White Ashes Part 4

The young man laughed.

"There's one point of dissimilarity that I see already," he replied.

"The time of the brightest brokers in Boston is valuable; mine is not.

Really, you're not very encouraging, but I didn't expect you to be. I know my step-uncle, and I'm prepared for a stiff and extensive campaign. All I'm asking for is a detonator--something to start the action, you know, or something novel in the way of an explosive.

Perhaps an adaptation of one of those grenades that the Chinese pirates throw when they want to drive their victims suffocating into the sea.

I realize that there isn't much use engaging Uncle John with ordinary Christian weapons; he's practically bomb-proof."

"I am afraid," said Mr. Osgood, slowly, "that I am not very expert in the manufacture of noxious piratical chemicals. You will have to seek your inspiration elsewhere."

Smith turned to Wilkinson. Heretofore the representative of the Guardian had taken no part in the conversation.

"Would you mind stating, without quite so many figures of speech, just what you want?" he asked quietly.

"Certainly. What I want is something, some handle which will get me John M. Hurd's attention just long enough to make him listen to me. If I can get him to listen, I stand a chance."

"You say he carries no fire insurance on any of the trolley properties?" the New Yorker inquired thoughtfully.

"No," replied Mr. Osgood. "He has a small insurance fund--perhaps thirty or forty thousand dollars. He pays into this each year a part of what his insurance would cost him, and out of this fund is paid what losses the company sustains. And we must confess that so far the scheme has worked well. His losses have been much less than he would have paid in premiums to the companies."

"A fund--yes. That is all well and good, unless there is a great congestion of value at some single point, or at a very few points.

Tell me, how much value is there in that main car barn on Pemberton Street--the new one next to the power plant?"

"Probably over a half a million dollars--at night, when the cars are all there," said Cole.

"And with the power house almost a million, then?"

"Almost," Cole agreed.

Smith rose and walked over to the window; the others watched him in silence. "What kind of people hold the stock of the traction company?"

he asked suddenly.

"I fancy Mr. Hurd himself swings a very big block," Cole answered.

"And his directors have a good deal. It's easily carried--the banks up here will loan on it almost up to the market value."

Smith still looked thoughtfully out the window.

"And I presume the directors and other stockholders take advantage of that fact?" he inquired.

"Oh, yes," Mr. Osgood replied. "We have a lot of it as collateral for loans in the Charlestown Trust Company, of which I am a director."

"And is it actively traded in on the Exchange?" the New Yorker continued.

"No. Odd lots mainly, from time to time. But the price is remarkably steady. It is regarded about as safe as a bond."

Smith returned to the seated group.

"Gentlemen," he said, "banks do strange things at times, but they are usually grateful for information when it is of value. They have probably never taken the trouble to find out whether the Ma.s.sachusetts Light, Heat, and Traction was properly protected against a fire--by which I mean a big fire; they probably have a.s.sumed that it was. If it were to become known in financial circles that their insurance fund was forty thousand dollars and that they stood to lose one million dollars if there were a big fire in Pemberton Street to-night, how many of those borrowers do you think would be asked by the banks to reduce their loans or to subst.i.tute in part other collateral of a less speculative sort? It might even affect the price of the stock on the Exchange rather unfortunately. Some of those directors might have an unpleasant half-hour."

He paused. Wilkinson's face expressed the most eager attention.

"And I want to say to you, gentlemen, that a general fire in the congested section of this city is in my opinion not so improbable a thing as you Bostonians imagine. The conflagration hazard in Boston's congested district is not a thing one can exactly calculate, but it would be difficult to overestimate its gravity. . . . There's your grenade, Mr. Wilkinson."

Wilkinson leaped to his feet.

"I see it," he cried. "Leave it to me. It's as good as done. It's merely a question of time."

"What are you going to do?" asked Cole, curiously.

Wilkinson made for the door.

"Do?" he cried. "Do? I'm going to load the grenade. Gentlemen, good morning."

CHAPTER III

Isabel Hurd sat bolt upright on the stiff and blackly austere divan, and surveyed her friend with mingled surprise and concern.

"My dear Helen," she protested, "to my certain knowledge you have seen your cousin only twice this summer, and surely it would not hurt you to go to her reception."

"I disagree with you," replied Miss Maitland. "If there is any equity in social obligations, it would decidedly hurt me."

"Why, what do you mean?"

"Well, just because I take the trouble to watch a certain person select her wall paper, is that any valid reason why I should shed upon that person the effulgence of my eyes? Not that I am a sufferer from effulgent eyes and need the services of an oculist--I'm only quoting--but it seems to me awfully one-sided. I hate Cousin Henrietta's receptions--dull, poky affairs--where Mrs. Parkinson weeps into her teacup and the Misses Pyncheon are apt--most apt--to recite a little Browning. I detest receptions, anyway, and if I have to go to any more of them I shall scream. If you suggest my going to any, Isabel, I shall scream at you!"

Miss Hurd smiled a superior smile.

"Why, my dear child," she said, "you know perfectly well that I don't care an atom whether you go to your Cousin Henrietta's or not. But I never knew you were so down on receptions. I hope you haven't forgotten that next month you promised to receive with mother and me at ours."

Helen wavered a moment, then obstinately continued.

"Yes, I have. I've forgotten it absolutely. If I ever said it, I must have been suffering from febrile lesions,--if there are any such things,--and I hereby wave the promise aside with the magnificent gesture of a satrap ordering somebody to execution."

Isabel no longer smiled; her answer was a little acid and very distinct.

"Of course, if you don't want to help mother and me, no one will compel you to, my dear. Do precisely as you like; do not think of us in any way--we can easily get some one else."

Miss Maitland looked quickly up, and saw that there was a suspicious brightness in her friend's eyes, whereby she understood that Isabel felt actually hurt by her diatribe against the social dragon and his works--at least when his works were interwoven with Isabel's own concerns. And because Helen was tender-hearted under all her social armor, and because she and Isabel were fonder of one another than one would have thought possible, considering the diversities between them, she was smitten with swift compunction and hastily withdrew so much of her protest as touched her friend.

"You are a silly person, but a dear," she said contritely; "and I didn't really mean what I said about receptions--at least, about yours.

But I meant every word about Cousin Henrietta."

A slight shadow of doubt lingered in Isabel's eyes, and Helen, seeing it, crossed quickly over to the divan and kissed her lightly on the cheek. The olive branch was accepted and peace restored.

"All the same," Miss Maitland presently went on, "there are times, I confess, when I get so tired of some of the things I do that I feel as though I couldn't possibly do them again."

Isabel nodded understandingly.