Читать книгу: «The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 03, No. 17, March, 1859», страница 6

BULLS AND BEARS

[Continued.]

CHAPTER XV

On the morning of the day which brought the downfall of Stearine and his indorsers, Sandford and Fayerweather, with the Vortex, whose funds they had misappropriated, Monroe came to the counting-room unusually cheerful. His anxiety respecting his little property was relieved, for he thought the monetary crisis was past, and that thenceforth affairs would improve. He had reasoned with himself that such a pressure could not last always, and that this had certainly reached its limit. The clear, bracing air of the morning had its full influence over his sensitive nature. All Nature seemed to rejoice, and he, for the time, forgot the universal distress, and sympathized with it. But the thermometer fell rapidly as he caught the expression which the face of his employer wore. Mr. Lindsay, of the house of Lindsay & Co., was usually a reserved, silent man—in business almost a machine, honest both from instinct and habit, and proud, in his quiet way, of his position and his stainless name. He had a wife and daughter, and therefore was presumed to have affections; but those whom he met in the market never thought of him, save as the systematic merchant. Well as Monroe knew him, being his confidential clerk, he never had seen more than the case in which the buying, selling, and note-paying machinery was inclosed. He respected the evident integrity and worth of the head of the house, but never dreamed of a different feeling; he could as easily have persuaded himself into cherishing an affection for the counting-house clock.

This morning, Mr. Lindsay's face wore an unusually sleepless, anxious look. The man of routine was but a man, after all, and, in his distress, he longed for some intelligent, friendly sympathy. Monroe recognized the mute appeal, but, from long habits of reticence, he was at a loss how to approach his stately chief. Determined, however, to give him an opportunity to speak, if he chose, Monroe asked after the news, the day's failures, and the prospects of business. The merchant needed only a word, and broke out at once,—

"Prospect? there is no prospect but ruin. If a whirlwind would bury the city, or a conflagration leave it a heap of ashes, it would be better for all of us."

"But don't you think the darkest time has past?"

"Not at all; the pressure will continue until scores more are brought down. Better fail at once than live in dread of it."

"You surprise me! Why, you are not in danger?"

"Did you ever consider? Look at the bales of goods in our lofts,—goods which nobody will buy and nobody can pay for. And our acceptances have been given to the manufacturers for them,—acceptances that are maturing daily. Up to this time I have taken up all our paper, as it became due; but God knows how the next payments are to be made."

"I had not thought of that."

"The house of Lindsay & Co. has never known dishonor"—

The merchant wiped his spectacles,—but it was the eyes that were dim, not the glasses. His lips quivered and his breath came hard, as he continued,—

"But the time has come; the house must go down."

"I hope not," said Monroe, fervently. "Can nothing be done?"

"Nothing. Every resource has been used. The banks won't discount; and I suppose they can't; they are fully as weak as their customers."

"I don't know but the offer may be useless, contemptible, even; but I have a small sum, in good notes, that may be available."

The merchant shook his head.

"Whatever it is, you are welcome to it. Perhaps ten thousand dollars"—

"Ten thousand dollars!" exclaimed Mr. Lindsay,—"you have that sum?"

"Yes,—the little property that was my father's. Let me go and get the notes, and see if I can't get some money upon them."

Mr. Lindsay rose and took the clerk's hand with a heartiness that astonished him.

"God bless you, Monroe," he said. "I may be saved, after all. Ten thousand dollars will be enough for the present pinch, and before the next acceptance is due some relief may come."

"Don't speak of thanks. I'll get the notes in a moment."

Tears stole silently down the unaccustomed furrows; the gateway of feeling was open, but the tremulous lips refused to speak. Before he could recover his self-possession, Monroe was gone. Mr. Lindsay tried to read the newspapers, but the print before his eyes conveyed no idea to his preoccupied brain. Then his thoughts turned to his beautiful villa in Brookline, and he remembered how that morning his daughter stepped lightly into the brougham with him at the back piazza, rode down the winding path between the evergreen-hedges, and, after giving him a kiss, sprang out when they reached the gate. He knew, that, when he returned in the evening, he should find her in her place under the great horse-chestnut, at the foot of the hill, ready to ride to the house. How could he meet her with the news he would have to carry? how crush the spirits of his invalid wife? Humiliating as the idea of failure was when considered in his relations with the mercantile world, the thought of home, with its changed feelings and circumstances, and the probable deprivation of habitual indulgences, was far more poignant.

It was not long before Monroe returned, but with a less buoyant air. Mr. Lindsay's spirits fell instantly. "I see it all," said he, "you can't do anything."

"Perhaps I may, yet. The notes I spoke of, though due to me, are in the hands of Mr. Sandford, Secretary of the Vortex Insurance Company. I have been there, and cannot see him. His shutting himself up, I am afraid, bodes me no good. However, I'll go again an hour hence."

"No harm in trying. Did you indorse the notes to him?"

"No. They were merely left with him for convenience' sake, as he was my agent in loaning the money."

"Then he can't make way with them,—honestly."

Monroe seemed hurt by the implied suspicion, but did not reply, thinking it best, if possible, to change the subject of conversation.

Mr. Lindsay sat in silence, a silence that was broken only once or twice during the morning, and then by some friend or business acquaintance asking, in hurried or anxious tones, "Anything over to-day?" A mournful shake of the head was the only answer, and the merchant sunk into a deeper gloom.

Again Monroe went to see Mr. Sandford, but with no better success. The third time he naturally spoke in a peremptory tone, and, giving his name and business, said, that he must and would see Mr. Sandford, or get the notes. The weight of his employer's trouble rested on him, and gave an unwonted force to his usually kind and modest temper. The clerk, not daring to break his instructions, and seeing that it was not far from two o'clock, intimated, in a half-confidential tone, that he would do well to ask Mr. Tonsor, the broker, about them. Nervous with apprehension, Monroe walked swiftly to Tonsor's office. At the door he met Fletcher coming out with exultation in every feature. Within stood Bullion, his legs more astride than usual, his chin more confidently settled over his collar, and the head of his cane pressed against his mouth. As Monroe entered, Tonsor ceased the conversation, and, looking up, said, blandly, "My young friend, can I do anything for you?" Bullion at the same time turned the eyes that might have been only glittering petrifactions, and pointed the long eyebrow at him inquiringly.

"I hope so," was the reply. "Have you some notes in your possession payable to Walter Monroe?"

"Who asks the question?"—very civilly.

"My name is Monroe."

"Ah! Mr. Sandford is your agent, I presume?"

"Yes. I left the notes with him."

"And you wanted to raise some money on them?"

"Yes, that is what I wish."

"Then you'll be pleased to know that Mr. Sandford has anticipated you. I loaned him eight thousand dollars upon them this morning."

"Loaned him eight thousand dollars?"

"Certainly. Is it extraordinary that your agent has done what you desired?"

"I never asked him to borrow for me; and I never authorized him to transfer the notes."

"He hasn't transferred them; he has only pledged them."

"He couldn't pledge them; he had no legal right in them."

"But he has pledged them, and they are in my safe, subject to the repayment of the sum I loaned."

"If you have loaned Mr. Sandford money, that is your affair."

"And yours, too, my friend, you will find, if he doesn't pay it."

"You haven't a right to detain the notes a moment."

"I have the possession, which will answer as well as the right. And let me advise you,—don't get excited and conclude that everything is wrong.

You are not so well posted as you might be. Go and see Mr. Sandford, and I haven't a doubt you'll find the money ready for you."

"I shall go. But I wish you to understand, that, if I am not 'posted,' as you say, I do know my rights, and I shall take proper measures to get possession of my property. You have no more hold upon it than a pawnbroker has upon a stolen spoon."

Trembling with the unusual excitement, and despairing of being able to aid his employer, Monroe did not wait for a reply, but rushed to the Vortex again. Mr. Sandford had gone out on business, was the answer. He had not gone far, if the truth were known; for his position commanded the office-door, and he saw every visitor.

Time did not lag that eventful day; the hands seemed to sweep round the dial on the Old State House as though they had been swords in pursuit of some dilatory debtor. It now lacked only fifteen minutes of two, and Monroe, sick at heart, turned his steps towards Milk Street, to announce the utter failure of his plan. Mr. Lindsay received the intelligence with more firmness than might have been expected.

"Monroe, my friend,—for I can truly call you so,—you have done what you could. It was not your fault that your agent deceived and swindled you. You generously offered me your all. I shall never forget it. I can't say more now. Please stay and inform the notary, when he comes, that he must take the usual course. Tell John, when he comes with the brougham, that he may drive back. I shall take the cars to-day, and shall not be at home, probably, until after tea. I pray God, Monroe, that you may never go home as I do now. O Clara, my daisy, my darling! how can I tell you?"

Still murmuring to himself, Mr. Lindsay slowly walked out of the counting-room.

It was not strange, that, under the pressure of his own calamity, Mr. Lindsay had no thought for the losses of others. He forgot that Monroe was really in a far worse position, since, if the ten thousand dollars were lost, it was his all. Neither did Monroe, at first, reflect upon his own impending misfortune; he had been so intent upon preserving the credit of the house, that his own interest had been lost sight of.

Presently the notary came with the inevitable demand. He was a cheerful fellow in his sorry business, blithe as an old stager of an undertaker at a first-class funeral. He chatted about the crisis, and, as a matter of course, brought all the latest news from State Street. Monroe listened to one piece of news, but had ears for no more. "Sandford and Fayerweather had failed, and the old Vortex, which they had managed, was dead broke, cleaned out."

Mr. Lindsay was not the only heart-stricken man who left the counting-room that day.

CHAPTER XVI

Monroe was walking sorrowfully homeward, when he met Easelmann near the corner of Summer Street. He was in no humor for conversation, but he could not civilly avoid the painter, who evidently was waiting to speak to him.

"Glad to see one man that isn't a capitalist. You and I, Monroe, are independent of banks and brokers."

Monroe faintly smiled.

"This is a deadly time here in Boston,—a horrible stagnation. Every man avoids his neighbor as though he had the plague; and we have no Boccaccio to tell us stories while the dead-carts go by."

"The dead-cart went through our street to-day."

"You don't tell me! Who is the lucky corpse that is out of his misery?"

"Mr. Lindsay. Our house is shut up, and I am a vagrant."

"A pair of us! For the last month I have performed the Wandering Jew all by myself. Now I have company. What shall we do to be jolly?"

"Jolly!"—with a tone of melancholy surprise.

"When should a man be jolly, if he can't when he's nothing to do? I am the slave of gold, you understand. If any rich magician rubs his double-eagles before me, woe is me, if I don't paint! When the magicians send their eagles on other errands, I am free from their drudgery. Meanwhile, I live on air, flattened out and packed away, like a Mexican horned-frog, or a dreaming toad, in a fissure of a preadamite rock."

"I am sorry I haven't your art of making misfortune comfortable."

"Misfortune? My philosophical friend, there isn't any such thing. The true man is superior to circumstances or accidents. (Some old fellow, I believe, has said that; somebody always says my good things before me; but no matter.) Nothing can happen amiss to the wise and good."

"Then I am neither wise nor good, for I have lost my all, and it comes confoundedly amiss to me."

"Your all? That's what the shoemaker said; but he bought a new one for six-pence. But, how happened it?"

"By my folly."

"I knew that, of course; but I wanted to know what folly in particular."

"I trusted it to a man whom I thought not only honest, but my friend, and he has proved a scoundrel."

"You shouldn't have led him into temptation. You are particeps criminis, and the partaker is as bad as the thief. Don't trust without taking security, my friend; it's offering a premium to crime. Consider your guilt now! Think of the family into whose innocent bosom you have brought sin and remorse! Who is the luckless person?"

"Sandford!"

"I knew it. I expected it. He was too good by half. I didn't blame him for his widow-and-orphan business; somebody must do it; but I made up my mind some time ago that he would come to grief."

"Prophets are always plenty after the event."

"True, my friend. But just think! He passed by my pictures in the Exhibition, and bought the canvas of my friend Greenleaf,—a man of genius, doubtless, but young, you understand, young. Can you conceive of the wickedness? I felt sure from that moment, that, if he were not totally depraved, he at least had a moral inability, as the preachers call it, that would be his ruin."

"Well, he is ruined effectually; but the worst of it is, that he has dragged innocent people down with him."

"'Innocent,'—yes, you have the word. A man that cares for money at all, and trusts all he has without security to any fair-spoken financier, is an innocent, truly."

"Well, there is no use in lamenting, and just as little in the consolation of thinking how the loss might have been avoided."

"I don't know. I don't admit that. I am not to be deprived of the rights of a freeborn American. The 'I told-you-so' is a fine balm for all sorts of wounds,—rather more soothing to physician than patient, perhaps. Combined with the 'You-might-have-known-it,' it gets up a wholesome blister in the least possible time, especially where 'a raw' has been established previously."

"I don't think I was prudent."

"Of course not; if you had been, you wouldn't have lost. There are no such things as mistakes in the world.—But to look at affairs. Imprimis.—Lindsay smashed, house closed, salary stopped."

"I suppose so."

"Item,—private funds gone; owner taken in by the patent-safe game.

"Item,—dwelling-house standing; so much gain,—but

"Item,—the dweller is not alone, having other mouths to feed.

"But don't be discouraged. I don't doubt you will find something to do in good time."

"But when is the good time coming? I must earn something at once."

"The danger of being made to work isn't pressing. Ships will have time to get well rested. Truckmen are actually growing civil with a little starvation. The beggars don't hold out their hands for coppers; they make more money by hauling out their old stockings and lending at five per cent. a month."

"You will laugh me out of my misery in spite of myself."

"I hope so; but I am not sure that a man can be laughed out of a thing he wasn't laughed into. Now, Monroe, I am going to surprise you. I am going to bore you, annoy you; for I am to see you every day for the next week. Can you bear it? I shall be worse than the balm of 'I-told-you-so.'"

Monroe pressed his friend's hand.

"Come, by all means. And now we are near my house; go in and take tea with us."

"No, not to-day. It is dies nefastus. Good-bye!"

Twirling his grizzly moustaches and humming to himself, Easelmann turned back. He did not go to his room, however, but went down a quiet street, apparently guided by instinct, and rang the bell at a well-known door.

"Is Mr. Holworthy at home?"

The servant-girl nodded and smiled, and Easelmann entered. Mr. Holworthy was emphatically at home, for he was on all-fours, his three children riding cock-horse, with merry shouts, varied by harmless tumbles and laborious clamberings up. Mr. Holworthy rose with a flushed and happy face, and the children rushed at once to clasp the knees of their familiar old friend.

"We all have to come down at times, I believe," said Mr. Holworthy, smoothing the few thin hairs on his handsomely arched crown.

"Certainly; a man that can't be a boy with his children deserves to have none. Now the reason I am a bachelor is that I feared I could never unbend, being somewhat remarkable for my perpendic"—

The word was cut off by a sudden movement; the children in their playful struggles had, in fact, thrown him down. In a moment more they were on his back and he trotting round the room with the grace of an elephant.

"Come, children," said the father, "that was a rough joke. Get off, now, and go for your bread and milk."

Rather reluctantly they obeyed, casting wishful glances backward to the grown-up boy with whom they had hoped to have a frolic.

"Glad to see you," said Mr. Holworthy. "You have been unsocial, lately."

"Yes; all the effect of the panic. I am such a butterfly that I seem out of place in a work-a-day community. I am constantly advised, like the volatile person in the fable, to learn wisdom from my aunt; but I can't, for the soul of me."

"You ought to visit the more, to cheer the wretched and downcast."

"Oh, but it's a fearful waste of magnetism. Five minutes' talk with a man who has notes to pay draws all the virtue out of me. It lowers my vital tone like standing in an ice-house. You feel such a man from afar like a coming iceberg. You don't have notes to pay? I thought not. I should go at once."

"No, my little shop pays its way. I buy for cash. I pay my hands when they bring in their work, and I have customers enough who ask me for no credit."

"Happy man! most fortunate of tailors!—I have been thinking, Holworthy, among your many benevolent projects, why you never devised some means of relieving people who are supposed to be in good circumstances,—a society for ameliorating the condition of the rich."

"Bless me! the poor are quite numerous enough, and are in unusual straits just now."

"I know, and for that reason they are better off than usual. People say, 'How the poor must suffer in these pinching times!' So they double their charities."

"Poverty is an ocean without bottom, my friend. All that is given is like emptying stones into the sea; the waves swallow them and sweep over as before."

"True, you can't satisfy the beggars till you drown 'em. Wouldn't a gentle asphyxia by water, now, be the best thing for some of the Broad-Street cellarers?"

"Very likely; but they would probably object to the remedy."

"But to return to my project. I see some forms of distress that seem to me far more painful than utter poverty. I won't expatiate, but state a case. I know a man of good sense and culture, able and willing to do his part in the world. His employer has failed, so that his salary will stop. He is unmarried, but has a mother, an invalid, who never stirs out of doors; and besides has some poor relation or other to support. He has a house, it is true; so they needn't sleep in the street; but how are the mouths to be fed, the backs to be clothed?"

"Let him sell his house and wait till better times for employment."

"It is easy to say sell; but who will buy? A house won't fetch half its value, and there isn't any money to be had. Besides,—and this is the hardship,—the pride and the feelings of association cling round a house that has been consecrated by years of affection and by the memory of the dead.—I believe I am making an oration; but I despair of expressing myself."

"I understand you perfectly; it is sad, indeed."

"Excuse me, you don't understand me. Some men put off old houses and put on new ones, like their clothes, without a thought. Others grow into their habitations and become a part of them. You might as well say to a lobster, 'Get out of your shell,' when you know that the poor wretch will die when his naked, quivering members are exposed to the sharp-edged stones. A delicate nature, proud, but gentle, too sensitive to accept charity, and doubtful of a friendly service even, suffers more anguish in one hour, under such circumstances, than your brazen beggar feels from his dirty cradle to his nameless grave."

Mr. Holworthy mused.

"He has nothing to do, then?"

"Nothing, but to suck his thumbs."

"Is he willing to work, even if the task should appear irksome?"

"I haven't a doubt. He has no false pride. Anything honorable would be welcome."

"Perhaps I can find something for him to do; it will be temporary, but its continuance will depend upon himself."

"And what is it?"

"In visiting the district which has been allotted to me, I have found an unusual number of ignorant, vicious boys, cared for by no one, growing up for the prison or the gallows. I have thought of making some effort to gather them together and start a ragged school. Some friends have agreed to provide the means. But the pay would necessarily be small, and the labor and difficulty great."

"A teacher of tatterdemalions! It isn't an inviting field of labor."

"No, to a refined man it must be repulsive. Nothing but the idea of doing good would make it a pleasure or even endurable."

"I confess myself utterly without any such motive. I hate poor people, and ragged children, and sick women, the forlorn wives of drunken brutes. I shut my eyes to all such odious sights. They say, in a hotel you must never go into the kitchen, if you would keep your appetite; and I am sure one must avoid these wretches in the cellar, if he would have a cheerful view of life in his attic."

"You are not so hard-hearted as you would have me believe. Somebody must relieve their distresses."

"Somebody, too, must cut off legs, and sew up spouting arteries, and extirpate cancers. Ugh! but I shan't. I leave such jobs to the doctors, whose ears are familiar with shrieks, and whose appetites are not disturbed by the sight of blood."

"So the Levite left the wounded man by the wayside, in disgust at his bruises: but still the good Samaritan who helped him hadn't a doctor's degree."

"Oh, I know. You have me, I acknowledge. But I can't change my temper, and I shrink from suffering as from death. I would rather bear it than see it. Society always provides its good Samaritans; and you are one of them. Don't look modest. I went once through some of those damnable alleys near Half-Moon Court, the agreeable place where you spend so much of your leisure. I was looking for a subject to paint. For curiosity, I asked an urchin if he knew you. He flung his ragged cap twenty feet into the air, turned a somerset, and came up smiling as well as he could through the dirt,—'Don't I, though? He brung us meal an' 'taters when dad broke his leg, and he fetched oranges in his pocket when marm had the fevers. He's one of 'em, he is.'—Don't interrupt me.—An old woman, whom I asked, said, 'Do I know Mister 'Olworthy? A blissed saint in the flesh; my poor ol' bones would 'ave hached many a cold night but for the blankets he brought me. God in 'eaven reward 'im for that same!' I spare you the rest of the answers. Oh, you are a saint, without robe or wings."

"Hadn't we better come back to the subject," said Mr. Holworthy, in a mild voice. "We shan't aid your friend in this way."

"Right, my considerate Mentor. But talk is tempting. I believe I should forget my errand and let a friend hang, if I got into an argument with the Governor while he was filling out the pardon."

"I hope the gentleman you speak of is not so much afraid of contact with what is disagreeable as you are?"

"Perhaps not; he has an artistic temperament, and therefore loves what is comely; but he would go through fire to what he thought his duty."

"And wouldn't you?"

"What a question! Go through fire? No, I should bawl for the engine."

"It's plain, then, that he will answer better than you for the place."

"No doubt. I shouldn't answer at all. I tell you I never talk with these creatures. I can't. If an old woman stops me, with her dried-apple face and whining voice, I give her a sixpence and tell her to hush up and go about her business. I fling coppers to the boys with slit breeches before they ask me, for I know they will tell me of mothers sick with consumption. Their devilish tears are contagious; and I can't cry; it chokes me. So I buy apples and oranges from the imploring-looking girls; it's the easiest way of getting rid of them. The little change don't amount to much in a day, and I save my nerves and my digestion at a cheap rate."

Mr. Holworthy smiled at Easelmann's notion of his own hard-heartedness, and said, hesitatingly,—

"I am afraid that some professedly charitable persons don't do so much."

"Of course they don't. I don't mean that I do anything. It's pure selfishness on my part, as I told you. But you may feel pretty sure, that, if a man's name is always in the papers, as 'our estimable fellow-citizen, President This, Director That, and Treasurer T'other,' he 'does not give indiscriminate alms':—I believe that is the phrase. Perhaps he won't rob, like my friend Sandford; but his 'disinterested labors' are an economical substitute for substantial charity, and his desire for a place in the public eye is the mainspring of all his actions."

"Most of the distress in the community is relieved by organized effort; individual charities, however well meant, would be entirely inadequate. Besides, you should not be severe upon all because one prominent person has proved unworthy."

"Sandford is a type of the class. If there is anybody I hate worse than a sick beggar, it is a man who makes a trade of philanthropy."

"And yet you are consenting to your friend's earning a living by teaching a ragged school."

"True, one may stop at any place in a storm, just for shelter."

"And you can console yourself further with the assurance that your friend won't make enough in this place to induce him to take up the 'trade,' as you call it."

"I hope not. Starve him judiciously. If he should come out, after a year or so, with a white neckcloth, spectacles, and a sanctified face, soliciting aid for his school, in Pecksniffian tones, I should regret that I hadn't furnished him with a cord and a bag of stones to drop himself into the dock with."

"I don't know why a teacher or a street-missionary may not be a gentleman."

"Sure enough, why not? Whatever Walter Monroe is, he will always be a gentleman."

"Suppose you bring him to see me to-morrow or next day; we will talk about this."

"I will. Now, good-bye! My regrets to the children that we couldn't finish our romp."

"Good-bye," said Holworthy. "Come again; the children will be glad to see you."