The Triumph of Virginia Dale Part 50

The smile had faded from the face of Mr. Jones at Obadiah's rough greeting. He failed to behave in accord with the best usages among private secretaries. Squaring his shoulders, he took a deep breath, thereby greatly straining a gusset only recently let into the back of his vest. Suddenly he shoved his head forward. As his face advanced, it changed into an ugly countenance with a nasty eye, such an one as would make its recipient ill at ease. This was Mr. Jones's fighting face, developed with care under the kindly advice of Kelly. Sporting characters considered it a valuable a.s.set.

Mr. Jones's expression startled Obadiah. For years, when at a loss for words or thoughts, he had studied the lamb like face of his stenographer.

That timid look was gone now, replaced by a countenance which had borrowed coldness from the glance of a rattlesnake and combined it with a grizzly bear's cruelty of aspect. To Obadiah it spoke of arson, of the a.s.sa.s.sination of capitalists, of the proletariat running mad. He quailed before it.

"Where do you get that noon stuff?" snarled Mr. Jones.

Obadiah turned towards the clock as if to place the blame for any misstatements of time upon that instrument. The hands pointed to five minutes past nine thereby also indicating their owner to be a liar.

Again Mr. Jones spoke. Roughness replaced refinement.

"For five years I have worked overtime for you, two or three afternoons a week, sometimes fifteen minutes, sometimes an hour. I also put in many an evening and some Sundays for you. I never received a word of thanks for it. Now, because I am delayed by important business and come in five minutes late, you put up a squeal as if I'd stepped on your sore corn.

Say, what kind of a cheap skate are you?" the stenographer roared in conclusion.

Obadiah ignored the question in haughty but uneasy silence.

"You think so much of your ugly old self that you can't think of anything else. But believe me, everybody else has got your number and they're wasting no time loving you. Say," growled Mr. Jones so roughly that Obadiah jumped, "have you a friend in the world?"

For an instant it appeared that the manufacturer contemplated a hurried retreat from his own office, but the pugnacious stenographer barred the way.

"You hain't," announced Mr. Jones ungrammatically but emphatically, producing a gigantic roll of currency from his pocket. It was his share of the fight receipts, and, although the denominations averaged low, it bulked large to the surprised eyes of Obadiah. Mr. Jones shook the money in the face of his employer. "See that?" he inquired, as if suspecting that his employer suffered from failing eyesight. "I don't care to hold it too near to you or you might try to pinch it."

Obadiah viewed the roll of bills with a repugnance astounding in him.

"I had to work to get that money, last night," Mr. Jones continued.

"It wasn't the easy kind of money that you pull down. But that isn't the point. Kelly and I have bought a gymnasium up the street. We intended to treat you fair--to give you full notice so that you could fill our places before we left. But as you've had to be a little meaner than usual this morning, I think we'll bid you good-bye right now. How about it, Kelly?"

"I say we will," agreed that successful trainer with emphasis, and he and the fighter abruptly left the room.

Obadiah closed the door of the office with a resounding slam behind his departing staff and, taking a bunch of unopened letters from Mr.

Jones's former place of labor, he bore them into his own lair. As he sank down behind his desk he thumbed them over and, selecting one, opened and read the paper it contained. It was a formal order from the State Board of Health forbidding the further discharge of waste from the dye house at his mill into the Lame Moose River. As the manufacturer grasped the import of the doc.u.ment, his face purpled with rage and the paper shook in his hands. Finally he petulantly cast it aside and groaned aloud at a twinge of indigestion. Dropping back in his chair he took Virginia's letter from his pocket and re-read it. "I've had bad luck ever since she left," he growled. "Things don't break right.

I can't keep my mind on my business. She must come home." Unhooking his telephone, he asked Hezekiah Wilkins to come to him.

Hezekiah responded, smiling pleasantly. "Good morning," he exclaimed.

"What has happened to the boys? Not sick, I hope."

"I fired them," Obadiah rapped. "They were too fresh around here and I let them go." His anger and resentment displayed itself. "They are no good. I wouldn't give them recommendations as dog catchers."

"Hump," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Hezekiah. "Both at once? It leaves you short handed."

Obadiah invited the attention of his attorney to business by handing him the order of the Board of Health.

Hezekiah read the doc.u.ment with care and, returning it to the manufacturer, gazed at the ceiling reflectively.

"Well, what do you think of it?" Obadiah's manner was short.

"I have been expecting it," the lawyer replied with calmness. "What else could you expect? You are ruining the water that people have to drink."

"I can't be forced. They won't drive me," Obadiah maintained with his usual obstinacy.

"They'll drive you into court fast enough, if you don't obey that order," Hezekiah warned him with a chuckle.

"That's just where I want to be. It's up to you to develop a plan to flim-flam that bunch of fool doctors. You're losing your 'pep' or you'd have worked out something before this," sneered Obadiah.

"Perhaps I am losing my 'pep,'" Hezekiah mimicked, and his eyes flashed as he went on. "I have enough mental alertness left to advise you not to bite off your nose to spite your face."

Obadiah flushed angrily but controlled his temper. "Listen," he snarled, "while I tell you what I pay you to tell me. The Lame Moose is a navigable stream, isn't it?"

Hezekiah nodded, his eyes dancing with amus.e.m.e.nt.

Obadiah frowned at his attorney and continued, "We'll raise a federal question and get the case into the U. S. Courts and with dilatory pleas, continuances and appeals it will take years before a final decision is handed down. How's that?"

Hezekiah laughed. "As your legal adviser, I can't approve it. The waste from the dye-house at your mill is spoiling the water that some thousands of people have to drink. There is a simple remedy open to you but they have none. Common justice demands that you consider the rights of these beings." The attorney turned loose his oratorical voice.

"Common justice demands it, sir."

The manufacturer flushed and s.h.i.+fted uneasily. Quarrelsome as he was, he could not afford a break with this man.

Hezekiah relapsed into a careful study of the metal cornice over the way.

"Think it over. Think about it," snapped Obadiah after a moment's silence. "You may be able to catch my point of view. I have another subject which I want to discuss with you--an embarra.s.sing personal matter."

Hezekiah gave him a covert glance but immediately resumed inspection of the metal work across the street.

"It's about my daughter," continued Obadiah. "I have a letter from her which I wish you to read."

Hezekiah perused Virginia's letter with great care and attention. "Did she write that?" he asked abruptly, as he returned the communication.

"It's in my daughter's handwriting but I suspect that my sister Kate may have had a hand in it. Virginia never wrote such a letter to me before. It is an unusual letter."

"Yes, it is an unusual letter," Hezekiah agreed. There was merriment in his eyes but otherwise he presented the serious aspect befitting a counsellor in the presence of a client. "It is an implied threat to sever domestic relations. Such counsel as I give should have in contemplation the facts which led up to this--ahem--veiled ultimatum."

This reasonable request embarra.s.sed Obadiah greatly; but after some hesitation he explained the circ.u.mstances under which Virginia had left home as the act of a defiant, headstrong girl.

"Dear me, an exceedingly unfortunate matter," exclaimed Hezekiah, as if astonished at the revelation. Therein his manner partook of deceit, as Hennie had favored him so often with the details of the matter, gathered from Virginia herself and more completely, through Carrie, from Serena, that he knew them by heart. The lawyer went on, "The adjustment of such family differences requires tact--the utmost tact and diplomacy."

The happenings of the morning had sorely inflamed Obadiah's indigestion.

As he repeated his woes to the attorney, remembrances of the lonely hours he had spent since the girl's departure came to him and he believed himself a sadly ill-used man. Miserable in body and spirit, he flamed into tempestuous rebellion at the mild measures proposed by his legal adviser.

"Tact and diplomacy the devil!!" he exploded. "I'll use force, if necessary. She is my daughter, isn't she?"

Hezekiah gravely conceded Obadiah's claim of paternity.

"The law gives me some control of her?"

"As an unmarried woman, you have certain rights over her," Hezekiah admitted.

"Well then, I want her back," bellowed Obadiah, the notes of his voice getting higher as the intensity of his feeling increased. "You go and get her and make her come home."

"Did you have in mind legal proceedings to compel your daughter to return under your roof?" inquired Hezekiah in a suave manner, in marked contrast to the bl.u.s.ter of his employer.