Dennison Grant Part 32

Promptly at six Linder drew his automobile up in front of the Transley summer home with Grant and Murdoch on board. Wilson had been watching, and rushed down upon them, but before he could clamber up on Grant a great teddy-bear was thrust into his arms and sent him, wild with delight, to his mother.

"Look, mother! Look what The-Man-on-the-Hill brought! See! He has fire in his eyes!"

Transley and Y.D. met the guests at the gate. "How do, Grant? Glad to see you, old man," said Transley, shaking his hand cordially. "The wife has had so many good words for you I am almost jealous. What ho, Linder!

By all that's wonderful! You old prairie dog, why did you never look me up? I was beginning to think the Boche had got you."

Grant introduced Murdoch, and Y.D. received them as cordially as had Transley. "Glad to see you fellows back," he exclaimed. "I al'us said the Western men 'ud put a crimp in the Kaiser, spite o' h.e.l.l an' high water!"

"One thing the war has taught us," said Grant, modestly, "is that men are pretty much alike, whether they come from west or east or north or south. No race has a monopoly of heroism."

"Well, come on in," Transley beckoned, leading the way. "Dinner will be ready sharp on time twenty minutes late. Not being a married man, Grant, you will not understand that reckoning. You'll have to excuse Mrs.

Transley a few minutes; she's holding down the accelerator in the kitchen. Come in; I want you to meet Squiggs."

Squiggs proved to be a round man with huge round tortoise-sh.e.l.l gla.s.ses and round red face to match. He shook hands with a manner that suggested that in doing so he was making rather a good fellow of himself.

"We must have a little lubrication, for Y.D.'s sake," said Transley, producing a bottle and gla.s.ses. "I suppose it was the dust on the plains that gave these old cow punchers a thirst which never can be slaked.

These be evil days for the old-timers. Grant?"

"Not any, thanks."

"No? Well, there's no accounting for tastes. Squiggs?"

"I'm a lawyer," said Squiggs, "and as booze is now ultra vires I do my best to keep it down," and Mr. Squiggs beamed genially upon his pleasantry and the full gla.s.s in his hand.

"I take a snort when I want it and I don't care who knows it," said Y.D.

"I al'us did, and I reckon I'll keep on to the finish. It didn't snuff me out in my youth and innocence, anyway. Just the same, I'm admittin'

it's bad medicine in onskilful hands. Here's ho!"

The gla.s.ses had just been drained when Mrs. Transley entered the room, flushed but radiant from a strenuous half hour in the kitchen.

"Well, here you are!" she exclaimed. "So glad you could come, Mr. Grant.

Why, Mr. Linder! Of all people--This IS a pleasure. And Mr.--?"

"Mr. Murdoch," Transley supplied.

"My chief of staff; the man who persists in keeping me rich," Grant elaborated.

"I mustn't keep you waiting longer. Dinner is ready. Dad, you are to carve."

"Hanged if I will! I'm a guest here, and I stand on my rights," Y.D.

exploded.

"Then you must do it, Frank."

"I suppose so," said Transley, "although all I get out of a meal when I have to carve is splas.h.i.+ng and profanity. You know, Squiggs, I've figured it out that this practice of requiring the nominal head of the house to carve has come down from the days when there wasn't usually enough to go 'round, and the carver had to make some fine decisions and, perhaps, maintain them by force. It has no place under modern civilization."

"Except that someone must do it, and it's about the only household responsibility man has not been able to evade," said Mrs. Transley.

As they entered the dining-room Zen's mother, whiter and it seemed even more distinguished by the years, joined them, accompanied by Mrs.

Squiggs, a thin woman much concerned about social status, and the party was complete.

Transley managed the carving more skilfully than his protest might have suggested, and there was a lull in the conversation while the first demands of appet.i.te were being satisfied.

"Tell us about your settlement scheme, Mr. Grant," Mrs. Transley urged when it seemed necessary to find a topic. "Mr. Grant has quite a wonderful plan."

"Yes, wise us up, old man," said Transley. "I've heard something of it, but never could see through it."

"It's all very simple," Grant explained. "I am providing the capital to start a few families on farms. Instead of lending the money directly to them I am financing a company in which each farmer must subscribe for stock to the value of the land he is to occupy. His stock he will pay for with a part of the proceeds of each year's crop, until it is paid in full, when he becomes a paid-up shareholder, subject to no further call except a levy which may be made for running expenses."

"And then your advances are returned to you with interest," Squiggs suggested. "A very creditable plan of benefaction; very creditable, indeed."

"No, that is not the idea. In the first place, I am accepting no interest on my advances, and in the second place the money, when repaid by the shareholders, will not be returned to me, but will be used to establish another colony on the same basis, and so on--the movement will be extended from group to group."

Mr. Squiggs readjusted his large round tortoise-sh.e.l.l gla.s.ses.

"Do I understand that you are charging no interest?"

"Not a cent."

"Then where do YOU come in?"

"I had hoped to make it clear that I am not seeking to 'come in.' You see, the money I am doing this with is not really mine at all."

"Not yours?" cried a chorus of voices.

"No. Mr. Squiggs, you are a lawyer, and therefore a man of perspicuity and accurate definitions. What is money?"

"You flatter me. I should say that money is a medium for the exchange of value."

"Very well. Therefore, if a man accepts money without giving value for it in exchange he is violating the fundamental principle underlying the use of money. He is, in short, an economic outlaw."

"I am afraid I don't follow you."

"Let me ill.u.s.trate by my own experience, and that of my family. My father was possessed of a piece of land which at one time had little or no value. Eventually it became of great value, not through anything he had done, but as a result of the natural law that births exceed deaths.

Yet he, although he had done nothing to create this value, was able, through a faulty economic system, to pocket the proceeds. Then, as a result of the advantages which his wealth gave him, he was able to extract from society throughout all the remainder of his life value out of all proportion to any return he made for it. Finally it came down to me. Holding my peculiar belief, which my right and left bower consider sinful and silly respectively, I found money forced upon me, regardless of the fact that I had given absolutely no value in exchange. Now if money is a medium for the exchange of value and I receive money without giving value for it, it is plain that someone else must have parted with money without receiving value in return. The thing is basically immoral."

"Your father couldn't take it with him."

"But why should _I_ have it? I never contributed a finger-weight of service for it. From society the money came and to society it should return."

"You should worry," said Transley. "Society isn't worrying over you.

Some more of the roast beef?"

"No, thank you. But to come down to date. It seems that I cannot get away from this wealth which dogs me at every turn. Before enlisting I had been margining certain steel stocks, purely in the ordinary course of affairs. With the demands made by the war on the steel industry my stocks went up in price and my good friend Murdoch was able to report that it had made a fortune for me while I was overseas.... And we call ourselves an intelligent people!"

"And so we are," said Mr. Squiggs. "We stick to a system we know to be sound. It has weathered all the gales of the past, and promises to weather those of the future. I tell you, Grant, communism won't work. You can't get away from the principle of individual reward for individual effort."

"My dear fellow, that's exactly what I'm pleading for. I have no patience with any claim that all men are equal, or capable of rendering equal service to society, and I want payment to be made according to service rendered, not according to the freaks of a haphazard system such as I have been trying to describe."