Armorer ran his sharp eye over the buildings of the Lossing Art Furniture Manufacturing Company, from the ugly square brick box that was the nucleus—the egg, so to speak—from which the great concern had been hatched, to the handsome new structures with their great arched windows and red mortar. "Pretty property, very pretty property," thought Armorer; "wonder if that story Marston tells is true!" The story was to the effect that a few weeks before his last sickness the older Lossing had taken his son to look at the buildings, and said, "Harry, this will all be yours before long. It is a comfort to me to think that every workman I have is the better, not the worse, off for my owning it; there's no blood or dirt on my money; and I leave it to you to keep it clean and to take care of the men as well as the business."
"Now, wasn't he a d—— fool!" said Armorer, cheerfully, taking out his note-book to mark.
"See abt road M—D—"
And he went in. Harry greeted him with exceeding cordiality and a fine blush. Armorer explained that he had come to speak to him about the proposed street-car ordinances; he (Armorer) always liked to deal with principals and without formality; now, couldn't they come, representing the city and the company, to some satisfactory compromise? Thereupon he plunged into the statistics of the earnings and expenses of the road (with the aid of his note-book), and made the absolute necessity of retrenchment plain. Meanwhile, as he talked he studied the attentive listener before him; and Harry, on his part, made quite as good use of his eyes. Armorer saw a tall, athletic, fair young man, very carefully, almost foppishly dressed, with bright, steady blue eyes and a firm chin, but a smile under his mustache like a child's; it was so sunny and so quick. Harry saw a neat little figure in a perfectly fitting gray check travelling suit, with a rose in the buttonhole of the coat lapel. Armorer wore no jewellery except a gold ring on the little finger of his right hand, from which he had taken the glove the better to write. Harry knew that it was his dead wife's wedding-ring; and noticed it with a little moving of the heart. The face that he saw was pale but not sickly, delicate and keen. A silky brown mustache shot with gray and a Van-dyke beard hid either the strength or the weakness of mouth and chin. He looked at Harry with almond-shaped, pensive dark eyes, so like the eyes that had shone on Harry's waking and sleeping dreams for months that the young fellow felt his heart rise again. Armorer ended by asking Harry (in his most winning manner) to help him pull the ordinance out of the fire. "It would be," he said, impressively, "a favor he should not forget!"
"And you must know, Mr. Armorer," said Harry, in a dismal tone at which the president chuckled within, "that there is no man whose favor I would do so much to win!"
"Well, here's your chance!" said Armorer.
Harry swung round in his chair, his clinched fists on his knee. He was frowning with eagerness, and his eyes were like blue steel.
"See here, Mr. Armorer," said he, "I am frank with you. I want to please you, because I want to ask you to let me marry your daughter. But I CAN'T please you, because I am mayor of this town, and I don't dare to let you dismiss the conductors. I don't DARE, that's the point. We have had four children killed on this road since electricity was put in."
"We have had forty killed on one street railway I know; what of it? Do you want to give up electricity because it kills children?"
"No, but look here! the conductors lessen the risk. A lady I know, only yesterday, had a little boy going from the kindergarten home, nice little fellow only five years old——"
"She ought to have sent a nurse with a child five years old, a baby!" cried Armorer, warmly.
"That lady," answered Harry, quietly, "goes without any servant at all in order to keep her two children at the kindergarten; and the boy's elder sister was ill at home. The boy got on the car, and when he got off at the crossing above his house, he started to run across; the other train-car was coming, the little fellow didn't notice, and ran to cross; he stumbled and fell right in the path of the coming car!"
"Where was the conductor? He didn't seem much good!"
"They had left off the conductor on that line."
"Well, did they run over the boy? Why haven't I been informed of the accident?"
"There was no accident. A man on the front platform saw the boy fall, made a flying leap off the moving car, fell, but scrambled up and pulled the boy off the track. It was sickening; I thought we were both gone!"
"Oh, you were the man?"
"I was the man; and don't you see, Mr. Armorer, why I feel strongly on the subject? If the conductor had been on, there wouldn't have been any occasion for any accident."
"Well, sir, you may be assured that we will take precautions against any such accidents. It is more for our interest than anyone's to guard against them. And I have explained to you the necessity of cutting down our expense list."
"That is just it, you think you have to risk our lives to cut down expenses; but we get all the risk and none of the benefits. I can't see my way clear to helping you, sir; I wish I could."
"Then there is nothing more to say, Mr. Lossing," said Armorer, coldly. "I'm sorry a mere sentiment that has no real foundation should stand in the way of our arranging a deal that would be for the advantage of both the city and our road." He rose.
Harry rose also, but lifted his hand to arrest the financier. "Pardon me, there is something else; I wouldn't mention it, but I hear you are going to leave to-morrow and go abroad with—Miss Armorer. I am conscious I haven't introduced myself very favorably, by refusing you a favor when I want to ask the greatest one possible; but I hope, sir, you will not think the less of a man because he is not willing to sacrifice the interests of the people who trust him, to please ANYONE. I—I hope you will not object to my asking Miss Armorer to marry me," concluded Harry, very hot and shaky, and forgetting the beginning of his sentences before he came to the end.
"Does my daughter love you, do I understand, Mr. Lossing?"
"I don't know, sir. I wish I did."
"Well, Mr. Lossing," said Armorer, wishing that something in the young man's confusion would not remind him of the awful moment when he asked old Forrester for his Jenny, "I am afraid I can do nothing for you. If you have too nice a conscience to oblige me, I am afraid it will be too nice to let you get on in the world. Good-morning."
"Stop a minute," said Harry; "if it is only my ability to get on in the world that is the trouble, I think———"
"It is your love for my daughter," said Armorer; "if you don't love her enough to give up a sentimental notion for her, to win her, I don't see but you must lose her, I bid you good-morning, sir."
"Not quite yet, sir"—Harry jumped before the door; "you give me the alternative of being what I call dishonorable or losing the woman I love!" He pronounced the last word with a little effort and his lips closed sharply as his teeth shut under them. "Well, I decline the alternative. I shall try to do my duty and get the wife I want, BOTH."
"Well, you give me fair warning, don't you?" said Armorer.
Harry held out his hand, saying, "I am sorry that I detained you. I didn't mean to be rude." There was something boyish and simple about the action and the tone, and Armorer laughed. As Harry attended him through the outer office to the door, he complimented the shops.
"Miss Armorer and Mrs. Ellis have promised to give me the pleasure of showing them to them this afternoon," said Harry; "can't I show them and part of our city to you, also? It has changed a good deal since you left it."
The remark threw Armorer off his balance; for a rejected suitor this young man certainly kept an even mind. But he had all the helplessness of the average American with regard to his daughter's amusements. The humor in the situation took him; and it cannot be denied that he began to have a vivid curiosity about Harry. In less time than it takes to read it, his mind had swung round the circle of these various points of view, and he had blandly accepted Harry's invitation. But he mopped a warm and furrowed brow, outside, and drew a prodigious sigh as he opened the note-book in his hand and
crossed out, "See L." "That young fellow ain't all conscience," said he, "not by a long shot."
He found Mrs. Ellis very apologetic about the Lossing engagement. It was made through the telephone; Esther had been anxious to have her father meet Lossing; Lossing was to drive them there, and later show Mr. Armorer the town.
"Mr. Lossing is a very clever young man, very," said Armorer, gravely, as he went out to smoke his cigar after luncheon. He wished he had stayed, however, when he returned to find that a visitor had called, and that this visitor was the mother of the little boy that Harry Lossing had saved from the car. The two women gave him the accident in full, and were lavish of harrowing detail, including the mother's feelings. "So you see, 'Raish," urged Mrs. Ellis, timidly, "there is some reason for opposition to the ordinance."
Esther's cheeks were red and her eyes shone, but she had not spoken. Her father put his arm around her waist and kissed her hair. "And what did you say, Essie," he asked, gently, "to all the criticisms?"
"I told her I thought you would find some way to protect the children even if the conductors were taken off; you didn't enjoy the slaughter of children any more than anyone else."
"I guess we can fix it. Here is your young man."
Harry drove a pair of spirited horses. He drove well, and looked both handsome and happy.
"Did you know that lady—the mother of the boy that wasn't run over—was coming to see my sister?" said Armorer, on the way.
"I did," said Harry, "I sent her; I thought she could explain the reason why I shall have to oppose the bill, better than I."
Armorer made no reply.
At the shops he kept his eye on the young man. Harry seemed to know most of his workmen, and had a nod or a word for all the older men. He stopped several moments to talk with one old German who complained of everything, but looked after Harry with a smile, nodding his head. "That man, Lieders, is our best workman; you can't get any better work in the country," said he. "I want you to see an armoire that he has carved, it is up in our exhibition room."
Armorer said, "You seem to get on very well with your working people, Mr. Lossing."
"I think we generally get on well with them, and they do well themselves, in these Western towns. For one thing, we haven't much organization to fight, and for another thing, the individual workman has a better chance to rise. That man Lieders, whom you saw, is worth a good many thousand dollars; my father invested his savings for him."
"You are one of the philanthropists, aren't you, Mr. Lossing, who are trying to elevate the laboring classes?"
"Not a bit of it, sir. I shall never try to elevate the laboring classes; it is too big a contract. But I try as hard as I know how to have every man who has worked for Harry Lossing the better for it. I don't concern myself with any other laboring men."
Just then a murmur of exclamations came from Mrs. Ellis and Esther, whom the superintendent was piloting through the shops. "Oh, no, it is too heavy; oh, don't do it, Mr. Cardigan!" "Oh, we can see it perfectly well from here! PLEASE don't, you will break yourself somewhere!" Mrs. Ellis shrieked this; but the shrieks turned to a murmur of admiration as a huge carved sideboard came bobbing and wobbling, like an intoxicated piece of furniture in a haunted house, toward the two gentlewomen. Immediately, a short but powerfully built man, whose red face beamed above his dusty shoulders like a full moon with a mustache, emerged, and waved his hand at the sideboard.
"I could tackle the two of them, begging your pardon, ladies."
"That's Cardigan," explained Harry, "Miss Armorer may have told you about him. Oh, SHUEY!"
Cardigan approached and was presented. He brought both his heels together and bowed solemnly, bending his head at the same time.
"Pleased to meet you, sir," said Shuey. Then he assumed an attitude of military attention.
"Take us up in the elevator, will you, Shuey?" said Harry. "Step in, Mr. Armorer, please, we will go and see the reproductions of the antique; we have a room upstairs."
Mr. Armorer stepped in, Shuey following; and then, before Harry could enter it, the elevator shot upward and—stuck!
"What's the matter?" cried Armorer.
Shuey was tugging at the wire rope. He called, in tones that seemed to come from a panting chest: "Take a pull at it yourself, sir! Can you move it?"
Armorer grasped the rope viciously; Shuey was on the seat pulling from above. "We're stuck, sir, fast!"
"Can't you get down either?"
"Divil a bit, saving your presence, sir. Do ye think like the water-works could be busted?"
"Can't you make somebody hear?" panted Armorer.
"Well, you see there's a deal of noise of the machinery," said Shuey, scratching his chin with a thoughtful air, "and they expect we've gone up!"
"Best try, anyhow. This infernal machine may take a notion to drop!" said Armorer.
"And that's true, too," acquiesced Shuey. Forthwith he did lift up his voice in a loud wailing: "OH—H, Jimmy! OH—H, Jimmy Ryan!"
Jimmy might have been in Chicago for any response he made; though Armorer shouted with Shuey; and at every pause the whir of the machinery mocked the shouters. Indescribable moans and gurgles, with a continuous malignant hiss, floated up to them from the rebel steam below, as from a volcano considering eruption. "They'll be bound to need the elevator some time, if they don't need US, and that's one comfort!" said Shuey, philosophically.
"Don't you think if we pulled on her we could get her up to the next floor, by degrees? Now then!"
Armorer gave a dash and Shuey let out his muscles in a giant tug. The elevator responded by an astonishing leap that carried them past three or four floors!
"Stop her! stop her!" bawled Shuey; but in spite of Armorer's pulling himself purple in the face, the elevator did not stop until it bumped with a crash against the joists of the roof.
"Well, do you suppose we're stuck HERE?" growled Armorer.
"Well, sir, I'll try. Say, don't be exerting yourself violent. It strikes me she's for all the world like the wimmen,—in exthremes, sir, in exthremes! And it wouldn't be noways so pleasant to go riproaring that gait down cellar! Slow and easy, sir, let me manage her. Hi! she's working."
In fact, by slow degrees and much puffing, Shuey got the erratic box to the next floor, where, disregarding Shuey's protestations that he could "make her mind," Mr. Armorer got out, and they left the elevator to its fate. It was a long way, through many rooms, downstairs. Shuey would have beguiled the way by describing the rooms, but Armorer was in a raging hurry and urged his guide over the ground. Once they were delayed by a bundle of stuff in front of a door; and after Shuey had laboriously rolled the great roll away, he made a misstep and tumbled over, rolling it back, to a tittering accompaniment from the sewing-girls in the room. But he picked himself up in perfect good temper and kicked the roll ten yards. "Girls is silly things," said the philosopher Shuey, "but being born that way it ain't to be expected otherwise!"
He had the friendly freedom of his class in the West. He praised Mrs. Ellis's gymnastics, and urged Armorer to stay over a morning train and see a "real pretty boxing match" between Mr. Lossing and himself.
"Oh, he boxes too, does he?" said Armorer.
"And why on earth would he groan-like?" wondered Shuey to himself. "He does that, sir," he continued aloud; "didn't Mrs. Ellis ever tell you about the time at the circus? She was there herself, with three children she borrowed and an unreasonable gyurl, with a terrible big screech in her and no sense. Yes, sir, Mr. Lossing he is mighty cliver with his hands! There come a yell of 'Lion loose! lion loose!' at that circus, just as the folks was all crowding out at the end of it, and them that had gone into the menagerie tent came a-tumbling and howling back, and them that was in the circus tent waiting for the concert (which never ain't worth waiting for, between you and me!) was a-scrambling off them seats, making a noise like thunder; and all fighting and pushing and bellowing to get out! I was there with my wife and making for the seats that the fools quit, so's to ge
t under and crawl out under the canvas, when I see Mrs. Ellis holding two of the children, and that fool girl let the other go and I grabbed it. 'Oh, save the baby! save one, anyhow,' cries my wife—the woman is a tinder-hearted crechure! And just then I seen an old lady tumble over on the benches, with her gray hair stringing out of her black bonnet. The crowd was WILD, hitting and screaming and not caring for anything, and I see a big jack of a man come plunging down right spang on that old lady! His foot was right in the air over her face! Lord, it turned me sick. I yelled. But that minnit I seen an arm shoot out and that fellow shot off as slick! it was Mr. Lossing. He parted that crowd, hitting right and left, and he got up to us and hauled a child from Mrs. Ellis and put it on the seats, all the while shouting: 'Keep your seats! it's all right! it's all over! stand back!' I turned and floored a feller that was too pressing, and hollered it was all right too. And some more people hollered too. You see, there is just a minnit at such times when it is a toss up whether folks will quiet down and begin to laugh, or get scared into wild beasts and crush and kill each other. And Mr. Lossing he caught the minnit! The circus folks came up and the police, and it was all over. WELL, just look here, sir; there's our folks coming out of the elevator!"
They were just landing; and Mrs. Ellis wanted to know where he had gone.
"We run away from ye, shure," said Shuey, grinning; and he related the adventure. Armorer fell back with Mrs. Ellis. "Did you stay with Esther every minute?" said he. Mrs. Ellis nodded. She opened her lips to speak, then closed them and walked ahead to Harry Lossing. Armorer looked—suspicion of a dozen kinds gnawing him and insinuating that the three all seemed agitated—from Harry to Esther, and then to Shuey. But he kept his thoughts to himself and was very agreeable the remainder of the afternoon.
He heard Harry tell Mrs. Ellis that the city council would meet that evening; before, however, Armorer could feel exultant he added, "but may I come late?"
"He is certainly the coolest beggar," Armorer snarled, "but he is sharp as a nigger's razor, confound him!"
Stories of a Western Town Page 12