"No, I am not. That is like you, Plank, to ascribe to me the same business sense that you possess, but I haven"t got it. It"s very nice and considerate of you, but I haven"t it, and you know it."
"I think you have."
"You think so because you think generously. That doesn"t alter the facts. Now tell me what you have concluded that we ought to do and I"ll say "Amen," as usual."
Plank laughed, and looked over several sheets of the typewritten matter on the desk beside him.
"Suppose I meet Quarrier?" he said.
"All right. Did he suggest a date?"
"At four, this afternoon."
"Do you think you had better go?"
"I think it might do no harm," said Plank.
"Amen!" observed Siward, laughing, and touched the electric b.u.t.ton for the early tea, which Plank adored at any hour.
For a while they dropped business and discussed their tea, chatting very comfortably together. Long ago Siward had found out something of the mental breadth of the man beside him, and that he was worth listening to as well as talking to. For Plank had formed opinions upon a great many subjects; and whatever culture he possessed was from sheer desire for self-cultivation.
"You know, Siward," he was accustomed to say with a smile, "you inherit what I am qualifying myself to transmit."
"It will be all one in a thousand years," was Siward"s usual rejoinder.
"That is not going to prevent my efforts to become a good ancestor to my descendants," Plank would say laughingly. "They shall have a chance, every one of them. And it will be up to them if they don"t make good."
Sipping their tea in the pleasant, sunny room, they discussed matters of common interest--Plank"s recent fishing trip on Long Island and the degeneracy of liver-fed trout; the North Side Club"s Experiments with European partridges; Billy Fleetwood"s new stables; forestry, and the chance of national legislation concerning it--a subject of which Plank was very fond, and on which he had exceedingly sound ideas.
Drifting from one topic to another through the haze of their cigars, silent when it pleased them to be so, there could be no doubt of their liking for each other upon a basis at least superficially informal; and if Plank"s manner retained at times a shade of quaint reserve, Siward"s was perhaps the more frankly direct for that reason.
"I think," observed Plank, laying his half-consumed cigar on the silver tray, "that I"d better go down town and see what our pre-glacial friend Quarrier wants. I may be able to furnish him with a new sensation."
"I wonder if Quarrier ever experienced a genuine sensation," mused Siward, arranging the papers before him into divisional piles.
"Plenty," said Plank drily.
"I don"t think so."
"Plenty," repeated Plank. "It"s your thin-lipped, thin-nosed, pasty-pale, symmetrical brother who is closer to the animal under his mask than any of us imagine. I--" He hesitated. "Do you want to know my opinion of Quarrier? I"ve never told you. I don"t usually talk about my--dislikes. Do you want to know?"
"Certainly," said Siward curiously.
"Then, first of all, he is a sentimentalist."
"Oh! oh!" jeered Siward.
"A sentimentalist of the weakest type," continued Plank obstinately; "because he sentimentalises over himself. Siward, look out for the man with elaborate whiskers! Look out for a pallid man with eccentric hair and a silky beard! He"s a sentimentalist of the sort I told you, and is usually utterly remorseless in his dealings with women. I suppose you think me a fool."
"I think Quarrier is indifferent concerning women," said Siward.
"You are wrong. He is a sensualist," insisted Plank.
"Oh, no, Plank--not that!"
"A sensualist. His sentimental vanity he lavishes upon himself--the animal in him on women. His caution, born of self-consideration, is the caution of a beast. Such men as he believe they live in the focus of a million eyes. Part of his vanity is to deceive those eyes and be what he is under the mask he wears; and to do that one must be the very master of caution. That is Quarrier"s vanity. To conceal, is his monomania."
"I cannot see how you draw that conclusion."
"Siward, he is a bad man, and crafty--every inch of him."
"Oh, come, now! Only characters in fiction have no saving qualities. You never heard of anybody in real life being entirely bad."
"No, I didn"t; and Quarrier isn"t. For example, he is kind to valuable animals--I mean, his own."
"Good to animals! The bad man"s invariable characteristic!" laughed Siward. "I"m kind to "em, too. What else is he good to?"
"Everybody knows that he hasn"t a poor relation left; not one. He is loyal to them in a rare way; he filled one subsidiary company full of them. It is known down town as the "Home for Dest.i.tute Nephews.""
"Seriously, Plank, the man must have something good in him."
"Because of your theory?"
"Yes. I believe that n.o.body is entirely bad. So do the great masters of fiction."
Plank said gravely: "He is a good son to his father. That is perfectly true--kind, considerate, dutiful, loyal. The financial world is perfectly aware that Stanley Quarrier is to-day the most unscrupulous old scoundrel who ever crushed a refinery or debauched a railroad! and his son no more believes it than he credits the scandalous history of the Red Woman of Wall Street. Why, when I was making arrangements for that chapel Quarrier came to me, very much perturbed, because he understood that all the memorial chapels for the cathedral had been arranged for, and he had desired to build one to the memory of his father! His father! Isn"t it awful to think of!--a chapel to the memory of the briber of judges and of legislatures, the cynical defier of law!--this h.o.a.ry old thief, who beggared the widow and stripped the orphan, and whose only match, as a great unpunished criminal, was that sinister little predecessor of his, who dreamed even of debauching the executive of these United States!"
Siward had never before seen Plank aroused, and he said so, smiling.
"That is true," said Plank earnestly; "I waste little temper over my likes and dislikes. But what I know, and what I legitimately infer concerning the younger Quarrier is enough to rouse any man"s anger.
I won"t tell you what I know. I can"t. It has nothing to do with his financial methods, nothing to do with this business; but it is bad--bad all through! The blow his father struck at the integrity of the bench the son strikes at the very key-stone of all social safeguard. It isn"t my business; I cannot interfere; but Siward, I"m a d.a.m.ned restless witness, and the old, primitive longing comes back on me to strike--to take a stick and use it to splinters on that man whom I am going down town to politely confer with!
And I must go now. Good-bye.
Take care of that ankle. Any books I can send you--anything you want? No? All right. And don"t worry over Amalgamated Electric, for I really believe we are beginning to frighten them badly."
"Good-bye," said Siward. "Don"t forget that I"m always at home."
"You must get out," muttered Plank; "you must get well, and get out into the sunshine." And he went ponderously down-stairs to the square hall, where Gumble held his hat and gloves ready for him.
He had come in a big yellow and black touring-car; and now, with a brief word to his mechanic, he climbed into the tonneau, and away they sped down town--a glitter of bull"s-eye, bra.s.s, and varnish, with the mellow, horn notes floating far in their wake.
It was exactly four o"clock when he was ushered into Quarrier"s private suite in the great marble Algonquin Loan and Trust Building, the upper stories of which were all golden in the sun against a sky of sapphire.
Quarrier was alone, gloved and hatted, as though on the point of leaving. He showed a slight surprise at seeing Plank, as if he had not been expecting him; and the manner of offering his hand subtly emphasised it as he came forward with a trace of inquiry in his greeting.
"You said four o"clock, I believe," observed Plank bluntly.
"Ah, yes. It was about that--ah--matter--ah--I beg your pardon; can you recollect?"
"I don"t know what it is you want. You requested this meeting," said Plank, yawning.