CTOBER had returned, and a letter had come from my friend McCarthy, asking me to visit him. My sister had learned telegraphy at home, and could take and send well enough to do my work at the office. It was arranged, therefore, that she and my mother should close the Mill House and come to town for a week or two, so that she could take my place.
The hand-made gentleman had built his factory in the thriving town of Rushwater, on the Central Railroad. It took a long summer day to get there, for the engine was fed with wood, and we had now and then to load the tender with fuel, corded on the right of way, or drive cattle from the track or water the locomotive or mend a coupling, and had to wait at the junction for trains in equally bad luck.
Early in the evening I found my friend McCarthy at the leading hotel in Rushwater, where he boarded.
“Pleased to see you,” he said, with dignity, as he shook my hand. “Have you been to supper?”
“Yes,” I answered.
“Is there any kind of refreshment I can offer you?”
“Nothing except your company.”
He took me to the desk and introduced me as his friend, “Jacob Ezra Heron, Esq., a gentleman from St. Lawrence County.”
“Give Mr. Heron the best the house affords, and put it on my bill,” he added. I protested, whereupon he touched my arm and said: “You will find, sir, that nobody will take your money in this town. If you will walk with me, I will show you my factory.”
I asked for my friend Pearl, and McCarthy said that Pearl and Barker were in New York, and were coming to Rushwater in a day or two. The inventor had worked awhile in the shop, and planned a lot of machines which had hastened the process of manufacture. In June he had drawn his pay and left suddenly for parts unknown.
“I think that he went to the war,” said Mr. McCarthy; “but he never let on. Said he'd turn up here one of these days, and last week I got a long letter from the old man. Said he'd been sick, and was ready to come back to the shop if I wanted him. Of course, I said come on. We made our way through dark streets and stopped in front of a building—large for that day and country—on the river shore.
“There it is,” he remarked, as we gazed for half a moment at the dim outlines of his building. “I am the most extensive shipper of small freight on the railroad.”
We entered the building, and he led me to his office and lighted a lamp. It was a large room, elegantly furnished. The chairs and table were made of mahogany and a soft carpet covered the floor. A large portrait of Napoleon Bonaparte hung on the wall.
Those days the face and story of “The Little Corporal” were a power in the land, and not the most wholesome one, I have thought.
“This is grand,” was my remark.
“I am making money,” said the hand-made gentleman, “and I propose to look as prosperous as I am. Sal is now the smallest part of my business. I spend twenty thousand a year advertising. My harp has four strings and one tune. Here it is.”
The hand-made gentleman began to read from a newspaper as follows:
“Sal is willing; Sal can make the house shine; Sal is a worker—never cross and tired; the best and cheapest hired girl in the country. Cleans silver, glass, metal, and woodwork. Give Sal a chance.
“There are three of them: Sally, the Brick, who cleans knives, forks, pots, and kettles; Sal's Sister, a wonderful laundry soap; also Salome, a clover-scented soap for the toilet. You will find them in all groceries.”
“I began little—put it in a paper of five thousand circulation. I found that every dollar that I invested brought me four dollars and thirty-four and a half cents. The second ad. brought me four dollars and thirty-seven cents; the third four dollars and forty-one, and so it grew. I tried all the leading papers, and got the rate of profit and learned the exact value of repetition for each. The return increased as my goods travelled, and people began to talk about 'em. You see, I make something that the people want, and my first problem was to let them know it. That was easy. My next problem was to manufacture within a certain limit of cost. In that Pearl has helped. My next problem was to deliver the goods, and that is the greatest problem of all. The railroads are slow and unreliable. They have no more system than a carrier-pigeon. Y our freight is transferred until the boxes are worn out; it is side-tracked and lost and forgotten. You see, there are eleven railroads between here and Buffalo. They have been consolidated, but not harmonized. They are like eleven horses in the hands of a poor teamster; they don't pull together. They waste their strength. I complained to Mr. Dean Richmond.
“He said to me, 'We're doing our best, and if you want a better service you'll have to show us how to give it.'
“I gave him a few ideas, and he liked 'em, and what do you suppose happened?”
Mr. McCarthy paused, but I could only shake my head and await his revelation.
“Well, one day the manager called and said the Chairman of the Executive Committee would like to see me,” Mr. McCarthy went on. “I pulled up my check-rein a little and went to Albany. It surprised him to see how young I was.
“'Why,' said he, 'you're nothing but a boy!'
“'I'm twenty-three,' I said, 'but they count double. I've done two years' work in every one that I've lived.'
“He asked me to dinner; it was grand. I didn't dare eat much—just sat and talked and listened and saw how they behaved themselves at his table. I learnt a number of things.”
“What were they?”
“To keep my knife away from my face, for one thing,” he answered. “Then a gentleman eats very slowly while he indulges in conversation. He's got to be able to talk about Brignoli and Madame Piccolomini—ain't that a grand name?—and Mrs. Siddons and Lester Wallack, with a word once in a while about the Missouri Compromise. When he gets through he washes the tips of his fingers. One of them told a vulgar story, and it seemed to me that we needed a bath for our minds as well as for our fingers. The chairman liked me, I guess, for he offered me some of his stock at a low price, and said they wanted me on the directory. I went in, and now I'm looking into the whole railroad problem.”
He began to unroll a great map which he had been making, and which lay on a broad table. It was sixty feet long, and showed a section of the country some two hundred miles wide from Boston to Chicago.
“I won't bother you with details,” he 'said, “but I have a great plan. It will narrow this space between New York and Chicago. It will build up a chain of great cities. It will make a market for goods and quicken their delivery. It will furnish a model for the development of other parts of the republic.”
The eyes of the young man glowed with enthusiasm. Then he shook with laughter.
“That's pretty good for the boy with a wooden leg that you met on the road to Canaan, isn't it?” he asked. “You see, the hand-made gentleman is getting along. He's took his mind off himself—partly—and put it on to other things. I don't need so much looking after as I did. I can talk pretty well, and know how to conduct myself in any company. Ye see, practice makes perfect, and I've practised decency for a long time. It's like breathing. Of course, I might be better inside, but outside I'll do for the time being.”
“I'd like to hear more of your plan,” I suggested.
“It's this, in a nutshell,” he said: “I want to combine all the railroads between Boston, New York, and Chicago in one system. Now, if you're going from New York to Chicago, you change at Albany and stay all night; you change again at Syracuse and stay all night, and again at Buffalo, and so on. Of course, you can ride all night, but it wears you out. I want a better road-bed and heavier rails and lighter cars and bigger engines and more power to handle 'em, and a continuous trip. Why shouldn't we travel nights with comfort?”
The hand-made gentleman strode up and down the room and gestured like a man making a speech.
“Five men have twenty times the power of one. Did you ever think of that?” he asked. “When you put two and two together you get about sixteen, but they've got to be one before they can be sixteen. That suggests the value of combination.” He paused before me, and added: “Here's the trouble. The idea is bigger'n I am. There's only one man in the world who can carry it out.”
“Who is that?” I inquired.
“Vanderbilt,” said he. “There's the biggest man in the country. He's made twenty million dollars with his brain. Think of that! He's the Napoleon of this day.”
There came a rap at the door, and Mr. McCarthy shouted, “Come in!” and a young man entered with a large blank-book in his hand.
“Mr. Heron, this is Mr. Magillies, a graduate of the commercial college at Poughkeepsie, and a grand penman,” said the hand-made gentleman. “He takes down my letters for me, and writes 'em off and sees that they're worded proper. Would you like to hear me answer my correspondence?”
I assured him of my interest, and thereupon the hand-made gentleman dictated many letters with a look and tone of great dignity. Now and then he addressed some delinquent and unscrupulous debtor with great emphasis, and more than once he described the virtues of Sal and Sal's sisters and the clover-scented soap loudly and with gestures suited to the word, so that he reminded me of the picture in my reading-book of a Roman senator addressing the populace.
The young man left us late in the evening with his record of their work.
Then said the hand-made gentleman: “I must have somebody for that position who is more than a mere writing-machine. I want some gentleman who thinks as I do and will stand up for me like a brother. I want you!”
It took me by surprise, and I thanked him and expressed doubt of my fitness.
“I know you, and you know me,” he said. “I like you, Mr. Heron, and believe in you; and if you feel the same, let's pull together. I have some big things to do, and you can help me; and I'll double the pay you're getting.”
I was a rapid writer, and many had praised the neatness and legibility of my penmanship. Then, too, I was rather fond of the hand-made gentleman, and had a great faith in him. But how about my mother and sister and Jo, for both Heartsdale and Merrifield were a long way from Rushwater.
“I'd like to go to the war,” I answered, “if my mother will consent.”
“The ambition is meritorious,” said he. “There can be nothing nobler than the wish to serve your country, but I don't think it needs you. The war will be over in a few weeks. Then there are your mother and sister—don't they need you more than the country does?”
“I'm afraid they do.”
“Then you mustn't think of going. Your father gave his life in battle. I think your mother has given the country enough.”
I walked up and down the room thinking. “It's hard work,” said Mr. McCarthy. “I sit here until midnight sometimes pounding at the letters. But you'll have a chance to travel and meet men who amount to something, and we'll have a good time together.”
“It's only a matter of arranging my affairs,” I said to him. “There's my mother and sister.”
“Go home and see if you can get them to move here.”
He lighted a long cigar, and sat down with one foot on the desk. The hand-made gentleman had learned to smoke.
“There's another thing—I want to open my heart to you,” he said. “I haven't a brother or sister or friend that I can talk to about certain matters. The fact is, I'm in love and engaged to be married.”
He paused, and was smoking thoughtfully, as I asked, “To Miss Fame?”
“No; she didn't reciprocate; and maybe it's just as well. I am engaged to a talented actress by the name of Maud Isabel Manning.”
He paused again as if to note the effect of this impressive name, and continued: “She's from New York, and beautiful as a dream. Came here with a show, and one morning she walked into the office. Told me that she used my toilet soap, and wanted to see the factory. I showed her about, and fell in love with her. She's a wonder—grand clothes, and knows how to wear 'em; wonderful education, fine talker, sings like a bird, and can make the piano roar. I told her about my false leg and foot and my family—that's worse than a wooden leg—but she doesn't mind, and we're going to be married.”
I fear that I shared the prejudice of my Puritan fathers against the stage, and was a little taken aback and a bit conservative in my comment.
I think he felt it, for he blushed and began to argue, although a little off the point.
“I think every gentleman ought to marry. There's something about women that makes a man gentle. Old bachelors are about as ugly as a bear with a sore head. I want somebody to work for besides myself. I can't love myself well enough to pay for the struggle. I've got to have somebody who grows happy as I grow rich, or I wouldn't care for money, upon my word I wouldn't. Then the Bible says that men should increase and multiply and replenish the earth.”
I wished him all happiness, and tried to put his mind at ease.
“I am forgetting you in talking of myself—you will want to retire,” he said, and we closed the office and walked to the inn together.
Next morning some one rapped at my bedroom door. “Who's there?” I demanded.
“A friend and fellow-citizen from St. Lawrence County,” was the answer, and I knew it was Pearl.
I opened the door, and there stood my old friend in the familiar goggles and linen duster, but with his left sleeve empty and a new scar on the side of his face.
“Mr. Pearl!” I exclaimed; “what's happened to you?”
“Oh, I've just been trimmed up a little,” he said, with a smile, as he gave me his hand. “It's nothing. Every tree needs it once in a while. I had too much wood for my sap.”
“An accident?” I asked, with tears in my eyes.
“An accident, an' I'm tryin' to forget it,” said he. “How are the folks?”
And I saw clearly that he wished me to say no more of his misfortunes. Soon Mr. McCarthy came, and he and the Pearl went to the shop together.
FTER breakfast I found the handmade gentleman at his factory, and went with him into all its departments, and saw a hundred men and women at work.
“I want you to go and ride behind my trotter with me,” said Mr. McCarthy, presently. “Every gentleman has a trotter these days, and bets a little money on him once in a while.”
The hand-made gentleman lived at an inn not far from Saratoga, and one could not even enter it without getting a touch of the gay spirit of the summer capital.
As we opened the shop door a drunken wretch in dirty clothing sat on the porch. He rose, clinging to a column, and asked for a dollar.
“Well, uncle, back again, eh?” said the handmade gentleman. “No more to-day—no more to-day.”
He spoke in a kindly tone, and said to me, as he went on:
“I know it's a disgrace, but I can't help it; and maybe he can't. He's my uncle, and very fond o' me, after all. Followed me down here. Has a spree every little while, and spends all he has earned in a day or two. If I don't give him money he curses me, and goes about the place and runs me down, and does all he can to make me ashamed o' myself. Many a time I've felt like shooting him, but by-and-by I forgive the poor man and lift him out o' the gutter and buy him new clothes and set him to work again. And, do you know, he's been a great help to me, as ye might say? Lord Chesterfield says that a gentleman should forgive injuries, and I guess it's so. He's given me practice in the art of forgiving. It's done me good. I kind o' think, sometimes, that when you help another fellow to get on his feet you do more for yourself than ye do for him.”
His trotter, hitched to a light buggy, was waiting at the door of the inn, and we drove away.
“This is a daughter of one of the Morgans,” he said, as the mare began to show her stride. “They're breeding for less weight and more power and quicker action. It's a tendency of the times. Foot and wheel are beginning to move faster. Everybody is tired of going slow. Mr. Bonner says that he'll show us a horse by-and-by that can trot in 2.15.
“It's a funny thing,” he added, after a moment's pause; “my factory kind o' sets the pace for this town. It starts the day and ends it. My whistle sends every one to work, and tells 'em when to knock off, in and out o' the shop. When it sounds in the morning you'll see men who started a little late running to get to their jobs. It's brought new ideas and business methods and a quicker step into the old town.” The hand-made gentleman took me to my train soon after dinner. Pearl was there to see me off.
“I'm glad you're comin' here, Jake,” he said, as he shook my hand. “You've always been a great help to me.”
“I don't see how,” was my answer.
“You've helped me to live,” he said, with a sober look. “As soon as you get back you and McCarthy will go down and see Vanderbilt. I've got it all arranged. The medals helped me. It's the only time I ever used 'em. They landed me in the Commodore's office, and I had a talk with him straight from the shoulder. Told him if he went into the transatlantic ferry business he'd lose every dollar he had, as Collins had done. He wanted to know what made me think so, an' I told him that he couldn't compete with the English, who had been doing that job for centuries with cheaper labor than we could hire. I explained to him that the business was a growth and not a product; that one might as well try to compete with the forest by planting trees. He agreed with me.”
At Heartsdale I found my sister in love with her work, and had a talk with the superintendent in Montreal, who promised to retain her. That evening, as we sat by the fire at home, I got a view of myself that was quite new to me. For a time it filled me with bitterness, but taught me what I had to know, and set me forward in the race a little.
Report of my adventure on the back of the rope-walker had got to Heartsdale—to this day I know not how, although I suspected Bony. It had set idle tongues wagging. A letter to my sister, from one of her friends on a far side of the county, told how she had heard the story, and, of course, I confessed the truth. The harm it did lay in this: It singled me out and stood me up for scrutiny. Follies which would have been forgotten were enlarged and raked together and made to shine forth. The undertaker and the carver of epitaphs had marked me for execution, and, assisted by the Heartsdale Comet Band, had made hopeful progress. They had travelled far, and everywhere people had wished to know about me, and I had been well set off as a conceited, dare-devil sort of a ne'er-do-well who had been concerned in the smuggling business.
I began to understand why Colonel Busby thought so ill of me, and there was only one way to correct his opinion, and my mother made that clear. I must needs go to work and make a character for myself and show it in my conduct—as the hand-made gentleman had done. My way would not be quite like his, but I must be hand-made and upon honor, as he put it. The ready-made article had not stood the wear.
“Perhaps you had better put the pretty girl out of your head for a while,” said my mother. “You can keep her in your heart, and that will give you something to work for. But you mustn't give your brain to her. You've got to make a man of yourself, and you need your brain for your work.”
“Suppose she marries somebody else,” I suggested.
“Then you should not be sorry, because if she loves you she will wait for you.”
That seemed like rather cold philosophy. Its power over me grew as I thought of it, however, and by-and-by it began to have a sustaining force.
“I wish I could go to the war,” I remarked, with a sigh, for I longed to be a hero and show my courage, as my father had done.
“That's a wicked business,” said my mother, sadly. “I hoped that you would never want to go. I think it would be wise for you to go with Mr. McCarthy. He is fond of you and has good principles, and I presume it is best for you to leave this town; but I can't spare you for the war.”
I told them all about my visit to the handmade gentleman.
“Is he as homely as ever?” my sister asked.
“No, he has grown good-looking,” I answered. “He is going to be married.” And I told of his engagement.
“My land! I wouldn't marry him if he were the last man in the world!” Sarah exclaimed.
“Why?” was my query.
“He looked and talked so funny—just like a young old man. Then he was so afraid of me—hardly dared to look me in the face. I don't see how he had the courage to ask her.”
“I presume she furnished all the courage that was necessary. But you'd be surprised to see him. He's handsome, and can walk as well as anybody; and I believe he's going to be a great man.”
“I'm sure I wish him well.”
“Pearl says that he is a born leader—that the new spirit is in him. I think that girl is lucky.”
“I hope that you will stick to him,” said my mother. “You see I have a new motto on the wall.”
It occupied a prominent place above the mantel—a yard of wisdom in letters of red silk:
It was rather good counsel for a boy, and, in truth, I had begun to share the uneasiness which, beyond doubt, had inspired this gentle reproof.
“I'm glad you thought of that motto, for I want you to stick to me,” I suggested. “Mr. Pearl says that as soon as I get my hand in you should come and live with me, both of you.”
“Mr. Pearl is a mystery,” said my mother. “Sometimes I think I have seen him before, but I cannot place him. The goggles cover his eyes so, and I have heard his voice but once.”
I gathered all my clothing and treasures and packed them into my trunk, and when we were ready to go to bed my mother gave me the horruck.
“One night I found you asleep in your chair,” she said, “and the horruck lay beside you. I saw it was robbing you of rest, and so I put it away.”
“The horruck!” I exclaimed. “What can it mean?”
“Your teacher put the coin in your pocket that day before Christmas, years ago. It is one of a number of silver pieces that were marked by an old and kindly man who lived in Hearts-dale years ago. They taught his religion, and he used to slip them into the pockets of needy people, who wondered where they came from. We used to call them the ghost riddles.”
That night I solved the riddle of the horruck by writing down the alphabet and discarding x and choosing letters to the right and left of m, the middle letter. So I got this message:
Love is the key of heaven.
I love you.
It made me know that Jo loved me, and I went to bed happier than I had ever been.
It was my last night in the Mill House for many a long year. The cry of the wind in the chimney and the sound of the falling water put a new prayer in my heart and a solemn sense of the dearness of my old home, not to be lost in care and toil, in pleasures and palaces.
Next day I returned the horruck to Jo, so as to let her know, plainly, that I loved her also.
GOT to Rushwater late at night, and reported at eight next morning at the factory office. Mr. McCarthy had not arrived, and I went down to Pearl's shop in the y friend sat by a lathe. He rose and embraced me with his one arm. Near us a carpenter was working at a long bench. The Pearl put on an apron and began to heat up his forge.
“How are you getting along here?” I asked.
“I am surprised at my success,” he answered. “I have made myself the most hated man in Rushwater. I am abhorred, hissed at, despised. I deprive honest labor of its occupation and grind the faces o' the poor.”
“How is that?”
“Well, I have invented a machine that does the work of ten men, and does it better than they did. Now, the ten had to find other jobs, and they didn't like it. Did you ever pull a hen off her perch late in the evening? You know what a noise it makes—all the others get scairt an' begin to holler. Well, you pull a man off his perch and you get the same sort of a ruction. I happen to be the leg-grabber. I didn't mean to do any harm. The purpose o' the factory is to make the goods as cheap as possible, and I was employed to help solve the problem. I've got our wheels on the main shaft, and God's draft-horse is whirlin' 'em.”
He took me into the sub-cellar, where a rush of water struck the buckets of a turbine and made it shriek as it sped on its pivot, and the power of a hundred horses went up the shaft.
Soon a boy came down to find me, and said that Mr. McCarthy had arrived. I went to the office at once, and within half an hour had begun my new work. The hand-made gentleman had secured for me a copy of Isaac Pitman's treatise, and I spent all my leisure in the acquisition of “soundhand,” or shorthand, as we now call it. I enjoyed my work, and saw at once that I was likely to do some good in it. Mr. McCarthy wished me to spend a few months in a business college, as much in his interest as my own, he said to me, and in New York he made arrangements to that end.
“I want you to get the pace of the city,” he said to me, “and learn how to score up in proper style. There's a lot of very polished people down here. See how they dress and behave themselves morning, noon, and night. It will be a help to both of us.”
We went to the big city that week, I to begin my studies, and he to have a talk with the great Mr. Vanderbilt. The Pearl had said to the hand-made gentleman, when we were leaving Rush water:
“Don't let him scare you. He's as full o' power as my turbine; has a good deal of a whir to him. Likes resistance; so does every great force. Used to row a boat all day, an' every day. Fought the wind an' the tide. Stiffened his hands on the oar. Can't straighten 'em to this day. He's fought a thousand difficulties. He'll take you for another an' pitch into ye—like as not. Don't let him scare ye. If he jumps on ye, jump on him; he'll enjoy it, an' begin to respect ye. It's like puttin' a belt on the turbine—you'll take off a bit of his power an' ease him down.”
We passed through two offices on our way to that of the Commodore.
“Walk right in,” said a colored man, who sat near an open door, when Mr. McCarthy had claimed his right to an interview.
We entered, and saw a large, handsome man sitting by a desk on the farther side of a big room. He had a massive head, and white hair and side-whiskers—the latter neatly trimmed—and sat with legs crossed in a big arm-chair. The elegance of his attire impressed me, especially the waistcoat of figured silk, the jewel in his shirt-front, and the spotless white choker. He looked up over his glasses. The skin began to wrinkle a bit around his dark eyes.
“Well, what is it, sonny?” he demanded.
“My name is James Henry McCarthy, of Rush-water, New York,” said my friend.
“I don't care what your name is; tell me your business,” said Commodore Vanderbilt—for he it was—and he spoke sternly.
“It's a railroad project, referred to by my friend, H. M. Pearl, Esq., in his talk with you.”
“My God!” said Mr. Vanderbilt, as he flung a paper on the desk before him. “I've got projects enough now. Will you please let me alone?”
“No, I will not,” said the hand-made gentleman, decisively. “I've travelled over two hundred miles to keep an appointment with you, and I insist that you show me proper respect.”
The Commodore changed his tone. “Young man,” said he, “I won't talk with you; I can't talk with you. Come to my house to-night. I'll see you at half-past seven.”
“Thank you, sir,” said the hand-made gentleman as we left the room.
Mr. McCarthy's feelings had been hurt and his confidence began to leave him. He had gone there with a good deal of honest pride in his heart—perhaps, even, a little too much—and I think he would rather I had not seen his embarrassment.
“I am surprised,” he said to me as we were going down the stairs together. “He cannot have read the letters of Lord Chesterfield.”
“Hasn't had time, probably,” I answered.
Our inn was near, and no word passed between us after that until we got to our room. My friend strode the floor in silence, and tears stood in his eyes for a moment. I felt for him, but could think of nothing to say.
“I think one gentleman ought to be careful of the feelings of another,” said Mr. McCarthy. “He made me feel like a dog.”
“He was out of sorts,” I remarked.
“I have learned this,” said the hand-made gentleman: “business is war. I see it clearer every day. If you want respect you've got to fight for it.”
We recovered our composure by-and-by, and spent the rest of the day among tradesmen extending the acquaintance of Sal and the sisters of Sal.
At half-past seven we presented ourselves at the house of the Commodore at 10 Washington Square.
Mr. McCarthy carried his map under his arm, and it was about half the diameter of a piece of stove-pipe.
A servant showed us into a large parlor. We could see Mr. Vanderbilt in a room back of it, sitting by a table in his shirt-sleeves reading a newspaper. We observed him fearfully as he took our cards from the tray—plain written cards they were, save that Mr. McCarthy's had a bird on it, drawn by his secretary. He flung his paper aside and rose—a splendid figure of a man, full chest, broad shoulders, and the six feet of him straight as an arrow—and came slowly into the parlor where we sat.
“Well, sonny, what can I do for you?” he asked.
“I have a map to show you,” said Mr. McCarthy.
“Where is it?” was the sharp query of the Commodore.
My friend began to unroll his map, and said, “Here it is.”
The steamboat king was impatient. A sharp exclamation shot from his lips, like the toot of a warning whistle, and he added: “It's bigger'n a bill-board. Unfurl it on the floor there. Run it down into the back parlor.”
In a moment Mr. McCarthy had spread his map and begun talking.
“Here's Albany,” he said, pointing with his cane. “Here's eleven railroads reaching west to Buffalo, called the Central System. Here are others that go on to Chicago and others that run east to Boston. Here is the steamer line from New York to Albany, closed half the year. Here are two lines of railroad that run north from New York to the capital—the Harlem and the Hudson River. The Harlem road can be bought for less than six cents on the dollar. I want you to buy it.”
“What the devil do I want of it?” the Commodore demanded.
“It's the key o' the future, and you need it,” said McCarthy. “It's the beginning of a great plan. First buy the Harlem, and then buy the Hudson River road. And do you not see that all these railroads that run east and west up here can't reach the metropolis without your help—especially in the winter when the steamers are out of business? Did you ever see a small boy lead a big bull? It's surprising how easy he does it when he has a ring in the bull's nose.”
I remembered the bull at Baker's, and felt the truth of his remark.
The Commodore was now leaning over the map and looking down upon it.
“These two railroads will give you command of the whole situation,” my friend continued, “and that's important.”
Mr. McCarthy paused for half a moment.
“Go on, go on,” said the Commodore; “let's have your argument.”
“You can whip 'em all into one system, from New York and Boston to Chicago. You can give us a continuous trip between these cities. You can run freight to any point in the system without rehandling on through cars, to pay each railroad according to the mileage it supplies. You would make it possible for me to sell my goods in Chicago and other distant cities and deliver 'em on time. You would quicken the pace of business. Every factory on the line would double its output in two years. It means growth and a new republic and a string of great cities, and a stream of traffic flowing east and west like a river. There are not so many tons in the St. Lawrence as your wheels would carry, and they would roll on like the waterfloods, never stopping. They would enrich you beyond the dreams of avarice.”
The hand-made gentleman saw the truth clearly, and flashed the torch of his enthusiasm on all sides of it. He shook his cane over the map; his eyes glowed like a prophet's. After all this time, I can but dimly suggest the quaint dignity and the singular power of his appeal. I felt it, and have tried to remember all, since these years have complimented his insight by making history of his dreams. I recall how his ardor thrilled me, and how the Commodore rose from his knee and looked at him.
“Young man,” he said, “the dreams of avarice do not bother me. I have money enough.”
The tone of his voice made it clear to me, even, that Mr. McCarthy's talk had impressed him.
“True,” said the hand-made gentleman; “but you have power, composed of brains, money, and public confidence. You're the only man who can do this thing, and it ought to be done. You must do it for the sake of the country. Patriotism, and not avarice, will inspire you.”
The Commodore smiled.
“Boy, how old are you?” he queried. “Twenty-three years; but they count double.”
“They tell me you've made some money?”
“I'm getting along very well.”
“Sit down a minute.”
A man about thirty years of age had just entered the room. Mr. Vanderbilt turned to him.
“I want you to come over and keep my books,” he said, brusquely.
“But, uncle, I'm not a bookkeeper,” said the young man. “I don't know how.”
“You know enough to take the money that comes in?”
“Yes.”
“And add up the expenses?”
“Yes.”
“And give me the difference?”
“Yes.”
“Well, that's all I want, and any d——— fool could do that. You may begin Monday. Goodnight.”
The thoughts of the Commodore went straight to their mark and his words followed them.
He put his right hand on the arm of Mr. McCarthy. I saw then how the grip of the oar had stiffened his fingers.
“Young man, I'll think it over,” said he. “You go home and don't talk too much. What ye don't say will never do any harm. I make it a rule of my life never to talk of anything I'm going to do until I've done it.”
We left the house and walked slowly in the direction of Broadway.
“He'll do it,” said the hand-made gentleman. “He caught my point on the fly. His brain is quick as lightning, and he had the whole thing in a second. He let me go on to make sure that I knew what I was talking about.”
“Suppose he does what you want him to, how are you going to make by it?” I asked.
“I'll trust him for that,” said Mr. McCarthy. “However, I can take care o' myself. As soon as he makes a move I'll buy stock, that's what I'll do. James Henry McCarthy will not be left behind.” After a moment's reflection, he added: “I'm surprised at one thing: he swears like a trooper. And did you see that he came out in a pair of carpet slippers?”
“Yes,” I answered.
“He would have shocked Lord Chesterfield,”
Mr. McCarthy went on. “A gentleman ought to be more careful.” He stopped presently and gave me his hand, saying: “I'm going to see Miss Manning; she's the dearest girl in all the world. Leaves on a long tour to-morrow, and I shall spend a week with her on the road. It doesn't seem right for her to be travelling unattended. I want her to be a lady. Perhaps I shall hire some woman to go with her.”