Stories of a Western Town Part 15

"_See E & M tea-set_."

"The silver service was a good muzzle," he thought. He went away for an interview with the corporation lawyer and the superintendent of the road, leaving Mrs. Ellis in a distraction of conscience that made her the wonder of her servants that morning, during all the preparations for the whist-party. She might have felt more remorseful had she guessed her brother's real plan. He knew enough of Lossing to be a.s.sured that he would not yield about the ordinance, which he firmly believed to be a dangerous one for the city. He expected, he counted on the mayor's refusing his proffers. He hoped that Esther would feel the sympathy which women give, without question generally, to the business plans of those near and dear to them, taking it for granted that the plans are right because they will advantage those so near and dear. That was the beautiful and proper way that Jenny had always reasoned; why should Jenny's daughter do otherwise? When Harry Lossing should oppose her father and refuse to please him and to win her, mustn't any high-spirited woman feel hurt? Certainly she must; and he would take care to whisk her off to Europe before the young man had a chance to make his peace! "Yes, sir," says Armorer, to his only confidant, "you never were a domestic conspirator before, Horatio, but you have got it down fine! You would do for Gaboriau"--Gaboriau's novels being the only fiction that ever Armorer read. Nevertheless, his conscience p.r.i.c.ked him almost as sharply as his sister's p.r.i.c.ked her. Consciences are queer things; like certain crustaceans, they grow sh.e.l.ls in spots; and, proof against moral artillery in one part, they may be soft as a baby's cheek in another. Armorer's conscience had two sides, business and domestic; people abused him for a business buccaneer, at the same time his private life was pure, and he was a most tender husband and father. He had never deceived Esther before in her life. Once he had ridden all night in a freight-car to keep a promise that he had made the child. It hurt him to be hoodwinking her now. But he was too angry and too frightened to cry back.

The interview with the lawyer did not take any long time, but he spent two hours with the superintendent of the road, who p.r.o.nounced him "a little nice fellow with no airs about him. Asked a power of questions about Harry Lossing; guess there is something in that story about Lossing going to marry his daughter!"

Marston drove him to Lossing's office and left him there.

He was on the ground, and Marston lifting the whip to touch the horse, when he asked: "Say, before you go--is there any danger in leaving off the conductors?"

Marston was raised on mules, and he could not overcome a vehement distrust of electricity. "Well," said he, "I guess you want the cold facts. The children are almighty thick down on Third Street, and children are always trying to see how near they can come to being killed, you know, sir; and then, the old women like to come and stand on the track and ask questions of the motorneer on the other track, so that the car coming down has a chance to catch 'em. The two together keep the conductors on the jump!"

"Is that so?" said Armorer, musingly; "well, I guess you'd better close with that insurance man and get the papers made out before we run the new way."

"If we ever do run!" muttered the superintendent to himself as he drove away.

Armorer ran his sharp eye over the buildings of the Lossing Art Furniture Manufacturing Company, from the ugly square brick box that was the nucleus--the egg, so to speak--from which the great concern had been hatched, to the handsome new structures with their great arched windows and red mortar. "Pretty property, very pretty property," thought Armorer; "wonder if that story Marston tells is true!" The story was to the effect that a few weeks before his last sickness the older Lossing had taken his son to look at the buildings, and said, "Harry, this will all be yours before long. It is a comfort to me to think that every workman I have is the better, not the worse, off for my owning it; there's no blood or dirt on my money; and I leave it to you to keep it clean and to take care of the men as well as the business."

"Now, wasn't he a d---- fool!" said Armorer, cheerfully, taking out his note-book to mark.

"_See abt road M--D--_"

And he went in. Harry greeted him with exceeding cordiality and a fine blush. Armorer explained that he had come to speak to him about the proposed street-car ordinances; he (Armorer) always liked to deal with princ.i.p.als and without formality; now, couldn't they come, representing the city and the company, to some satisfactory compromise? Thereupon he plunged into the statistics of the earnings and expenses of the road (with the aid of his note-book), and made the absolute necessity of retrenchment plain. Meanwhile, as he talked he studied the attentive listener before him; and Harry, on his part, made quite as good use of his eyes. Armorer saw a tall, athletic, fair young man, very carefully, almost foppishly dressed, with bright, steady blue eyes and a firm chin, but a smile under his mustache like a child's; it was so sunny and so quick. Harry saw a neat little figure in a perfectly fitting gray check travelling suit, with a rose in the b.u.t.tonhole of the coat lapel.

Armorer wore no jewellery except a gold ring on the little finger of his right hand, from which he had taken the glove the better to write. Harry knew that it was his dead wife's wedding-ring; and noticed it with a little moving of the heart. The face that he saw was pale but not sickly, delicate and keen. A silky brown mustache shot with gray and a Van-d.y.k.e beard hid either the strength or the weakness of mouth and chin. He looked at Harry with almond-shaped, pensive dark eyes, so like the eyes that had shone on Harry's waking and sleeping dreams for months that the young fellow felt his heart rise again. Armorer ended by asking Harry (in his most winning manner) to help him pull the ordinance out of the fire. "It would be," he said, impressively, "a favor he should not forget!"

"And you must know, Mr. Armorer," said Harry, in a dismal tone at which the president chuckled within, "that there is no man whose favor I would do so much to win!"

"Well, here's your chance!" said Armorer.

Harry swung round in his chair, his clinched fists on his knee. He was frowning with eagerness, and his eyes were like blue steel.

"See here, Mr. Armorer," said he, "I am frank with you. I want to please you, because I want to ask you to let me marry your daughter. But I CAN'T please you, because I am mayor of this town, and I don't dare to let you dismiss the conductors. I don't DARE, that's the point. We have had four children killed on this road since electricity was put in."

"We have had forty killed on one street railway I know; what of it? Do you want to give up electricity because it kills children?"

"No, but look here! the conductors lessen the risk. A lady I know, only yesterday, had a little boy going from the kindergarten home, nice little fellow only five years old----"

"She ought to have sent a nurse with a child five years old, a baby!"

cried Armorer, warmly.

"That lady," answered Harry, quietly, "goes without any servant at all in order to keep her two children at the kindergarten; and the boy's elder sister was ill at home. The boy got on the car, and when he got off at the crossing above his house, he started to run across; the other train-car was coming, the little fellow didn't notice, and ran to cross; he stumbled and fell right in the path of the coming car!"

"Where was the conductor? He didn't seem much good!"

"They had left off the conductor on that line."

"Well, did they run over the boy? Why haven't I been informed of the accident?"

"There was no accident. A man on the front platform saw the boy fall, made a flying leap off the moving car, fell, but scrambled up and pulled the boy off the track. It was sickening; I thought we were both gone!"

"Oh, you were the man?"

"I was the man; and don't you see, Mr. Armorer, why I feel strongly on the subject? If the conductor had been on, there wouldn't have been any occasion for any accident."

"Well, sir, you may be a.s.sured that we will take precautions against any such accidents. It is more for our interest than anyone's to guard against them. And I have explained to you the necessity of cutting down our expense list."

"That is just it, you think you have to risk our lives to cut down expenses; but we get all the risk and none of the benefits. I can't see my way clear to helping you, sir; I wish I could."

"Then there is nothing more to say, Mr. Lossing," said Armorer, coldly.

"I'm sorry a mere sentiment that has no real foundation should stand in the way of our arranging a deal that would be for the advantage of both the city and our road." He rose.

Harry rose also, but lifted his hand to arrest the financier. "Pardon me, there is something else; I wouldn't mention it, but I hear you are going to leave to-morrow and go abroad with--Miss Armorer. I am conscious I haven't introduced myself very favorably, by refusing you a favor when I want to ask the greatest one possible; but I hope, sir, you will not think the less of a man because he is not willing to sacrifice the interests of the people who trust him, to please ANYONE. I--I hope you will not object to my asking Miss Armorer to marry me," concluded Harry, very hot and shaky, and forgetting the beginning of his sentences before he came to the end.

"Does my daughter love you, do I understand, Mr. Lossing?"

"I don't know, sir. I wish I did."

"Well, Mr. Lossing," said Armorer, wis.h.i.+ng that something in the young man's confusion would not remind him of the awful moment when he asked old Forrester for his Jenny, "I am afraid I can do nothing for you. If you have too nice a conscience to oblige me, I am afraid it will be too nice to let you get on in the world. Good-morning."

"Stop a minute," said Harry; "if it is only my ability to get on in the world that is the trouble, I think------"

"It is your love for my daughter," said Armorer; "if you don't love her enough to give up a sentimental notion for her, to win her, I don't see but you must lose her, I bid you good-morning, sir."

"Not quite yet, sir"--Harry jumped before the door; "you give me the alternative of being what I call dishonorable or losing the woman I love!" He p.r.o.nounced the last word with a little effort and his lips closed sharply as his teeth shut under them. "Well, I decline the alternative. I shall try to do my duty and get the wife I want, BOTH."

"Well, you give me fair warning, don't you?" said Armorer.

Harry held out his hand, saying, "I am sorry that I detained you. I didn't mean to be rude." There was something boyish and simple about the action and the tone, and Armorer laughed. As Harry attended him through the outer office to the door, he complimented the shops.

"Miss Armorer and Mrs. Ellis have promised to give me the pleasure of showing them to them this afternoon," said Harry; "can't I show them and part of our city to you, also? It has changed a good deal since you left it."

The remark threw Armorer off his balance; for a rejected suitor this young man certainly kept an even mind. But he had all the helplessness of the average American with regard to his daughter's amus.e.m.e.nts. The humor in the situation took him; and it cannot be denied that he began to have a vivid curiosity about Harry. In less time than it takes to read it, his mind had swung round the circle of these various points of view, and he had blandly accepted Harry's invitation. But he mopped a warm and furrowed brow, outside, and drew a prodigious sigh as he opened the note-book in his hand and crossed out, "_See L._" "That young fellow ain't all conscience," said he, "not by a long shot."

He found Mrs. Ellis very apologetic about the Lossing engagement. It was made through the telephone; Esther had been anxious to have her father meet Lossing; Lossing was to drive them there, and later show Mr.

Armorer the town.

"Mr. Lossing is a very clever young man, very," said Armorer, gravely, as he went out to smoke his cigar after luncheon. He wished he had stayed, however, when he returned to find that a visitor had called, and that this visitor was the mother of the little boy that Harry Lossing had saved from the car. The two women gave him the accident in full, and were lavish of harrowing detail, including the mother's feelings. "So you see, 'Raish," urged Mrs. Ellis, timidly, "there is some reason for opposition to the ordinance."

Esther's cheeks were red and her eyes shone, but she had not spoken. Her father put his arm around her waist and kissed her hair. "And what did you say, Essie," he asked, gently, "to all the criticisms?"

"I told her I thought you would find some way to protect the children even if the conductors were taken off; you didn't enjoy the slaughter of children any more than anyone else."

"I guess we can fix it. Here is your young man."

Harry drove a pair of spirited horses. He drove well, and looked both handsome and happy.

"Did you know that lady--the mother of the boy that wasn't run over--was coming to see my sister?" said Armorer, on the way.