The Banker and the Bear

by Henry Kitchell Webste

  Ever since the death of Victor Haselridge, John Bagsbury had kept a sort of track of his sister, and when she died, he wrote Dick a let- ter, asking her to come and live with him and Alice ; but Dick had determined, first of all, to go to college, so she declined the invitation. She had not been what one would call a stu- dious child, but she was keenly interested in things, and she learned easily, and she had contrived in one way or another to pick up enough information to satisfy the entrance re- quirement of the college she had chosen. It was a wise decision, for in college she was busy, she was popular, and that, as it did not turn her head, was good for her, and best of all, she found a few intimate friends.

  The first of these was Edith Dorlin : they were fast friends before thefall term was well begun, and as a result Dick went home with her to spend the Thanksgiving recess. In those few days Mrs. Dorlin fell quite in love with her, as did also Edith’s brother Jack, who was four years older than his sister and in his junior year at college. The Dorlins made what was almost a home for her during her four college years, and as the time for graduation grew near, Edith and her mother both besought Dick to make her home with them permanently. Jack also asked her to come, but his invitation in- cluded marrying him, and Dick, though she was really very fond of him, did not love him in the least, so in spite of their combined entreaties she had announced her intention of going abroad for a year or two ; whereupon Jack, averring that he was not cut out for a lawyer, and that he was tired of getting his essays on things in general back from the magazines, decided that he ought to do something with his music and began planning to go to Berlin to study.

  But the Bagsburys had not entirely lost sight of Dick, and on her commencement day John appeared and repeated his invitation that she

  come and live with them, or at least make them a long visit. Somewhat to Dick’s surprise she accepted; partly because the idea of having any sort of a home appealed to her, and partly because, in spite of her prejudice against him, she liked John, with his strong, alert way, and his bluntness, and his cautious keeping within the fact ; and then this was the strongest rea- son of all his mouth and something in the in- flection of his voice reminded her of her mother.

  Jack Dorlin’s disgust when he heard of Dick’s decision quite outran his power of expression.

  “Don’t you think yourself that it’s mildly insane ? “ he asked her.

  “ I’m not going there to live,” said Dick ; “ at least, I don’t know that I am. Not unless they like me awfully well.”

  “ But just try to think a minute,” he went on, trying hard to preserve an argumentative man- ner ; “ here are we who have known you all your life “

  She smiled, and he exclaimed impatiently.

  “ Oh, don’t be so literal ! I have known you always, and can’t you “

  He broke off short. Then without giving

  36 The Banker and the Bear

  her time to say the words that were on her lips, he added quickly :

  “ I know, Dick. I know. Don’t tell me again. I didn’t mean to speak that way ; it got away from me. But I can’t see the sense of your going away off to live with some people you’ve never seen. Mother and Edith and I have known you four years, and we do like you awfully well; there’s no ‘unless’ about it.”

  “ Don’t try to argue any more, Jack,” she said. “ I’m going to visit the Bagsburys. I don’t know how long I’ll stay; it may be a month, and it may be a year, and I may find a home there. But I shall miss you all dread- fully, and you must write me lots of letters. Tell me all about your life in Berlin, and how your music is going and everything.”

  “ I rather doubt my getting to Berlin this year,” he said cautiously.

  He would tell her nothing more definite, but she was not really surprised when, before she had been a week with the Bagsburys, hecame to call on her. He was as unconcerned about it as though he had lived all his life just around the corner.

  He was so jolly and companionable, so much

  Dick Haselridge 37

  the old comrade and so little the despairing lover that, try as she might, Dick could not be sorry that he was there. He would tell her nothing about his plans save that he meant to stay around for a while. He said he found he could think better when he was within a mile of where she lived, and no entreaties could drive him away.

  That was in July, and now, at Christmas, the situation was unchanged. With any other man it would have been intolerable, but he was dif- ferent. Save on rare occasions, he was always just as on that first evening, the same lazy, amused, round-faced, good-hearted Jack. And she was forced to admit to herself that she was glad he had persisted in disobeying her.

  He was easily the best friend she had. To no one else could she show her thoughts just as they came, without stopping first to look at them and see if they held together. With no one else did she feel beyond the possibility of misunderstanding. He was oh, he was the best of good comrades.

  Ah, Dick! your eight minutes have slipped away and another eight, and still you are not dressed for dinner.

  CHAPTER III

  THE WILL

  IN quite another quarter of the city from the crowded thoroughfare where we first saw Dick, is another street, very different, but quite as interesting. It is narrow and dark ; it does not celebrate the holiday time with gayly dressed shop windows ; between the two black ranks of buildings that front on it, it is quite empty, save for alert policemen who patrol it, and the storm which has became ill natured as it whips angrily around corners. You may search as you will about this great city, but you will hardly find a spot more dismal, more chilling, more to be shunned on this jolly Christmas Eve. There is no doubt a dreariness of poverty, but the dreariness of wealth is worse ; hidden, guarded, vaulted wealth, like that which lies behind these thick stone walls. For this street is the commercial heart of a great commercial city. And by day all about in the city and the 38

  country, in the great shops and office buildings and in the country store, men buy and sell, lend and borrow, without money, only with a faith in the wealth this cheerless street contains. Should it be destroyed, should the faith in it be shaken but for a day, unopenedshutters would bear the bills of sheriffs’ sales, and cold ashes would lie under the boilers of great factories. At night the heart stops beat- ing, the crowds go away, and that which has been sent throbbing through the arteries of trade comes back to lie safely in thick steel chambers, where barred doors bear cunning locks that never sleep, but tick watchfully till morning.

  Upon this street, squeezed in uncomfortably by two of the modern towers of Babel which our civilization seems to have made necessary, stands a thick, squat building of an older architecture, which might look rather imposing, did not its sky-scraping neighbors dwarf it to a mere notch between them. And in front of this building, which is, as you may have guessed, the home of Bagsbury and Company’s Savings Bank, there drew up, at about eight o’clock on this Christ- mas Eve, a carriage. A footman clambered numbly from the box, opened the door, and helped old Mr. Bagsbury to extricate himself from his nest of rugs and furs ; then he almost carried the old man across the wind-swept side- walk and up the stairs, transferring him at the door to the care of Thomas Jones, the watch- man.

  “ Call for me in about an hour, James. I shall have Ah, that gale is bitter ! I shall have finished by that time.”

  Thomas Jones led him to the little private office in the corner, lighted the gas, and then went out, closing the door behind him. Left alone, the old man dropped into a chair and sat there shivering for several minutes ; his coat was still buttoned tightly round him, and his heavily gloved hands were crammed into the pockets. The fire of life was burning very low in old John Bagsbury, and he knew it ; an in- stinct, which he did not even try to reason with, often took him, even on wild nights like this, to the badly lighted room that was his only real home.

  Finally he rose and walked to his private safe, and, after fumbling with stiff fingers over the combination, opened i
t and took out a small iron box which he carried to the desk. Then, sitting down before it, he drew off his fur gloves and took out the neat piles of memo- randa and the papers which it contained. There was nothing to be done to them, for his affairs had, for years, been perfectly ordered ; but he read over the carefully listed securities as though he expected to find some mistake. The lists were long, for he was rich ; not so im- moderately rich, it is true, as he would have been, had there been a generous admixture of daring with his great shrewdness and caution, but still rich enough to count his fortune by the millions.

  After a while, he laid the other papers back in the box, moved it a little to one side to make room, spread a large document out flat on the desk and bent over it, rubbing his cramped old hands together between his knees, and smiling faintly. Yes, there could be no doubt about it ; it was sane, it was clear, it was inviolable ; it would hold safe the thing he loved best, from rash hands that would recklessly destroy it.

  In a small, snug room in young John Bags- bury’s house, by courtesy a library, though one modest case held all its books, John and Dick Haselridge were talking, or, rather, John was talking, while Dick listened. They were on opposite sides of the big desk that occupied the middle of the room, John in the easy-chair, and Dick in the swivel chair that stood before the desk, where she could make little pencil sketches on the blotter. They were alone, for Martha, John’s thirteen-year-old daughter, had gone to bed long ago, and Alice, who always grew sleepy very soon after John began talk- ing shop, had followed her. It was by no means the first of the long talks John and Dick had had together, for he had not been slow to discover and delight in her swift comprehension and her honest appreciation of the turns and twists of his business. There was no affecta- tion in her display of interest, for the active side of life, the exercise of judgment and skill, appealed to her very strongly.

  But to-night the talk had taken another turn, and, somewhat to his own alarm, John found himself telling her about his gloomy boyhood, his disappointment in his father’s bank, and the ambition which had driven him out of it. His talk revealed to Dick more than he knew ; for between the words she could read how the still unfulfilled ambition was not dead, but stronger than ever; how the successes of all those years meant nothing to him, except as they hastened the time when he should have the policy of Bagsbury and Company’s Savings Bank in his own hands.

  If it was easy to talk to Dick, it was delight- ful to watch her as she listened. She had pushed aside the reading lamp, and with her hands was shading her eyes from its light ; but still he could see the quick frown which would draw down her brows when the meaning of one of his technicalities baffled her, and her nod of comprehension when she understood. There was no need for explanation now : he was tell- ing her of his first meeting with Sponley, and how the desire, aroused by the speculator’s sug- gestion that he leave his father’s bank, had grown until it was irresistible, and, finally, how he had told his father of his determination to go to work for Dawson.

  At the mention of Sponley’s name Dick had dropped her eyes, and the pencil resumed its play over the blotter; her dislike for the man was so strong that she was afraid of showing it to his friend. But whenJohn told her of his parting from his father, she looked up again.

  “ That must have been a terrible disappoint- ment to grandfather,” she said slowly.

  “ I never heard you call him that before.”

  “ I don’t believe I ever did ; I know I never have thought of him that way. And I never was truly sorry for him till just now.”

  “ Sorry for him ! “ John exclaimed.

  Dick nodded. “ Perhaps because it’s Christ- mas Eve,” she said.

  “ Do you suppose,” she asked a moment later, “that he’ll come over to-morrow? He always comes on Christmas, doesn’t he ? “

  “ Nearly always,” he answered. “ He gener- ally comes two or three times a year. But he’s getting pretty old now.”

  “ What an utterly lonely life he’s led all these years,” said Dick. “Think of it! I wonder “

  The sharp jangle of the telephone bell cut her short. John sprang up to answer it.

  “Yes. Who is this? Thomas Jones? Oh, yes at the bank What do you say ? Are you sure ? Have you a doctor there ? Yes, I’ll be over directly.”

  He turned to Dick, who had risen and was standing close beside him.

  “ I’ve got to go out for a while,” he said. “ There’s a man sick over at the bank.”

  “ Who is it ? “ she asked. “ Is it grandfather ? “

  John answered her, “ He’s over at our bank his bank. The watchman telephoned. He thinks he’s dead, but it may be only a faint. I’m going down there right away.”

  As he spoke, he turned back to the telephone ; his hand was on the bell crank when Dick said :

  “I’m going, too. You telephone for a car- riage, and I’ll be ready as soon as it comes.”

  “ You ! You mustn’t go. There’ll be nothing you can do.”

  “I want to very much,” she answered. “ Please take me.”

  With a nod of assent he rang the bell, and she hurried from the room.

  Their drive to the bank was a silent one, and though they went rapidly, it seemed a long time to Dick before they stopped in front of the dis- mal building in the narrow street. When they alighted, John led the way into the bank, picking his way about in the dimness with the confidence of perfect familiarity ; he knew that nothing had been changed in all the years.

  At the door of the private office John paused an instant, uncovered, and looked about on the well-known appointments of the little room before he dropped his gaze on the stark figure lying upon the worn old sofa. Then he walked across to it, and Dick followed him into the office. The two stood a minute looking down in silence on the figure of the old man ; then John turned and spoke to Thomas Jones, who had arisen from his chair in the corner when they came in.

  “You were right,” said John. “He is dead. Hasn’t the doctor come ? “

  “ No, sir. I sent Mr. Bagsbury’s carriage after him as directly as I found out what had happened, before I telephoned to you. He should be here by now.”

  “ Did he die here, on the sofa, I mean ? “ John asked.

  “ In his chair, sir. I heard a noise, and when I came in I found that he had fallen over on the desk; his head and arms were resting on those papers. I thought it might be just a faint, and carried him over here.”

  At the mention of the desk, John turned to it. There were two minutes of silence after Thomas Jones had finished speaking, and then they heard in the street the rumble of the car- riage.

  “ It’s the doctor,” said John. “Go and bring him up here.”

  The man went out, and still John’s eyes rested on the disordered papers upon the desk. Dick, standing at his left, but a pace behind him, had also turned her eyes from the dead figure of the old banker ; she was intently watching the son’s face. Once she started to speak, but hesi- tated; then, seeing a slight motion of John’s body, a motion that seemed preparatory to a step toward the desk, she took a swift decision.

  “ They’re his private papers, aren’t they ? “ she said. “ Hadn’t we better put them away ? They shouldn’t lie here.”

  “Yes,” said John, decisively. “Will you do it?”

  He stood watching her without volunteering to help while she laid the papers back in the iron box.

  “ It has a spring lock,” he said, when she had finished. “ You have only to shut it.”

  When he heard the lock click, he walked to the safe and pulled open the heavy door. Dick carried the box to the safe and put it in, and John shut the door, shot the bolts, and spun the combination knob around vigorously.

  “ They’re all right now,” he said. Then he walked to the chair in the corner, though the big office chair that stood before the desk was nearer, and sat down, just as Thomas came in with the doctor.

  The day after the funeral John went to the office of his father’s att
orney to hear the reading of the will. Judge Hayes he had been a judge once was a stout little man with a bald, round head ; he had no eyebrows worth mentioning nor lashes, and altogether his red wrinkled face was laughably like that of a baby. His shell- rimmed eye-glasses, by looking ridiculously out of place, only made this effect the more striking.

  He ushered John into his private office, closed the door, motioned John to a seat, sat down heavily in his own broad chair, and began rummaging fussily through his littered desk to find the will. It may seem strange that a lawyer whom old John Bagsbury would trust should be so careless about an important docu- ment like a last will and testament, that finding it in his desk should be a matter of difficulty ; but it is certain that Judge Hayes had looked in every pigeonhole in his desk, and had opened every drawer and shut it again with a bang, before his hand alighted upon the paper which at this moment meant more than anything else to the man who sat waiting. All the while the Judge had been hailing down a shower of small remarks upon all conceivable subjects, and John had answered all of them in a voice that gave no hint of impatience.

  At last he unfolded the will, swung round in his chair to get a better light on it, tilted back at a seemingly perilous angle, cleared his throat, and said :

  “This storm makes it rather hard to see. I wonder how many more days it will last ? “

  “ I guess it’s about worked itself out,” said John. “ It can’t last forever.”

  Judge Hayes began reading in that rapid drone which lawyers affect, but he knew the will almost by heart, and he found time to cast many swift glances at John Bagsbury.

  John sat low in his chair, his chin on his breast, his legs crossed, his thumbs hooked into his trousers pockets. His eyes were half closed, the lower lids being drawn to meet the drooping upper ones ; his gaze seemed fixed on one of the casters of the lawyer’s chair; his brows bore the slight frown of a man who listens intently. And that was all ; though the lawyer’s glance grew more expectant and alert as he pro- ceeded, there was no change in the lines of John Bagsbury’s face or figure to betray anger or disappointment or annoyance not even a movement of his suspended foot.