A Man of Honor Part 18

"You have your claim on that bank for money deposited. I suppose that must be included, though it is only a _chose_ in action."

"O put it in, by all means," said Robert. "I do not wish to misrepresent anything or to withhold anything. I only wish the _chose_ in action, as you call it, were of sufficient value to discharge the debt. I should then quit here free from all indebtedness, except to you for your fee; and should not have this thing to pay.'

"Your discharge, I think, will free you, in law, from----"

"But it will not free me in honor sir. It will give me time, however; and the very first use I shall make of that time will be to earn the money with which to pay off this, my only debt. I should never ask a discharge at all if the asking supposed any purpose on my part to avoid the payment of the debt. Pardon me; this talk must sound odd to you, coming from a man in my present position. I forgot that I am an absconding debtor. You will think my talk a cheap kind of honesty, costing nothing."

"No, Pagebrook--if you will allow me to drop the 'Mister'--I should trust you in any transaction, though I have not known you a week. I don't believe you are an absconding debtor, and I'm not going to believe it on the strength of any oaths Messrs. Steel, Flint & Sharp may make."

As he said this the young lawyer took Robert's hand, and Robert found himself wholly unable to utter a word by way of reply. He did not want to shed tears in the presence of his jail attendants, but the lawyer saw them standing in his eyes, and prevented any effort at replying by turning at once to the matter in hand.

"Come, Pagebrook," he said, "this isn't business. Let me see; what bank was it that you deposited with?"

"The Ess.e.x," said Robert.

"The Ess.e.x!" said the lawyer. "What was that I saw in the Tribune this morning about that bank? I think it was the Ess.e.x. Let me see;" running his eye over the columns of the newspaper, which he had taken from his pocket.

"Ah! here it is. By George! My dear Pagebrook, I congratulate you. Your bank has resumed. See, here is the item:

"'PHILADELPHIA, DEC. 3D.--The Ess.e.x Bank, of this city, which suspended payment some weeks since, will resume business to-morrow. Its affairs were found to be in a very favorable condition, and at a meeting of the stockholders, held to-day, the deficit in its a.s.sets was covered, and its capital made good by subscription. It is not thought that any run will be made upon it, but ample preparations have been made to meet such a contingency.'

"Again I congratulate you, right heartily."

"This means then, that my sixteen hundred dollars--that was the total amount of my deposit--is intact, and that I may check against it as soon as I choose, does it?"

"Certainly."

"Then let us suspend our preparations for securing my release. I will pay out of this instead of begging out. I will draw at once for enough to cover this debt and your fees, and ask you to put the draft into bank for collection. We will have returns by the day after to-morrow, doubtless, and I shall then go out of here with my head up."

"We'll end this business sooner than that, Pagebrook," said the lawyer.

"Draw your draft, I'll indorse it, take it to the bank where I deposit, get it cashed at once, and have you out of here in time for a two o'clock lunch. You'll lunch with me, of course."

"Pardon me, but you have no means of knowing that I have any money in that bank," said Robert.

"Yes, indeed I have."

"What is it?"

"Your word. I told you I would trust you."

Robert looked at the man a moment, and then taking his hand, said:

"I accept your confidence frankly. Thank you. Draw the draft, please, and I will sign it."

The draft was soon drawn, and at two o'clock that day--just twenty-four hours after his arrest--Robert sat down to lunch with his friend, in a down-town eating-house.

While the two gentlemen were engaged with their lunch, Robert's friend Dudley, who had been eating a chop at the farther end of the room, espied his acquaintance, and approaching him said:

"How are you, Pagebrook? Are you specially engaged for this afternoon?"

"No, I believe not," said Robert. "I have nothing to do except to finish an article which I want to offer you to-morrow, and I can do that to-night."

"Suppose you come up to the office, then, after you finish your lunch. I want to talk with you."

"I will be there within half an hour, if that will suit you," said Robert.

"Very well; I'll expect you."

Accordingly, Robert bade his friend adieu after lunch, and went immediately to the editor's room.

Mr. Dudley closed the door, first saying to his messenger, who sat in the anteroom;

"I shall be busy for some time, Eddie, and can't see anybody. If any one calls, tell him I am closeted with a gentleman on important business and can see n.o.body. Now, Pagebrook," he resumed, taking his seat, "you ought to quit teaching."

"Why?" asked Robert.

"Well, you're a born writer certainly, and if I am not greatly mistaken, a born journalist too. You have a knack of knowing just what points people want to hear about. I've been struck with that in every article you have written for me, and especially in this last one. Do you know I've rejected no less than a dozen well-written articles on that very subject, just because they treated every phase of it except the right one, and didn't come within a mile of that. Now you've hit it exactly, as you always do. You've got hold of precisely the things that n.o.body knows anything about and everybody wants to know all about, and that's journalism."

"Thank you," said Robert. "You really think, then, that I might make myself a successful journalist if I were to try?"

"I know you would. You have precisely the right sort of ideas. You discriminate between the things that are wanted and the things that are not. I have long since discovered that this thing that men call writing ability and journalistic ability isn't like anything else. It crops out where you would never look for it, and where you think it ought to be it isn't. You can't coax or nurse it into existence to save your life. If a man has it he has it, and if he hasn't it he hasn't it, and n.o.body can give it to him. It isn't contagious, and I honestly believe it isn't acquirable. And that's why I'm certain of you. You've shown that you have it, and one showing is as good as a hundred."

"I am greatly pleased," said Robert, "to know that you think so well of me in this respect, for I have resigned my professors.h.i.+p and determined to make my way, to the best of my ability, as a journalist, hereafter?"

"You have?"

"Yes; I sent my letter of resignation yesterday."

"I'm heartily glad of it, old fellow, and selfishly glad, too, for it was to persuade you to do that that I sat down to talk to you. You see my health is not very good lately; the fact is I have been using the spur too much, and am pretty well run down with overwork. The publishers have been urging me to get an a.s.sistant, and the trouble is to get one who can really relieve me of a share of the work. I can get plenty of people to undertake it, but I have to go over their work to be sure of it, and it's easier to do it myself from the first. Now you are just the man I want, if you can stand the salary. The publishers will let me pay forty dollars a week. You can make more than that from the outside, I suppose, but it's better to be in a regular situation, I think. How would you like to try the thing?"

"Nothing could be more to my taste. I think I should like this better than daily paper work, and besides it gives one a better opportunity for growth. But before we talk any more about it I feel myself in honor bound to tell you what has happened to me lately. If you care then to repeat your offer, I shall gladly accept it, but if you feel the slightest hesitation about it, I shall not blame you for not renewing it."

And Robert told him everything, but Dudley declined to believe that there had been any just cause for the arrest, or that Robert had in any way violated the strictest canons of honor.

This young man seemed, indeed, to be perfect master of the art of making people believe in him in spite of the most damaging facts. Miss Sudie's faith in him never wavered for an instant. Even Billy had to keep a synopsis of the evidence against his cousin constantly in mind to keep himself from "believing that he couldn't see through gla.s.s," as he phrased it. The New York lawyer, summoned to get the young man out of jail, backed his faith in him, as we have seen, by indorsing his draft for several hundred dollars; and now Dudley, after hearing a plain statement of the facts from Robert's own lips, dismissed them as of no consequence, and set up his own unreasonable faith as a complete answer to them. He renewed his offer, and Robert accepted it, becoming office editor of the weekly paper for which he had recently been writing.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

_Major Pagebrook a.s.serts himself._

It now becomes necessary to a proper understanding of this history that we shall go back a day or two, to the day, in fact, on which Robert's letters were received at s.h.i.+rley. I said there were three New York letters in the mail-bag thrown off at the Court House that morning. The third letter there referred to was from the law firm of Steel, Flint & Sharp. It was addressed to Edwin Pagebrook, Esq., and quite by accident it fell into that gentleman's hands. I say by accident, because Cousin Sarah Ann had taken unusual precautions to prevent precisely this result. After writing to the lawyers, it occurred to that estimable lady that a reply would come in due time, and that as she had taken the liberty of signing her husband's name to her letter, the reply would be addressed to him rather than to her, and she greatly feared that he would have an opportunity to read it. She particularly wished that this should not happen. She knew her mild-mannered and long-suffering husband thoroughly, and, while she felt free to torment him in various ways, she had learned, from one or two bits of experience, that it was not the part of wisdom to tax his endurance too far. Accordingly she took pains to prevent him from visiting the Court House while she was expecting the letter. She laid various plans for the purpose of keeping him occupied on the plantation every day, and took care to secure the first look into the family postbag whenever the servant returned with it. On the morning in question, however, as Maj. Pagebrook was riding over his plantation, inspecting work, he met a neighbor who was going to the Court House, and having some small matters to attend to there he determined to join the neighbor in his ride. Upon his arrival he called for his letters, and so it came about that the note in which Messrs. Steel, Flint & Sharp, "begged to inform him" of Robert's arrest in accordance with his instructions, fell into his hands. At first he was puzzled, and thought there must have been some mistake, but after awhile a glimmering of the truth dawned upon him, and in his smothered way he was exceedingly angry. He had condemned Robert's misconduct as severely as anybody, but had never dreamed of proceeding to harsh measures in the matter.

Besides, it was only the day before that Robert's remittance of one hundred dollars had come to him, and, in acknowledging its receipt, he had partially satisfied his resentment by telling his cousin "what he thought of him," and to learn now that the young man was in jail for the fault, and apparently at his behest, was sorely displeasing to him. And worse than all, his wife had taken an unwarrantable liberty in the affair, and this he determined to resent. He mounted his horse, therefore, and was on the point of starting homeward when Dr. Harrison accosted him.

"Good morning, Maj. Pagebrook. May I speak to you a moment?"

"Good morning, Charles."