LAPHAM was gone a fortnight.He was in a sullen humour when he came back, and kept himself shut close within his own den at the office the first day.He entered it in the morning without a word to his clerks as he passed through the outer room, and he made no sign throughout the forenoon, except to strike savagely on his desk-bell from time to time, and send out to Walker for some book of accounts or a letter-file.His boy confidentially reported to Walker that the old man seemed to have got a lot of papers round; and at lunch the book-keeper said to Corey, at the little table which they had taken in a corner together, in default of seats at the counter, "Well, sir, I guess there's a cold wave coming."Corey looked up innocently, and said, "I haven't read the weather report.""Yes, sir," Walker continued, "it's coming.Areas of rain along the whole coast, and increased pressure in the region of the private office.Storm-signals up at the old man's door now."Corey perceived that he was speaking figuratively, and that his meteorology was entirely personal to Lapham.
"What do you mean?" he asked, without vivid interest in the allegory, his mind being full of his own tragi-comedy.
"Why, just this: I guess the old man's takin' in sail.
And I guess he's got to.As I told you the first time we talked about him, there don't any one know one-quarter as much about the old man's business as the old man does himself; and I ain't betraying any confidence when I say that I guess that old partner of his has got pretty deep into his books.I guess he's over head and ears in 'em, and the old man's gone in after him, and he's got a drownin' man's grip round his neck.
There seems to be a kind of a lull--kind of a dead calm, I call it--in the paint market just now; and then again a ten-hundred-thousand-dollar man don't build a hundred-thousand-dollar house without feeling the drain, unless there's a regular boom.And just now there ain't any boom at all.Oh, I don't say but what the old man's got anchors to windward; guess he HAS; but if he's GOIN'
to leave me his money, I wish he'd left it six weeks ago.
Yes, sir, I guess there's a cold wave comin'; but you can't generally 'most always tell, as a usual thing, where the old man's concerned, and it's ONLY a guess."Walker began to feed in his breaded chop with the same nervous excitement with which he abandoned himself to the slangy and figurative excesses of his talks.
Corey had listened with a miserable curiosity and compassion up to a certain moment, when a broad light of hope flashed upon him.It came from Lapham's potential ruin;and the way out of the labyrinth that had hitherto seemed so hopeless was clear enough, if another's disaster would befriend him, and give him the opportunity to prove the unselfishness of his constancy.He thought of the sum of money that was his own, and that he might offer to lend, or practically give, if the time came; and with his crude hopes and purposes formlessly exulting in his heart, he kept on listening with an unchanged countenance.
Walker could not rest till he had developed the whole situation, so far as he knew it."Look at the stock we've got on hand.
There's going to be an awful shrinkage on that, now! And when everybody is shutting down, or running half-time, the works up at Lapham are going full chip, just the same as ever.Well, it's his pride.I don't say but what it's a good sort of pride, but he likes to make his brags that the fire's never been out in the works since they started, and that no man's work or wages has ever been cut down yet at Lapham, it don't matter WHAT the times are.Of course,"explained Walker, "I shouldn't talk so to everybody;don't know as I should talk so to anybody but you, Mr.Corey.""Of course," assented Corey.
"Little off your feed to-day," said Walker, glancing at Corey's plate.
"I got up with a headache."
"Well, sir, if you're like me you'll carry it round all day, then.I don't know a much meaner thing than a headache--unless it's earache, or toothache, or some other kind of ache I'm pretty hard to suit, when it comes to diseases.Notice how yellow the old man looked when he came in this morning? I don't like to see a man of his build look yellow--much." About the middle of the afternoon the dust-coloured face of Rogers, now familiar to Lapham's clerks, showed itself among them.
"Has Colonel Lapham returned yet?" he asked, in his dry, wooden tones, of Lapham's boy.
"Yes, he's in his office," said the boy; and as Rogers advanced, he rose and added, "I don't know as you can see him to-day.His orders are not to let anybody in.""Oh, indeed!" said Rogers; "I think he will see ME!"and he pressed forward.
"Well, I'll have to ask," returned the boy; and hastily preceding Rogers, he put his head in at Lapham's door, and then withdrew it."Please to sit down," he said;"he'll see you pretty soon;" and, with an air of some surprise, Rogers obeyed.His sere, dull-brown whiskers and the moustache closing over both lips were incongruously and illogically clerical in effect, and the effect was heightened for no reason by the parchment texture of his skin; the baldness extending to the crown of his head was like a baldness made up for the stage.
What his face expressed chiefly was a bland and beneficent caution.Here, you must have said to yourself, is a man of just, sober, and prudent views, fixed purposes, and the good citizenship that avoids debt and hazard of every kind.
"What do you want?" asked Lapham, wheeling round in his swivel-chair as Rogers entered his room, and pushing the door shut with his foot, without rising.
Rogers took the chair that was not offered him, and sat with his hat-brim on his knees, and its crown pointed towards Lapham."I want to know what you are going to do,"he answered with sufficient self-possession.
"I'll tell you, first, what I've done," said Lapham.
"I've been to Dubuque, and I've found out all about that milling property you turned in on me.Did you know that the G.L.& P.had leased the P.Y.& X.?""I some suspected that it might."
