Read Ebook: A Popular History of the Art of Music From the Earliest Times Until the Present by Mathews W S B William Smythe Babcock

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Ebook has 1079 lines and 125843 words, and 22 pages

CAST OF CHARACTERS

A LOCOMOTIVE ENGINEER.

A LOCOMOTIVE FIREMAN.

A STATION AGENT.

SCENE: The City of Granite, the State Capital, Magdeburg Village, and the Adirondacks.

THE FIGHTER

CALEB CONOVER WINS

The red-haired man was fighting.

He had always been fighting. The square jaw, the bull neck proclaimed him of the battling breed; even before one had scope to note the alert, light eyes, the tight mouth, the short, broad hands with their stubby strength of finger.

It was not railroad business that engrossed Conover as he sat at his desk one day in early spring: tearing open a ceaseless series of telegrams, scribbling replies, ringing now and then for a messenger to whom he gave a curt order.

Telegrams and messages ceased. In the lull, Conover jumped to his feet and began to walk back and forth. His big hands were clenched, his head thrust forward, his whole muscle-bound body tense.

Then began a violent ringing from the long-distance telephone in the far corner of the room. Conover picked up the receiver, grunted a question, then listened. For nearly five minutes he stood thus, the receiver at his ear, his broad, freckled face impassive save for a growing fire in the pale, alert eyes. A grunt of dismissal and the receiver was hung on its hook.

Conover crossed the room, threw himself into a big creaking chair, cocked his feet on the window sill, drew out and lighted a fat cigar. The tenseness was gone. His whole heavy body was relaxed. He smoked mechanically and let his gaze rove with dull inertness over the blank wall across the street. He was resting as hard as he had fought.

A clerk timidly opened the door leading from the outer offices.

"Mr. Caine, sir," ventured the employee, "He says he--"

"Send him in," vouchsafed Conover without turning his head.

His eyes were still fixed in unseeing comfort on the wall, when his guest entered. Nor did he shift his glance without visible reluctance. The newcomer seemingly was used to his host's lack of cordiality. For, favoring Conover with a slight nod, he deposited his hat, gloves and stick on the table and lighted a cigarette, before speaking.

Conover surveyed the well-groomed figure of his visitor with an air of disparaging appraisal that reached its climax as he noted the cigarette.

"Here!" he suggested, "Throw away that paper link between fire and a fool, and smoke real tobacco. Try one of these cigars if you want to. They'll fit your mouth a lot better. Why does a grown man smoke a--?"

"This grown man," replied Caine, unruffled, "has a way of doing what he chooses. I came to see if you were ready to go to your execution."

"I know I am. It's an ideal day for work. So I haven't done any. I left the office ahead of time and came to see if I could lure you into a walk before we go to the Club. You don't seem much worried over the outcome."

"Why should I be? I'll win. I always win."

"Conover," said Caine, observing his friend with the condescendingly interested air of a visitor at the Zoo, "If I had your sublime conceit I'd be President of the United States or the richest man in America, or some other such odious personage whose shoes we all secretly fear we may some day fill."

"President? Richest man?" repeated Conover, mildly attracted by the dual idea. "Give me time and I'll likely be both. I've made a little start on the second already, to-day."

"Won another fight?" queried Caine.

"Yes, a big one. The biggest yet, by far."

"Nothing to do with Steeloid, I suppose!" suggested the visitor, a note of real concern peering through his customary air of amused calm.

"The Independent! That means a slump in our U. S. Steeloid! You call that winning a fight? I thought--"

"You'd be better off, Caine, if you'd leave the thinkin' part of these things to me. Thinkin' is my game. Not yours. You talk about 'our' U. S. Steeloid. You seem to forget I swing seventy-two per cent. of the stock and you own just what I let you in on."

"Never mind all that," interposed Caine. "If the Independents are banded together, they'll make things warm for us."

"Not enough to cause any hurry call for electric fans, I guess," chuckled Conover. "If you'll stop 'thinkin'' a minute or two an' listen to me, I'll try to explain. An' maybe I can hammer into your head a few of the million things you don't know about finance. Here's the idea. I built up the Steeloid Trust, didn't I? And Blacarda and his crowd who had been running a bunch of measly third-rate Steeloid companies, set up a squeal because I could undersell 'em."

"Go on," urged Caine. "I know all that. You needn't take a running start with your lesson in high finance. We'll take it for granted that I read at least the newspaper I own and that I know Blacarda has been trying to organize the independent companies against you. What next?"

"Well, they're organized. Only Blacarda didn't do it. A high-souled philanthropic geezer that worked through agents, jumped in an' combined all the independent companies against us an' got 'em to give him full voting power on all their stock. Put themselves into his hands entirely, you see, for the fight against my Steeloid Trust. Then this noble hearted trust buster incorporated the Independents. The deal went through to-day. I got final word on it just now. The Independents are organized. The votes on every share of their stock is in the control of one man."

"But he'll--"

"An' that 'one man,'" resumed the Fighter, "happens to be Caleb Conover."

"But," gasped the dumbfounded Caine, "I don't understand."

"Caine," protested Conover, gently, "if all the things you don't understand about finance was to be placed end to end--like they say in the Sunday 'features' of your paper,--they'd reach from here to Blacarda's chances of swingin' the Independent Steeloid Company. An' that's a long sight farther than twice around the world. What I'm gettin' at is this: I went to work on the quiet an' formed that Independent Combine. Then I gave it to myself as a present. It is now part of my U. S. Steeloid Company. Or will be as soon as I can strangle the Legislature kick that Blacarda's sure to put up."

"I see now," said Caine, slipping back into his armor of habitual calm, "and I take off my hat to you. Conover, you missed your calling when you failed to go into the safe breaking profession."

"There's more money in business," replied Conover simply. "But now maybe you won't lay awake nights worryin' over your Steeloid stock. If it was worth 170 2-5 this morning it'll be quoted at 250 before the month is out."

"I don't wonder you aren't afraid of this afternoon's ordeal," observed Caine, "But Blacarda is on the Board of Governors."

"So are you, for that matter," said Conover, "and I guess the vote of the man who's made rich by Steeloid will pair off with the vote of the man who's broke by it."

"I hope," corrected Caine, "you don't think it's because of my Steeloid holdings that I'm backing you in this. I do it because it amuses me to see the gyrations of the under dog. A sporting instinct, I suppose."

Caine was lifting his cigarette to his lips. Conover watched the lazily graceful gesture with more than his wonted contempt.

"Say, Caine," he interrupted, "why in thunder do you make your nails look like a pink skatin' rink?"

"If you mean, why do I have them manicured," answered Caine, coolly, "it is absolutely none of your business."

"Why do you wear a necktie?" countered Caine, "I admit it is a surpassingly ugly one. But why wear one at all? It doesn't keep you warm. It has no use."

"Clo'es don't make a man," stammered Conover, rather discomfited at the riposte, "But there's no use creatin' a disturbance by goin' round without 'em. As for my necktie, it shows I ain't a day laborer for one thing."

"Well-groomed hands are just as certain a sign manual of another sort," finished Caine.

"I don't quite get your meanin'. If--"

"As a failure you would have been a success, Conover," interrupted Caine, "But as a success you are in some ways a lamentable failure. To paraphrase your own inspired words, if all the things you don't know about social usage were placed end to end--"

"That's what you're called on to explain this afternoon before the Governors of the Arareek Country Club," finished Caine rising. "Are you ready?"

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