of bitterness hard to comprehend, they all loved her, each in his or her own way.
“What detained you, Philip?” his mother asked when Katherine was restored to composure.
“I took a walk with Lester Royal.”
“I don't think him a very good person to be seen with,” Katherine interposed. She felt bound to raise a disturbance on moral grounds.
“Don't you?—why not?” Then as a happy after thought: “There are certain people who should be restrained from thinking.”
Katherine ignored his remark and returned to the charge.
“What sort of a reputation has he, I should like to know! But of course you are superior to a trifle like that.”
“I fancy it's what it should be.”
“You know very well he has no reputation at all. But I suppose you don't mind—you are so liberal.”
“Then I am sure there is nothing wrong with it since it doesn't exist.”
“It does exist and is most unsavory!”
“Well, even an unsavory reputation is a decided improvement on no reputation at all.”
“I don't think——” Katherine began.
“I am glad you don't, Kate; it was never intended you should,” Philip made haste to say.
At this point Florence took up the cudgels against Philip:
“I should think you would have been ashamed to let people see you with him—he's simply horrid!”