Chapter XI: Part 11

Nadân was an exemplary Mussulman in all outward matters; but I was not long in discovering that he had two ruling passions--jealousy of the chief priest of Tehran, and a hunger for money. My earliest duty was to gratify his second passion by negotiating temporary marriages for handsome fees. In these transactions we prospered fairly well; but unfortunately Nadân's desire to supplant the chief priest led him to stir up the populace to attack the Christians of the city, and plunder their property. The Shah was then in a humour to protect the Christians; consequently, Nadân had his beard plucked out by the roots, was mounted on an ass with his face to its tail, and was driven out of the city with blows and execrations.

Once more homeless and almost penniless, not knowing what to do, I strolled in the dusk into a bath, and undressed. The bath was empty save for one man, whom I recognized as the chief priest. He was splashing about in a manner that struck me as remarkable for so sedate a character; then a most unusual floundering, attended with a gurgling of the throat, struck my ear. To my horror, I saw that he was drowned. Here was a predicament; it was inevitable that I should be charged with his murder.

Suddenly it occurred to me that I bore a close resemblance to the dead man. For an hour or two, at any rate, I might act as an impostor. So, in the dim light, I dressed myself in the chief priest's clothes, and repaired to his house.

I was there received by two young slaves, who paid me attentions that would at most times have delighted me; but just then they filled me with apprehension, and I was heartily glad when I got rid of the slaves and fastened the door. I then explored the chief priest's pockets, and found therein two letters. One was from the chief executioner--a notorious drunkard--begging permission to take unlimited wine for his health's sake. The other was from a priest at the mollah's village saying that he had extracted from the peasantry one hundred tomauns (£80), which would be delivered to a properly qualified messenger.

To the chief executioner I wrote cheerfully granting the permission he sought, and suggesting that the loan of a well-caparisoned horse would not be amiss. I wrote a note to the priest requesting that the money be delivered to the bearer, our confidential Hajji Baba. Next morning I rose early, and made certain alterations in the chief priest's clothes so as to avoid detection. I went to the chief executioner's house, presented the letter, and received the horse, upon which I rode hastily away to the village. Having obtained the hundred tomauns I escaped across the frontier to Bagdad.

_IV.--Hajji and the Infidels_

On reaching Bagdad, I sought the house of my old master, Osman Aga, long since returned from his captivity, and through his assistance, and with my hundred tomauns as capital, I was able to set up in business as a merchant in pipe-sticks, and, having made myself as like as possible to a native of Bagdad, I travelled in Osman Aga's company to Constantinople. Having a complaint to make, I went to Mirza Ferouz, Persian ambassador on a special mission to Constantinople.

"Your wit and manner are agreeable," he said to me; "you have seen the world and its business; you are a man who can make play under another's beard. Such I am in want of."

"I am your slave and your servant," I replied.

"Lately an ambassador came from Europe to Tehran," said Mirza Ferouz, "saying he was sent, with power to make a treaty, by a certain Boonapoort, calling himself Emperor of the French. He promised, that Georgia should be reconquered for us from the Russians, and that the English should be driven from India. Soon afterwards the English infidels in India sent agents to impede the reception of the Frenchman. We soon discovered that much was to be got between the rival curs of uncleanness; and the true object of my mission here is to discover all that is to be known of these French and English. In this you can help me."

This proposal I gladly accepted, and went forth to interview a scribe of the Reis Effendi with whom I had struck up a friendship. He told me that Boonapoort was indeed a rare and daring infidel, who, from a mere soldier, became the sultan of an immense nation, and gave the law to all the Europeans.

"And is there not a tribe of infidels called Ingliz?" I asked.

"Yes, truly. They live in an island, are powerful in ships, and in watches and broad-cloth are unrivalled. They have a shah, but it is a farce to call him by that title. The power lies with certain houses full of madmen, who meet half the year round for the purposes of quarrelling. Nothing can be settled in the state, be it only whether a rebellious aga is to have his head cut off and his property confiscated, or some such trifle, until these people have wrangled. Let us bless Allah and our Prophet that we are not born to eat the miseries of the poor English infidels, but can smoke our pipes in quiet on the shores of our own peaceful Bosphorus!"

I returned to my ambassador full of the information I had acquired; daily he sent me in search of fresh particulars, and before long I felt able to draw up the history of Europe that the Shah had ordered Mirza Ferouz to provide. So well pleased was the ambassador with my labours, that he announced his intention of taking me back to Persia and continuing me in Government employ. To this I readily agreed, knowing that, with the protection of men in office, I might show myself in my own country with perfect safety.

On out return to Tehran we found an English ambassador negotiating a treaty, the French having gone away unsuccessful. Owing to the knowledge I had acquired of European affairs when at Constantinople, I was much employed in these transactions with the infidels, and when I gained the confidence of the grand vizier himself, destiny almost as much as whispered that the buffetings of the world had taken their departure from me.

The negotiations reached a difficult point, and threatened to break down; neither the Persians nor the infidels would give way. I was sent by the grand vizier on a delicate mission to the English ambassador. I prevailed. I returned to the grand vizier with a sack of gold for him and the promise of a diamond ring, and the treaty was signed.

It was decided to send an ambassador to England. Mirza Berouz was appointed, and I was chosen as his first mirza, or secretary. What pleased me most of all was that I was sent to Ispahan to raise part of the money for the presents to be taken to England. Hajji Baba, the barber's son, entered his native place as Mirza Hajji Baba, the Shah's deputy, with all the parade of a man of consequence, and on a mission that gave him unbounded opportunity of enriching himself. I found myself, after all my misfortunes, at the summit of what, in my Persian eyes, was perfect human bliss.

* * * * *

DAVID CHRISTIE MURRAY

The Way of the World

David Christie Murray was born at West Bromwich, England,
April 13, 1847, and began his journalistic career at
Birmingham. In 1873 he moved to London and joined the staff of
the "Daily News" and in 1878 he was correspondent of the
"Times" and the "Scotsman" in the Russo-Turkish war. He now
began to transfer his abundant experience of life to the pages
of fiction. His first novel, "A Life's Atonement," was
published in 1880, and was followed a year later by "Joseph's
Coat." In "The Way of the World," published in 1884, his art
as a story-teller and his keen observation of men and manners
were displayed as strikingly as in any of his later works--
several of which were written in collaboration with other
authors. Altogether he produced over thirty volumes of short
stories and novels single-handed. At the end of last century
he emerged from his literary seclusion in Wales and became
active in current affairs; he was one of the leading English
champions of Dreyfus, and obtained the warm friendship of
Emile Zola. He died on August 1, 1907.

_I.--The Upstart_

Your sympathies are requested for Mr. Bolsover Kimberley, a gentleman embarrassed beyond measure.

Mr. Kimberley was thirty-five years of age. He was meek, and had no features to speak of. His hair was unassuming, and his whiskers were too shy to curl. He was a clerk in a solicitor's office in the town of Gallowbay, and he seemed likely to live to the end of his days in the pursuit of labours no more profitable or pretentious.

A cat may look at a king. A solicitor's clerk may love an earl's daughter. It was an undeniable madness in Kimberley even to dream of loving the Lady Ella Santerre. He knew perfectly well what a fool he was; but he was in love for all that.

To Bolsover Kimberley, seated in a little room with a dingy red desk and cobwebbed skylight, there entered Mr. Ragshaw, senior clerk to Messrs. Begg, Batter, and Bagg, solicitors.

"My dear Mr. Kimberley," said Mr. Ragshaw, "allow me the honour of shaking hands with you. I believe that I am the first bearer of good news."

Mr. Kimberley turned pale.

"My firm, sir," pursued Mr. Ragshaw, "represented the trustees of the late owner of the Gallowbay Estate, who died three months ago at the age of twenty, leaving no known relatives. We instituted a search, which resulted in the discovery of an indisputable title to the estate. Permit me to congratulate you, sir--the estate is yours."

Bolsover Kimberley gasped, and his voice was harsh.

"How much?"

"The estate, sir, is now approximately valued at forty-seven thousand per annum."

Kimberley lurched forward, and fell over in a dead faint. Mr. Ragshaw's attentions restored him to his senses, and he drank a little water, and sobbed hysterically.

When he had recovered a little, he arose weakly from the one office chair, took off his office coat, rolled it up neatly, and put it in his desk. Then he put on his walking coat and his hat and went out.

"Don't you think, Mr. Kimberley," asked Mr. Ragshaw, with profound respect, "that a little something----"

They were outside the Windgall Arms, and Kimberley understood.

"Why, yes, sir," he said; "but I never keep it in the 'ouse, and having had to pay a tailor's bill this week, I don't happen----"

"My _dear_ sir, allow me!" said Ragshaw, with genuine emotion.

The champagne, the dinner that followed, the interviews with pressmen, the excitement and obsequiousness of everybody, conveyed to Kimberley's mind, in a dizzy sort of a way, that he was somebody in the world, and ought to be proud of it. But his long life of servitude, his shyness and want of nerve, all weighed heavily upon him, and he was far from being happy.

Mr. Begg, senior partner of Messrs. Begg, Batter, and Bagg, was sitting in his office a day or two later when a clerk ushered in the Earl of Windgall.

"What's this news about Gallowbay, Begg? Is it true?" asked the earl.

"It is certainly true," answered Begg.

"What sort of fellow is this Kimberley?"

"Well, he seems to be a shy little man, _gauche_, and--and--underbred, even for his late position."

"That's a pity. I should like to see him," added the grey little nobleman. "I suppose you will act for him as you did for poor young Edward?"

Poor young Edward was the deceased minor whose early death had wrecked the finest chances the Windgall family craft had ever carried.

"I suppose so," said Begg.

"I presume," said the earl, "that even if he wanted to call in his money you could arrange elsewhere?"

"With regard to the first mortgage?" asked Mr. Begg. "Certainly."

"And what about the new arrangement?" asked the earl nervously.

"Impossible, I regret to say."

"Very well," returned the earl, with a sigh. "I suppose the timber must go. If poor Edward had lived, it would all have been very different."

Next day, when Kimberley, preposterously overdressed and thoroughly ashamed of himself, was trying to talk business in Mr. Begg's office, the Earl of Windgall was announced. There was nothing in the world that could have terrified him more. And when the father of his ideal love, Lady Ella Santerre, shook him by the hand, he could only gasp and gurgle in response. But the earl's manner gradually reassured him, and in a little time he began to plume himself in harmless trembling vanity upon sitting in the same room with a nobleman and a great lawyer.

"I am pleased to have met Mr. Kimberley," said the earl, in going; "and I trust we shall see more of each other."

Mr. Kimberley flushed, and bowed in a violent flutter.

As the earl was driven homeward he could not help feeling that he was engaged in a shameful enterprise. People would talk if he invited this gilded little snob to Shouldershott Castle, and would know very well why he was asked there. Let them talk.

"A million and a quarter!" said the poor peer. "And if I don't catch him, somebody else will."

Meanwhile, Captain Jack Clare, an extremely popular young officer of dragoons, was in the depths of despair. He was the younger brother of Lord Montacute, whose family was poor; he loved Lady Ella Santerre, whose family was still poorer. The heads of the families had forbidden the match for financial reasons. He had stolen an interview with Ella, and had found that she bowed to the decision of the seniors.

"It is all quite hopeless and impossible," she had said. "Good-bye, Jack!"

As he rode dispiritedly away, he could not see, for the intervening trees, that she was kneeling in the fern and crying.

_II.--A Peer in Difficulties_

The Lady Ella slipped an arm about her father's neck.

"You are in trouble, dear," she said. "Can I help you?"

"No," said the poor nobleman. "There's no help for it, Beggs says, and they'll have to cut down the timber in the park. Poverty, my dear, poverty."

This was a blow, and a heavy one.

"That isn't the worst of it," said Windgall, after a pause. "I am in the hands of the Jews. A wretched Hebrew fellow says he _will_ have a thousand pounds by this day week. He might as well ask me for a million."

"The diamonds are worth more than a thousand pounds, dear," she said gently.

"No, no, my darling," he answered. "I have robbed you of everything already."

"You must take them, papa," she said in tender decision. She left him, only to return in a few minutes' time with a dark shagreen case in her hands. The earl paced about the room for a minute or two.

"I take these," he said at last, "in bitter unwillingness, because I can't help taking them, my dear. I had best get the business over, Ella. I will go up to town this afternoon."

During the whole of his journey the overdressed figure of Kimberley seemed to stand before the embarrassed man, and a voice seemed to issue from it. "Catch me, flatter me, wheedle me, marry me to one of your daughters, and see the end of your woes." He despised himself heartily for permitting the idea to enter his mind, but he could not struggle against its intrusion.

Next day Kimberley entered his jewellers to consult him concerning a scarf-pin. It was a bull-dog's head, carved in lava, and not quite life-size. The eyes were rubies, the collar was of gold and brilliants. This egregious jewel was of his own designing, and was of a piece with his general notions of how a millionaire should attire himself.

As he passed through the door somebody leapt from a cab carrying something in his hands, and jostled against him. He turned round apologetically, and confronted the Earl of Windgall.

His lordship looked like a man detected in a theft, and shook hands with a confused tremor.

"Can you spare me half an hour?" he asked. Then he handed the package to the shop-man. "Take care of that," he stammered. "It is valuable. I will call to-morrow."

That afternoon Kimberley accepted an invitation to stay at Shouldershott Castle.

He was prodigiously flattered and fluttered. When he thought of being beneath the same roof with Lady Ella, he flushed and trembled as he had never done before.

"I shall see her," he muttered wildly to himself. "I shall see her in the 'alls, the 'alls of dazzling light." It is something of a wonder that he did not lose his mental balance altogether.

When he was daily in the presence of Ella, the little man's heart ached with sweet anguish and helpless worship and desire. Yet before her he was tongue-tied, incapable of uttering a consecutive sentence. With her sister, Lady Alice Santerre, who had been the intended bride of the deceased heir to the Gallowbay Estate, Kimberley felt on a different footing. He had hardly ever been so much at ease with anybody in his life as this young lady made him.

Kimberley's own anxious efforts at self-improvement, Lady Alice's good-natured advice, and the bold policy of the earl, who persuaded him to undergo the terrors of an election, and get returned to Parliament as member for Gallowbay, gradually made the millionaire a more presentable person. He learned how to avoid dropping his h's; but two vices were incurable--the shyness and his appalling taste in dress.

The world, meanwhile, had guessed at the earl's motives in extending his friendship to Kimberley, and the little man's name was knowingly linked with that of Lady Alice. Kimberley came to hear what the world was saying through meeting Mr. Blandy, his former employer. Mr. Blandy invited him to his house, honoured the occasion with champagne, drank freely of it, and became confidential.

"The noble earl'll nail you f' one o' the girls, Kimbly. I'm a lill bit 'fected when I think, seeing my dear Kimbly 'nited marriage noble family. That's what makes me talk like this. I b'leeve you're gone coon already, ole man. 'Gratulate you, allmy heart."

Kimberley went away in a degradation of soul. Was it possible that this peer of the realm could be so coarsely and openly bent on securing him and his money that the whole world should know of it? What had Kimberley, he asked himself bitterly, to recommend him but his money? But then, triumphing over his miseries, came the fancy--he could have his dream of love; he had cried for the moon, and now he could have it.

_III.--Ella's Martyrdom_

The earl's liabilities amounted roughly to ninety thousand pounds. The principal mortgagee was insisting upon payment or foreclosure, and there was a general feeling abroad that the estate was involved beyond its capacity to pay.

Kimberley learned these circumstances in an interview with Mr. Begg. A few days afterwards he drove up desperately to the castle and asked for a private interview with his lordship.

"My lord," he said, when they were alone, "I want to ask your lordship's acceptance of these papers."

The earl understood them at a glance. Kimberley had bought his debts.

"I ask you to take them now," Kimberley went on, "before I say another word."

He rose, walked to the fire, and dropped the papers on the smouldering coal. The earl seized the papers and rescued them, soiled but unsinged.

"Kimberley," he said, "I dare not lay myself under such an obligation to any man alive."

"They are yours, my lord," replied Kimberley. "I shall never touch them again. You're under no obligation to me, my lord. But"--he blushed and stammered--"I want to ask you for the hand of Lady Ella."

It took Windgall a full minute to pull himself together. He had schooled himself to the trembling hope that Alice might be chosen; but Ella! "Forgive me," he began, "I was unprepared--I was not altogether unprepared--" Then he lapsed into silence.

"I will submit your proposal to my daughter," he said after a time, "but--I am powerless--altogether powerless."

Kimberley went home in a tremor of nervous anxiety, and Windgall sent for his daughter.

"I want you to understand, my dear," he began nervously, "that you are free to act just as you will. Mr. Kimberley gave these into my hands this morning"--showing her the papers. "He gave them freely, as a gift. If I could accept them I should be free from the nightmare of debt. But in the same breath with that unconditional gift, he asked me for your hand in marriage."

She kept silence.

"You know our miserable necessities, Ella," he pleaded. "But I can't force your inclinations in a matter like this, my dear."

She ran to him, and threw her arms about his neck.

"If it depends upon me to end your troubles, my dear, they are ended already."

"Shall I," he asked lamely, "make Kimberley happy?"

She answered simply, "Yes."

Kimberley came to luncheon next day. Lady Ella gave him a hand like marble, and he kissed it. Her father, anxious to preserve a seeming satisfaction, put his arm about her waist and kissed her. Her cheek was like ice and her whole figure trembled.

It was a dull, dreadful meal to all three who sat at table, and the millionaire's heart was the heaviest and the sorest.

If Ella suffered, she had the consolation, so dear to the nobler sort of women, that she was a sacrifice. If Windgall suffered, he had a solid compensation locked in the drawers of his library table. But Kimberley had no consolation, and knew only that he was expected somehow to be happy, and was, in spite of his prosperous wooing, more miserable than he had ever been before.

As time went on, Kimberley grew no happier. The gulf between Lady Ella and himself had not been bridged by their betrothal. She was always courteous to him, but always cold. She had accepted him, and yet----

The first inkling that something was wrong came through the altered demeanour of Alice. The girl was furious at her father for sacrificing her sister, and furious with her sister for consenting to the sacrifice; her former half-humourous comradeship for Kimberley was changed into chilly disdain.

The suspicions that were thus suggested to him were confirmed by a meeting with Ella outside the castle lodge. As he approached, he caught sight of her face as she was nodding a smiling good-bye to the old gate-keeper. She saw Kimberley, and the smile fled from her face with so swift a change, and left for a mere second something so like terror there, that he could scarcely fail to notice it.

He returned home possessed with remorse and shame. There was no doubt what the end should be. Ella must be released.

"She never cared about the money," he said, pacing the room with tear-blotted face. "She wanted to save her father, and she was ready to break her heart to do it. But she shall never break her heart through me. No, no. What a fool I was to think she could ever be happy with a man like me!"

_IV.--The Renunciation_

Jack Clare, with a heart burning with rage at what he deemed Ella's treachery, had resigned his commission and bought an estate in New Zealand with a sum of money that had been left him. He became possessed of a desire to see Ella once more. He wrote to her that he was about to start for New Zealand, and wished to say good-bye to her. This letter he brought to the castle gate-keeper, and caused it to be taken to Ella. Then he paced up and down the avenue, impatiently awaiting her.

Destiny ordained that Kimberley should come that way just then on his fateful errand of releasing Ella from her engagement. As he entered the park his resolve failed him; he wandered unhappily to and fro, until he became aware of a strange gentleman prowling about the avenue in a mighty hurry. The stranger caught sight of him.

"Pardon me," said Kimberley nervously, "have you lost your way?"

Jack eyed him from head to foot--the vulgar glories of his attire, the extraordinary bull-dog pin. This, he guessed, was Kimberley--the man to whom Ella had sold herself. He smiled bitterly, and turned on his heel.

"I beg your pardon, sir," said Kimberley ruffled. "I did myself the honour to address you."

"You pestilential little cad!" cried Jack, wheeling round and letting out his wrath; "go home!"

"Cad, sir!" answered Kimberley in indignation.

"I call any man a cad, sir," answered Jack, "who goes about dressed like that."

Jack walked on and Kimberley stood rooted to the ground. He was crushed and overwhelmed beneath the sense of his own humiliation. His fineries had been the one thing on which he had relied to make himself look like a gentleman, and he knew now what they made him look like.

He retreated to a little arboured seat, and a few minutes later would have given anything to escape from it. For he was a witness of the parting of Jack and Ella. He saw the tears streaming from her eyes; he heard Jack tell her that he had never loved another woman and never would. As they clasped each other's hands for the final good-bye, Jack seized her passionately and kissed her. Her head fell back from his shoulder; she had fainted. He laid her down upon the grass, and looked upon her in an agony of fear and self-reproach. Then his mood changed.

"Curse the man that broke her heart and mine!" he cried wildly. "Darling, look up!"

Presently she recovered, and he begged her forgiveness.

"I am better," said Ella feebly. "Leave me now. Good-bye, dear!"

Soon afterwards a little man, with a tear-stained face and enormous bull-dog scarf-pin, arrived at the castle, and asked in a breaking voice to see his lordship.

"Did you know, my lord," he began, "that Lady Ella was breaking her heart because she was to marry me?"

"Really--"

"You didn't know it? I should be glad to think you didn't. Perhaps in spite of all I said, you thought I had bought those papers to have you in my grasp. I am not a gentleman, my lord, but I hope I am above that. I was a fool to think I could ever make Lady Ella happy, and I resign my claim upon her hand, my lord, and I must leave your roof for ever."

"Stop, sir!" cried the earl, in a rage of embarrassment and despair. He seemed face to face with the wreck of all his hopes. "Do you know that this is an insult to my daughter and to me?"

"My lord," returned Kimberley, "I am very sorry, but it was a shame to ask her to marry a man like me. I won't help to break her heart--I can't--not if I break my own a million times over."

The earl beat his foot upon the carpet. It was true enough. It _had_ been a shame; and yet the man was a gentleman when all was said and done.

"By heaven, Kimberley," cried his lordship, in spite of himself, "you are a noble-hearted fellow!"

"Excuse me the trouble I have caused you. Good-bye, my lord." Kimberley bowed and left.

That night Kimberley received a package containing the papers and a note from the earl congratulating him on the magnanimous manner in which he had acted, but declaring that he felt compelled to return the documents. This added another drop to the bitterness of Kimberley's cup. He could well nigh have died for shame; he could well nigh have died for pity of himself.

_V.--Kimberley's Wedding Gift_

"My lord," said Kimberley, as he met the earl of Windgall outside the London hotel where the earl was staying, "can you give me a very few minutes?"

"Certainly," said his lordship. "You are not well?" he added, with solicitude.

He had brought a dispatch-box with him; he put it on the table and slowly unlocked it. The earl's heart beat violently as he looked once more upon the precious documents.

"You sent these back to me," said Kimberley. "Will you take 'em now? My lord, my lord, marry lady Ella to the man she loves, and take these for a wedding gift. I helped to torture her. I have a right to help to make her happy."

Windgall was as wildly agitated as Kimberley himself. He recoiled and waved his hands.

"I--I do not think, Kimberley," he said with quivering lip, "that I have ever known so noble an act before."

"If I die," said Kimberley in a loud voice which quavered suddenly down into a murmur, "everything is to go to Lady Ella, with my dearest love and worship."

Windgall caught only the first three words; he tugged at the bell-pull, and sent for a doctor.

An hour afterwards Kimberley was in bed with brain fever.

On the following morning Jack Clare stood in the rain on the deck of the steamship Patagonia, a travelling-cap pulled moodily over his eyes, watching the bestowal of his belongings in the hold.

"Honourable Captain Clare aboard?" cried a voice from the quay. A messenger came and handed Jack a letter. He saw with amazement that it bore the Windgall crest.

It was a hastily written note from the earl stating that circumstances had occurred which enabled him to withdraw his opposition to the union of Clare with Lady Ella.

* * * * *

Kimberley recovered. He can speak now to Clare's wife without embarrassment and without pain. Has he forgotten his love? No. He will never love again, never marry; but he is by no means unhappy or solitary or burdened with regrets. And he knows that those for whom he made his great sacrifice have given him their profoundest gratitude and sincerest friendship.

The ways of the world are various and many. And along them travel all sorts of people. Very dark grey, indeed--almost black some of them--middling grey, light grey, and here and there a figure that shines with a pure white radiance.

* * * * *

FRANK NORRIS

The Pit

Frank Norris, one of the most brilliant of contemporary
American novelists, was born at Chicago in 1870. He was
educated at the University of California and at Harvard, and
also spent three years as an art student in Paris. Afterwards
he adopted journalism, and served in the capacity of war
correspondent for various newspapers. His first novel,
"McTeague," a virile, realistic romance, brought him instant
recognition. This was followed in 1900 by "Moran of the Lady
Betty," a romantic narrative of adventures on the Californian
Coast. In 1901 Norris conceived the idea of trilogy of novels
dealing with wheat, the object being an arraignment of wheat
operations at Chicago, and the consequent gambling with the
world's food-supply. The first of the series, "The Octopus,"
deals with wheat raising and transportation; the second, "The
Pit," a vigorous, human story covers wheat-exchange gambling,
and appeared in 1903; the third, which was to have been
entitled "The Wolf," was cut short by the author's death,
which occurred on October 25, 1902.

_I.--Curtis Jadwin and His Wife_

Laura Dearborn's native town was Barrington, in Massachusetts. Both she and her younger sister Page had lived there until the death of their father. The mother had died long before, and of all their relations, Aunt Wess, who lived at Chicago, alone remained. It was at the entreaties of Aunt Wess and of their dearest friends, the Cresslers, that the two girls decided to live with their aunt in Chicago. Both Laura and Page had inherited money, and when they faced the world they had the assurance that, at least, they were independent.

Chicago, the great grey city, interested Laura at every instant and under every condition. The life was tremendous. All around, on every side, in every direction, the vast machinery of commonwealth clashed and thundered from dawn to dark, and from dark to dawn. For thousands of miles beyond its confines the influence of the city was felt. At times Laura felt a little frightened at the city's life, and of the men for whom all the crash of conflict and commerce had no terrors. Those who could subdue this life to their purposes, must they not be themselves terrible, pitiless, brutal? What could women ever know of the life of men, after all?

Her friend, Mr. Cressler, who had been almost a second father to her, was in business, and had once lost a fortune by a gamble in wheat; and there was Mr. Curtis Jadwin, whom she had met at the opera with the Cresslers.

Mrs. Cressler had told Laura, very soon after her arrival in Chicago, that Mr. Jadwin wanted to marry her.

"I've known Curtis Jadwin now for fifteen years--nobody better," said Mrs. Cressler. "He's as old a family friend as Charlie and I have. And I tell you the man is in love with you. He told me you had more sense and intelligence than any girl he had ever known, and that he never remembered to have seen a more beautiful woman. What do you think of him, Laura--of Mr. Jadwin?"

"I don't know," Laura answered. "I thought he was a _strong_ man--mentally, and that he would be kindly and generous. But I saw very little of him."

"Jadwin struck you as being a kindly man, a generous man? He's just that, and charitable. You know, he has a Sunday-school over on the West side--a Sunday-school for mission children--and I do believe he's more interested in that than in his business. He wants to make it the biggest Sunday-school in Chicago. It's an ambition of his. Laura," she exclaimed, "he's a _fine man_. No one knows Curtis Jadwin better than Charlie and I, and we just _love_ him. The kindliest, biggest-hearted fellow. Oh, well, you'll know him for yourself, and then you'll see!"

"I don't know anything about him," Laura had remarked in answer to this. "I never heard of him before the theatre party."

But Mrs. Cressler promptly supplied information. Curtis Jadwin was a man about thirty-five, who had begun life without a _sou_ in his pockets. His people were farmers in Michigan, hardy, honest fellows, who ploughed and sowed for a living. Curtis had only a rudimentary schooling, and had gone into business with a livery-stable keeper. Someone in Chicago owed him money, and, in default of payment, had offered him a couple of lots of ground on Wabash Avenue. That was how he happened to come to Chicago. Naturally enough, as the city grew the Wabash Avenue property increased in value. He sold the lots, and bought other real estate; sold that, and bought somewhere else, and so on till he owned some of the best business sites in the city, and was now one of the largest real-estate owners in Chicago. But he no longer bought and sold. His property had grown so large, that just the management of it alone took up most of his time. As a rule, he deplored speculation. He had no fixed principles about it, and occasionally he hazarded small operations.

It was after this that Laura's first aversion to the great grey city fast disappeared, and she saw it in a kindlier aspect.

Soon it was impossible to deny that Curtis Jadwin--"J" as he was called in business--was in love with her. The business man, accustomed to deal with situations with unswerving directness, was not in the least afraid of Laura. He was aggressive, assertive, and his addresses had all the persistence and vehemence of veritable attack. He contrived to meet her everywhere, and even had the Cresslers and Laura over to his mission Sunday-school for the Easter festival, an occasion of which Laura carried away a confused recollection of enormous canvas mottoes, sheaves of lilies, imitation bells of tinfoil, revival hymns vociferated from seven hundred distended mouths, and through it all the smell of poverty, the odour of uncleanliness, that mingled strangely with the perfume of the lilies.

Somehow Laura found that with Jadwin all the serious, all the sincere, earnest side of her character was apt to come to the front.

Yet for a long time Laura could not make up her mind that she loved him, but "J" refused to be dismissed.

"I told him I did not love him. Only last week I told him so," Laura explained to Mrs. Cressler.

"Well, then, why did you promise to marry him?"

"My goodness! You don't realise what it's been. Do you suppose you can say 'no' to that man?"

"Of course not--of course not!" declared Mrs. Cressler joyfully. "That's 'J' all over. I might have known he'd have you if he set out to do it."

They were married on the last day of June of that summer in the Episcopalian church. Immediately after the wedding the couple took the train for Geneva Lake, where Jadwin had built a house for his bride.

_II.--A Corner in Wheat_

The months passed. Soon three years had gone by since the ceremony in St. James's Church, and all that time the price of wheat had been steadily going down. Heavy crops the world over had helped the decline.

Jadwin had been drawn into the troubled waters of the Pit, and was by now "blooded to the game." It was in April that he decided that better times and higher prices were coming for wheat, and announced his intentions to Sam Gretry, his broker.

"Sam," he said, "the time is come for a great big chance. We've been hammering wheat down and down and down till we've got it below the cost of production, and now she won't go any further with all the hammering in the world. The other fellows, the rest of the bear crowd, don't seem to see it; but I see it. Before fall we're going to have higher prices. Wheat is going up, and when it does I mean to be right there. I'm going to _buy_. I'm going to buy September wheat, and I'm going to buy it to-morrow--500,000 bushels of it; and if the market goes as I think it will later on, I'm going to buy more. I'm going to boost this market right through till the last bell rings, and from now on Curtis Jadwin spells b-u-double l--bull."

"They'll slaughter you," said Gretry; "slaughter you in cold blood. You're just one man against a gang--a gang of cut-throats. Those bears have got millions and millions back of them. 'J,' you are either Napoleonic, or--or a colossal idiot!"

All through the three years that had passed Jadwin had grown continually richer. His real estate appreciated in value; rents went up. Every time he speculated in wheat it was upon a larger scale, and every time he won. Hitherto he had been a bear; now, after the talk with Gretry, he had secretly "turned bull" with the suddenness of a strategist.

A marvellous golden luck followed Jadwin all that summer. The crops were poor, the yield moderate.

Jadwin sold out in September, having made a fortune, and then, in a single vast clutch, bought 3,000,000 bushels of the December option.

Never before had he ventured so deeply into the Pit.

One morning in November, at breakfast, Laura said to her husband, "Curtis, dear, when is it all going to end--your speculating? You never used to be this way. It seems as though, nowadays, I never had you to myself. Even when you are not going over papers and reports, or talking by the hour to Mr. Gretry in the library, your mind seems to be away from me. I--I am lonesome, dearest, sometimes. And, Curtis, what is the use? We're so rich now we can't spend our money."

"Oh, it's not the money!" he answered. "It's the fun of the thing--the excitement."

That very week Jadwin made 500,000 dollars.

"I don't own a grain of wheat now," he assured his wife. "I've got to be out of it."

But try as he would, the echoes of the rumbling of the Pit reached Jadwin at every hour of the day and night. He stayed at home over Christmas. Inactive, he sat there idle, while the clamour of the Pit swelled daily louder, and the price of wheat went up.

Jadwin chafed and fretted at his inaction and his impatience harried him like a gadfly. Would no one step into the place of high command.

Very soon the papers began to speak of an unknown "bull" clique who were rapidly coming into control of the market, and it was no longer a secret to Laura that her husband had gone back to the market, and that, too, with such an impetuosity that his rush had carried him to the very heart of the turmoil.

He was now deeply involved; his influence began to be felt. Not an important move on the part of the "unknown bull," the nameless, mysterious stranger, that was not noted and discussed.

It was very late in the afternoon of a lugubrious March day when Jadwin and Gretry, in the broker's private room, sat studying the latest Government reports as to the supply of wheat, and Jadwin observed, "Why, Sam, there's less than 100,000,000 bushels in the farmers' hands. That's awfully small."

"It ain't, as you might say, colossal," admitted Gretry.

"Sam," said Jadwin again, "the shipments have been about 5,000,000 a week; 20,000,000 a month, and it's four months before a new crop. Europe will take 80,000,000 out of the country. I own 10,000,000 now. Why, there ain't going to be any wheat left in Chicago by May! If I get in now, and buy a long line of cash wheat, where are all these fellows going to get it to deliver to me? Say, where are they going to get it? Come on, now, tell me, where are they going to get it?"

Gretry laid down his pencil, and stared at Jadwin.

"'J,'" he faltered, "'J,' I'm blest if I know."

And then, all in the same moment, the two men were on their feet.

Jadwin sprang forward, gripping the broker by the shoulder.

"Sam," he shouted, "do you know----Great God! Do you know what this means? Sam, we can corner the market!"

_III.--The Corner Breaks_

The high prices meant a great increase of wheat acreage. In June the preliminary returns showed 4,000,000 more acres under wheat in the two states of Dakota alone, and in spite of all Gretry's remonstrances, Jadwin still held on, determined to keep up prices to July.

But now it had become vitally necessary for Jadwin to sell out his holdings. His "long line" was a fearful expense; insurance and storage charges were eating rapidly into the profits. He _must_ get rid of the load he was carrying little by little.

A month ago, and the foreign demand was a thing almost insensate. There was no question as to the price. It was, "Give us the wheat, at whatever figure, at whatever expense."

At home in Chicago Jadwin was completely master of the market. His wealth increased with such rapidity that at no time was he able even to approximate the gains that accrued to him because of his corner. It was more than twenty million, and less than fifty million. That was all he knew.

It was then that he told Gretry he was going to buy in the July crops.

"' J,' listen to me," said Gretry. "Wheat is worth a dollar and a half to-day, and not one cent more. If you run it up to two dollars--"

"It will go there of itself, I tell you."

"If you run it up to two dollars it will be that top-heavy that the littlest kick in the world will knock it over. Be satisfied now with what you've, got. Suppose the price does break a little, you'd still make your pile. But swing this deal over into July, and it's ruin. The farmers all over the country are planting wheat as they've never planted it before. Great Scott, 'J,' you're fighting against the earth itself."

"Well, we'll fight it then."

"Here's another point," went on Gretry. "You ought to be in bed this very minute. You haven't got any nerves left at all. You acknowledge you don't sleep. You ought to see a doctor."

"Fiddlesticks!" exclaimed Jadwin. "I'm all right. Haven't time to see a doctor."

So the month of May drew to its close, and as Jadwin beheld more and more the broken speculators, with their abject humility, a vast contempt for human nature grew within him. The business hardened his heart, and he took his profits as if by right of birth.

His wife he saw but seldom. Occasionally they breakfasted together; more often they met at dinner. But that was all.

And now by June 11 the position was critical.

"The price broke to a dollar and twenty yesterday," said Gretry. "Just think, we were at a dollar and a half a little while ago."

"And we'll be at two dollars in another ten days, I tell you."

"Do you know how we stand, 'J'?" said the broker gravely. "Do you know how we stand financially? It's taken pretty nearly every cent of our ready money to support this July market. Oh, we can figure out our paper profits into the millions. We've got thirty, forty, fifty million bushels of wheat that's worth over a dollar a bushel; but if we can't sell it we're none the better off--and that wheat is costing us six thousand dollars a day. Where's the money going to come from, old man? You don't seem to realise that we are in a precarious condition. The moment we can't give our boys buying orders, the moment we admit that we can't buy all the wheat that's offered, there's the moment we bust."

"Well, we'll buy it," cried Jadwin. "I'll show those brutes. I'll mortgage all my real estate, and I'll run up wheat so high before the next two days that the Bank of England can't pull it down; then I'll sell our long line, and with the profits of that I'll run it up again. Two dollars! Why, it will be two-fifty before you know how it happened."

That day Jadwin placed as heavy a mortgage as the place would stand upon every piece of real estate that he owned. He floated a number of promissory notes, and taxed his credit to its farthest stretch. But sure as he was of winning, Jadwin could, not bring himself to involve his wife's money in the hazard, though his entire personal fortune swung in the balance.

Jadwin knew the danger. The new harvest was coming in--the new harvest of wheat--huge beyond all possibility of control; so vast that no money could buy it. And from Liverpool and Paris cables had come in to Gretry declining to buy wheat, though he had offered it cheaper than he had ever done before.

* * * * *

On the morning of June 13, Gretry gave his orders to young Landry Court and his other agents in the Pit, to do their best to keep the market up. "You can buy each of you up to half a million bushels apiece. If that don't keep the price up--well, I'll let you know what to do. Look here, keep your heads cool. I guess to-day will decide things."

In the Pit roar succeeded roar. It seemed that a support long thought to be secure was giving way. Not a man knew what he or his neighbour was doing. The bids leaped to and fro, and the price of July wheat could not so much as be approximated.

Landry caught one of the Gretry traders by the arm.

"What shall we do?" he shouted. "I've bought up to my limit. No more orders have come in. What's to be done?"

"I don't know," the other shouted back--"I don't know! Looks like a smash; something's gone wrong."

In Gretry's office Jadwin stood hatless and pale. Around him were one of the heads of a great banking house and a couple of other men, confidential agents, who had helped to manipulate the great corner.

"It's the end of the game," Gretry exclaimed, "you've got no more money! Not another order goes up to that floor."

"It's a lie!" Jadwin cried, "keep on buying, I tell you! Take all they'll offer. I tell you we'll touch the two dollar mark before noon."

"It's useless, Mr. Jadwin," said the banker quietly, "You were practically beaten two days ago."

But Jadwin was beyond all appeal. He threw off Gretry's hand.

"Get out of my way!" he shouted. "Do you hear? I'll play my hand alone from now on."

"'J,' old man--why, see here!" Gretry implored, still holding him by the arm. "Here, where are you going?"

Jadwin's voice rang like a trumpet-call:

"_Into the Pit!_ If you won't execute my orders I'll act myself. I'm going into the Pit, I tell you!"

"'J,' you're mad, old fellow! You're ruined--don't you understand?--you're ruined!"

"Then God curse you, Sam Gretry, for the man who failed me in a crisis!" And, as he spoke, Curtis Jadwin struck the broker full in the face.

Gretry staggered back from the blow. His pale face flashed to crimson for an instant, his fists clenched; then his hands fell to his sides.

"No," he said; "let him go--let him go. The man is merely mad!"

Jadwin thrust the men who tried to hold him to one side, and rushed from the room.

"It's the end," Gretry said simply. He wrote a couple of lines, and handed the note to the senior clerk. "Take that to the secretary of the board at once."

Straight into the turmoil and confusion of the Pit, into the scene of so many of his victories, came the "Great Bull." The news went flashing and flying from lip to lip. The wheat Pit, torn and tossed and rent asunder, stood dismayed, so great had been his power. What was about to happen? Jadwin himself, the great man, in the Pit! Had his enemies been too premature in their hope of his defeat? For a second they hesitated, then moved by a common impulse, feeling the push of the wonderful new harvest behind them, gathered themselves together for the final assault, and again offered the wheat for sale--offered it by thousands upon thousands of bushels.

Blind and insensate, Jadwin strove against the torrent of the wheat. Under the stress and violence of the hour, something snapped in his brain; but he stood erect there in the middle of the Pit, iron to the end, proclaiming over the din of his enemies, like a bugle sounding to the charge of a forlorn hope.

"Give a dollar for July--give a dollar for July!"

Then little by little the tumult of the Pit subsided. There were sudden lapses in the shouting, and again the clamour would break out.

All at once the Pit, the entire floor of the Board of Trade, was struck dumb. In the midst of the profound silence the secretary announced. "All trades with Gretry & Co. must be closed at once!"

The words were greeted with a wild yell of exultation. Beaten--beaten at last, the Great Bull! Smashed! The great corner smashed! Jadwin busted! Cheer followed cheer, hats went into the air. Men danced and leaped in a frenzy of delight.

Young Landry Court, who had stood by Jadwin in the Pit, led his defeated captain out. Jadwin was in a daze--he saw nothing, heard nothing, but submitted to Landry's guidance.

From the Pit came the sound of dying cheers.

"They can cheer now all they want. _They didn't do it,"_ said a man at the door. "It was the wheat itself that beat him; no combination of men could have done it."

_IV.--A Fresh Start_

The evening had closed in wet and misty, and when Laura Jadwin came down to the dismantled library a heavy rain was falling.

"There, dear," Laura said, "now sit down on the packing-box there. You had better put your hat on. It is full of draughts now that the furniture and curtains are out. You've had a pretty bad siege of it, you know, and this is only the first week you've been up."

"I've had too good a nurse," he answered, stroking her hand, "not to be as fit as a fiddle by now. You must be tired yourself, Laura. Why, for whole days there--and nights, too, they tell me--you never left the room."

Laura shook her head, and said:

"I wonder what the West will be like. Do you know I think I am going to like it, Curtis?"

"It will be starting in all over again, old girl. Pretty hard at first, I'm afraid."

"Hard--now?" She took his hand and laid it to her cheek.

"By all the rules you ought to hate me," he began. "What have I done for you but hurt you, and at last bring you to----"

But she shut her gloved-hand over his mouth.