Times are not what they were when your father was alive. "Wealth acc.u.mulates and men decay." The country press is being strangled, forced to the wall by the brute wealth of the city. The march of events----"
"Yes, Uncle."
He stopped in the midst of his flight and repeated:
"We must economize--_and I"ve begun_!"
He said it with great dramatic force, but the effect on Anthy was not what an unprejudiced observer might have expected. I thought she looked a bit alarmed.
The Captain cleared his throat, and said with impressive deliberation:
"I"ve given up smoking cigars!"
Anthy"s laugh was clear and strong.
"You have!" she exclaimed.
"And from now on," said the Captain, still very serious, "I shall smoke a pipe."
With that he took notice for the first time of the package in his hand.
It contained a case, which he opened slowly.
"Isn"t it a beauty?" he said, holding up a new briar pipe.
"Yes," she replied faintly; "but, Uncle, how did you get it?"
He cleared his throat.
"One must make a beginning," he said; "economy is positively necessary.
I bought it."
"Uncle, you _didn"t_ spend Frank Toby"s subscription for a pipe!"
The Captain looked a little offended.
"Anthy, it was a bargain. It was marked down from two dollars."
Anthy turned partly aside, quite unconscious of either Fergus or me, and such a look of discouragement and distress swept over her face as I cannot describe. But it was only for an instant. The Captain was still holding up the pipe for her admiration. She laid her hand again quickly on his shoulder.
"It _is_ a beauty," she said.
"I knew you"d like it," exclaimed the Captain benevolently. "When I saw it in the window I said, "Anthy"d like that pipe." I knew it. So I bought it."
"But, Uncle--how we _did_ need the money this morning of all mornings!
The insides are here, we must have them----"
"So I say," said the Captain with great firmness, "we must economize sharply. And I"ve begun. Let"s all get down now to work. Fergus, I"ve answered the fellow on the Sterling _Democrat_. I"ve left nothing of him at all--not a pinfeather."
With that he took a new pouch of tobacco from his pocket, and began to fill his new pipe. The cat rubbed familiarly against his leg.
Silence in the office, interrupted a moment later by the second appearance of that villain, Bucky Penrose, who thrust his head in the door and called out:
"Lend a hand, Fergus. I got the insides."
Fergus looked at Anthy. She had grown pale.
"Go on, Fergus."
It is this way with me, that often I think of the great thing to do after I get home and into bed. But it came to me suddenly--an inspiration that made me a little dizzy for a moment--and I stepped into the story.
"I forgot a part of my errand," I said, "when we were--interrupted. I want to subscribe to your paper, right away."
Anthy looked at me keenly for a moment, her colour slowly rising.
"Whom shall we send it to?" she asked in the dryest, most businesslike voice, as though subscriptions were flowing in all the time.
For the life of me I couldn"t think of anybody. I never was more at sea in my life. I don"t know yet how it occurred to me, but I said, suddenly, with great relief:
"Why, send it to Doctor McAlway."
"He is already a subscriber, one of our oldest," she responded crisply.
We stood there, looking at each other desperately.
"Well," said I, "send it--send it to my uncle--in California."
At that Anthy laughed; we both laughed. But she was evidently very determined.
"I appreciate--I know," she began, "but I can"t----"
"See here," I said severely. "You"re in the newspaper business, aren"t you?"
"Yes."
"Then I propose to subscribe for your paper. I demand my rights. And besides"--it came to me with sudden inspiration--"I must have, immediately, a thousand envelopes with my name printed in the corner."
With that I drew my pocketbook quickly from my pocket and handed her a bill. She took it doubtfully--but at that moment there was a tremendous b.u.mp on the porch, and the voice of Fergus shouting directions. When the two men came in with their burden I was studying a fire insurance advertis.e.m.e.nt on the wall, and Anthy was stepping confidently toward the door.
I wish I could picture the look on Fergus"s face when Bucky presented his book and Anthy gave him a bill requiring change. Fergus stood rubbing one finger behind his ear--a sign that there were things in the universe that puzzled him.
While these thrilling events and hairbreadth escapes had been taking place, while the doomed _Star_ was being saved to twinkle for another week, the all-unconscious Captain had been sitting at his desk rumbling and grumbling as he opened the exchanges. This was an occupation he affected greatly to despise, but which he would not have given over for the world. By the time he had read about a dozen of his esteemed contemporaries he was usually in a condition in which he could, as he himself put it, "wield a pungent pen." He had arrived at that nefarious sheet, the Sterling _Democrat_, and was leaning back in his chair reading the utterly preposterous lucubrations of Brother Kendrick, which he always saved to the last to give a final fillip to his spirits.
Suddenly he dashed the paper aside, sat up straight, and cried out with tremendous vigour:
"Fudge!"
It was glorious; it came quite up to my highest expectations. But somehow, at that moment, it was enough for me to see and hear the Captain, without getting any better acquainted. I wasn"t sure, indeed, that I cared to know him at all. I didn"t like his new pipe--which shows how little I then understood the Captain!
As I was going out, for even the most interesting incidents must have an end, I stepped over and said to Anthy in a low voice: