The Man Next Door Part 3

"I'm very busy," says he.

"So am I," says Old Man Wright. "But what about the account?"

"You'd better see Mr. Watts, three windows down," says the man with the whiskers. So we went on a little farther down.

"How much of a deposit did you want to make, my good friend?" ast this new man, who had little whiskers in front of his ears. I didn't like him none at all.

Old Man Wright he puts his hand in his pocket and pulls out a lot of fine cut, and some keys and a knife and some paper money, and says he:

"I don't know--it might run as high as three hundred dollars."

The man with the little whiskers he pushes back his roll.

"We couldn't think of opening so small a account," says he. "I recommend you to our Savings Department, two floors below."

Old Man Wright he turns to me and says he:

"Haven't they got the fine system? They always have a place for your money, even if it's a little bit."

"Hold on a minute," says he after a while and pulls a card out of his pocket. "Take this in to your president and tell him I want to see him."

That made the man with the little whiskers get right pale. His mouth got round like that of a sucker fish.

"What do you mean?" says he.

"Nothing much," says Old Man Wright. "I may have overlooked a few things. I was wrong about that three hundred dollars."

He flattens out on the table a mussed-up piece of paper he found in his side pocket.

"It wasn't three hundred dollars at all, but three hundred thousand dollars," says he. "I forgot. Go ask your president if he'll please let me open a account, especial since I bought four thousand shares in this bank the other day when I was absent-minded--my banker out in Cheyenne told me to do it. You can see why I come in, then--I wanted to see how the hands in this business was carrying it on, me being a stockholder.

Now run along, son," says he, "and bring the president out here, because I'm busy and I ain't got long to wait."

And blame me if the president didn't come out, too, after a while! He was a little man, yet looked like he'd just got his suit of clothes from the tailor that morning, and his necktie too--white and rather soft-looking; not very tall, but wide, with no whiskers. I didn't have no use for him at all.

The president he came smiling, with both his hands out. He certainly was a glad-hand artist, which is what a bank president has to be today--he's got to be a speaker and a handshaker. The rest don't count so much.

He taken us into his own room. I never had knowed that chairs growed so large before or any table so long; but we set down. That president certainly knew good cigars.

"My dear Mr. Wright," says he, "I'm profoundly glad that you have at last came in to see us. I knew of your purchase in our inst.i.tution and we value your a.s.sociation beyond words. With the extent of your holdings--which perhaps you will increase--you clearly will be ent.i.tled to a place on our board of directors. I'm a Western man myself--I came from Moline, Illinoy; and perhaps it will not be too much if I ask you to let me have your proxy, just as a matter of form." He talks like a book.

We had some more conversation, and when we went out all the case keepers stood up and bowed, one after the other. We didn't seem to have no trouble opening a account after that.

"The stock in this bank's too low," says Old Man Wright to me on the side. "That's why I bought it. They're going to put it up after a while; and when they start to put things up they put 'em farther when you begin on the ground floor. Do you see?"

I begun to think maybe Old Man Wright was something more than a cowman, but I didn't say nothing. We went back to the hotel and he calls in Bonnie Bell to our room.

"Look at me, sis," says he. "Is they anything wrong with me?"

She sits down on his knee and pushes back his hair.

"Why, you old dear," says she, "of course they ain't."

"Is they anything wrong with my clothes or Curly's?" he says.

"Well now----" she begins.

"That settles it!" says he; and that afternoon him and me went down to a tailor.

What he done to each of us was several suits of clothes. Old Man Wright said he wanted one suit each of every kind of clothes that anybody ever had been knew to wear in the history of the world. I was more moderate.

I never was in a spiketail in my whole life and I told him I'd die first. Still, I could see I was going to be made over considerable.

As for Bonnie Bell, when she went down the avenue, where the wind blows mostly all the time, she looked like she'd lived there in the city all her life. She always had a good color in her cheeks from living out-of-doors and riding so much, and she was right limber and sort of thin. Her hat was sort of little and put some on one side. Her shoes was part white and part black, the way they wore 'em then, and her stockings was the color of her dress; and her dress was right in line, like the things you saw along in the store windows.

It was winter when we hit Chicago and she wore furs--dark ones--and her m.u.f.f was sh.o.r.e stylish. When she put it up to the side of her face to keep off the wind she was so easy to look at that a good many people would turn round and look at her. I don't know what folks thought of her pa and me, but Bonnie Bell didn't look like she'd come from Wyoming.

Once two young fellows followed her clear to the door of the hotel, where they met me. They went away right soon after that.

Bonnie Bell just moved into Chicago like it was easy for her. As for Old Man Wright, about all him and me could do was to go down to the stockyards and see where the beef was coming from. We looked for some of our brand, and when he seen some of the Circle Arrow cows come in he wouldn't hardly talk to anybody for two or three days.

I never did see where Bonnie Bell's new house was, because she said it was a secret from me. Her pa told me that he paid round two hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars for the land, without no house on it.

"Why, at that," says I, "you'll be putting up a house there that'll cost over six thousand dollars, like enough!"

Bonnie Bell hears me and says she:

"I shouldn't wonder a bit if it would cost even more than that. Anybody that is somebody has to have a good house, here in Chicago."

"Are we somebody, sis?" says Old Man Wright, sudden.

"Dear old dad!" says she, and she kisses him some more. "We'll be somebody before we quit this game--believe me!"

"Curly," says the old man to me soon after, "that girl's got looks--Lord! I didn't know it till I seen her all dressed up the way she is here. She's got cla.s.s--I don't know where she got it, but she has.

She's got brains--Lord knows where she got them; certain not from me.

She's got sand too--you can't stop her noways on earth. If she starts she's going through. And she says she only come here because she knew I wanted to!" says he.

"What's the difference?" I ast him. "We fooled her, didn't we?"

"Maybe," says he. "I ain't sh.o.r.e."

Well, anyway, this is what we'd swapped the old days out on the Yellow Bull for. We'd done traded the mountains and the valley and the things we knew for this three or four rooms at several hundred dollars a month in a hotel that looked out over the water, and over a lot of people on the keen lope, not one of them caring a d.a.m.n for us--leastways not for her pa or me.

III

US LIVING IN TOWN