As they talked desultorily a group of khaki clad youngsters filed past, Philip Lambert among them, looking only an older and taller boy in their midst. The lads looked happy, alert, vigorous, were of clean, upstanding type, the pick of the town it seemed probable to Harrison Cressy who said as much to his companion.
The other smiled and shook his head.
"You are mistaken, sir," he said. "Three months ago most of those fellows were riffraff--the kind that hang around street corners smoking and indulging in loose talk and profanity. Young Lambert, the chap with them, their Scout-master, picked that kind from choice, turned down a respectable church-mothered bunch for this one, left the other for a man who wanted an easier row to hoe. It was some stunt, as the boys say. It took a man like Phil Lambert to put it through. He has the crowd where he wants them now though. They would go through fire and water if he led them and he is a born leader."
Harrison Cressy"s eyes followed the departing group. Here was a new light on his hoped-for son-in-law. So he picked "publicans-and sinners" to eat with. Mr. Cressy rather liked that. He hated sn.o.bs and pharisees, couldn"t stomach either brand.
"It means a good deal to a town like this when its college-bred boys come back and lend a hand like that," the other man went on. "So many of them rush off to the cities thinking there isn"t scope enough for their ineffable wisdom and surpa.s.sing talents in their own home town. A number of people prophesied that young Lambert would do the same instead of settling down with his father as we all wanted him to do. I wasn"t much afraid of that myself. Phil has sense enough to see rather straight usually. He did about that. And then the kickers put up a howl that he had a swelled head, felt above the rest of Dunbury because he had a college education and his father was getting to be one of the most prosperous men in town. They complained he wouldn"t go in for things the rest of the town was interested in, kept to himself when he was out of the store. There were some grounds for the kick I will admit. But it wasn"t a month before he got his bearings, had his head out of the clouds and was in the thick of everything. They swear by him now almost as much as they do by his father which is saying a good deal for Dunbury has revolved about Stuart Lambert for years. It is beginning to revolve about Stuart Lambert and Son now. But I am boring you with all this. Phil happens to be rather a favorite of mine."
"You know him well?" questioned Mr. Cressy.
"I ought to. I am Robert Caldwell, princ.i.p.al of the High School here.
I"ve known Phil since he was in knickerbockers and had him under my direct eye for four years. He kept my eye sufficiently busy at that," he added with a smile. "There wasn"t much mischief that youngster and a neighbor of his, young Ted Holiday, didn"t get into. Maybe that is why he is such a success with the black sheep," he added with a nod in the direction in which the khaki-clad lads had gone.
"H-mm," observed Mr. Cressy. "I am rather glad to hear all this. You see it happens that I came to Dunbury to offer Philip Lambert a position. My name"s Cressy--Harrison Cressy," he explained.
His companion lifted his eye-brows a little dubiously.
"I see. I didn"t know I was discussing a young man you knew well enough to offer a position to. May I ask if he accepted it?" "He did not,"
admitted Harrison Cressy grimly.
"Turned it down, eh?" The school man looked interested.
"Turned it down, man? He made the proposition look flatter than a last year"s pan-cake and it was a mighty good proposition. At least I thought it was," the magnate added with a faint grin remembering all that went with that proposition.
Robert Caldwell smiled. He rather liked the idea of one of his boys making a proposition of millionaire Cressy"s look like a last year"s pan-cake. It was what he would have expected of Phil Lambert.
"I am sorry for you, Mr. Cressy," he said. "But I am glad for Dunbury.
Philip is the kind we need right here."
"He is the kind we need right everywhere," grunted Mr. Cressy. "Only we can"t get "em. They aren"t for sale."
"No," agreed Robert Caldwell. "They are not for sale. Ah, the Boston train must be in. There is the stage."
Mr. Cressy allowed his eyes to stray idly to the arriving bus and the descending pa.s.sengers.
Suddenly he stiffened.
"Good Lord!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, an exclamation called forth by the fact that the last person to alight from the bus was a slim young person in a trim, tailored, navy blue suit and a tiny black velvet toque whose air bespoke Paris, a person with eyes which were precisely the color of violets which grow in the deepest woods.
A little later Harrison Cressy sat in a deep leather upholstered chair in his bedroom with his daughter Carlotta in his lap.
"Don"t try to deceive me, Daddy darling," Carlotta was saying. "You were worried--dreadfully worried because your little Carlotta wept salt tears all over your shirt bosom. You thought that Carlotta must not be allowed to be unhappy. Wars, earthquakes, ship sinkings, wrecks--anything might be allowed to go on as usual but not Carlotta unhappy. You thought that, didn"t you, Daddy darling?"
Daddy darling pleaded guilty.
"Of course you did, you old dear. The moment I knew you were in Dunbury I knew what you were up to. I understand perfectly how your mind works. I ought to. Mine works very much the same way. It is a simple three stage operation. First we decide we want a thing. Next we decide the surest, quickest way to get it and third--we get it. At least we usually do. We must do ourselves that much justice, must we not, Daddy darling?"
Daddy darling merely grunted.
"You came to Dunbury to tell Phil he had to marry me because I was in love with him and wanted to marry him. He couldn"t very well marry me and keep on living in Dunbury because I wouldn"t care to live in Dunbury.
Therefore he would have to emigrate to a place I would care to live in and he couldn"t very well do that unless he had a very considerable income because spending money was one of my favorite sports both indoor and outdoor and I wouldn"t be happy if I didn"t keep right on playing it to the limit. Therefore, again, the very simple solution of the whole thing was for you to offer Phil a suitable salary so that we could marry at once and live in the suitable place and say, "Go to it. Bless you my children. Bring on your wedding bells--I mean bills. I"ll foot "em." Put in the rough, that was the plan wasn"t it, my dear parent?"
"Practically," admitted the dear parent with a wry grin. "How did you work it out so accurately?"
Carlotta made a face at him.
"I worked it out so accurately because it was all old stuff. The plan wasn"t at all original with you. I drew the first draft of it myself last June up on the top of Mount Tom, took Phil up there on purpose indeed to exhibit it to him."
"Humph!" muttered Harrison Cressy.
"Unfortunately Phil didn"t at all care for the exhibit because it happened that I had fallen in love with a man instead of a puppet. I could have told you coming to Dunbury was no earthly use if you had consulted me. Phil did not take to your plan, did he?"
"He did not."
"And he told you--he didn"t care for me any more?" Carlotta"s voice was suddenly a little low.
"He did not. In fact I gathered he was fair-to-middling fond of you still, in spite of your abominable behavior."
"Phil, didn"t say I had behaved abominably Daddy. You know he didn"t. He might think it but he wouldn"t ever say it--not to you anyway."
"He didn"t. That is my contribution and opinion. Carlotta, I wish to the Lord Harry you would marry Philip Lambert!"
Carlotta"s lovely eyes flashed surprise and delight before she lowered them.
"But, Daddy," she said. "He hasn"t got very much money. And it takes a great deal of money for me."
"You had better learn to get along with less then," snapped Harrison Cressy. "I tell you, Carlotta, money is nothing--the stupidest, most useless, rottenest stuff in the world."
Carlotta opened her eyes very wide.
"Is that what you thought when you came to Dunbury?" she asked gravely.
"No. It is what I have learned to think since I have been in Dunbury."
"But you--you wouldn"t want me to live here?" probed Carlotta.
"My child, I would rather you would live here than any place in the whole world. I"ve traveled a million miles since I saw you last, been back in the past with your mother. Things look different to me now. I don"t want what I did for you. At least what I want hasn"t changed. That is the same always--your happiness. But I have changed my mind as to what makes for happiness."
"I am awfully glad, Daddy darling," sighed Carlotta snuggling closer in his arms. "Because I came up here on purpose to tell you that I"ve changed my mind too. If Dunbury is good for gout maybe--maybe it will be good for what ails me. Do you think it might, Daddy?" For answer he held her very tight.
"Do you mean it, child? Are you here to tell that lad of yours you are ready to come up his Hill to him?"
"If--if he still wants me," faltered Carlotta. "I"ll have to find that out for myself. I"ll know as soon as I see Phil. There won"t anything have to be said. I am afraid there has been too much talking already. You shouldn"t have told him I cried," reproachfully.
"How could I help it? That is, how the deuce did you know I did?"
floundered the trapped parent.
"Daddy! You know you played on Phil"s sympathy every way you could. It was awful. At least it would have been awful if you had bought him with my silly tears after you failed to buy him with your silly money.