"Will I? I don"t believe I shall. That is very odd, I know, but I think it is true. I have been thinking about it a great deal of late and--ah--I--well, you know, I am very sure I shall be lonely."
"Lonely? You! Lonesome over in Egypt, after all you"ve told me about your lovin" it so, Mr. Bangs! Lonesome for what, for mercy sakes?"
"Why, for--for the Cape, you know; and this house and this pleasant room and--and the kindness which has been shown me here."
"Don"t. What do what you call kindnesses amount to--the little things Primmie and I have been able to do for you--what do they amount to compared to what you did for me? I shouldn"t be in this house, I shouldn"t own it, if it wasn"t for the interest you took and the trouble you went to. Lonesome! I think I"M goin" to be the real lonesome one this winter. Since you"ve been livin" here, Mr. Bangs, I"ve had a chance to talk of somethin" beside the little two-for-a-cent things that most of us Gould"s Bluffs people have to talk about from December to June. I"ve had the chance to talk about somethin" besides Primmie"s foolishness or Cap"n Jethro"s "spirits," or the post office gossip. It has been wonderful for me. When father was alive no gale that ever blew could keep him from trampin" up to the office after his mornin" paper.
He used to say that readin" the paper was the only way he could keep enough canvas drawing to pull him out of the doldrums. More of his sea talk, that was, of course, but you understand what he meant."
Galusha understood. "We all have our--ah--doldrums," he observed.
"Yes, seems as if we did. But, there!" briskly picking up her knitting, "I don"t know as it does us much good to sit and talk about "em. Primmie had a book around here last week, an old thing, one of Mrs. Southworth"s it was; Primmie borrowed it somewhere. I looked it over one afternoon, that was as much as I wanted to do with it, and I remember there was an old woman in it who seemed to spend most of her time dreamin" of her "vanished past." She seemed to worry over that vanished past a good deal, but, so far as I could see, she didn"t gain much by it. She might have done some plain sewin" and gained more. I can"t see that you and I gain much by sittin" here and frettin" about next winter, Mr. Bangs. I suppose when winter is really here you will be trottin" around Egypt on a camel, or some sort of menagerie animal, and I shall be sweepin" and dustin" and makin" pies. And we both will be too busy to remember we"re lonesome at all. I--Yes, Primmie, what is it?"
Miss Cash"s head and shoulders appeared between the door and the jamb.
"Miss Martha," she whispered, hoa.r.s.ely, "there"s somebody come to see you."
"Come to see me? Who is it; Cap"n Jethro?"
"No"m. It"s Raish--I mean Mr. Pulcifer. And," confidentially, "he won"t tell what he"s come for, neither."
"And I presume likely you asked him that very thing. Well, bring him into the dinin" room and tell him I"ll be right there. Humph!" she added, after Primmie had departed, "I wonder what Raish Pulcifer wants to see me about. I can"t imagine, but I guess it isn"t likely to be very important. I"ll be back in a few minutes, Mr. Bangs."
It was, however, a full half hour before she re-entered the sitting room, and when she did so there was a puzzled expression on her face.
"Now, that"s funny," she observed, musingly; "that certainly is funny.
What is he drivin" at, I wonder?"
"Mr. Pulcifer?" inquired Galusha.
"Why, yes. He didn"t say so in so many words; in fact, he didn"t really say much of anything right out. He wouldn"t be Raish Pulcifer if he was straight and plain. He talked about the weather and how he hadn"t seen me for some time and just thought he"d call, and so on. That was just greasin" the ways for the launchin", as father would have said. He edged around and edged around and finally brought up the thing I"m pretty sure he came to see me about, my two hundred and fifty shares of Wellmouth Development Company stock."
Galusha caught his breath. "Eh?" he exclaimed.
"Yes; I think he came to see me about just those shares. Of course, he thinks I"ve still got them. He talked about his own shares and about the company in general and how it wasn"t likely to amount to much and--oh, well, never mind; he talked a mile before he gained a foot. But I think, Mr. Bangs, I THINK he came to see if I would sell him that stock of mine, and, if I would, what I would sell it for. Considerin" that only a little while ago he told you he wouldn"t touch the Wellmouth Development stock with a ten-foot pole, that"s kind of funny, isn"t it?"
CHAPTER XVII
Galusha had some difficulty in falling asleep that night. The habit of dropping into a peaceful and dreamless slumber within five minutes after blowing out his lamp, a habit which had been his for the past month, was broken. He had almost succeeded in forgetting the Wellmouth Development Company. His distress of mind and conscience concerning his dealings with it had very nearly vanished also. He had been forced into deceit to save Martha Phipps from great trouble, and the end justified the means.
Having reached that conclusion in his thinking, he had firmly resolved to put the whole matter from his mind.
His one plunge into the pool of finance he had come to believe destined never to be revealed. No one had mentioned the Development Company or its stock for weeks. It was, apparently, dead and satisfactorily buried, and the Bangs" secret was entombed with it.
And now, if Martha"s surmise was correct, here was a "resurrection man,"
in the person of Mr. Horatio Pulcifer, hanging about the cemetery. The capacity for hating was not in Galusha"s make-up. He found it difficult to dislike any one strongly. But he could come nearer to disliking Raish Pulcifer than any one else, and now to dislike was added resentment.
Why in the world should this Pulcifer person interfere with his peace of mind?
In the morning, and with the bright September sunshine streaming into the room, his disquietude of the previous night seemed rather foolish.
No doubt Miss Martha had been mistaken; perhaps Horatio had not had any idea of buying her shares. Martha herself seemed a little doubtful.
"I"ve been thinkin" it over," she said, "and I wonder if I just imagined that"s what he was after. It seems almost as if I must have. I can"t think of any sensible reason why a man who was so dreadfully anxious to sell, and only a little while ago, should be wantin" to buy now. Perhaps he didn"t mean anything of the kind."
Galusha comforted himself with the thought that this was, in all probability, the truth: Miss Martha had misinterpreted the Pulcifer purpose; Raish had not meant anything of the kind.
But the comfort was short-lived. A few days later Doctor Powers called at the Phipps" home. After he had gone Martha came to the sitting room, where her lodger was reading the paper, and, closing the door behind her, said:
"Mr. Bangs, I guess I was right, after all. Raish Pulcifer WAS hintin"
at buyin" my Wellmouth Development stock."
Galusha dropped the paper in his lap. "Oh, dear! I--I mean, dear me!" he observed.
"Yes, I guess there isn"t much doubt of it. Doctor Powers came here to tell me that he had sold his shares to him and that Eben Snow and Jim Henry Willis have sold theirs in the same place. He says he doesn"t know for certain, but he thinks Raish has bought out all the little stockholders. He"s been quietly buyin" the Development stock for the last week."
Mr. Bangs took off his spectacles and put them on again.
"Good gracious!" he stammered.
"That"s what Doctor Powers says. He stopped in, just as an old friend, to drop the hint to me, so that I could be ready when Raish came to buy mine. I asked him what the Pulcifer man was payin" for the stock. He said as little as he had to, as near as he could find out. Of course, no one was supposed to tell a word about it--Raish had asked "em not to do that--but SOMEBODY told, and then it all began to come out. As a matter of fact, you might as well ask water to run up hill as to ask Jim Willis to keep quiet about his own business or keep out of any one else"s. The price paid, so the doctor says he"s heard, runs all the way from eight dollars a share up to fourteen and a half. Poor old Mrs. Badger--Darius Badger"s widow--got the eight dollars. She was somethin" like me, I guess--had given up the idea of ever gettin" a cent--and so she took the first offer Raish made her. Eben Snow got the fourteen and a half, I believe, the highest price. He needed it less than anybody else, which is usually the way. Doctor Powers sold his for twelve and a half. Said he thought, when he was doin" it, that he was mighty lucky. Now he wishes he hadn"t sold at all, but had waited. "Don"t sell yours for a penny less than fifteen, Martha," he told me. "There"s somethin" up.
Either Raish has heard somethin" and is buyin" for a speculation, or else he"s actin" as somebody else"s agent." What did you say, Mr.
Bangs?"
Galusha had not said anything; and what he said now was neither brilliant nor original.
"Dear me, dear me!" he murmured. Martha looked at him, keenly.
"Why, what is it, Mr. Bangs?" she asked. "Raish"s buyin" the stock won"t make any difference to you, will it?"
"Eh?... To ME? Why--why, of course not. Dear me, no. Why--ah--how could it make any difference to me?"
"I didn"t mean you, yourself. I meant to the Cabot, Bancroft and Cabot people, or whoever it was that bought my stock."
"Oh--oh, oh! To them? Oh, yes, yes! I thought for the moment you referred to me personally. Ha, ha! That would have been very--ah--funny, wouldn"t it? No, I don"t think it will make any difference to Cousin--ah--I mean to the purchasers of your shares. No, no, indeed--ah--yes. Quite so."
If Miss Phipps noticed a slight incoherence in this speech, she did not comment upon it. Galusha blinked behind his spectacles and pa.s.sed a hand across his forehead. His landlady continued her story.
"I asked Doctor Powers what reason Raish was givin" people for his buyin". The doctor said he gave reasons enough, but they weren"t very satisfyin" ones to a thinkin" person. Raish said he owned a big block of the stock himself and yet it wasn"t big enough to give him much say as to what should be done with the company. Of course, nothin" could be done with it at present, but still some time there might and so he thought he might as well be hung for an old sheep as a lamb and buy in what he could get, provided he could get it cheap enough. He had come to the doctor first, he said. Ha, ha! That was kind of funny."
"Eh?... Oh, yes, certainly.... Of course."
"But I haven"t told you yet why it was funny. It seems he told every person he went to that he or she was the first. Doctor Powers prides himself on bein" a pretty good business man and I guess it provoked him to find that Raish had fooled him into takin" a lower price than some of the rest got. He said as much to me. He said that he agreed with what Raish said, that about he might as well be hung for an old sheep as a lamb. So long as he WAS hung, so the doctor said, he didn"t care what it was for."
She laughed again and her lodger smiled, although rather feebly. He murmured that it was very amusing.
"Yes, wasn"t it?" said Martha. "Well, the doctor was very anxious that I should not sell at a cent less than fifteen dollars a share. I wonder what he, or Raish Pulcifer either, would say if they knew I HAD sold already, and for as much as father paid, too. Oh, I wonder if Raish has been to see Cap"n Jeth yet. He won"t buy HIS shares for any eight dollars a piece, he can be sure of that."
Galusha nodded; he was sure of it, too.