The Main Chance

by Meredith Nicholson

  CHAPTER VII

  WARRY RARIDAN'S INDIGNATION

  Raridan stayed in town all summer, and he and Saxton saw a good deal ofeach other. They drove often to the country club together, and Saxtonbecame, as people said, another of Warry's enthusiasms. Saxton was noidler, and he was conscientiously striving to bring order out of chaosin the interests which had been confided to him. He was annoyed, atfirst, when Raridan in his unlimited leisure, began to invade hisoffice; but as the confidence and ease of real friendship grew betweenthem he did not scruple to send him away, or to throw him a newspaperand bid him read and keep still. Raridan was the plaything of manymoods; Saxton was equable and steady. They sought each other with theold perversity of antipodal natures.

  Saxton came in unexpectedly on Raridan at The Bachelors' one evening inSeptember. The day had been hot with the final fling of summer, but athunder shower had cooled the atmosphere, and there stole in pleasantlythe drip, drip, of the rain which was now abating. Heat lightning glowedin the west with the luminousness so marked in that region.

  "It's an infernal, hideous shame," called Raridan fiercely through thedark, recognizing Saxton's step.

  "Thanks! I'm glad I came," said Saxton, cheerfully.

  "I'd like to be a cannibal for a few hours," growled Raridan, kicking achair toward Saxton without rising from the couch where he lay sprawled.Saxton went about quietly, lighting the gas, picking up the books andnewspapers which Raridan had evidently cast from him in his rage, andmaking a seat for himself by the window.

  "I'm not an expert in lunacy, but I'll hear your trouble. Go ahead."

  Raridan got up suddenly, his glasses swinging wildly from their cord.

  "Put out that light," he commanded savagely; and Saxton did as he wasbidden.

  "Do you know what Evelyn Porter's going to do?" demanded Raridan.

  "I certainly do not. You seem to want to leave me in the dark; andthat's no joke."

  "She's going to be queen of their infernal Knights of Midas ball, that'swhat."

  "Your language is spirited, I must say. I think we may classify that asimportant if true."

  "It's an outrage; an infernal damned shame!" Raridan went on.

  "Language unbecoming an officer and a gentleman--"

  "There's a fine girl, as charming as any girl dare be. She has a fatherwho doesn't appreciate her;--a good fellow and all that and he wouldn'thurt her for anything on earth; but he hasn't got any sensibility;that's the trouble with scores of American fathers. These Western onesare worse than any others. They break their sons in, whenever they can,to the same collars they've worn themselves. Their daughters theyusually don't understand at all! They intimidate their wives so that thepoor things don't dare call their souls their own; but the women are thesaving remnant out here. And when a particularly fine one turns up sheought to be protected from the curse of our infernal commercialism."

  He threw himself into a chair and lighted a cigarette.

  Saxton laughed silently.

  "Isn't this a new responsibility you've taken on? I don't believe thesethings are as bad as you make them out to be. The commercial curse isone of the things you can't dodge these days. It's just as bad in Bostonas it is here; and you find it wherever you find live people who wantbread to eat and cake if they can get it."

  "But to visit the curse on a girl,--a fine girl,--"

  "A pretty girl,--" Saxton suggested.

  "A really charming girl," continued Warrick, with unabated earnestness,"is a rotten shame."

  "I'm afraid you're taking it too seriously," said Saxton. "If MissPorter were not a very sensible young woman it would be different. Youdon't think for a moment that she would have her head turned--"

  "No, sir; not a bit of it; but it's the principle of the thing that I'mkicking about. This is one of the things that I detest in these Westerntowns. It's the inability to escape from their infernal business. On theface of it their Midas ball is a social event, but at the bottom, it'smerely a business venture. All the business men have got to go in forit, but it doesn't stop there; they must drag their families in. EvelynPorter has got to mix up with the daughters of the plumbers and thecandlestick makers in order that the god of commerce may be satisfied."

  "You don't quite grasp the situation," said Saxton. "If you had to getout among these men who have hard work to do every day you'd have adifferent feeling about such things. They've got to make the town go,and this carnival is one of the ways in which they can stir things upcommercially, and at the same time give pleasure to a whole lot ofpeople."

  "Now look here, you know as well as I do that you can't mix up all sortsand conditions of men, and particularly women, in this way, withoutmaking a mess of it. A man may introduce the green grocer at the corner,and all that kind of ruck, to his wife and daughter, but what's the goodof it?"

  "Well, what's the good of a democracy anyhow?" demanded Saxton. "I usedto have those ideas, too, when I was younger, but I thought it all overwhen I was herding cattle up in Wyoming and I renounced such notions forall time, even before I went broke. I found when I got back East that Icarried my new convictions with me, and the sight of civilized peopleand good food did not change me."

  "Well, the girl oughtn't to be sacrificed anyhow," said Warrick,spitefully.

  Saxton bit his pipe hard and grinned.

  "Look here, Raridan, I'm afraid it's the girl and not the philosophy ofthe thing that's worrying you. Why didn't you tell me it was the girl,and not the social fabric generally, that you want to defend?"

  Both Saxton and Raridan were a good deal at the Porters'. He knew thatRaridan had been a playmate of Evelyn's in their youth, when the elderPorters and Raridans had been friends and neighbors. There existedbetween them the lighthearted camaraderie that young people carry fromyouth to maturity, and it had touched Saxton with envy. As a man havingno fixed duties, Raridan sometimes went, in the middle of the hotmornings, to the Porter hilltop, where it was pleasant to sit and talkto a pretty girl and look down on the seething caldron below, when everyother man of the community was sweltering at the business of earning hisdaily bread.

  "You oughtn't to get so violent about these things," Saxton went on tosay. "You will yourself be one of the ornaments of the show, and youwill dance before the throne and be glad of the chance. They have aking, don't they? You might get the job. Who's going to be king, by theway?"

  "Wheaton, I fancy; the announcement hasn't been made yet."

  "Oh," said Saxton, significantly. "Is this a little jealousy? Are wesorry that we're not to wear the royal robes ourself? Well! well, Ibegin to understand!"

  "I don't like that either, if you want to know. It all gets back to theaccursed commercial idea. Wheaton's the cashier in Porter's bank. It'svery fitting that the president's daughter and the young and brilliantcashier should be identified together in a public function like this. Nodoubt Wheaton is fixing it up."

  "Well, why don't you fix it up? I have been deluding myself with theidea that you were a person of consequence in this town, yet you admitthat in a mere trifling social matter you are outwitted, or about to be,by one of these commercial persons you hate so much, or say you do."

  He spoke tauntingly, but Raridan was evidently serious in his complaint,and Saxton turned the talk into other channels. The Chinese servant camein presently with a card for Raridan.

  "By Jove!" he exclaimed, "it's Bishop Delafield." He plunged downstairsand returned immediately with a man whose great figure loomed darkly inthe doorway.

  Raridan made a light.

  "We've been doing the dim, religious act here," he said, afterintroducing Saxton. "The lightning out there has been fine."

  "You feel that you can't trust me in the dark," said the bishop; "orperhaps that I won't appreciate the 'dim religious,' as you call it.Turn down the gas and save my feelings."

  Saxton was well acquainted with Warrick's zeal in church matters and wasnot surprised to find a church dignitary in his friend's rooms. He hadnever met the Bishop of Clar
kson before, and he was a little awestruckat the heroic size of this man who had just given him so masculine agrasp of the hand and so keen a scrutiny.

  The bishop extended his vast bulk in Raridan's easiest chair, andaccepted a cigar from the box which Warry passed to him.

  "You've come just in time to save us from fierce contentions," saidRaridan, all amiability once more, while the bishop lighted his cigar.He was very bald, and his head shone so radiantly that Saxton felt thathe could still see it in the dark after Warrick had turned down thelights. There was an atmosphere about the man of great physicalstrength, and his deep-set eyes under their shaggy brows were quick andpenetrating. Here was a man famous in his church for the energy andsacrifice which he had brought to the work of a missionary in one of thegreat Western dioceses. He had been bereft, in his young manhood, of hiswife and children, and had thereafter offered himself for the roughestwork of his church. He was sixty years old and for twenty years had beena bishop, first in a vast region of the farther Northwest, where thediocesan limits were hardly known, and where he had traveled ponybackand muleback until called to be the Bishop of Clarkson. He was famous asa preacher, and when he appeared from time to time in the pulpits ofEastern churches, he swayed men mightily by the vigor and simplicity ofhis eloquence. He had, in his younger days, been reckoned a scholar, butthe study of humanity at close hand had superseded long ago his interestin books and learning. He had a deep, melodious voice and there wascharm and magnetism in him, as many people of many sorts and conditionsknew.

  "What's the subject, gentlemen?" he asked, smoking contentedly. "I'msure something very serious must be before the house."

  "Mr. Raridan has been abusing the commercialism of his neighbors," saidSaxton.

  "Saxton's a new-comer, Bishop, and doesn't understand the situationhere as you and I do. You know that I'm the only native that dares tohold honest opinions. The rest all follow the crowd."

  "Reformers always have a hard time of it," said the bishop. "If you'regoing to make over your fellowmen, you'll have to get hardened to theirindifference. But what's the matter with things to-night; and what areyou gentlemen doing in town, anyway? Aren't there places to go whereit's cool and where there are pretty girls to enchant you?"

  Raridan attacked the bishop about some question of ritual that wasagitating the English Church. It was worse than Greek to Saxton, butRaridan seemed fully informed about it, and turned up the lights to reada paragraph from an English church paper which was, he protested, ranklyheretical. The bishop smoked his cigar calmly until Raridan hadfinished.

  "They tell me," he said, when Raridan had concluded by flinging thewhole matter upon his clerical caller with an air of arraigning theentire episcopate, "that you're a pretty fair lawyer, Warry, only youwon't work. And I hear occasionally that you're about to embrace theministry. Now, just think what a time I'd have with you on my hands! Youcouldn't get the water hot enough for me. Isn't he ungracious"--turningto Saxton--"when I came here for rest and recreation, to put me on trialfor my life? You ought to know, young man, that a bishop can be triedonly by his peers."

  Raridan threw down his paper, and rang for the Chinaman.

  "When I embrace the ministry under you, Bishop, you may be sure thatI'll be humble enough to be good."

  The Chinaman brought a variety of liquids, from which they helpedthemselves.

  "Don't be afraid of the Scotch, Saxton," said Raridan, "the bishop hasseen the bottle before."

  The bishop, who was pouring seltzer on his lemon juice, smiledtolerantly at Raridan's chatter, with whose temper and quality he hadlong been familiar, and addressed himself to Saxton. He liked young men,and had an agreeable way of drawing them out and making them talk aboutthemselves. When it was disclosed that Saxton had been in the cattlebusiness, the bishop showed an intimate knowledge of the range and itsways.

  "You see, the bishop's ridden over most of the cattle country in hisday," explained Raridan.

  "And evidently not all in Pullman cars," said Saxton.

  "I'm considered a heavy load for a cow pony," said the bishop, smilingdown at his great bulk, "so they used sometimes to find a mule for me."

  "How are the Porters?" he asked presently of Raridan.

  "Very well, and staying on in the heat with the usual Clarksonfortitude."

  "Porter's one of the men that never rest," said the bishop. "I've knownhim ever since I've known the West, and he's taken few vacations in thattime."

  "Well, he's showing signs of wear," said Raridan. "He's one of the menwho begin with a small business where they do all the work themselves,and when the business outgrows them, they never realize that they needhelp, or that they can have any. Before they made Wheaton cashier,Porter carried the whole bank in his head. He's improving a little, andhas a stenographer now; but he's nervous and anxious all the while andterribly fussy over all he does."

  "Wheaton ought to be a great help to him," said the bishop. "He seems asteady fellow, hard working and industrious."

  "Oh, he's all those things," Raridan answered carelessly. "He'll neversteal anybody's money."

  The bishop talked directly to Raridan about some work which it seemedthe young man had done for him, and rose to go. He had been in town onlya few hours, after a business journey to New York, and on reaching hisrooms had found a summons calling him to a neighboring jurisdiction, toperform episcopal functions for a brother bishop who was ill. Saxton andWarrick went down to the car with him, carrying the battered suit caseswhich contained his episcopal robes and personal effects. These casesshowed rough usage; they had been to Canterbury and had found lodgingmany nights in the sod houses of the plains.

  "How do you like him?" asked Raridan, as the bishop climbed into astreet car headed toward the station.

  "He looks like the real thing," said Saxton. "He has a voice and a beardlike a prophet."

  "He's a fine character,--one of the people that understand thingswithout being told. A few men and women in the world have that kind ofinstinct. They're put here, I guess, to help those who don't understandthemselves."