On the morning of the sixth day"s promenade, however, Colonel Midas, having solved the particular problem upon which his mind had been set for the past week or ten days, became more observant, and, after the miller had walked at his side for several blocks, he remarked the fact, and with emotions that were not altogether pleasant. Wherefore, he quickened his footsteps in order that he might leave the intruder behind, but the miller quickened his also and remained alongside.
Colonel Midas stopped short in his walk before an art-shop window, and gazed in at the paintings therein displayed.
The miller likewise, his head c.o.c.ked knowingly to one side like that of a connoisseur, paused and gazed in at the marvels of the brush. The Colonel, with a sudden jerky turn, leaped from the window to the gutter-curb and boarded a moving omnibus with surprising agility for a man of his years. But he was not too quick for his pursuer, for the miller, though scarcely able to afford the expense, immediately sprang aboard the same vehicle and took the seat beside him. Then for the first time the Colonel addressed him, and, there being no ladies upon the omnibus at that early hour, in terms rather more forcible than polite.
[Ill.u.s.tration: "WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING?"]
"What do you think you are doing?" he demanded, frowning upon his pursuer.
"Riding in a "bus," replied the miller, with a pleasant smile.
"Are you trying to shadow me?" roared the Colonel.
"I"d make a mighty poor eclipse for you, Colonel Midas," said the miller, suavely, "but to tell you the truth," he added, a sudden idea having flashed across his mind, which in the absence of anything else to say in explanation of his conduct seemed as good as any other excuse he could invent, "there _is_ a little matter I"d like to bring to your attention."
"Bombs?" asked the Colonel, moving away apprehensively, noticing that the miller had put his hand into his pocket, and fearing that he had, perhaps, encountered a crank who designed to do him harm.
"No, indeed," laughed the miller. "Not in such close quarters as this.
When I throw a bomb at anybody I shall take care to provide a safety net for myself."
"Ha!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the Colonel, with a deep sigh of relief. "Book-agent?"
"Nothing in it," said the miller. "Work too heavy for the profits. No, sir, I am neither a book-agent nor an anarchist. I am nothing but a poor miller with an ingrowing income, but I have a beautiful daughter who--"
"Oh yes," interrupted Midas, with a nod. "I remember now. I"ve heard of you. You preferred to remain independent instead of selling out to the Trust. You tried to discount some of your notes at the Pactolean Trust Company, of which I am president, the other day."
"Yes," said the miller, "and you refused them."
"Naturally," laughed Midas. "A beautiful daughter, Mr. Miller, is a lovely possession, but she"s mighty poor security for a loan. About the worst in the market. Especially yours. I"ve seen Miss Miller at the opera several times and have wondered how you managed it. It would cost more than the face value of your notes to support the security for one week in the style to which she is accustomed."
"That"s true enough," said the miller, "and n.o.body knows it better than I do. Nevertheless, you made a mistake. You have possibly never heard of her wonderful gift."
"No," said the magnate. "I was not aware that the young lady had any other gifts than beauty and a father with a little credit left."
"Well, be that as it may," retorted the miller, "she has one great gift.
She can spin straw into gold."
"What?" cried Midas, becoming interested at once.
"Yes, sir," the miller went on. "She has marvellous powers in that direction. If she hadn"t I"d have been up a tree long ago."
"I had heard of her father"s ability to turn hot air into Russian sables and diamond necklaces, but this straw business is something new," said Midas.
"I thought you would so regard it," said the miller, confidently, "and that is why I have been trying to get a word with you for the past week.
You are the only man I know in the financial world who is known to have the enterprise and the courage to go into a little gamble that other people would laugh at. You have that prime quality of success, Colonel Midas, that is known to mankind as nerve. You are always willing to sit in any kind of a game that shows a glimmer of profit in the perspective, and that is why I bring this matter to you instead of to my friend Rockernegie, a man utterly without imagination and blind to many a sure thing because he can"t understand it."
The Colonel, who was not unsusceptible to flattery, was visibly impressed by this tribute. He scratched his head thoughtfully for a moment.
"See here, Mr. Miller," he said, after a brief communion with himself, "if this story is true, why are you trying to discount your notes at the Pactolean Trust Company? Why don"t you get a bale of straw and have your daughter turn it over a few times?"
"I will be perfectly frank with you, Colonel," said the miller. "It is a humiliating confession to make, sir, but I"m everlastingly busted. Just plain down and out and I couldn"t buy a lemonade straw if they were going at a cent a ton, much less a bale."
The Colonel looked at him sympathetically, and then, giving his knee a resounding whack, he cried: "By Jove, Miller, I"ll back you! I rather like your nerve, and, as you have so charmingly put it, I _am_ the sort of man to take a long shot. Yes, sir, and I wouldn"t have had seven cents to my name to-day if I hadn"t been. Come with me to the Pactolean Trust Company and we"ll discount your demand note, suitably indorsed, right off, with the understanding, however, that your daughter gives us an immediate demonstration of her powers. We"ll furnish the straw."
The miller"s heart leaped with joy, but he deemed it well not to show himself over-anxious lest he lose the whole advantage.
"It is very good of you, Colonel," he observed quietly, "but I don"t know a soul in this bright, beautiful world who would indorse my note for any sum, large or small."
"Oh, that will be all right," laughed the Colonel. "We"ve got a rubber stamp in the office for just such emergencies."
So the miller and his new-found friend went to the offices of the Pactolean Trust Company, where, in a short while, he found relief from his pressing woes by the exchange of his demand note for five thousand dollars, indorsed most appropriately by a man of straw, for four crisp one-thousand-dollar treasury notes and the balance, less six months"
interest, in yellow-backs of a denomination of fifty dollars each.
"Tell your daughter to come down here to-morrow morning," said the Colonel, as the miller pocketed the money. "I"ll summon the board of directors and she can give us a demonstration of her gift in the private office. We"ll have a couple of bales of straw all ready for her."
"You will have to excuse me, Colonel," said the miller, with that calmness which a man is likely to show when he has five thousand dollars in good money in his purse, "but that will be impossible. Gasmerilda has always refused to exercise her gift in the presence of anybody else, and I am quite sure she will make no exception in this case. Even as a child she would not let either her mother or myself see how she did it."
"But she must," said the Colonel, firmly, "or I shall be under the painful necessity of calling that note at once."
[Ill.u.s.tration: "THERE"S THE MONEY, SIR"]
"But she can"t," returned the miller. "You see, sir, it is one of the peculiarities of the gift that she must be alone while at work. It requires such intense concentration of effort. If you insist upon her presence here, why--well, as you intimate, the deal is off between us and I shall have to take it to Rockernegie. There"s the money, sir."
With a supreme effort of will the miller tossed the roll of bills back upon the table. It was, of course, an act of sheer bravado, but he carried it off so well that it worked.
"Oh, very well," said the Colonel, gruffly, a shade of disappointment crossing his face. "If she can"t, she can"t, I suppose. It"s worth a try, anyhow. We"ll send a bale of straw up to your residence this afternoon, and if by to-morrow morning she has managed to turn it into gold, all well and good. If not--well, we call the note, that"s all."
"Can"t you make it a week?" pleaded the miller. "She may have some other engagement on for to-night, and--er--well, a week will give her time to turn around."
"Make it five days," said the Colonel. "To-day is Wednesday. Let her make the delivery on Monday morning."
"Done!" said the miller, overjoyed, and he went out.
He had not the slightest notion in the world how his beautiful daughter would be able to fulfil the agreement--indeed, he was fairly certain in his mind that she would be able to do nothing of the sort, but he had the use of five thousand dollars at a critical moment in his career and he knew that if worst came to worst he could shave off his mustache, and, thus disguised, take pa.s.sage for Europe in the steerage of some one of the many Sat.u.r.day steamers.
Now, on his return home that evening, the miller was very much embarra.s.sed by a searching inquiry from his beautiful daughter. It seems that when she had tried to telephone to one of her friends that afternoon she had been informed by Central that the service had been discontinued for non-payment of the bill for December, 1906.
"Have we come to such a pa.s.s as that, father?" she demanded, her lovely voice quivering with emotion.
"It looks like it," said the miller, with an uneasy laugh. "I have been kept so busy paying for your daily supply of fresh sables that I haven"t had a moment for the gas bills or for your conversational accounts. With you to look after, my dear, I find that even talk is not cheap."
The beautiful girl wiped the tears from her eyes with her point-lace handkerchief.
"But," she cried, "what are we going to do? I must have eleven hundred and seventy dollars and fifty-five cents to-morrow morning, father, or I shall be ruined."
The miller"s heart sank within him and his face grew ashen.
"Eleven hundred and seventy dollars and fuf-fifty--fuf--five cents?" he stammered. "In Heaven"s name what for, Gasmerilda--hairpins?"
"No, father," she trembled. "I have issued three or four pounds of deferred bridge certificates, and they fall due to-morrow. You certainly do not wish me to lose my social position--about the only thing I have left?"