The Witness Part 23

Tennelly had said nothing to Courtland about the approaching uncle, and therefore it was wholly a surprise to Courtland when Tennelly knocked on his door and dragged him from his books to meet a Chicago uncle.

"He's come East looking for the right man to fill a very important position. It is something along your line, I guess, so I spoke to him about you," whispered Tennelly, hastily, as they crossed the hall together.

Face to face they stood, the financier and the young senior, and studied each other keenly for the fraction of a second, Courtland no less cool and impressive in his way than the older man. For Courtland was not afraid of any man, and his natural att.i.tude toward all men was challenge till he knew them. He stood straight and tall and looked Uncle Ramsey in the eye critically, questioningly, courteously, but with no attempt to propitiate; and not the slightest apparent conception of the awesomeness of the occasion or the condescension of the august personage whom he was thus permitted to meet.

And Uncle Ramsey liked it!

True, he tried to fix the young man much as a cook fixes a roast with a skewer, to be put over the fire; but Courtland didn't skew. He just sat down indifferently and looked the man over; smiled pleasantly now and then, and listened; but he didn't give an inch. Even when the marvelous proposition was made to him which might change the whole course of his future life and cover his name with glory (?) Courtland never flickered an eyelash.

"He took it as calmly as if I'd been offering him toast with his tea when he already had bread and jam, the young whelp!" marveled Uncle Ramsey, delightedly, after Courtland had thanked him, promised to think it over, and gone back to his room. "He's got the personality, all right! He'll do! But what's his idea in being so reluctant? Didn't the offer strike him as big enough, or what's the matter? I must say I don't like to wait. When I find a man I like to nail him. What's the idea, Thomas? Has he got something else up his sleeve?"

"Not that I know of," said Tennelly, looking troubled. "I guess he's just got to think it over. That's Court. He never steps into a position until he knows exactly what he thinks about it."

"M-m-m! Another good trait! You're sure it isn't anything else?"

"I don't know of anything unless some of his religious notions are standing in his way. I'm sure I can't quite make him out lately. He had a shock a few months ago--one of the fellows killed in a fire--and he can't seem to get over it quite."

"Oh, well, we'll fix him up all right!" said Uncle Ramsey, contentedly.

"We'll just send him down to our model factory here in the city and let him see how things are run. Convince him he's doing good, and that'll settle him! All white marble, with vines over the place, and a big rest-room and reading-room for the hands, gymnasium on the roof, model restaurant, all up to date. Cost a lot of money, too, but it pays! When some whining idiot of a woman, that hasn't enough business of her own to attend to, goes blabbing down there at Was.h.i.+ngton about the 'conditions'

in the factories, and all that rot, we just run a few senators up here for the day and show 'em that model factory. Oh, it pays in the long run. You take your man there and you'll land him all right! By the way, there's a little rat of a preacher down around that factory that I'd like to throttle! He's making us all sorts of trouble, stirring up the folks to ask for all sorts of things! He's putting it in their heads to demand an eight-hour day, and no telling how much more! He's undertaken to tell us how we ought to run our business! Tell us which doors we shall lock and which leave unlocked, how often we shall let our hands sit down, and what kind of machines we shall get! He's a regular little rat! Know him? His name's Burns. Insignificant little puppy! And he's got a pull down there in Was.h.i.+ngton, somehow, that's making us a lot of trouble, too! That's one thing I want this new man for. I want to train him to spy on that sort of interference and by and by do some lobbying.

We must stop such business as that. What time is it? I guess perhaps I better run down and hunt out that little rat and give him a good scare."

Uncle Ramsey departed "rat-hunting," and Tennelly repaired to Courtland's room. He sat down and began to tell what a wonderful opportunity this was, and how unprecedented in Uncle Ramsey to have offered such a thing to a young man still in college. It showed how wonderfully he had been taken with Courtland. It was most flattering.

Courtland admitted that it was and that he was grateful to his friend for mentioning his name. He said it looked like a very good thing--like the kind of thing he had been hoping would turn up when he got through college, but he couldn't decide it immediately.

Tennelly urged that Uncle Ramsey was insistent; that his business was urgent, and he must know one way or the other immediately. He tried to give Courtland an adequate idea of the greatness of Uncle Ramsey, and the audacity of anybody, especially a little college upstart, attempting to keep him waiting; but Courtland only shook his head and said it wouldn't be possible for him to give his answer at once. If that was the condition of the offer he would have to let it pa.s.s.

Tennelly talked and talked, but finally went back to his room baffled.

He just couldn't understand what was the matter with Courtland!

When Uncle Ramsey returned from a fruitless search for the "rat" he was enraged to find that Courtland was not awaiting his coming in trembling eagerness to accept his munificent offer.

Another personal interview that evening brought nothing more satisfactory than a promise to look into the matter carefully, and to have another talk the next evening. Uncle Ramsey raged and swore. He blamed the little rat of a preacher, and declared he must leave for Boston that evening; but he finally sent a telegram instead and decided to remain until the next night. There were matters in the city he was intending to look after on his return, and of course he could do it now instead. He felt it was important that that young man should be landed before he had a chance to do too much thinking. Moreover, he was piqued that a youngster like that should presume to consider turning down a job like the one he was offering him.

If Courtland had tried to explain to Tennelly and his uncle just why this offer, which would have delighted him so much three months before, was hanging in the balance of his mind, they would scarcely have understood. He would have to tell them of the Presence which was by his side, which had been very real to him as he stood in Tennelly's room listening to Uncle Ramsey that afternoon, and which had hovered by him since, so close, so strong, with that pervading, commanding nearness that demanded his utmost attention. He would have had to tell them that he was under orders now, being led, and that every step was new and untried; he must look into the face of his Companion and Guide, and find out if this was the way he was to go!

Something, somewhere was holding him back. He did not know why, he did not see for how long. He simply could not make that decision to-night!

He must await permission before moving.

Possibly the trip to the factory the next day, which he had promised to take, might give him some light in the matter. Possibly he would find counsel somewhere. But where? He thought of Gila. He took out a lovely photograph of her that she had given him before he left her Sunday night--a charming, airy, idealistic thing of earth and fire that had lain innocently open upon the library table where some one (?) had left it earlier in the day. He stood it up on his desk and studied the spirited will-o'-the-wisp face! Then he turned away sadly and shook his head. She would not understand. Not yet! Some time, when he had told her about the Presence--but not yet! She could not understand because she had not seen for herself.

Tennelly and his uncle went down-town in the morning and took lunch together. Courtland was to meet them at the factory at three o'clock, but somehow he missed them. Perhaps it was intention. Courtland went early. He wanted to see things for himself; went alone first. Afterward he could go the rounds to satisfy Mr. Thomas, but first he would see it alone.

Then, after all, it was the Rev. Robert Burns who met him at the door and took him through the factory, bent on seeing some paris.h.i.+oner on an errand of love. And there was that strange sense of the Presence having been there before them, walking about among the machinery, looking at the tired face of one, sorrowing over the wrinkles in another forehead, pitying the weary hands that toiled, blessing the faithful! It reminded him of the morgue in that. For a minute he began to think that if the Presence was here in this peculiar sense, then, of course, it was an indication that he was needed here to work for these people, as Uncle Ramsey had tried with strange worldly wisdom to make him understand. But then, suddenly, he caught a glimpse of the face of the little minister, white under its freckles, with a righteous wrath as he fixed his gaze sternly on the door at the end of the long room. He looked up quickly to hear the click of a key in a lock as the foreman pa.s.sed from one room to another.

He glanced down at the minister and their eyes met.

"They lock them in here like sheep in a pen. If a fire should break out they would all die!" said the minister under his breath. His lips were trembling with the helplessness of himself against the power of a great trust.

"You don't say!" said Courtland, startled. It was his first view of conditions of this sort. He looked about with eyes alive to things he had not seen before. "But I thought this was a model factory! Isn't it absolutely fire-proof?"

"Somewhat so, on the _out_side!" shrugged Burns. "It's a whited sepulcher, that's what it is. Beautiful marble and vines, beautiful rest-room and library--for the _visitors_ to rest and read in--beautiful restaurant where the girls must buy their meals at the company's prices or go without; beautiful outside everywhere; but it's rotten, _absolutely rotten_ all through! Look at the width of that staircase!

That's the one the employees use. The visitors only see the broad way by which you came up. Look at those machines! All painted and gilded! They are old models and twice as heavy to work as the new ones, but we can't get them to make changes. Look at those seats, put there to impress the visitors! The fact is not one of the hands dare use them, except a minute now and then when the foreman happens to leave the room! They know they will get docked in their pay if they are caught sitting down at their work! And yet it is always flaunted before the visitors that the workmen can sit down when they like. So they can, but they can go home without a pay-envelope if they do, when Sat.u.r.day night comes. Oh, there is enough here to make one's blood boil! You're interested in these things? I wish you'd let me tell you more some time. About the long hours, the stifling air in some rooms, and the little children working in spite of the law! I wish men like you would come down here and help clean this section out and make conditions different! Why don't you come and help me?"

The minister laid his hand on Courtland's arm, and instantly it seemed as if the Presence came and stood beside him and said: "Here! This is your work!"

With a great conviction in his heart Courtland turned and followed Burns down the broad marble stairs out to the office, where he left word for Tennelly and his uncle that he had been there and had to go, but would see them again that evening, and then down the street to Burns's common little boarding-house, where they sat down and talked the rest of the afternoon. Burns opened Courtland's eyes to many things that he had not known were in the world. It was as if he laid his hands upon him and said, as of old: "Brother Saul, receive thy sight!"

When Courtland went back to the university his decision was made. He felt that he was under orders, and the Presence would not go with him in any such commission as Uncle Ramsey had proposed. His only regret was that Tennelly would not understand. Dear old Tennelly, who had tried to do his best for him!

The denouement began in Tennelly's room after supper, when Courtland courteously and firmly thanked Uncle Ramsey, but _declined_ the offer!

Uncle Ramsey grew apoplectic in the face and glared at the young man, finally bringing out an explosive: "What! You _decline_?"

Uncle Ramsey spluttered and swore. He tore up and down the small confines of the room like an angry bull, bellowing forth anathemas and arguments in a confused jumble. He enlarged on the insult he had been given, and the opportunity that was being lost never to be offered again. He called Courtland a "trifling idiot," and a few other gentle phrases, and demanded reasons for such an unprecedented decision.

Courtland's only answer was: "I am afraid it isn't going to fit in with my views of life, Mr. Thomas. I have thought it over carefully and I cannot accept your offer."

"Why not? Isn't it enough money?" roared the mad financier. "I'll double your salary!"

"Money has nothing to do with it," said Courtland, quietly. "That would make no difference." He was sorry for this scene for Tennelly's sake.

"Well, have you something else in view?"

"No, not definitely."

"Then you're a fool!" said Uncle Ramsey, and further stated what kind of a fool he was, several times, _vigorously_. After which he mopped his beaded brow with trembling, agitated hands, and sat down. The old bull was baffled at last.

Uncle Ramsey bl.u.s.tered all the way to the train with his nephew. "I've got to have that young man, Thomas. There's no two ways about it. A fellow that can stand out the way he did against Ramsey Thomas is just the man I want. He's got personality. Why, a man like that at work for us would be worth millions! He would give confidence to every one! Why, we could make him a Senator in a few years, and there's no telling where he wouldn't stop! He's the kind of a man who could be put in the White House if things shaped themselves right. I've _got_ to have him, Thomas, and no mistake! Now, I'm going to put it up to you to find out the secret of this thing. You just get his number and we'll meet him on any reasonable proposition he wants to put up. Say, Thomas, isn't there a girl anywhere that could influence him?"

"Yes, there's a girl!"

"The very thing! You put her wise about it, and when I come back next week I'll stop off again and see what I can do with her? You can take me to call on her, you know. Can you work it, Thomas?"

Tennelly said he'd try, and went around to see Gila on his way back to the university.

Gila listened to the story of Uncle Ramsey's offer with bated breath and averted gaze. She would not show Tennelly how much this meant to her.

But in her eyes there grew a determination that was not to be denied.

She planned a campaign with Tennelly, coolly, and with a light kind of glee that fooled him completely. He saw that she was entering into the spirit of the thing and had no idea she had any other interest than to please her cousin, and achieve a kind of triumph herself in making Courtland do the thing he had vowed not to do.

But long after Tennelly had gone home she stood before her mirror, looking with dreamy eyes into the pictures her imagination drew there for her. She saw herself the bride of Courtland after he had succeeded in the big business enterprise to which Uncle Ramsey had opened the door; she saw Was.h.i.+ngton with its domes and Capitol looming ahead of her ambition; Senators and great men bowing before her; even the White House came like a fantasy of possibility. All this and more were hers if she played her cards aright. Never fear! She would play them! Courtland _must_ be made to accept Uncle Ramsey's proposition!

CHAPTER XXIII