or "the admitted financial emanc.i.p.ation of the Middle West,"--you felt somehow you were a better girl for having listened to him.
What he seemed to like best--besides sitting up all night till papa was a wreck--was to take walks. He was as bad about horses as papa was about automobiles--and of course papa had to go, too --and naturally I tagged after them both--and so we walked and walked and walked.
"Well, one day they were talking about investments, and stocks, and how cheap money was, and how hard it was to know what to do with it, and I was picking wild-flowers and wondering whether I"d have my Manton red, or green with gilt stripes, when I heard something that brought me up like an explosion in the m.u.f.fler.
""I know you are pretty well fixed, Fred," said Mr. Collenquest, "but I never knew a man yet who couldn"t do with forty or fifty thousand more."
""I don"t care to get it that way, Bill," said my father.
""I tell you Great Western is going to reach six hundred and fifty," said Mr. Collenquest.
"I picked daisies fast, but if there ever was a girl all ears, it was I.
""I am giving you a bit of inside information that"s worth millions of dollars," said Mr. Collenquest in that solemn tone that always gave me the better-girl feeling.
""My dear old chap," said papa, "I don"t want you to believe I am not grateful for this sort of proof of your friendship; and you mustn"t think, because I have strong convictions, that I arrogate any superior, virtue to myself. Every man must be a law to himself. I have never speculated and I never will."
"Mr. Collenquest heaved a regular bishop"s sigh, and stopped and put one foot on a log as though it was a toiler.
""This isn"t speculation, Fred," he said. "This is a fact, because I happen to be rigging the market myself."
""I don"t care to do it," said my, father, as firmly as before.
""If it"s just being a little short of ready money," said Mr.
Collenquest, "well--my purse is yours, you know--from one figure to six."
"My father only shook his head.
""I said fifty thousand," said Mr. Collenquest, "but there is nothing to prevent your adding another naught to it.
""It"s speculating," said my father.
""Well, I"m sorry," said Mr Collenquest. "I"m getting pretty far into the forties now, Fred, and I don"t think the world holds anything dearer to me than a few old friends like yourself." He put out his hand as he spoke, and papa took it. It was awfully affecting. I looked as girly-girly as I could, lest they should catch me listening, and picked daisies harder than ever.
""Of course, this is sacredly confidential," said Mr.
Collenquest, "but I know you"ll let it go no farther, Fred."
""My word on that," said my father in his grand, gentleman-of -the-old-school way.
"Then they started to walk again, and though I felt a little sneak right down to my shoes, I listened and listened for anything more. But they wandered off into the Pressed Steel Car Company, till it got so tiresome I ached all over.
"That night I didn"t do anything, because I wanted to think it ever; but the next morning I went to papa and asked him point-blank if I might sell Gee-whizz if I wanted go. He looked very grave, and talked a lot about what a good horse Gee-whizz was, and how hard I"d find it to replace her. But it was one of papa"s rules that there shouldn"t be any strings to his presents to me--that"s the comfort of having a thoroughbred for your father, you know--and ever since I was a little child he had always told me what was mine was mine to do just what I liked with. He"s the whitest father a girl ever had. But he spoke to me beautifully in a sort of man-to-man way, and was perfectly splendid in not asking any questions. If he hadn"t been such a bubble-hater, I"d have thrown my arms round his neck and told him everything. So I let it go at promising him the refusal of the mare in case I decided to sell her.
"Then I kited after Mr. Collenquest, whom I found in a hammock, reading a basketful of telegrams.
""Oh, don"t get up," I said (because he was always a most punctilious old fellow). "The fact is, I just wanted to have a little business talk with you."
""Oh, a business talk," he said, in a be-nice-to-the-child tone.
""Yes," I said, "I thought I might perhaps take a little flyer in Great Westerns."
"You ought to have seen him leap out of that hammock. I quaked all over, like Honest Labor in the pictures.
"He smothered an awful bad swear and turned as pale as a white Panhard.
""Little girl," he said, "you"ve been listening to things you had no right to hear."
""I didn"t mean to listen," I said. "Really and truly, Mr.
Collenquest, I didn"t--"
""You were forty feet away picking wildflowers," he said.
""You didn"t realize how badly I wanted a Manton," I said.
""A Manton!" he cried out. "What in heaven"s name is a Manton?"
"It"s awful to think how little some people know! I"m sure he thought it was something to wear.
"I explained to him what a Manton is.
""And so you must have a Manton," he said.
""Did you ever want anything so bad that it kept you awake at night?" I asked him.
"He looked at me a long time without saying a word. He was one of the kings of Wall Street and I was only a five-foot-three girl, and I felt such a little cad when I saw his hands were trembling.
""Jess," he said, "if you chose to do it you could half ruin me.
You could shake some of the biggest houses in New York; you could drive the Forty-fourth National Bank into the hands of a receiver. You could start a financial earthquake."
"And he looked at me again a long time.
""The point is," he began once more, "are you strong enough to keep such a secret? Have you the character to do it--the grit--the determination?"
""Just watch me!" I said.
"I thought it was a good sign that he smiled.
""Just keep this to yourself for one month," he said, "and I"ll send you the biggest, the reddest, the most dangerous, noisy, horse-frightening, man-destroying, high-stepping, high-smelling --what do you call it--Manton?--in the whole United States."
""Oh, Mr. Collenquest, I couldn"t do that," I said.
"Then he got frightened all over again.
""Why not?" he demanded. "Why not?
""I wouldn"t put a price on my secrecy," I said. "That wasn"t what I meant at all, only I thought you might be good-natured enough to let me in on the deal--with a margin on Gee-whizz, you know."
""I suppose I am getting old," he said, "and getting stupid--but would you mind explaining to me what you want in words of one syllable?"
""You wanted to put papa on a good thing," I said. "He wouldn"t have it, so I thought you might pa.s.s it along to me,