The Gray Dawn Part 31

She was drying her eyes, and looking a little happily foolish.

"I knew better than to give them a chance to snub me," she told him.

"Now I'm respectable."

But at this Sherwood reared his crest.

"Respectable!" he snorted, "What do you mean? Haven't you always been respectable? I'd like to see anybody who would hint--"

"You're a dear, but you're a man," she broke in more calmly. "Don't you know that a gambler's wife isn't respectable--in their sense of the word?"

"But every mother's son of them gambles!" cried Sherwood. "It's a perfectly legal and legitimate occupation!"

"The men do; we'd always get along if it was only a question of the men. But the women make distinctions--"

"Look here!" he broke out wrathfully. "There's d.i.c.k Blatchford mixed up in dirty work for dirty money I wouldn't lay my fingers on; and Terry, or Brannan, or McGowan, or all the rest of the boodling, land-grabbing, pettifogging crew! Why, if I made my living or spare cash the way that gang of pirates and cutthroats do I'd carry a pair of handcuffs for myself. Honest! Respectable! I've got no kick on their methods; it's none of my business. But their wives are all right. I don't see it!"

"It's all names, I acknowledge," she soothed, "just names, I attach no more weight to them than you do. Don't you suppose I'd have said something if I had thought you were doing anything wrong? But that's the way they play the game, and it is their game. If we play it we've got to accept their rules. Don't you see?"

"Well, it's a mighty poor game," grumbled Sherwood, "and they strike me as an exceptionally stupid lot of women. They'd drive me to drink. I don't see what you want to bother with them for."

"They are," she agreed. "They won't amuse me much--you couldn't understand--it's just the _idea_ of it--But I won't be looked down on, even by my inferiors! Tell me, Jack, when we sell the business are we going to be wealthy, will we have plenty of money?"

A hurt look came into his fine, straightforward eyes.

"Haven't you always had all you wanted, Patsy?" he inquired.

"Of course I have, you old goose! But I want to know what our resources are before I plan my campaign."

"Going in up to your neck, are you?" he commented ruefully.

She nodded. Her eyes were bright, and a spot of colour glowed in either cheek.

"Course I am. What can I spend?"

"You can have whatever you want."

"That's too vague, too indefinite. How rich--or poor--are we going to be?"

"We'll be rich enough."

"Very?"

"Well--yes, very. The business has paid, investments have panned out. I got a good cash purchase price."

"How much can I spend a year?" she persisted. "It doesn't matter whether it's much or little, but I want to know."

"What a mercenary little creature!" he cried facetiously, then sobered as he saw by the expression of her face that this, apparently trivial thing meant a great deal to her. "Oh, fifty thousand or so won't cripple us."

"A year?" she breathed, awed.

He nodded.

"Oh!" she cried rapidly. "Then we'll have a house--a house built for our very own selves, our very own plans!"

"Why, I thought we were very comfortable here!" he protested, a little dismayed. "Haven't we room enough? I'll make Rebinot cut a door----"

"No! no! no! a house of my own!" She was on fire with excitement, walking restlessly up and down. He watched her a moment or so. His slower imagination was kindling. He was beginning to grasp the symbolism of it, what it meant to her, the release of long-pent secret desires. As she pa.s.sed him, he seized her and drew her gently to his knee.

"Patsy!" he cried contritely, "I didn't realize! I didn't guess you weren't perfectly contented here!"

She brushed his cheek with hers.

"Of course you didn't," she rea.s.sured him.

"If you'd the slightest----"

She threw her head back proudly, her breast swelled.

"I married you to lead your life. Jack, whatever it was," she told him, "to be your _help_mate."

"You're the game little sportsman in this town!" he cried. "And if you want to make those flub-dubs crawl, by G.o.d you sail in! I'll back you!"

Ten minutes later she asked him:

"What are you going to do, yourself, Jack? Somehow, I can't imagine you idle."

"Well," said Sherwood, "the boys are organizing a stock exchange, and it struck me that it might be a good idea if I went into that."

She began to laugh softly, in affectionate amus.e.m.e.nt.

"Stop it!" he commanded indignantly. "I know that laugh, What have I done now?"

"I was just thinking what a nice, _respectable_ gambler you are going to be now," she said, "It's in your blood, Jack, and I love it--but it's funny!"

x.x.xII

But now, at the very sources, the full flood of the somewhat turbid tide of prosperity was beginning to fail. The ebb had not yet reached the civic consciousness. It would have required a philosopher, and a detached philosopher at that, to have connected cause and effect, to have forecast the inevitable trend of events. If there were any philosophers they were not detached! n.o.body had discovered the simple truth that extravagance, graft, waste, cost money; and that the money must come from somewhere. Realization on its property and taxes were the twin sources of the city's revenues. The property was now about all sold or swindled away. Remained the taxes. And it is a self-evident truth that people will pay high taxes cheerfully only so long as they themselves are making plenty of money easily.

Up to this period such had been the case. Prices had been high, wages had been high, opportunities had been many. Enormous profits had been the rule. Everybody had invariably made money. These conditions upset the mental balance of the s.h.i.+pping merchants back East. A madness seemed to obsess them for sending goods to California. The mere rumour of a want or a lack was answered by immense s.h.i.+pments of that particular commodity. The first cargo to arrive supplied the want; all the rest simply broke the market. It was a gamble as to who should get there first. The immediate and picturesque consequence was a fleet of beautiful clipper s.h.i.+ps, built like racing yachts, with long clean lines and snowy sails. They made extraordinarily fast voyages, and they promptly condemned to death the old-fas.h.i.+oned, slow freight carriers.

Indeed, four-hundred odd of these actually rotted at anchor in the bay; it had not paid to move them! Some of these clippers gained vast reputations: the _Flying Cloud_, the _White Squall_, the _Typhoon_, the _Trade Wind_. The markets were continually in a state of glut with goods sold at auction. This condition tightened the money market, which in turn reacted on other branches of industry. Again, the great fires of '49-'53 resulted in the erection of too many fireproof buildings.

Storage was needed, and rentals were high, so everybody plunged on storehouses. By '54 many hundreds of them stood vacant, representing loss. At that period the first abundance of the placers began to fall off.

Agriculture was beginning to be undertaken seriously; and while this would be an ultimate source of wealth, its immediate effect was to diminish the demand for imported foodstuffs--another blow to a purely mercantile city.