Chapter IV: Part 4

It was early in August of '56 when George and I came to an old town on the Ohio, half city, half village, to play an engagement. We were under contract with South then, who provided the rest of the troupe, three or four posture-girls, Stradi the pianist, and a Madame Somebody, who gave readings and sang. "Concert" was the heading in large caps on the bills, "Balacchi Brothers will give their aesthetic _tableaux vivants_ in the interludes," in agate below.

"I've got to cover you fellows over with respectability here," South said. "Rope-dancing won't go down with these aristocratic church-goers."

I remember how George was irritated. "When I was my own agent," he said, "I only went to the cities. Educated people can appreciate what we do, but in these country towns we rank with circus-riders."

George had some queer notions about his business. He followed it for sheer love of it, as I did for money. I've seen all the great athletes since, but I never saw one with his wonderful skill and strength, and with the grace of a woman too, or a deer. Now that takes hard, steady work, but he never flinched from it, as I did; and when night came, and the people and lights, and I thought of nothing but to get through, I used to think he had the pride of a thousand women in every one of his muscles and nerves: a little applause would fill him with a mad kind of fury of delight and triumph. South had a story that George belonged to some old Knickerbocker family, and had run off from home years ago. I don't know. There was that wild restless blood in him that no home could have kept him.

We were to stay so long in this town that I found rooms for us with an old couple named Peters, who had but lately moved in from the country, and had half a dozen carpenters and masons boarding with them. It was cheaper than the hotel, and George preferred that kind of people to educated men, which made me doubt that story of his having been a gentleman. The old woman Peters was uneasy about taking us, and spoke out quite freely about it when we called, not knowing that George and I were Balacchi Brothers ourselves.

"The house has been respectable so far, gentlemen," she said. "I don't know what about taking in them half-naked, drunken play-actors. What do you say, Susy?" to her granddaughter.

"Wait till you see them, grandmother," the girl said gently. "I should think that men whose lives depended every night on their steady eyes and nerves would not dare to touch liquor."

"You are quite right--nor even tobacco," said George. It was such a prompt, sensible thing for the little girl to say that he looked at her attentively a minute, and then went up to the old lady smiling: "We don't look like drinking men, do we, madam?"

"No, no, sir. I did not know that you were the I-talians." She was quite flustered and frightened, and said cordially enough how glad she was to have us both. But it was George she shook hands with. There was something clean and strong and inspiring about that man that made most women friendly to him on sight.

Why, in two days you'd have thought he'd never had another home than the Peters's. He helped the old man milk, and had tinkered up the broken kitchen-table, and put in half a dozen window-panes, and was intimate with all the boarders; could give the masons the prices of job-work at the East, and put Stoll the carpenter on the idea of contract houses, out of which he afterward made a fortune. It was nothing but jokes and fun and shouts of laughter when he was in the house: even the old man brightened up and told some capital stories. But from the first I noticed that George's eye followed Susy watchfully wherever she went, though he was as distant and respectful with her as he was with most women. He had a curious kind of respect for women, George had. Even the Slingsbys, that all the men in the theatre joked with, he used to pass by as though they were logs leaning against the wall. They were the posture-girls, and anything worse besides the name _I_ never saw.

There was a thing happened once on that point which I often thought might have given me a clew to his history if I'd followed it up. We were playing in one of the best theatres in New York (they brought us into some opera), and the boxes were filled with fine ladies beautifully dressed, or, I might say, half dressed.

George was in one of the wings. "It's a pretty sight," I said to him.

"It's a shameful sight," he said with an oath. "The Slingsbys do it for their living, but these women--"

I said they were ladies, and ought to be treated with respect. I was amazed at the heat he was in.

"I had a sister, Zack, and there's where I learned what a woman should be."

"I never heard of your sister, George," said I. I knew he would not have spoken of her but for the heat he was in.

"No. I'm as dead to her, being what I am, as if I were six feet under ground."

I turned and looked at him, and when I saw his face I said no more, and I never spoke of it again. It was something neither I nor any other man had any business with.

So, when I saw how he was touched by Susy and drawn toward her, it raised her in my opinion, though I'd seen myself how pretty and sensible a little body she was. But I was sorry, for I knew twan't no use. The Peterses were Methodists, and Susy more strict than any of them; and I saw she looked on the theatre as the gate of hell, and George and me swinging over it.

I don't think, though, that George saw how strong her feeling about it was, for after we'd been there a week or two he began to ask her to go and see us perform, if only for once. I believe he thought the girl would come to love him if she saw him at his best. I don't wonder at it, sir. I've seen those pictures and statues they've made of the old gods, and I reckon they put in them the best they thought a man could be; but I never knew what real manhood was until I saw my partner when he stood quiet on the stage waiting the signal to begin the light full on his keen blue eyes, the gold-worked velvet tunic, and his perfect figure.

He looked more like other men in his ordinary clothing. George liked a bit of flash, too, in his dress--a red necktie or gold chain stretched over his waistcoat.

Susy refused at first, steadily. At last, however, came our final night, when George was to produce his great leaping feat, never yet performed in public. We had been practising it for months, and South judged it best to try it first before a small, quiet audience, for the risk was horrible. Whether, because it was to be the last night, and her kind heart disliked to hurt him by refusal, or whether she loved him better than either she or he knew, I could not tell, but I saw she was strongly tempted to go. She was an innocent little thing, and not used to hide what she felt. Her eyes were red that morning, as though she had been crying all the night. Perhaps, because I was a married man, and quieter than George, she acted more freely with me than him.

"I wish I knew what to do," she said, looking up to me with her eyes full of tears. There was nobody in the room but her grandmother.

"I couldn't advise you, Miss Susy," says I. "Your church discipline goes against our trade, I know."

"I know what's right myself: I don't need church discipline to teach me," she said sharply.

"I think I'd go, Susy," said her grandmother. "It is a concert, after all: it's not a play."

"The name doesn't alter it."

Seeing the temper she was in, I thought it best to say no more, but the old lady added, "It's Mr. George's last night. Dear, dear! how I'll miss him!"

Susy turned quickly to the window. "Why does he follow such godless ways then?" she cried. She stood still a good while, and when she turned about her pale little face made my heart ache. "I'll take home Mrs. Tyson's dress now, grandmother," she said, and went out of the room. I forgot to tell you Susy was a seamstress. Well, the bundle was large, and I offered to carry it for her, as the time for rehearsal did not come till noon. She crept alongside of me without a word, looking weak and done-out: she was always so busy and bright, it was the more noticeable. The house where the dress was to go was one of the largest in the town. The servant showed us into a back parlor, and took the dress up to her mistress. I looked around me a great deal, for I'd never been in such a house before; but very soon I caught sight of a lady who made me forget carpets and pictures. I only saw her in the mirror, for she was standing by the fireplace in the front room. The door was open between. It wasn't that she was especially pretty, but in her white morning-dress, with lace about her throat and her fair hair drawn back from her face, I thought she was the delicatest, softest, finest thing of man- or woman-kind I ever say.

"Look there, Susy! look there!" I whispered.

"It is a Mrs. Lloyd from New York. She is here on a visit. That is her husband;" and then she went down into her own gloomy thoughts again.

The husband was a grave, middle-aged man. He had had his paper up before his face, so that I had not seen him before.

"You will go for the tickets, then, Edward?" she said.

"If you make a point of it, yes," in an annoyed tone. "But I don't know why you make a point of it. The musical part of the performance is beneath contempt, I understand, and the real attraction is the exhibition of these mountebanks of trapezists, which will be simply disgusting to you. You would not encourage such people at home: why would you do it here?"

"They are not necessarily wicked." I noticed there was a curious unsteadiness in her voice, as though she was hurt and agitated. I thought perhaps she knew I was there.

"There is very little hope of any redeeming qualities in men who make a trade of twisting their bodies like apes," he said. "Contortionists and ballet-dancers and clowns and harlequins--" he rattled all the names over with a good deal of uncalled-for sharpness, I thought, calling them "dissolute and degraded, the very offal of humanity." I could not understand his heat until he added, "I never could comprehend your interest and sympathy for that especial class, Ellinor."

"No, you could not, Edward," she said quietly.

"But I have it. I never have seen an exhibition of the kind. But I want to see this to-night, if you will gratify me. I have no reason." she added when he looked at her curiously. "The desire is unaccountable to myself."

The straightforward look of her blue eyes as she met his seemed strangely familiar and friendly to me.

At that moment Susy stood up to go. Her cheeks were burning and her eyes sparkling. "Dissolute and degraded!" she said again and again when we were outside. But I took no notice.

As we reached the house she stopped me when I turned off to go to rehearsal. "You'll get seats for grandmother and me, Mr. Balacchi?" she said.

"You're going, then, Susy?"

"Yes, I'm going."

* * * * *

Now the house in which we performed was a queer structure. A stock company, thinking there was a field for a theatre in the town, had taken a four-story building, gutted the interior, and fitted it up with tiers of seats and scenery. The stock company was starved out, however, and left the town, and the theatre was used as a gymnasium, a concert-room, or a church by turns. Its peculiarity was, that it was both exceedingly lofty and narrow, which suited our purpose exactly.

It was packed that night from dome to pit. George and I had rehearsed our new act both morning and afternoon, South watching us without intermission. South was terribly nervous and anxious, half disposed, at the last minute, to forbid it, although it had been announced on the bills for a week. But a feat which is successful in an empty house, with but one spectator, when your nerves are quiet and blood cool, is a different thing before an excited, terrified, noisy audience, your whole body at fever heat. However, George was cool as a cucumber, indeed almost indifferent about the act, but in a mad, boyish glee all day about everything else. I suppose the reason was that Susy was going.

South had lighted the house brilliantly and brought in a band. And all classes of people poured into the theatre until it could hold no more. I saw Mrs. Peters in one of the side-seats, with Susy's blushing, frightened little face beside her. George, standing back among the scenes, saw her too: I think, indeed, it was all he did see.

There were the usual readings from Shakespeare at first.

While Madame was on, South came to us. "Boys," said he, "let this matter go over a few weeks. A little more practice will do you no harm. You can substitute some other trick, and these people will be none the wiser."

George shrugged his shoulders impatiently: "Nonsense! When did you grow so chicken-hearted, South? It is I who have to run the risk, I fancy."

I suppose South's uneasiness had infected me.

"I am quite willing to put it off," I said. I had felt gloomy and superstitious all day. But I never ventured to oppose George more decidedly than that.

He only laughed by way of reply, and went off to dress. South looked after him, I remember, saying what a magnificently-built fellow he was. If we could only have seen the end of that night's work!

As I went to my dressing-room I saw Mrs. Lloyd and her husband in one of the stage-boxes, with one or two other ladies and gentlemen. She was plainly and darkly dressed, but to my mind she looked like a princess among them all. I could not but wonder what interest she could have in such a rough set as we, although her husband, I confess, did judge us hardly.

After the readings came the concert part of the performance, and then what South chose to call the Moving Tableaux, which was really nothing in the world but ballet-dancing. George and I were left to crown the whole. I had some ordinary trapeze-work to do at first, but George was reserved for the new feat, in order that his nerves might be perfectly unshaken. When I went out alone and bowed to the audience, I observed that Mrs. Lloyd was leaning eagerly forward, but at the first glance at my face she sank back with a look of relief, and turned away, that she might not see my exploits. It nettled me a little, I think, yet they were worth watching.

Well, I finished, and then there was a song to give me time to cool. I went to the side-scenes where I could be alone, for that five minutes. I had no risk to run in the grand feat, you see, but I had George's life in my hands. I haven't told you yet--have I?--what it was he proposed to do.

A rope was suspended from the centre of the dome, the lower end of which I held, standing in the highest gallery opposite the stage. Above the stage hung the trapeze on which George and the two posture-girls were to be. At a certain signal I was to let the rope go, and George, springing from the trapeze across the full width of the dome, was to catch it in mid-air, a hundred feet above the heads of the people. You understand? The mistake of an instant of time on either his part or mine, and death was almost certain. The plan we had thought surest was for South to give the word, and then that both should count--One, Two, Three! At Three the rope fell, and he leaped. We had practised so often that we thought we counted as one man.

When the song was over the men hung the rope and the trapeze. Jenny and Lou Slingsby swung themselves up to it, turned a few somersaults and then were quiet. They were only meant to give effect to the scene in their gauzy dresses and spangles. Then South came forward and told the audience what we meant to do. It was a feat, he said, which had never been produced before in any theatre, and in which failure was death. No one but that most daring of all acrobats, Balacchi, would attempt it. Now I knew South so well that I saw under all his confident, bragging tone he was more anxious and doubtful than he had ever been. He hesitated a moment, and then requested that after we took our places the audience should preserve absolute silence, and refrain from even the slightest movement until the feat was over. The merest trifle might distract the attention of the performers and render their eyes and hold unsteady, he said. He left the stage, and the music began.

I went round to take my place in the gallery. George had not yet left his room. As I passed I tapped at the door and called, "Good luck, old fellow!"

"That's certain now, Zack," he answered, with a joyous laugh. He was so exultant, you see, that Susy had come.

But the shadow of death seemed to have crept over me. When I took my stand in the lofty gallery, and looked down at the brilliant lights and the great mass of people, who followed my every motion as one man, and the two glittering, half-naked girls swinging in the distance, and heard the music rolling up thunders of sound, it was all ghastly and horrible to me, sir. Some men have such presentiments, they say: I never had before or since. South remained on the stage perfectly motionless, in order, I think, to maintain his control over the audience.

The trumpets sounded a call, and in the middle of a burst of triumphant music George came on the stage. There was a deafening outbreak of applause and then a dead silence, but I think every man and woman felt a thrill of admiration of the noble figure Poor George! the new, tight-fitting dress of purple velvet that he had bought for this night set off his white skin, and his fine head was bare, with no covering but the short curls that Susy liked.

It was for Susy! He gave one quick glance up at her, and a bright, boyish smile, as if telling her not to be afraid, which all the audience understood, and answered by an involuntary, long-drawn breath. I looked at Susy. The girl's colorless face was turned to George, and her hands were clasped as though she saw him already dead before her; but she could be trusted, I saw. _She_ would utter no sound. I had only time to glance at her, and then turned to my work. George and I dared not take our eyes from each other.

There was a single bugle note, and then George swung himself up to the trapeze. The silence was like death as he steadied himself and slowly turned so as to front me. As he turned he faced the stage-box for the first time. He had reached the level of the posture-girls, who fluttered on either side, and stood on the swaying rod poised on one foot, his arms folded, when in the breathless stillness there came a sudden cry and the words, "Oh, Charley! Charley!"

Even at the distance where I stood I saw George start and a shiver pass over his body. He looked wildly about him.

"To me! to me!" I shouted.

He fixed his eye on mine and steadied himself. There was a terrible silent excitement in the people, in the very air.

There was the mistake. We should have stopped then, shaken as he was, but South, bewildered and terrified, lost control of himself: he gave the word.

I held the rope loose--held George with my eyes--One!

I saw his lips move: he was counting with me.

Two!

His eye wandered, turned to the stage-box.

Three!

Like a flash, I saw the white upturned faces below me, the posture-girls' gestures of horror, the dark springing figure through the air, that wavered--and fell a shapeless mass on the floor.

There was a moment of deathlike silence, and then a wild outcry--women fainting, men cursing and crying out in that senseless, helpless way they have when there is sudden danger. By the time I had reached the floor they had straightened out his shattered limbs, and two or three doctors were fighting their way through the great crowd that was surging about him.

Well, sir, at that minute what did I hear but George's voice above all the rest, choked and hollow as it was, like a man calling out of the grave: "The women! Good God! don't you see the women?" he gasped.

Looking up then, I saw those miserable Slingsbys hanging on to the trapeze for life. What with the scare and shock, they'd lost what little sense they had, and there they hung helpless as limp rags high over our heads.

"Damn the Slingsbys!" said I. God forgive me! But I saw this battered wreck at my feet that had been George. Nobody seemed to have any mind left. Even South stared stupidly up at them and then back at George. The doctors were making ready to lift him, and half of the crowd were gaping in horror, and the rest yelling for ladders or ropes, and scrambling over each other, and there hung the poor flimsy wretches, their eyes starting out of their heads from horror, and their lean fingers loosing their hold every minute. But, sir--I couldn't help it--I turned from them to watch George as the doctors lifted him.

"It's hardly worth while," whispered one.

But they raised him and, sir--the body went one way and the legs another.

I thought he was dead. I couldn't see that he breathed, when he opened his eyes and looked up for the Slingsbys. "Put me down," he said, and the doctors obeyed him. There was that in his voice that they had to obey him, though it wasn't but a whisper.

"Ladders are of no use," he said. "Loper!"

"Yes, George"

"You can swing yourself up. Do it."

I went. I remember the queer stunned feeling I had: my joints moved like a machine.

When I had reached the trapeze, he said, as cool as if he were calling the figures for a Virginia reel, "Support them, you--Loper. Now, lower the trapeze, men--carefully!"

It was the only way their lives could be saved, and he was the only man to see it. He watched us until the girls touched the floor more dead than alive, and then his head fell back and the life seemed to go suddenly out of him like the flame out of a candle, leaving only the dead wick.

As they were carrying him out I noticed for the first time that a woman was holding his hand. It was that frail little wisp of a Susy, that used to blush and tremble if you spoke to her suddenly, and here she was quite quiet and steady in the midst of this great crowd.

"His sister, I suppose" one of the doctors said to her.

"No, sir. If he lives I will be his wife." The old gentleman was very respectful to her after that, I noticed.

Now, the rest of my story is very muddled, you'll say, and confused. But the truth is, I don't understand it myself. I ran on ahead to Mrs. Peters's to prepare his bed for him, but they did not bring him to Peters's. After I waited an hour or two I found George had been taken to the principal hotel in the place, and a bedroom and every comfort that money could buy were there for him. Susy came home sobbing late in the night, but she told me nothing, except that those who had a right to have charge of him had taken him. I found afterward the poor girl was driven from the door of his room, where she was waiting like a faithful dog. I went myself, but I fared no better. What with surgeons and professional nurses, and the gentlemen that crowded about with their solemn looks of authority, I dared not ask to see him. Yet I believe still George would rather have had old Loper by him in his extremity than any of them. Once, when the door was opened, I thought I saw Mrs. Lloyd stooping over the bed between the lace curtains, and just then her husband came out talking to one of the surgeons.

He said: "It is certain there were here the finest elements of manhood. And I will do my part to rescue him from the abyss into which he has fallen."

"Will you tell me how George is, sir?" I asked, pushing up. "Balacchi? My partner?"

Mr. Lloyd turned away directly, but the surgeon told me civilly enough that if George's life could be saved, it must be with the loss of one or perhaps both of his legs.

"He'll never mount a trapeze again, then," I said, and I suppose I groaned; for to think of George helpless--

"God forbid!" cried Mr. Lloyd, sharply. "Now look here, my good man: you can be of no possible use to Mr.--Balacchi as you call him. He is in the hands of his own people, and he will feel, as they do, that the kindest thing you can do is to let him alone."

There was nothing to be done after that but to touch my hat and go out, but as I went I heard him talking of "inexplicable madness and years of wasted opportunities."

Well, sir, I never went again: the words hurt like the cut of a whip, though 'twan't George that spoke them. But I quit business, and hung around the town till I heard he was going to live, and I broke up my contract with South. I never went on a trapeze again. I felt as if the infernal thing was always dripping with his blood after that day. Anyhow, all the heart went out of the business for me with George. So I came back here and settled down to the milling, and by degrees I learned to think of George as a rich and fortunate man.

I've nearly done now--only a word or two more. About six years afterward there was a circus came to town, and I took the wife and children and went. I always did when I had the chance. It was the old Adam in me yet, likely.

Well, sir, among the attractions of the circus was the great and unrivalled Hercules, who could play with cannon-balls as other men would with dice. I don't know what made me restless and excited when I read about this man. It seemed as though the old spirit was coming back to me again. I could hardly keep still when the time drew near for him to appear. I don't know what I expected, but when he came out from behind the curtain I shouted out like a madman, "Balacchi! George! George!"

He stopped short, looked about, and catching sight of me tossed up his cap with his old boyish shout; then he remembered himself and went on with his performance.

He was lame--yes, in one leg. The other was gone altogether. He walked on crutches. Whether the strength had gone into his chest and arms, I don't know; but there he stood tossing about the cannon-balls as I might marbles. So full of hearty good-humor too, joking with his audience, and so delighted when they gave him a round of applause.

After the performance I hurried around the tent, and you may be sure there was rejoicing that made the manager and other fellows laugh.

George haled me off with him down the street. He cleared the ground with that crutch and wooden leg like a steam-engine. "Come! come along!" he cried; "I've something to show you, Loper."

He took me to a quiet boarding-house, and there, in a cosey room, was Susy with a four-year-old girl.

"We were married as soon as I could hobble about," he said, "and she goes with me and makes a home wherever I am."

Susy nodded and blushed and laughed. "Baby and I," she said. "Do you see Baby? She has her father's eyes, do you see?"

"She _is_ her mother, Loper," said George--"just as innocent and pure and foolish--just as sure of the Father in heaven taking care of her. They've made a different man of me in some ways--a different man," bending his head reverently.

After a while I began, "You did not stay with--?" But Balacchi frowned. "I knew where _I_ belonged," he said.

Well, he's young yet. He's the best Hercules in the profession, and has laid up a snug sum. Why doesn't he invest it and retire? I doubt if he'll ever do that, sir. He may do it, but I doubt it. He can't change his blood, and there's that in Balacchi that makes me suspect he will die with the velvet and gilt on, and in the height of good-humor and fun with his audience.

AN OPERATION IN MONEY.

BY ALBERT WEBSTER.

I.

In an elegant and lofty bank-parlor there sat in council, on an autumn morning, fourteen millionaires. They reposed in deep arm-chairs, and their venerable faces were filled with profound gravity. Before them, upon a broad mahogany table, were piles of books, sheaves of paper in rubber bands, bundles of quill pens, quires of waste paper for calculations, and a number of huge red-covered folios, containing the tell-tale reports of the mercantile agencies. They had just completed the selections from the list of applicants for discount, and were now in that state of lethargy that commonly follows a great and important act.

The president, with his hands pressed together before him, was looking at the fresco of Commerce upon the ceiling; his ponderous right-hand neighbor was stumbling feebly over an addition that one of the bookkeepers had made upon one of the papers--he hoped to find it wrong; his left-hand neighbor was doubling his under-lip with his stout fingers; an octogenarian beyond had buried his chin in his immense neck, and was going to sleep; another was stupidly blinking at the nearest coal-fire; two more were exchanging gasping whispers; another was wiping his gold spectacles with a white handkerchief, now and then stopping to hold them unsteadily up to the light; and another was fingering the polished lapel of his old black coat, and saying, with asthmatic hoarseness to all who would look at him, "F-o-u-r-teen years! f-o-u-r-teen years!"

A tall regulator-clock, with its mercury pendulum, ticked upon the wall; the noise of the heavy rumbling in the streets was softened into a low monotone, and now and then a bit of coal rattled upon the fender.

The oil-portraits of four former presidents looked thoughtfully down on the scene of their former labors; the polished wainscots reflected ragged pictures of the silent fourteen, and all was perfectly in order and perfectly secure.

Presently, however, there was an end to the stagnation; the white heads began to move and to look around.

The president's eyes came gradually down from the Commerce, and, after travelling over the countenances of his stirring _confrères,_ they settled by accident upon the table before him. There they encountered a white envelope, inscribed "to the President and Honorable Board of Directors--Present."

"Oh gentlemen! gentlemen!" cried the president, seizing the letter, "one moment more, I beg of you. Here's a--a--note--a communication--a--I don't know what it is myself, I'm sure, but"--the thirteen sank back again, feeling somewhat touched that they should be so restrained. The president ran his eye over the missive. He smiled as one does sometimes at the precocity of an infant. "The letter, gentlemen," said he, slipping the paper through his fingers, "is from the paying teller. It is a request for"--here the president delayed as if about making a humorous point--"for a larger salary." Then he dropped his eyes and lowered his head, as he might have done had he confessed that somebody had kissed him. He seemed to be the innocent mouthpiece of a piece of flagrant nonsense.

There was a moment's silence. Then a heavy-voiced gentleman took up a pen and said:

"Is this man's name Dreyfus--or--or what is it?"

"Let me think," returned the president, returning once more to the Commerce; "Dreyfus?--no--not Dreyfus--yes--no. Paying teller--hum--it's curious I can't recall--it commences with an F--FIELDS--yes, Fields! that's his name--Fields, to be sure!"

The questioner at once wrote down the word on the paper.

"This is the second time that he has applied for this favor, is it not?" formally inquired another of the thirteen, in the tone that a judge uses when he asks the clerk, "Has he not been before me on a former occasion?"

"Yes," replied the president, "this is a renewal of an effort made six months ago."

There was a general movement. Several chairs rolled back, and their occupants exchanged querulous glances.

"Suppose we hear the letter read," suggested a fair soul. "Perhaps"--a septuagenarian, with snowy hair and a thin body, clad in the clerical guise of the old school, and who had made a fortune by inventing a hat-block, arose hastily to his feet, and said:

"I cannot stay to listen to a dun!"

A chorus from the majority echoed the exclamation. All but four staggered to their feet, and tottered off in various directions; some to pretend to look out at the window, and some to the wardrobes, where was deposited their outer clothing.

"Clarks," stammered the feeble hatter, feeling vainly for the arm-holes in his great-coat--"clarks presume on their value. Turn 'em out, say I. Give 'em a chance to rotate. You've got my opinion, Mr. President. Refuse what's-his-name, Fields. Tell him he's happy and well off now, without knowing it. Where _can_ be the sleeves to--to this"--his voice expired in his perplexity.

Fields's cause looked blue. One director after another groped to the door, saying, as he went, "I can't encourage it, Mr. President--tell him 'No,' Mr. President--it would only make the rest uneasy if we allowed it--plenty more to fill his place."

The hatter's voice stopped further mention of the subject. He stood at one end of the apartment in a paroxysm of laughter. Tears filled his eyes. He pointed to another director, who, at the other extremity of the room, was also puzzling over a coat. "There's Stuart with my mackintosh! He's trying to _put it on--_and here am I with _his_ coat trying to put _that_ on. I--I said to myself, 'This is pretty large for a slim man like you.'--Great God, Stuart, if I hadn't been quick-sighted we might have stayed here all night!" He immediately fell into another fit of laughter, and so did his friend. They exchanged coats with great hilarity, and those who had gone out of the door lumbered back to learn the cause of it. The story went round from one to the other, "Why, Stuart had Jacobs's coat, and Jacobs had Stuart's coat!" Everybody went into convulsions, and the president drew out his pocket-handkerchief and shrieked into it.

The board broke up with great good feeling, and Jacobs went away very weak, saying that he was going to tell the joke against Stuart on the street--if he lived to get there.

Three gentlemen remained, professedly to hear Fields's letter read. Two staid because the room was comfortable, and the other because he wanted to have a little private conversation with the president afterward.

Therefore the president wiped away the tears that Stuart's humor had forced from his eyes, and opened the crumpled letter, and, turning his back to the light, read it aloud, while the rest listened with looks of great amusement in their wrinkled faces.

"_To the President and Directors of the ---- National Bank._

"GENTLEMEN: I most respectfully renew my application for an increase
of my salary to five thousand dollars per annum, it now being four
thousand. I am impelled to do this because I am convinced that I am
not sufficiently recompensed for the labor I perform; and because
other tellers, having the same responsibilities, receive the larger
sum per annum; and, lastly, because I am about to be married.

"I remember that your answer to my first application was a definite
refusal, and I blamed myself for not having presented the case more
clearly to your distinguished notice. Will you permit me to rectify
that fault now, and to state briefly why I feel assured that my
present claim is not an unreasonable one?

"1. While ten years ago we agreed that three thousand dollars was a
fair compensation for the work I was then called upon to perform,
and four years later agreed that four thousand dollars was then fair
pay for my increased tasks, caused by the increase of your business,
is it not just that I should now ask for a still further advance in
view of the fact that your business has doubled since the date of
our last contract?

"It has been necessary for me to acquaint myself with the signatures
and business customs and qualifications of twice the former number
of your customers, and my liability to error has also become greater
in like ratio. But I have committed no errors, which argues that I
have kept up an equal strain of care. This has made demands upon my
brain and my bodily strength, which I think should be requited for.

"2. I, like each of you, will one day reach an age when the body and
mind will no longer be able to provide for themselves. But between
us, should we continue our present relations, there would be this
vital difference: You would have made an accumulation of wealth that
would be sufficient for your wants, while I would be poor in spite
of the fact that I labored with you, and next to yourselves did the
most to protect your interests. In view of my approaching
incompetence (no matter how far off it is), I am working at a
disadvantage. Would it not be right to enable me to protect myself
from this disadvantage?

"3. While you pay me a price for my labor and for my skill as an
_expert_, do you compensate me for the trials you put upon my
probity? You pay me for what I do, but do you reward me for what I
_might_, but do _not_ do? Is what I do _not_ do a marketable
quantity? I think that it is. To prove it, inquire of those whose
servants have behaved ill, whether they would not have paid
something to have forestalled their dishonesty.

"There is a bad strain to this paragraph, and I will not dwell upon
it. I only ask you to remember that enormous sums of money pass
through my hands every day, and that the smallest slip of my memory,
or of my care, or of my fidelity, might cause you irreparable loss.
Familiarity with money and operations in money always tend to lessen
the respect for the regard that others hold it in. To resist the
subtle influences of this familiarity involves a certain wear and
tear of those principles which _must_ be kept intact for your sake.

"I beg you to accept what is my evident meaning, even if my method
of setting it forth has not been particularly happy. I have assured
myself that my claim is a valid one, and I await your obliging reply
with anxiety.

"I remain, very respectfully, "Your obedient servant,

"----FIELDS, _Paying Teller."_

At the end the president suddenly lowered his head with a smile, and looked over the top of his glasses at his audience, clearly meaning, "There's a letter for you!"

But two of the gentlemen were fast asleep, nodding gently at one another across the table, while their hands clasped the arms of their chairs. The other one was looking up toward the roofs of the buildings opposite, absorbed in speculation.

The president said, aloud:

"I think, as long as Fields has made such a touse about it, that I'd better draft a reply, and not give him a verbal an--"

"Draft!" said the speculator, brought to life by the word. "Draft did you say, sir? What?--On whom?--"

"I said 'draft a reply' to--to this," returned the other, waving the letter.

"Oh, a reply! Draft one. Draft a reply--a reply to the letter about the salary. Oh, certainly, by all means."

"And read it to the directors at the meeting next Friday," suggested the president.

The speculator's eyes turned vacantly upon him, and it was full half a minute before he comprehended. "Yes, yes, of course, read it to the directors next Friday. They'll approve it, you know. That will be regular, and according to rule. But about Steinmeyer, you know. When a man like Steinmeyer does such a thing as--but just come to the window a minute."

He led the president off by the arm, and that was the last of Fields's letter for that day.

* * * * *

II.

Fields was truly on the anxious-seat.

As he had said in his letter, he was engaged to be married, and he wanted to be about the consummation of the contract, for he had already delayed too long. His _affiancée_ was a sweet girl who lived with her widowed mother in the country, where they had a fine house, and a fine demesne attached to it. When the time for the marriage was finally settled upon, the lady instantly set about remodelling her domicile and its surroundings, and making it fit for the new spirits that were soon to inhabit it. She drew upon her accumulation of money that had thriven long in a private bank, and expended it in laying out new lawns, planting new trees, building new stables, erecting tasteful graperies and kiosks. This sum was not very large, and it included not only what had been saved out of the earnings of the farm, but also what had been saved out of the income from the widow's property, which consisted of twelve thousand dollars in insurance stock.

Fields had thus far expended nearly all of his salary of four thousand dollars. He was accustomed to use a quarter of it for his own purposes, and the rest he applied to the comfort of his aged parents, whom he maintained. Thus it will be seen that Fields's desire to add to his own wealth had reason to be.

Just at this time there stepped in the Chicago fire. On the second day Fields began to be frightened about the twelve thousand dollars in insurance stock. Telegrams poured into the city by hundreds, and the tale grew more dismal with each hour.

His fears were realized. The widow's money was swept away, and a sort of paralysis fell upon the country-house and all its surroundings. The carpenters went away from the kiosks, the masons from the face-walls, the smiths from the graperies, the gardeners from the lawns, and everything came to a stand-still. The extra farm-hands were discharged, and much of the work was left unfinished.

What was to be done?

The mother and daughter wept in secret. Their careers had been interrupted. Desolation was out-of-doors, and desolation was in their hearts. The earth lay in ragged heaps; beams and timbers leaned half erect; barns were party-colored with the old paint and the new, and the shrubbery was bare to the frosts. Joys which had smiled had fled into the far distance, and now looked surly enough; all pleasures were unhorsed, and hope was down.

It was under these circumstances that Fields wrote a second time to the honorable board of directors to ask them to pay him better wages.

Friday came. There was a meeting, and Fields knew that his case must now be receiving consideration.

At eleven o'clock the directors emerged from their parlor, and passed by his desk in twos and threes, chatting and telling watery jokes, as most great men do.

"They look as if they had entirely forgotten me," said Fields to himself.

Pretty soon the cashier came and placed a letter upon his counter.

"Ah!" thought the teller, "I was mistaken. I wonder if I can read it here without changing countenance?"

He could but try it. He tore off the envelope. It went thus:

"_Mr.----Fields, Paying Teller._

"DEAR SIR: The president and directors, to whom you addressed a
request for an increase of salary, must beg to criticise the
arguments advanced in your polite note.

"They do not understand why you should place a new value upon your
honesty because in other people there happens to be sometimes such a
thing as dishonesty. It is a popular notion that honesty among men
is rare, but the idea is a mistaken one. Honesty of the purest kind,
as honesty is usually understood, is very common. They cannot help
feeling, also, that you somewhat overestimate the value of your
work, which to them seems to be only a higher sort of routine,
calling for no intellectual endeavor, and requiring but little more
than an ordinary bookkeeper's care for its perfect performance. But
for the differences that _do_ exist between your tasks and those of
the bookkeeper you will remember you are already compensated by a
salary a fourth larger.

"Briefly, they consider their bank a piece of money-making
mechanism, of which you are an able and respected part; but they
cannot understand how you could hope to raise their fear of
peculations and villainies when their system of checks and
counter-checks is so perfect. They have never lost a dollar by the
immorality of any of their employés, and they are sure that matters
are so arranged that any such immorality, even of the rankest kind,
could occasion them no inconvenience.

"Nor do they comprehend why your idea that increase of business
justifies a request for an increase of salary may not be met with
the suggestion that your hours of labor are the same as your former
hours, and that all you were able to perform in those hours, to the
best of your capacity, was purchased at the beginning of your
connection with them.

"In regard to the pure question of the sufficiency of your salary,
they hint in the kindest manner that all expenditures are
contractible as well as extensible.

"They hasten to take this opportunity to express to you their
appreciation of your perfect exhibits; and, complimenting you upon
the care with which you have fulfilled the duties of your post, they
remain your obedient servants."

The teller felt that a more maddening letter could not have been written. Its civility seemed to him to be disagreeable suavity; its failure to particularize the points he made to be a disgraceful evasion; and the liberty it took in generalizing his case to be an enormous insult.

The very first sentence on honesty put him in the light of a blackmailer--one that threatened mischief if his demands were not complied with. The next sentence went to show that he was an egotist, because he thought his labors required wear and tear of brain. The third called him a sound cog-wheel. The latter part of the same said that a villain could do no evil if he wished to, for they (the directors) had protected themselves against villains. Then it went on to say that the writers did not understand how anxiety and caution could be involved in the pursuit of his duties; and then it was thrown out that his marriage was _his_ seeking--not theirs. Finally, they patted him on the head.

The devil!

Fields passed a sleepless night. He felt that he had been belittled to the extremest point, and that there was not a foothold left for his dignity. His soul was incised and chafed, and he lay awake thinking that degradation of himself and his office could have proceeded no further.

Toward morning he hit upon a plan to establish himself in what he believed to be the proper light. "It will require nerve," reflected he, doubtingly, "and not only nerve in itself, but a certain exact quantity of it. Too much nerve would destroy me, and too little nerve would do the same thing. I think, however, that I can manage it. I feel able to do anything. Even a paying teller will turn if--" etc., etc.

* * * * *

III.

On the following Monday there was a special meeting of the directors for the purpose of examining the books and accounts of the bank. The bank-controller was expected to call for an exhibit within the coming week, and it was desirable that the directors should feel assured that their institution was in the proper order. The call of the controller was always impending. It might come any day, and it would require an exhibit of the condition of the bank on any previous day. He was permitted to make five of these calls during the year, and, inasmuch as he was at liberty to choose his own days, his check upon the banks was complete. If he found a bank that had not fulfilled the requirements of law, he was obliged to take away its charter, and to close it: hence the examination-meeting in the present case. The accounts of the tellers were passed upon, the cashier's books were looked over, as were also those of the regular bookkeepers. There seemed to be no errors, and the contents of the safes were proved. There was perfect order in all the departments. The clerks were complimented. "Now," said Fields to himself, "is my opportunity."

On the next day at ten o'clock the directors again assembled--this time for their regular labors--to examine the proposals for discount.

The day happened to be cold and stormy. The twenty clerks were busily and silently at work behind their counters and gratings, and the fourteen directors were shut tight in their mahogany room. There was but little passing to and fro from the street, though now and then a half-frozen messenger came stamping in, and did his errand, with benumbed fingers, through the little windows. The tempest made business light.

At eleven o'clock Fields wrote a note and sent it to the directors' room. The boy who carried it knocked softly, and the president appeared, took the letter, and then closed the door again.

Then there was a moment of almost total silence; the clerks wrote, the leaves rattled, and it seemed as if it were an instant before an expected explosion.

Presently an explosion came. The clerks heard with astonishment a tumult in the directors' room--exclamations, hurried questions, the hasty rolling of chairs on their casters, and then the sound of feet.

The door was hastily drawn open, and those who were near could see that nearly all the directors were clustered around it, straining their eyes to look at the paying teller. Most of them were pale and they called, in one voice, "Come here!" "Come in here at once!" "Fields!" "Mr. Fields!" "Sir, you are wanted!" "Step this way instantly!" Fields put down his pen, opened the tall iron gate which separated him from the counters, and walked rather quickly toward the den of lions. An opening was made for him in the group, and he passed through the door, and it was shut once more.

He walked across the room to the fireplace. He took out his handkerchief, and, seizing a corner between a thumb and forefinger, slowly shook it open, and then turned around.

"This note, sir! What does it mean?" cried the president, advancing upon him, waving the paper in his trembling hand.

"Have you read it?" demanded Fields, in a loud voice.

"Yes," said the president. He was astonished at Fields's manner. He cast a glance upon his fellow-directors.

"Then what is the use of asking me what I mean? It is as plain as I can make it."