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Roy Glashan's Library
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An RGL First Edition©
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The Argosy, September 1904,
with "A Mysterious Motorman"
A tale that starts out with the theft of a
trolley-car—and ends with a deal in millions.
FROM below Twenty-Third Street all the way up to Thirty-Fourth extended a long line of trolley cars, their motionless yellow bodies forming a solid barrier of saffron right down the center of New York's great highway.
A loaded truck had broken down in attempting to cross the tracks at Herald Square, and as a consequence, traffic had been brought to a standstill right at the very busiest hour of the evening.
The jammed passengers took the delay in a typical New York spirit, some with jesting banter, others with grumbling complaints; but all with that hopeless acceptance of the dictum, "What are you going to do about it?" which has seemed a heritage of the citizens of the metropolis ever since the days of Tweed.
Other cities institute rapid transit reforms, curb nuisances, and force the grantees of their franchises to understand that they are servants of the public.
New York struggles along in discomfort, often in actual danger, and patiently repeats the question: "Well, what are we going to do about it?"
In the present instance, the minutes passed on. Word came down the line now that a runaway hansom cab had crashed into the obstruction and that the block was consequently worse than ever.
Conductors and motormen lounging beside their stalled charges, when anxiously questioned how soon a resumption of traffic might be expected, merely shrugged their shoulders.
On the front platform of a car which had happened to be caught at the corner of Twenty-Second Street was a young man who did not appear entirely satisfied with this non-committal form of reply.
"Well, I have an important engagement to keep in twenty minutes," he declared; "and I don't propose to wait here all night."
"You don't, eh?" sneered the conductor. "Well, what are you going to do about it?"
The young man turned to the other occupants of the car; they were mostly men, there being but two women in the entire company.
"How many of you people want to go above Thirty-Fourth Street?" he demanded in tones loud enough to be heard by all. "Those who don't, hold up their right hands."
There was only one right hand to be uplifted, that of a young fellow who stood directly by the speaker.
"I am only going as far as Twenty-Seventh," he explained.
"Well, you can walk that easily; so get off. I am going to take this car around another way."
The young man addressed searched the other's face with quizzical doubt.
"Do you really mean it?" he finally ventured.
"I do; as sure as there's another way to go," returned the first, and though his tone was quiet, his emphasis left little doubt of the earnestness of his intention.
"Then I'm going to stay and see the fun. It doesn't make any particular difference to me when I get home."
"All right, then. We'll all go through together. This is an express train. First stop, Broadway and Thirty-Fourth Street."
The motorman and conductor were standing some little distance away from the car, and if they overheard any of these remarks they probably put them down to the jesting persiflage usually current on such occasions.
Moreover, the motorman, contrary to the rules of the company, had left his car with the starting lever still affixed to the crank of the controller.
The daring individual who now announced his intention of getting through on time, had marked this dereliction, and had also observed that the switch leading to the Lexington Avenue line was open.
Perhaps it was his observance of these conditions that had engendered the mad proposal in his mind.
At any rate, he now leaned forward quickly, and without giving any further warning of his purpose, seized the lever and snot it two notches to the right.
The car gave a lurch, a jar, and sprang forward on the rails. Two notches more, and she steadied herself, rolling ahead with rapidly increasing momentum.
The motorman and conductor became aware of the unauthorized departure of their charge at exactly the same moment; and this, as it happened was a fortunate event for the success of the enterprise, since the two men in endeavoring to board the moving car bumped heavily into each other, and before they could resume pursuit, the vehicle was already well around the curve into Twenty-Third Street.
Its impromptu "chauffeur" had, moreover, chosen for the initiation of his scheme a moment when the Twenty-Third Street line at this point was clear of cross-town cars, so he made no slackening of speed as he rounded the turn, but whirled over it in a way which tossed about the passengers inside like potatoes in a market basket.
Alarmed and panic-stricken at the unaccustomed speed of the car, and the wrong direction they saw they were taking, these now surged toward the doors in an effort to escape.
"Keep your places," roared the man at the lever. "Don't attempt to jump. This car is going through at full speed, and she'll land you all right at Broadway and Thirty-Fourth Street. I'm a superintendent of the company."
The latter was a happy afterthought; but it quelled the rising panic inside as nothing else could have done.
The passengers, who would have been terrified out of their wits at the thought of being driven over the rails by an irresponsible mad-cap, were perfectly satisfied by his tone of authority, and obediently resumed their seats, or their clutch upon the straps, and returned to the perusal of their evening papers.
"You'll never be able to do it," quoth the young man whose destination had been Twenty-Seventh Street, speaking in a low voice, and with a smile of amusement upon his lips. "They'll stop you, sure."
The other grinned back at him.
"Well, I'll give them a run for their money, any way," he said.
Then his glance grew tense, and his face set into firm lines of determination, for just ahead loomed the dangerous crossing at Fourth Avenue, and at that moment the right of way was held by the up and down town cars.
Still he never slackened for a moment his furious speed. Disregarding as though it had not been there the waving flag fluttered in his face, and the harsh cries shouted at him by the watchman in charge, he dashed ahead.
Just between two moving cars, he slipped. So close, indeed, that one of them bumped his rear platform as he passed. But he made it, and the way was clear ahead.
His Twenty-Seventh Street friend returned from the step where he had been clinging in readiness to jump, and grinned his appreciation of the feat.
"Rather a close shave," he commented. "You certainly have more than your fair share of nerve."
The other was too busy to reply just then. The curve at Lexington Avenue was engrossing all his attention for the moment.
At the terrific pace he was moving, he knew it would require all his skill to round it successfully.
Yet once more his luck protected him, and now he breathed a long sigh of relief, for at last he had before him a straight stretch of eleven blocks with no crossings save the inconsequential ones at Twenty-Eighth and Twenty-Ninth Streets.
He turned to his new acquaintance.
"How about it now?" he queried vaingloriously. "Are you still so sure that they are going to catch me?"
"What I am puzzling about," returned the other, with his usual significant smile, "is how you are going to switch over on to the Thirty-Fourth Street line. Remember there is no junction of the tracks there, as there was at Twenty-Third and again at Lexington."
The man at the controller gave an eloquent whistle.
"By George, that is so, isn't it?" he said. "I had forgotten about that. I ought to have gone up Third avenue and switched over on to Forty-Second, ought I not?"
His face fell.
"If I only had some one who could go down into the pit and switch the shoe for me," he muttered, "I could still do it. But, as it is, I guess I'll have to acknowledge a failure."
The Twenty-Seventh Street smile again came into evidence.
"If that is all you need," remarked its owner, "I guess you needn't throw up the sponge just yet a while. I'll switch the shoe over for you."
"You will?" shouted the other, his dejection swiftly transformed once more into elation. "Then, glory hallelujah, we'll run through on schedule yet!"
The car was already slackening speed, and just as it reached the intersection of the Lexington Avenue tracks with those on Thirty-Fourth Street, its driver skilfully brought it to a sudden halt.
He turned to the interior of the car.
"Here, all you people who want your dinners to-night," he thundered at the passengers, "tumble out and help swing this old hearse around on the on the other line. If everybody helps, it won't take ten seconds, and that, I'll tell you, is the only way we'll ever get back to Broadway."
With a will the passengers responded to his behest—there seemed to be something contagious in his overflowing energy—and almost in less time than it takes to tell it, the car was shoved over literally by main strength, and set down again at right angles to its former course.
Meanwhile his volunteer assistant had detached the shoe by which the power is carried up into the motor, and, lifting the man-hole, had dived down into the conduit underneath the tracks.
He speedily fitted it to the charged rail which was to guide them in their new direction, and now emerged, covered with dust, but still wearing his familiar smile.
"Wait just half a minute," he said to the projector of the hair-brained enterprise, who stood impatiently with his foot on the gong and his hand on the controller, "and I'll have you hitched up."
Then he scrambled under the car once more to attach the shoe to the motor.
"Hurry up for Heaven's sake," yelled the man on the platform excitedly. "They're coming!"
And, indeed, they were. From all four points of the compass policemen were hurrying toward them.
Up Lexington Avenue was racing a trolley car, on the front platform of which could be descried the motorman and conductor so ruthlessly abandoned.
Nearer and nearer approached the pursuers. The hero of the enterprise was in a fever of anxiety. His hand trembled as it rested upon the lever.
One eye was straining ahead along the tracks, the other was turned upon his chasing foes. Meanwhile, his comrade was hammering and banging away beneath the car.
Then, once more he felt the blessed current thrilling beneath his hand. The car gave a quiver, a jolt; and as it moved forward a broad smile like a rising moon gleamed up. from the step.
Just in time. The nearest of the pursuers was not more than ten feet away from them when they caught the "juice" and were once more proceeding on their way.
He of Twenty-Seventh Street drew himself up to the platform, and for the first time laughed outright.
Dusty and disheveled, but plainly exultant over the share he had taken in the escapade, he turned to his companion.
"That was another close shave," he chuckled; "but we made it"
"Yes; thanks to you," replied the other.
He jangled a triumphant tattoo on the bell beneath his feet, and yelled back his commands to the once more bewildered passengers.
"Hold your hats," he cried. "We are going across town like as if we were jerked by lightning. It's Broadway or bust with us now!"
It was no idle boast be made. As he spoke he shot the lever forward to "the button," the farthest limit of speed, and the car, responding to the impulse, leaped forward like a race horse under the spur.
It was a whirlwind finish for certain. The dumbfounded occupants of the car caught one fleeting glimpse of the hurrying crowds along Fifth Avenue, a blurred panorama of the long red line of the Waldorf; and then with a jerk and a jar the wild journey ended. They came to a halt beneath the shadow of an old, gray church.
"Herald Square!" announced the Phaeton who had guided their chariot through so many perils; while he and his new-made friend shook hands in a self-congratulatory grasp.
"Yis, it's Herald Shquare," panted a fat patrolman clambering up on the platform and laying the strong hand of the law on the shoulder of the chief offender; "an' ye're jist th' laddy buck I'm afther. Shure it's a nerve ye've got on ye, a shtalin' a throlley car right off iv Broadway."
"I guess I'll go along with you," murmured a voice at the prisoner's side. "You'll need somebody to bail you out."
It was the voice of the man who had been going to Twenty-Seventh Street.
IT was but a short walk to the station-house; and almost before he could realize the possible results which might accrue to him from his crazy frolic, the hero of the affair found himself arraigned before the desk of a grim old sergeant.
"What's the charge, officer?" grunted this functionary, scarcely taking the trouble to glance up from under his heavy brows at the face of the prisoner.
"Shtalin' a throlley car"—with a due comprehension of the enormity of the accusation.
"What?" ejaculated the sergeant, for once startled out of his official impassivity. "You're joking, Flannagan?"
"Divil a bit iv it, sergeant," stoutly reiterated the other. "Ask him himself av it's not the thruth?"
"Well, I didn't exactly steal it," explained the accused man, thus placed upon the defensive. "I just borrowed it for a little while. I didn't propose to wait all night for a block to be broken, sergeant; so I simply took their old car and ran it around another way."
The sergeant's saturnine countenance broke into an unaccustomed grin, and with hearty emphasis he repeated the verdict of the patrolman.
"Well, you have got a nerve," he said. "Where do you come from?"
"Chicago," answered the other with the same proud assertion that St. Paul used when he announced that he was "a citizen of no mean city."
"Ah, I thought so," was the only comment that the sergeant made; but it was significant in its brevity.
"What is your name?" he continued, opening his blotter.
"John Smith."
"Your right name, I mean," wearily.
How many times had he had to receive that familiar response during his long years of service!
"That is my right name," insisted the prisoner.
"All right, then; your business?"
"Motorman."
"Working now?"
"No; looking for a job."
"And you expected to get one by playing any such fool trick as this?"
The other only smiled ruefully.
"Well," proceeded the sergeant, "you haven't been drinking, and you don't act to me as though you were crazy, so I guess we'll have to hold you. This is a pretty serious charge against you, young man. Have you anybody that will go bail for your appearance in court when you are wanted?"
The young man who had accompanied the prisoner to the station-house now stepped forward, and, extracting a card from his pocket handed it to the official.
The sergeant read the name engraved thereon, and gave a slight start. His manner at once became markedly deferential.
"Oh, if you are willing to stand surety, sir, there will be no need to hold him for even five minutes."
It was remarkable, indeed, how quickly the name upon that card smoothed out all difficulties. The further formalities were few, newspaper men were kept at a distance, and in an incredibly short time, John Smith and his newfound friend stood upon the steps of the station-house, free to go wheresoever they might.choose.
"You said that you had an engagement to keep?" inquired this angel of deliverance. "Are you still of the same mind?"
"Well, it was with a street railway superintendent," returned John Smith dryly. "I was going to strike him for a job; but under the circumstances, I am of the opinion that I might as well call it off."
"In that case, come and take dinner with me," urged the other. "I want to know whatever put this fool idea into your head, or how you ever expected to gain anything by it? I can see by the way you snubbed the newspaper men that it is not notoriety you are seeking."
"Oh, it's easily enough explained," replied Smith, signifying his acceptance of the dinner invitation and starting to stroll along beside his companion. "I just lost my head; that was all there was to it. You see, I must have something of the bull in my composition; for no sooner is a bit of red tape flaunted in my face, than immediately I want to charge it and trample it underfoot. So, to-night, when that conductor asked me what I was going to do about being senselessly delayed there for an hour or more, I simply determined that I would show him. I suppose it was a foolish thing to do," he added; "but remember, I come from a city whose motto is,'I Will!'
"Besides," he added a moment later, "I'll admit that that starting lever the motorman left upon his car was a great temptation to me. My fingers were just itching to get a grip on it"
"Are you so eager then to become a motorman? That seems to me a strange ambition."
"Not strange to me," quickly rejoined the other. "Why, I never enjoyed anything so much in my life as I did that wild dash through the streets to-night. To drive a car over crowded thoroughfares, and to know that the least mistake means death or disaster; to feel that magnificent power of six hundred volts vibrating at your call, and to control it all with one touch of your fingers—why, man, that is something worth while!"
"You are an enthusiast," smiled the other. "But if you have such a hatred of red tape, tell me how do you expect ever to hold a regular job where there are of necessity many rules to be observed?"
"Oh, that is different," naively declared Smith. "When one is working for a company their red tape becomes your own. It was because I was looking at matters from the aspect of an outsider that I got my dander up tonight; had I been an employee of the company I should never have thought of such a thing. You don't hear of a bull chasing the man that feeds him, do you, no matter how much red the fellow may flutter to the breeze?"
"Well, I don't know that I entirely agree with you," returned his friend, leading the way into a fashionable hotel; "but we can go into the point more at length over our dinner. Here is where we eat.
"What are you going to have?" he further questioned when they were seated at the table, with an obsequious waiter hovering near to attend to their order.
"Well, to tell you the truth," confessed the man from Chicago, "our various experiences have made me hungry. I don't know but that a good, big sirloin steak would hit me about as well as anything else."
"Oh, you cannibal!" protested the other, and then they both broke into uproarious laughter.
Indeed, when one came to scrutinize Smith in the full glare of the light which irradiated the spacious dining-room, the comparison of himself with a bull was by no means inapt.
Short, thick, and stockily built, with a big round head joined almost directly to his broad shoulders, his physical make-up seemed the very embodiment of rugged determination and force.
His wide, low forehead, too, was bull-like in its contour; but his face was relieved from the too purely animal quality by the warm, human expression of his deep gray eyes.
There was a twinkle in them which betokened perhaps an overweening impulse toward fun, and also a possibility of daring recklessness; but underneath it all one instinctively felt that here was a man—one to be trusted, one whom it would be good to have for a friend.
Probably it was some realization of this fact that prompted an act of the other man, for now he stretched his hand across the table and took Smith's in a firm clasp.
"Excuse me," he said," we have been so busy talking over other things that I had quite forgotten to introduce myself. My name is Bert Harlow.
"I may as well tell you now," he continued, "that I have some influence with the management of the street railway, and if you are really in earnest about wanting a job with them, I think I can arrange it."
"It would take almost a miracle to accomplish that," returned Smith, shaking his head. "They would never dream of taking me on after this affair."
"How are they going to know that you are the same man?"
"Why, I've got to appear in court tomorrow morning, haven't I? You need have no doubt but that after that, I shall be a marked man for them."
"Don't appear."
"What on earth do you mean? If I shouldn't, you'd be out a thousand dollars on my forfeited bail-bond. Oh, no, old man, I'll never let you hold the bag after all your kindness to me to-night."
"But supposing I don't want you to appear? Supposing it is worth more than a thousand dollars to me to have you regularly employed on that road? If I am willing to stand the loss, you certainly ought to be."
Smith studied him through half closed eyelids for several momenta. At length he gave a hopeless shake to his head.
"I'll swear I can't fathom your game," he said. "I'm from pretty close to Missouri, and you'll have to show me."
The other's lips parted in his baffling smile.
"Why, it don't seem such a very hard proposition to me," he rejoined lightly. "All I ask you to do is to accept a job, which I pledge myself to secure you, and which you say you want. On this condition you not only escape the consequences of your folly to-night, but you also realize what you claim is your overweening ambition."
"And in return, I am to do, what?" bluntly demanded the man from Chicago. I never heard that you New-Yorkers were notorious for giving something for nothing. How am I to run this car I shall get, or what am I to find out for you as your recompense?"
Leaning back from the table, he plunged his hands into his pockets and sat in a brown study.
Harlow narrowly watched him, his familiar smile flitting from time to time across his face, as he took note of Smith's evident bewilderment.
"You may think my purpose what you choose," he finally broke in; "but how can it affect you when you enter the service of the company absolutely unhampered by any promises, as free to work for their interests alone as though you had kept your engagement with the superintendent this evening and had received the appointment from him?"
"That seems like the truth," assented Smith slowly.
Then his face hardened into resolution and he bent his steady gray eyes squarely on the man opposite him.
"I am going to take this job, Mr. Harlow," he said firmly, "and I don't want to appear ungrateful in what I say; but I want to give you fair warning that if you think you can thereby use me as a tool to accomplish any dirty work for you, you'll find yourself the most mistaken man in all New York."
"Don't alarm yourself on the score of my having any deep designs, friend Smith," rejoined Harlow lightly. "Take your position and serve the company faithfully and well. That is all I shall ask. As for myself, I only rejoice that, unlike Diogenes, I have at last found an honest man."
But as he finished, he smiled once more his enigmatical smile.
JOHN SMITH of Chicago, for a street-car motorman out of employment, apparently betrayed a singular indifference to the question of expense in his manner of life; for when he left his new found friend that evening with the announcement that he was "going home," he directed his steps to one of the most fashionable and glittering hotels in the city.
Furthermore was it evident that he was by no means an unknown quantity in the hostelry, since porters and bellboys hurried forward with a glad alacrity to do his bidding, and even the haughty clerk unbent from his dignity to accord a welcome as Smith came up to place his signature upon the register.
"The same old room, I suppose?" observed the functionary behind the desk, inserting some cabalistic characters after the name inscribed upon his book, which it may be remarked in passing bore not the slightest resemblance to the familiar cognomen of Smith.
"Yes," returned the other carelessly; "for to-night. To-morrow, I want to look up a boarding-house."
"I can direct you to a first-class place," suggested the clerk. "It's around on Madison Avenue."
A smile flitted over Smith's features.
"I hardly think that would do," he replied. "No; I don't believe you could be of much assistance to me in discovering the kind of place I am after."
"Did you just get in?" pursued the clerk, unrebuffed by the lack of consideration granted his well-meant offer.
"Well, no; not exactly. I arrived here on the one-thirty train this afternoon."
"Oh, then you probably heard of the excitement they had on the Broadway trolley line this evening. Some lunatic kidnapped a carload of passengers, and careered all around town with them before he was finally captured."
"Drunk, I suppose?" commented Smith placidly.
"No; that was the strange part of it. He doesn't seem to have been either drunk or crazy. Nor, apparently, was he hunting for notoriety, for he put up bail and got out of the way before the reporters fairly tumbled to the fact that there was anything sensational in his arrest.
"They're chasing around town now, half beside themselves because they can't locate him. Billy Grey of the Mercury was in here a few minutes ago, and he said that they now think it must have been that daffy English duke who has been cutting up such high jinks at Newport."
"Ah," remarked Smith, as though the subject were one of little interest for him. "There's no accounting for the peculiar things that some people will do."
He picked up his key as if to start for his room; but with a sudden afterthought fumbled in his pocket for a card, and threw it across the desk to the clerk.
"You know everybody in New York, Tommy," he said. "Tell me who that fellow is?"
"J. Bertram Harlow?" repeated the clerk with a swift glance at the inscription. "Why, you certainly have heard of him? He used to be the champion polo player of America. Son of old Silas Harlow."
"Not Silas Harlow the Wall Street magnate?" interjected Smith quickly.
"Certainly. There's only one Silas Harlow that I ever heard of," responded the clerk. Then, with a grin; "If there were any more, I guess half the down-town brokers would be taking to the tall timbers."
The Chicagoan pursed up his lips in a meditative pucker.
"And does this kid," he finally asked, "J. Bertram, I mean, do anything for a living besides play polo?"
"Oh, yes," heartily. "Don't make any mistake in sizing him up for a spring chicken. He's in partnership with the old man—Harlow & Son is the name of their concern—and some people think he's smarter at the game than his daddy ever began to be."
"H'm," was John Smith's only response.
He encouraged the clerk to no further disclosures; but at this point broke away and sought his own apartment, where, throwing himself into an easy-chair and lighting a long, black cigar, he indulged in an extended period of self communion.
"I'll swear I can't see through the game," he muttered reflectively. "Old Harlow has been credited for a long time with having designs upon the transit system, and he may very possibly be at work on some deep-laid scheme right now; but what in the world can he hope to accomplish through a single motorman.
"Why," he ejaculated impatiently, "any idea of the kind is absurd upon the face of it. And yet, why this display of uncalled-for philanthropy upon the part of the son? He might very readily have been interested in me by reason of the experience we had, and on that account have been willing to stand by me to a certain extent. But to forfeit a thousand dollars in order that I might secure a job—it smells fishy to say the least."
He ran over in his mind all that he had ever heard of Old Silas Harlow. As scheming, shrewd and far-sighted a man as walked the streets of New York, was the character generally ascribed to the old financier by his associates.
"There are two things that no white man ever yet found out," observed a waggish broker one day in a Chinese restaurant, "the receipt for chop suey, and a knowledge of old Harlow's intentions."
It is significant that the epigram had become almost a proverb on Wall Street.
"Can it be," wondered Smith, revolving over and over in his mind all the circumstances of the offer which had been made to him, "that I am in some way to be used as a pawn in one of the old fellow's cunning games upon the checkerboard of finance? It seems incredible.
"Why," he argued, "I never met young Harlow until this evening, and then it was in purely accidental fashion. He could not possibly have had any foreknowledge of our being thrown together, or any reason to believe, until after he had gone my bail, that there was the slightest likelihood of my be- coming connected with the street railroad. The whole sequence of events was perfectly natural.
"And yet," recurred the disquieting speculation, "why is he willing—eager, rather—to spend a thousand dollars upon an absolute stranger? True, a thousand dollars may not be much to either Silas Harlow or his son; but I never heard that anybody of that name was chucking such an amount into the gutter."
His perplexity still unsolved, he finally flung the stump of his cigar out of the window, and slowly began to prepare for bed.
"I guess I'll have to confess," he admitted, pulling off his shoes, "that as a puzzle it goes ahead of me. The only thing I can see to do is to accept the job and keep my eyes open for trickery; for, as I told young Harlow to-night, I won't stand for crooked work in any form. If I go to work for the street railroad, I work for them, and not for Harlow & Son, or anybody else."
He was standing in his bare feet as he made this declaration, and with the words he sank his big head down between his shoulders with his familiar bull-like gesture. To any one looking on, it would have been evident that John Smith meant exactly what he said.
Before he turned out the light, he sent word to the office directing that he be called at seven-thirty in the morning.
"There's lots for me to do to-morrow," he reminded himself; "and I've got to be up betimes to do it."
And with that, he shut out of his mind the problem which had presented itself to him for solution, and nestling down beneath the covers was soon snoring away as peacefully as though upsetting the transit arrangements of a great city was to him an everyday affair.
So soundly did he sleep, indeed, that it was only with great difficulty, and after repeated batterings at his door that he was aroused at the hour he had appointed; but eventually he appeared at breakfast only a few minutes later than the time he had calculated upon.
The papers which he perused during his discussion of the meal seemed to afford him infinite enjoyment, for in every one of them a vast amount of space was devoted to the description of his hair-brained exploit of the night before, while each journal was compelled to admit that the identity of the daring chauffeur was still an unexplained mystery.
Most of the reporters, in order to cover up their defeat, ascribed the escapade to a young British peer, the Duke of Brixton, who happened at the time to be on a tour of the country, and whose madcap adventures in various cities had already brought him very thoroughly into the public eye.
The duke, it was stated, would neither affirm nor deny his connection with this latest affair; but from a certain sly twinkle in his eye and the difficulty he had in restraining his laughter whenever the matter was mentioned in his presence, the gentlemen of the press were prone to believe that they were not far wrong in according to him the responsibility for it.
"Well, he's perfectly welcome to it," observed Smith with a chuckle as he laid the papers aside. "I for one will never strive to strip him of his borrowed honors."
Then, his conscience easy and his digestion in excellent working order, he sallied forth from the hotel and betook himself to various sources of information which were at his command.
He wanted to find out as nearly as possible what was in the wind as it blew out of the dingy offices of Harlow & Son; and incidentally he made it his business to discover everything he could in relation to the members of that notable firm and their affiliations.
When he returned to the hotel, he was more than satisfied, for he had at his fingers' ends a wealth of intelligence touching upon every status of the subjects under investigation, financial, social, and personal.
The Harlow family, he had learned, consisted of old Silas and his two children: the son whose acquaintance he had made the night before, and a daughter, Miss Elizabeth Harlow, a noted belle in society, yet unspoiled withal, and said to be as charming and unaffected as she was undeniably beautiful.
The son, Bertram, he was told, had formerly led the life of most young men of money; but about a year or so since had suddenly abandoned his existence of unproductive leisure, and had gone in for business. Without consulting his father, or indeed even apprising him of his plans, the boy had carved out a career for himself.
Mastering the profession of an electrician, he had gone West, and there had taken service with a trolley road in one of the smaller interior cities.
The management at the time was lax and careless, the men in charge ignorant and incompetent, and consequently it was easy for young Harlow with his energy and brains to forge ahead. He became superintendent of the road, then managing director, and finally by means of a financial deal which he was able to swing through some of his old associates in the East, its president and controlling spirit.
"A chip off the old block," commented the New Yorkers who heard of his exploit, and old Silas was so delighted with the prowess displayed by his son, that he then and there sat down and wrote him a letter, insisting that he should return and accept a full partnership in the great financial house which bore their name.
"You will have scope here for the talents which you undoubtedly possess," wrote the father," and I am sure can be of material advantage in the furtherance of a gigantic project which I have had in view for years; but which I have so far failed to effect."
What this project was, or what further inducements had been held out to the son in the correspondence which passed between the two, no one could say; but it was a matter of record that whatever it was, it had outweighed the considerations which the young man had declared would hold him to the West, for it must be understood that when his father's offer first came to him, it had met with small favor at his hands.
From the nature of Bertram Harlow's ventures in the West, some people argued that the project to which old Silas had referred was a scheme which he was believed to have long cherished of effecting a combination of the traction lines in all the principal Eastern cities, and thus forming a mammoth corporation of which he should be the head.
Indeed, it was known that some years prior, the crafty old financier had actually mapped out a campaign with such an issue as its result, and that emissaries of his had then endeavored to secure control of several of the more important companies.
His intentions becoming known, however, the plan had been blocked, and it was generally believed that Harlow, too prudent to persevere where failure was certain, had definitely abandoned his attempt.
In fact, the only basis for a renewal of the gossip was the return of Bertram coupled with the fact that it was in a rapid transit enterprise that the young fellow had won his business spurs.
"Well, that may be the old man's game, and it may not," was the comment of John Smith of Chicago, when he had finally sifted out all these reports; "and for my part, it's little I care one way or the other. But what still passes utterly beyond my comprehension is how they expect to accomplish anything through one single, solitary motorman!"
THE following day Smith obtained his desired interview with the superintendent of the road, and, having successfully convinced that autocrat of his qualifications, was at length duly taken into the service.
For manifest reasons, he had remained discreetly silent concerning any previous experience he might have enjoyed; and so, during the interim of his schooling upon the "dummies"—immovable car-heads, fitted, nevertheless, with controller, bell, and brake complete—he was forced to enact the role of a neophyte, and to indulge in all manner of ridiculous blunders and mistakes.
In time, however, he was pronounced competent to manage a car in actual motion, and then, he was sent out to learn the road under the supervision of an older hand, thus finally graduating into a full-fledged motorman, and being assigned to duty on one of the important up-and-down-town lines.
For a week or more his career was distinctly uneventful. He paid close attention to the rules and regulations of the company, ran his car strictly on schedule time, and managed by good luck to escape all those pitfalls which generally beset the pathway of inexperience.
Then, late one night, as he was making his final trip for the day, he had an adventure.
It was away up toward the northern terminus of the road, and where patches of built-up and settled districts alternated with long stretches of vacant lots.
He noticed ahead of him a party of people coming out of a house where an entertainment of some kind had evidently been in progress; and he proceeded to slow down, as he observed that two of the company, a young lady and her escort were about to hail his car.
He got them safely aboard, and once more started on his way; but had only progressed a block or two farther when he again had to stop, this time to accommodate a band of roughs who made their exit in disorderly fashion from the door of a corner saloon.
These newcomers chanced to be in hilarious mood, and immediately endeavored to take possession of the car, rendering themselves obnoxious by a display of conduct well calculated to disgust every one else aboard.
Indeed so objectionable did they soon become both in language and behavior that the young man accompanying the lady was forced to appeal to the conductor to have them quieted.
The toughs, of course, resented any criticism of their playful diversions, and, one word bringing on another, a blow was struck, and there ensued a free fight in which both the conductor and the complaining passenger were involved.
Smith with one hand upon the controller and the other upon his brake glanced back over his shoulder, anxiously concerned over the progress of the fray.
He quickly realized that neither of the champions of order and decency was physically qualified for the combat upon which they had engaged, or in any way a match for their burly opponents.
All the fighting blood in him surged to the surface, the instinctive sympathy which a lover of fair play feels for the under dog; and he longed, oh, so eagerly, to take a hand in the game himself.
Yet it was undoubtedly his business by all the rules of the company to remain at his post, to run his car unheeding until he could encounter a policeman, and summon the law to his aid.
He strained his eye far down the street, hoping every second to catch a glint of the friendly blue and brass; but in vain. So far as he could determine, there was not an officer in view for blocks and blocks ahead.
Just at this moment the battle within which had never been seriously in doubt, reached a disastrous climax.
The conductor went down before a well-directed blow upon the point of the jaw, and a second later the young passenger, although still struggling valiantly, was overcome by force of numbers and buried beneath a mound of kicking, struggling humanity.
"It's up to me," decided Smith, no longer hesitating, and with the words he spun the lever on his controller around to the reverse, bringing the car to a sudden and plunging stop.
So abrupt was his halt, indeed, that the battling forces were tossed and tumbled over the floor as though the car had been struck by an earthquake.
The situation gave Smith a momentary advantage, add he was not slow to benefit by it
He had no weapon, for he had disdained the controller handle which he might have used to such a purpose; he relied solely on the strength of his own muscles.
With one resounding bellow as a challenge and a defiance to his foes, he threw open the front door of the car and waded in.
Bull-like, indeed, was his charge—his great head held low, his brawny arms swinging like flails, the whole force of his powerful, compact frame exerted in a superb, strategic rush.
Smash! Hammer! His great fists beat down upon the bullet heads of the enemy. Jolting and jarring he plowed his way through them like an animated battering ram.
Some went down before his pelting blows like ninepins; others, bewildered by this unexpected onslaught, took safety in flight. There were only three who rallied sufficiently from the surprise to give him any real opposition.
These turned and assailed him with the savage ferocity of mad cats. They sought to flank him by a concerted effort, striving against him with teeth and claws, biting, kicking, striking; but they stayed his steady progress not a wit.
Two were in front of him, and one behind. Backward he bore the two, paying no more heed to the frantic attacks from their companion in the rear than he would have given to a mosquito.
One of those in front received a blow in the stomach, and with a howl of pain gave way; the other seeing himself opposed single-handed to this strenuous warrior turned to flee.
Smith caught him by the collar of his coat, and with a mighty kick launched him into space. His elbow as he let go smote backward with all the precision of a mule's hind leg, and, catching his third assailant on the jugular vein, administered a knockout as effective as anything that either Mr. Fitzsimmons. or Mr. Jeffries ever accomplished in that line.
The battle was over. The two who had faced him were scurrying up a aide street as fast as their limping gait would permit, his latest victim lay prone and unconscious upon the floor.
Just then a trio of police, finally aware that a breach of the peace was in progress, came hastening up to the scene.
"Looks like you'd been having something of a mix-up," observed one of them, glancing at the blood-spattered floor of the car. "Somebody try to raise a rough house on you?"
"Well, I didn't take time to count," returned Smith; "but if I am not mistaken, there were about seven somebodies. At any rate, I had all that was coming to me. For a rough and tumble, that was really as warm a little experience as I ever had."
"You seem to have got away with it all right," rejoined the other. "Hello, here's one of the mugs inside," noticing the individual who had been the last to succumb to Smith's efforts, and who was now just beginning to return to consciousness.
Still dazed and bewildered, this worthy raised himself to a sitting posture and lifted his hand uncertainly to his head.
"What's the matter?" he asked the policeman. "Did we run into something?"
"I guess you did," returned the officer quizzically; "a little something more than you bargained for when you started in."
The fellow's puzzled glance at that moment fell upon Smith, and instantly there flashed over him the recollection of what had really occurred. There was something more in the glance, too—a quick recognition of the identity of his conqueror.
Nor did the recognition fail to be mutual. Smith, on his part, realized that the man was none other than the motorman whose car he had abducted in his mad exploit of a fortnight before.
"Oh, it's the duke again, is it?" the man snarled viciously. "You made me lose my job, my young friend, and I've been looking for you all over New York ever since. Now I've got you spotted, and I'll give you a pointer that you'll see more of me than you want to before you are through."
He broke into a tirade of abuse and profanity, threatening Smith, and railing at him with every objurgation to which he could lay his tongue.
"I'll get even with you, you hound," he asserted. "I'll show you mighty quick where you stand!"
"Not for six months you won't," interrupted the officer, catching him by the collar and jerking him none too gently to his feet. "It's a little trip to the Island you'll take before you start anything fresh."
"Oh, I don't know about that," returned the man insolently. "I've got a pull that'll see me through on this all right, all right."
"Anyhow, you'll come with me now," growled the officer disgustedly.
He knew from sad experience that the prisoner might be speaking the truth.
"Pull or no pull, it's in the station-house you'll sleep to-night," he added.
So, under escort of the three blue-coats, the captive was marched away.
During this little entr'acte, the other three occupants of the car had been in course of recovering from their exciting experiences.
The conductor, still bruised and battered, but as Smith speedily discovered not seriously injured, was sitting in one corner, lamenting chiefly a long rent which had been sustained by his uniform.
On the other hand, the young man who had aided him was apparently in a bad plight, He had an ugly gash across the forehead, from which the blood was flowing freely, and in addition his hand had been trampled upon in the scuffle and quite painfully injured. He was evidently sick and faint, too, from the mauling he had received at the hands of the bruisers.
The young lady with him was plainly quite solicitous about his hurts. She had already bound up the cut upon his forehead with her handkerchief, and was now supporting him by the open window, fanning him and holding a vinaigrette to his nostrils.
Smith recalled admiringly that she herself had not fainted, nor even screamed throughout the entire course of the conflict. One glimpse he remembered having caught of her while he was battling with the rowdies.
She had been crouching back in one corner of the car, white faced and trembling, it is true; but when the combat surged close to her she had deftly used her umbrella to trip up one of his assailants, and just at that moment the diversion she had thus created had been of no small advantage to him.
"She's got pluck enough to be from Chicago," was the comment which had flitted through his mind as he witnessed the act; then in the whirl of the combat he had forgotten all about her until he now beheld her in the guise of ministering angel.
"Had we not better get a physician for him, miss?" he suggested, approaching her respectfully.
The man with her braced up at the question, and smothered an involuntary groan.
"No," he said impatiently. "All I want is to be taken home as soon as possible."
"Yes," agreed the girl. "Hunting up a doctor now would simply cause delay; so I will only ask"—glancing an appeal to Smith—"that you get us down-town as quickly as possible. We live only a short distance away from the car barns."
"We'll lose no time," was Smith's terse comment as he touched his cap and resumed his place upon the platform.
He snapped open his watch and noted that they were eight minutes late. Only a spectacular run could bring him in on schedule time.
Swinging the brake free, he cut loose and fairly dashed down the line and around the curves; yet so skilfully did he regulate his speed that the injured man inside was jarred no more than he would have been in a parlor car.
His lay passengers were perhaps not aware that they were being treated to any particular exhibition of skill on the trip; but the conductor was lavish in his compliments.
"For a green hand, Smith," he declared as they rolled easily up to the barn, "you are certainly a wonder. I never saw anything slicker than the way you handled that car, and I've been railroading for more than six years."
Smith grinned his appreciation of the praise. Then he bent all his energies to assisting the injured passenger from the car.
The man by this time was so weak from shock and loss of blood that he could scarcely stand alone.
"Oh," cried the girl distractedly, "what are we going to do? He cannot possibly walk, and there is not a cab anywhere in sight."
"You say you live close by?" inquired Smith.
"Yes; just half a block up the next street."
"All right, then. I'll carry him."
"But can you?"—anxiously.
Smith merely laughed. For answer he picked up the wounded man, and, cradling him in his brawny arms as gently as a mother would hold her babe, started off down the sidewalk.
The girl walked alongside. She said nothing until her own door was reached and the motorman had borne his burden within and deposited it upon a couch.
As luck would have it, there was a doctor in the house, and his examination speedily demonstrated that no serious injuries had been inflicted.
Then Smith turned to go, and the girl accompanied him to the door-step. Her eyes were shining like stars as she extended her hand to him.
"It is good to see a real man once in a while," she said, and there was a thrill in her voice. "I want to let you know how splendid I think you are. I—"
She broke off suddenly, as though fearful lest her enthusiasm might be carrying her too far.
"May I not ask you to come around to-morrow?" she added in more restrained fashion. "My brother will want to thank you, too, for all you have done to-night. Our name is Harlow."
"Not relatives of old Silas Harlow?" questioned Smith sharply, his curiosity getting the better of his manners.
"Yes," said the girl simply. "He is our uncle."
She said no more; but there was a tinge of bitterness in her voice which told Smith that the relationship was one of which she was not particularly proud.
Consequently he did not deem it wise to press his inquiries further; but turned away, and, lifting his cap in a good-night salutation, strode off down the street.
Returning to the barn, he made out a succinct report of the exciting occurrences through which he had passed, and then sought the humble boarding-house which now served as his home.
THE next morning when Smith reported for duty, he was a little surprised to be told that his presence was desired at the superintendent's desk.
"I suppose he wants a few more details about last night's scrimmage," muttered the motorman to himself. "Still, I thought I bad covered everything in my report. Maybe if s to pat me on the back for my share in it?"
What was his astonishment then, instead of being congratulated upon his prowess, or even being interrogated concerning it, to be curtly notified that he might consider himself laid off or ten days.
"But," gasped Smith, fairly taken aback at the injustice of the thing, "I don't understand. What have I done?"
"Left your post," returned the super tersely. Your business was to summon a policeman, not to block up the line by stopping your car and embroiling yourself in the mêlée."
"There wasn't any policeman in sight," protested Smith. "Was I to let my passengers and conductor be pummeled to death and never lift a hand? As for blocking the line, remember we were running on the midnight headway, and there was consequently not a single car delayed by reason of our stoppage."
"I have no time to argue with you," impatiently rejoined the autocrat. "You have broken an imperative rule, and you must pay the penalty. If you don't like the way we run things, you can quit."
"Well, of all—" began Smith hotly; but, noticing a glint in the boss' eye which boded ill for anybody questioning his dictates, he wisely smothered the remainder of the sentence upon his lips, and, turning on his heel, strode out of the office.
There was no need of his remaining about the barn. It would be ten days before he was again permitted to mount a car, so he strolled down the street, tossing his head and muttering to himself in the intensity of his indignation.
"A nice system, isn't it?" he growled. "Risk the chances of getting a good beating in order to protect their car and passengers; and for thanks draw a ten-day lay-off. Oh, this street railroading is a good thing!"
Just then his cynical meditations were interrupted by a hail from across the way. He glanced up and saw a little knot of motormen and conductors congregated under a lamp post on the corner.
"Hey, Smith," called one of them whom he knew. "Come over here."
The Chicagoan strolled across the street.
"You got a lay-off, too, this morning, didn't you?" queried his acquaintance.
"Yes," admitted Smith sulkily; "and for no cause, either. I'm sore, and I don't care who knows it."
"Well, you ain't any sorer than the rest of us," came in a chorus from the group. "We're all in the same box."
"All of you fellows laid off?"
"That's what," answered the man who had called him over; "and we have about made up our minds that we're not going to stand this sort of treatment any longer. Hardly a morning for the past two weeks that a bunch of the boys hasn't been let out on some kind of trivial little charge. We are going to have a meeting this afternoon to discuss the situation. Will you join us?"
Smith considered a moment.
"I'll come to your meeting all right," he finally agreed slowly; "but I won't bind myself to abide by any decision you may reach there."
"Oh," sneered one of the others. "He's afraid to stand up to the music."
"That is just where you are wrong," said Smith, turning quickly upon him. "It is rather of just such hot-heads as you that I am afraid. I'll fight with you to the last ditch against this injustice, so long as the fight is conducted in a proper manner; but I will not suffer myself to be led blindly into any foolish proceeding, which later on we would all be sure to regret."
"Then you are to be the judge of what is proper and what is not, are you?" hotly returned the man who had just spoken.
"As far as my own conduct is concerned, yes," replied Smith calmly. "The rest of you are free to do as you choose; but for myself, I reserve the right to know what is going to be done before I assent to it. This is a private grievance outside of those which our Union can adjust; for, say what you will, every one of us has been laid off within the stipulations of our contract. Consequently, until we all agree that we will abide by the majority rule no one is bound to submit to it."
Some of the men favored his position, and some did not; but as he at length pointed out to them, there was no use in disputing the question until the time of their meeting, and the presentation of some definite plan for them to follow.
So, after a little more discussion, he left them and walked on.
It was now eleven o'clock, and he decided that he might properly call at the Harlows' and inquire concerning the condition of the injured brother.
He, therefore, sought the lofty building to which he had accompanied them the night before, and, ascending to the eighth floor, knocked at the door of their apartment.
A trim maid ushered him into the pretty little parlor and left him with the announcement that Miss Harlow was expecting him.
A moment later there was a soft rustle of skirts and the girl herself entered with her hand extended in greeting.
"I am so glad you have come around," she said; "for, in the bustle and excitement of last evening, I am afraid I expressed very poorly the gratitude we feel we owe you "
She hesitated a moment; then, pressing into his palm something which crackled, she said gently. "Will you not accept this? Not in any sense as a payment for what you did, you understand; but as a slight token of our appreciation and thanks."
Her action was so utterly unexpected by Smith that, with a sharp exclamation, he withdrew his hand as though it had been stung. A crimson flush spread up to the very roots of his fair hair, and his eyes darkened with resentment.
He had never dreamed of the possibility of her offering him money. Now, a second's thought showed him how natural it was for her to do so.
Yet, nevertheless, he could not all at once divest himself of the quick umbrage he had taken.
He drew himself up stiffly.
"Pardon me, Miss Harlow," he said. "You have already thanked me more than I deserve for the little service I was able to render you. I only called this morning to assure myself that your brother's injuries were really no more serious than they appeared last night."
It was now the girl's turn to suffer embarrassment and shame.
"Oh, I have done wrong," she cried in a tone of poignant mortification. "I told Herbert that I felt it would be an insult to offer you money; but he insisted that I should do so.
Smith's brow instantly cleared at the words. It was not of her own volition, then, that she had done this thing. She, at least, had read him aright. It was her brother who had overruled her instincts.
"How can you ever forgive me?" she continued. "The idea of allowing myself to be led into such a stupid blunder!"
"Do not distress yourself about it, I beg of you," interposed Smith quickly. "It was a perfectly natural supposition to think that I would be glad to take it. How were you or your brother to know that I cherish the scruples I do. You intended a kindly act. Will you not permit me to take the will for the deed?"
There was manifest bewilderment in the glance with which she surveyed him. Here was a man in the garb of a street-car employee, different in no respect apparently from those whose remarks to her hitherto had been confined to a curt demand for "Fare!" or the more authoritative injunction, "Step lively!"
Yet no Chesterfield was ever more graceful in attempting to put one at her ease after having committed a gaucherie.
Smith read the puzzled wonder in her eyes and laughed outright.
"There are men and men in the street-car service, Miss Harlow," he explained. "We have a hard life, and perhaps we are not always as considerate as we might be; but believe me, you will find as many true gentlemen there as you will in any other walk or vocation."
She extended her hand quickly toward him again.
"You make me realize more than ever how tactless I have been," she said earnestly. "Will you not put my brother and myself still farther into your debt by remaining to luncheon with us
"Or, perhaps," she added with swift afterthought, "it would not be convenient for you to remain now. Do your duties interfere? If so, come whenever it suits you better. We shall be glad to have you at any time."
"No," replied Smith with a smile. "I shall be more than delighted to remain with you now. As it happens, I am a man of elegant leisure to-day. Owing to the little episode of last night, the railroad company has seen fit to grant me a brief vacation."
"Oh, how kind of them," she rejoined. "Of course it was no more than you deserved; but one hears of so many cases where corporations overlooked merit on the part of their men, that it quite surprises one to learn of so prompt an acknowledgment."
"Yes," assented Smith dryly. "One has certainly no cause to complain of their promptitude in this case."
Then Miss Harlow left him alone a few moments while she went out to superintend her preparations for the repast.
When they all finally assembled at the luncheon table, Smith found no lack of cordiality, either, on the part of the brother.
The latter had evidently been coached by his sister that he must make their guest feel himself at home, and the young fellow certainly spared no effort toward that end.
His head was still swathed in bandages, and he carried one arm in a sling; but he passed off his injuries with a jest, and declared that it was nothing but petticoat government which kept him at borne.
"Sis insists on my keeping up this bluff of being an invalid," he said; "but I am really cheating my employers by staying away from business. We are not all as lucky as you, Mr. Smith, in having vacations thrust upon us."
"Do you know," he said a little later in one of the pauses of the conversation, "that your face seems wonderfully familiar to me? It is an evasive sort of a resemblance as of some person I have once seen or known. And somehow I associate it with Chicago."
"Ah?" remarked Smith, unconcernedly lifting his glass. "You have lived in Chicago, then?"
"Oh, yes. Sister and I spent all our lives there up to about a year and a half ago."
The motorman further learned from their talk that their names were Herbert and Cecilia, that they were orphans, and that the brother held a position of considerable importance downtown. He spoke and acted like a man of affairs.
The two vied with each other in showing him every courtesy and attention; and as Smith laid himself out to entertain them, it was soon manifest to him that he had created a decidedly favorable impression.
Indeed, the three of them had the jolliest sort of a luncheon, and when Smith finally announced that he must go, both of them joined in pressing him to come soon again.
"We have only a few friends, Mr. Smith," said Cecilia ingenuously, "and we should be delighted to add you to the number. You must come and see us often."
"Yes, indeed," her brother seconded heartily. "You will find the latch-string out whenever you may choose to call."
There was a new warmth about the cockles of Smith's heart as he strode briskly away from their door. His indignation at the manner in which he had been treated by the company had faded away in the pleasant, friendly atmosphere of these two young people.
"They're both all right," he commented to himself with an emphatic nod of his big head. "I wonder what is the hitch between them and old Silas?"
The question evidently aroused a keen curiosity in his mind; for presently he turned into a telegraph office and despatched a message to the chief of detectives in Chicago.
"Pork, Penny, Harlow, Highball," was the way he wrote it; but its recipient had no difficulty in deciphering therefrom a request for full information concerning a brother and sister by the name of Harlow who had until recently resided in the city by the Lake.
Rather a peculiar proceeding on the part of a street-car motorman, was it not? But then it must be remembered that the name signed to the message was not "John Smith."
BY the time Smith reached the meeting place of the disgruntled street railroad employees, there was already quite a number of them collected, and the proceedings had begun.
Carter, the fellow who had taken issue with Smith that morning in the street corner discussion, was on the platform setting forth an exposition of the grievances suffered, and calling loudly for concerted action on the part of all in order that redress might be obtained.
"What is the purpose of this tyranny to which we are being subjected?" he cried. "There are men here who have been in the service of the company for over fifteen years, and they say that in all their experience they have never seen the like. Why this sudden display of severity, this iron-bound enforcement of the rules?"
Then he launched forth into an inflammatory harangue, winding up by proposing a line of retaliation which, with their limited numbers and by reason of the fact that it was extremely doubtful if the great body of the men would support them in it, appeared to Smith to be little short of suicidal.
Accordingly, when the other had finished, Smith himself took the floor, and, in a brief address, pointed out the objections which had presented themselves to his mind.
He demonstrated plainly the disadvantages sure to accrue from extreme radical measures, and presented as a counter-proposition a plan of arbitration, which, it is only fair to state, appealed much more strongly to the majority of the assemblage.
So it happened that eventually his was the plan-adopted, and Smith was appointed one of a committee to carry the matter before the proper authorities.
With this the meeting adjourned, and Smith, after a few moments conversation with his mates, started for his room to prepare the petition which it had been agreed should be presented.
But as he passed down the steps, the overruled agitator caught him. by the arm and drew him to one side.
Carter's face was flushed, and his lips quivered. Indeed, he seemed beset with an intensity of anger in no way justified by the circumstances.
"You think you're mighty smart, don't you," he hissed wrathfully, "because you happened to get the best of me to-day? But I'll tell you right now, it won't be for long. I'm going to show you up, you cursed spy. I'd have done it this afternoon if Fleming had been there to back me up with the proof he's got against you."
Fleming was the discharged motor-man whose car had been taken from him by Smith on the eventful night.
Smith fell back in amazement at the other's unexpected and virulent attack.
"What in the world is biting you, Carter?" he cried roughly. "You don't mean to say you are cutting up this way simply because I happened to do you up in a little argument?"
"Don't try to bluff me," shrieked the other excitedly. "I know who you are, and what your game is." He thrust his face forward into Smith's. "You're nobody but the duke that stole Fleming's car from him!"
For answer Smith broke into a contemptuous laugh.
"Say, old man, you'd better take something for that," he adjured the other mockingly. "You'll be seeing things' before long if you're not careful."
"Oh, you can't bluff me," again repeated Carter. "I was over to see Fleming this morning, and he put me wise to you, all right, all right!"
"Now, look here; let me tell you something," cried Smith, dropping his bantering tone and speaking earnestly. "There's no need for you to go crazy simply because this man Fleming has bats in his garret and imagines he sees his duke in every man he happens to run across. I don't ask you to accept my word as to whether or not I am the man he says I am. But if you really want to convince yourself in regard to the matter, go down to the hotel where the Duke of Brixton is stopping, and you'll find that he is very much otherwise engaged than in running a trolley car
"Speaking of the devil," he added abruptly, as a motor car guided by a young Englishman and containing three other persons just then flashed down the street past them, "there is the very man we have been talking about. That is the Duke of Brixton, if you want to know him; he was pointed out to me the other day."
A couple of pedestrians who had stopped behind them to watch the tearing flight of the automobile down the street, added verification to his words.
"That's who it is, all right," broke in one of them. "You can tell it from the gait he is going, if from nothing else. There's nobody else in New York crazy enough to cut loose like that."
Smith's interrogator turned on him with a look of bewilderment on his face.
"I'll swear I can't understand it," he said with a shake of his head. "Fleming insisted that you were the duke, and, more than that, Harlow said—"
"Eh?" exclaimed Smith. "Harlow?"
But Carter immediately shut up like a clam. Muttering a halting explanation that he had meant Hargreaves, another of the motormen, and not Harlow, be moved hastily away.
Smith could have bitten his tongue out for his hasty interjection. Had be not alarmed Carter and put him on his guard he might have gathered something to his advantage from the man's disclosures.
He consoled himself, however, with the thought that he had at least obtained one crumb of information. Bert Harlow, instead of being the philanthropic friend for which he had posed, was in reality his enemy, and, although not divulging the entire truth to these men, had acquainted them with enough to render them actively hostile.
The train of thought he was following here brought Smith to a sudden pause. Harlow had disclosed certain facts to Fleming and Carter. Then it was evident that Harlow must be on terms of acquaintanceship with them—indeed a sort of intimacy!
Hah! An idea born of this reflection sprang into his mind.
Might it not be possible that he at last held the key to the question which had so bellied him ever since the night he first met the young millionaire?
He had been strolling slowly along the street, revolving these matters in his mind: now he hastily retraced his steps with the object of putting some further questions to the man he had just left.
But when he returned to the meeting place, he learned that Carter had already taken his departure and that none of those still around had any idea in which direction he had gone. Nor could Smith find out where he lived.
Moreover, a visit to the car barns in search of him, as well as to a number of resorts in the neighborhood, was equally barren in results.
Some men would have contented themselves at this point by letting things rest in the knowledge that sooner or later the man would turn up and that then the coveted interview would be secured.
Not so John Smith. He was one of those impatient, energetic fellows who cannot bear to delay even for an instant any project once decided upon.
Casting about now for some method of securing the intelligence he desired, he bethought himself of Fleming.
The arrested motorman, if he could be induced to talk, was no doubt fully as able to satisfy Smith's curiosity as was the man he had been seeking.
Could he be induced to talk, though? The only way to find out was to visit him and see.
Accordingly, Smith at once caught a car and set forth for Yorkville police court, to which bastille he remembered that his assailant of the previous night had been taken.
Arriving at his destination, he had to pass through a number of vexatious formalities and delays; but at length he reached an official who was able to impart the information he desired.
"Robert Fleming?" questioned this cerberus, consulting a big ledger on the desk before him as Smith gave him the name of the prisoner he desired to see. "Yes; you are right. He was arrested last night on a charge of disorderly conduct."
"And may I have a few moments conversation with him?" asked Smith. "It is on a matter of considerable importance, and he is the only person who can enlighten me."
"Well, you won't have any conversation with him here," returned the official indifferently, as he closed his book.
"And why not, pray?" demanded Smith hotly, bristling up in a moment as he collided with what he considered a display of red tape.
"Because he ain't here any more," chuckled the turnkey, noting with amusement the other's warmth. "He was bailed out last night, and he hasn't seen fit to put in an appearance since."
"How much was his bail?"
"Five hundred."
"And who furnished any such amount as that for him?"
The officer surveyed Smith coldly over his spectacles.
"Strikes me you're getting a bit inquisitive," he drawled. "You're pretty near as nosey as a newspaper reporter. Now, I'm not obliged to answer that last question of yours, and I don't intend to. If you want a short answer, it's just none of your business."
"All right," rejoined Smith good-humoredly. "I guess I know without being told, so we need have no quarrel on that score. Much obliged to you for the rest of the information."
Indeed, he felt pretty well satisfied with his trip on the whole, even though he had not gained his interview with Fleming; for he had small doubt in his own mind that the man who had so generously come to the prisoner's assistance was the same who in a similar case had once performed a like service for himself.
"He seems to be almighty free with his thousands and his five hundreds," commented Smith with a gleam of humor in his eye. "I guess we'll have to dub him 'The Arrested Motorman's Friend.'"
Leaving the police station he hailed a car for down-town, and as the interior of the car was uncomfortably crowded, stationed himself upon the platform.
Block after block he rode thus, his mind busily pondering over various matters, his eye surveying uninterestedly the rows of dwellings, apartment houses and stores which they passed, and the heterogeneous crowds moving along the sidewalks.
Then, suddenly, he caught himself up with a start, and, eagerly bending forward, scanned the faces of a group of three men who stood in close confab upon a corner.
The street lamps had not yet been lit, and the gathering dusk made it a bit difficult to determine identities with exact certainty at the distance; but Smith was sure that he had not been mistaken.
The men were Fleming, Carter, and —J. Bertram Harlow!
SMITH awoke later than usual the following morning, and, giving an alarmed glance at the clock, started to leap hastily out of bed.
Then the recollection came to him that he was "on vacation," and that consequently it made very small difference what time he decided to arise.
He heard the boarder next door to him moving about and pounded lustily upon the wall.
"What's the matter?" questioned this neighbor, sticking his head in at the door. "Are you sick, or is the house on fire?"
"Neither," responded Smith gaily. "It's only that I've drawn a ten days' lay-off from the company, and, being now a member of the leisure classes, I don't propose to arise at these plebeian hours. Get me a morning paper, will you; that's a good fellow. While you are away toiling and drudging, I will lie here at my ease and absorb the news."
"Yes," returned the other with a grin; "and when I draw my little envelope on Saturday night, you won't draw anything but your breath."
Then, dropping his jocular tone and speaking with a sort of gruff sympathy, for all the boarders in the house liked Smith, he added: "It's certainly tough luck, old man. If you're hard up and would like a little help to tide you over this spell I can—"
"No, thank you," rejoined the motorman, and his voice showed how deeply the other's offer had touched him. "I'm all right on that score, thank Heaven. I'll only ask you to get the paper.
"The world is not such a bad place, after all," he reflected appreciatively when his friend had gone. "If it has its Flemings and Harlows, it also has people like this neighbor of mine. Why, that fellow hardly knows me, and yet he volunteered his assistance the moment he learned that I was in trouble."
A few moments later his obliging neighbor brought him in the paper; so, settling himself comfortably beneath the covers, Smith lazily perused it.
He glanced at the leading stories on the first page—a notable law-suit involving millions of dollars and some of the most eminent names in the world of finance, a big fire, a divorce case served with sauce piquante; he ran through the political news, the editorials, the foreign intelligence, the daily budget of crime and gossip, and finally turned to the financial reports.
There in headlined prominence he saw the name of the street railway company for which he worked; and below in a half-column of sensational matter was the belief freely expressed that a bear campaign against its stock was a development to be looked for with almost absolute certainty.
The dissatisfaction existing among the employees was commented on at great length, and a grossly exaggerated and distorted story given of the meeting of the men on the previous afternoon.
In fact, the paper plainly intimated that a strike on the road was so imminent as to be hardly capable of prevention.
It was so obviously an inspired article that any one familiar with newspaper methods could not fail to grasp the underlying purpose beneath the printed lines.
John Smith's eye raced down the column, comprehension growing stronger and stronger within him at every fresh sentence; and when he had finished, he tossed the paper aside with an exclamation of disgusted certainty.
"If s easy enough to see the scheme now," he ejaculated, striking the article with the back of his open hand. "It was not a single motorman they planned to use to accomplish their aim, but a hundred or more.
"Harlow went about, picking up bull-headed, reckless fellows wherever he could find them, working them into the service by means of his influence, and then expected that their disaffection when they were unjustly disciplined would rake his chestnuts out of the fire for him.
"By George," he added, a new thought striking him, "I should not wonder furthermore if that czar of a superintendent were not also in his pay, instructed to soak us at the very first opportunity, and so help the game along. At any rate, that would be a very plausible explanation for the unusual severity which has been in vogue for the past few weeks.
"Well, it's a foxy scheme, Mr. Bert Harlow; a very foxy scheme. But, somehow, I have a shrewd suspicion that it isn't going to pan out."
With that he arose and dressed himself, discarding for the nonce his motorman's attire; and, when his toilet was complete, sallied forth.
His landlady whom he passed in the hall raised her hands with a startled ejaculation.
"La, Mr. Smith," she said, "I didn't know you at first without your uniform. What a difference clothes do make in a person, to be sure. Why, anybody looking at you, would take you for one of them down-town brokers, or business men."
And, if the old proverb anent "birds of a feather" has any application, her comment was strictly in point, for it was exactly with that class of the community to which she referred that John Smith proposed to "flock" that day.
He bent his steps directly toward Wall Street, and on that interesting thoroughfare spent the remainder of his time until the close of the market that afternoon.
Hanging over the ticker, he carefully scrutinized every fluctuation in the stocks of the street railway; but it must be confessed that the developments did not bear out either the prophecy of the newspaper or the theory which Smith had formulated in his own mind.
The securities in question were weak as a natural result of the reports in circulation, and there was but little trading in them; but, on the other hand, neither was there any sharp decline, nor the slightest evidence in any of the movements to denote the existence of a strategic plot.
"The Harlows are lying on their oars," concluded Smith. "They either expect within a few days to engineer an actual strike, in which case prices will break with a rush, and they can gobble up a control before recovery sets in; or else they propose to play a waiting game and make their purchases in small lots so as to avoid suspicion."
He still held to his belief that old Silas Harlow was endeavoring to accomplish his long cherished design. No one could have convinced him that this was not the explanation of the problem which had baffled him ever since the night he first met the son of the crafty old millionaire.
"In the first place," said Smith, arguing the matter out to himself, "I know that it has been the dream of Silas Harlow's life to obtain control of the street railway system of New York. I know also that Bert Harlow was summoned here from the West to assist the old man in manipulating a deal of the utmost consequence.
"I know from personal experience that Bert has shown an unreasonable generosity toward various employees and expectant employees of the company; that these men were all of a type likely to resent injustice or overbearing treatment on the part of their superiors; that there has been of late a marked increase in the severity of discipline; that stories of the men's grievances have been dilated upon in the public prints, and so colored as almost to certainly affect the market. Finally, I know that young Harlow was in communication only last night with two of the most radical and unscrupulous of our men."
Given these facts, as he thus catalogued them in his mind, it seemed to Smith as though they presented an absolutely irrefutable chain of circumstantial evidence.
"The Harlows have a reputation for working underground," he muttered to himself; "and I guess they think they have burrowed so deep this time that not even the ferrets down on Wall Street will be able to smell them out. But they will discover before they are through, that a stupid old Chicago bull will cave in their mole-hill with one stamp of his hoof, and will expose all their clever machinations to the light of day."
From which it will be seen that Mr. John Smith was not only enlisted upon the opposite side.; but had a pretty strong idea that he was a somewhat important factor in the contest.
MEANWHILE, the chief of detectives in Chicago had been far from idle.
For some reason the code telegram sent him by Smith had spurred him up to most extraordinary exertions; so it was not many hours after its receipt before an answer was speeding back to New York, containing a wealth of information concerning the subject of inquiry.
"The Harlows referred to in your message," averred this reply, "are undoubtedly Herbert and Cecilia Harlow, children of the late Thomas K. Harlow.
"They resided in Chicago until about two years ago, when they removed to New York, and have since held their residence in that city.
"Investigation into their personal characters shows that neither of them has ever been convicted, nor indeed charged with crime; but on the other hand they seem to have borne exemplary reputations in the districts where they were best known."
"Humph!" ejaculated Smith with a fine disdain as he came to this paragraph. "Did the darn fool fancy I imagined them to be bank robbers?"
"A search of the civil court records, however," continued the report, "brings to light the information that they have been engaged as plaintiffs in a contention of considerable note.
"It seems that owing to the death of their father during the minority of both of them, the two children passed into the guardianship of their uncle, Silas Harlow, the New York millionaire, the estate bequeathed to them consisting principally of unimproved and at that time almost valueless lands south of the city.
"The guardian, as is shown by the records, eventually sold this property to a syndicate, receiving in return what was at the time considered a fair price. Six months or a year later, he bought it back from the syndicate for himself at exactly the same figure for which he had sold it.
"Since then, however, the new rapid transit scheme has been exploited, and it now becomes evident that under the proposed plan the ownership of this Harlow land is an absolute necessity to the trolley companies. As a consequence, the property has naturally increased enormously in value.
"Equally, of course, the Harlow heirs have entered suit against their quondam guardian, alleging fraud in the original transfer of the land, and charging that the purchasing syndicate never had any actual, bona fide existence, but was merely a fiction employed by Silas Harlow in order to obtain title for himself. They demand restitution of their estate, and an accounting of rents and profits.
"Outside of the courts, and among men in a position to know, it is intimated that Silas Harlow long ago recognized the value of the land, and that it was he who originated the entire new system of rapid transit, and is indeed the 'power behind the throne' in the measure now pending, perceiving at the very start that the ownership of this property must eventually prove the key to the entire situation.
"With this as a wedge, it is claimed, he has worked his way into the councils of the rapid transit people, until now he is in a position where the passage of the ordinances granting the new franchises will make him the actual controlling head of the entire street-car system, and will add millions to his fortune.
"Eminent lawyers have little belief that the Harlow heirs will ever be able to recover, as the entire transaction in reference to their estate was made within the pale of the law, and Silas Harlow can readily set up the claim that he is in no way responsible for the land's enormous increase in value.
"In any event, their suit cannot come to a final adjudication for years, as it is certain that the defense will adopt every pretext for delay, and will undoubtedly carry the matter up to the tribunal of final resort."
Smith laid down the document, and sat pondering with his head upon his hand. He was thoroughly familiar with the rapid transit situation in Chicago; and, now that the matter was recalled to his mind, he remembered the extensive tracts referred to in the letter as the Harlow estate.
Under a new measure then pending before the city council, and which provided for what was practically a reorganization of all the trolley lines in town, these lands did become absolutely essential to the success of the scheme.
They furnished the only available location for shops, yards, and terminal arrangements,, and it was incontestable that the man who owned them could readily use his possession as a lever to hoist himself into a commanding position.
He could ask almost anything he chose from the promoters of the enterprise, and from the very exigencies of the case they would not dare refuse.
"Nor have I the slightest doubt," reflected Smith, "that every allegation of the heirs is the literal and absolute truth. Old Silas, with that cursed fore-sightedness of his, saw years ago just how the cat was going to jump, and accordingly made preparations to put himself in the saddle. No wonder that Herbert and Cecilia Harlow have small use for him. This fully explains the expression which came over their faces the other night when I asked them if he was a relative of theirs."
Yet, for all the foresightedness of Silas Harlow, his plans, if the rapid transit project were really his, were by no means entirely assured of success, as Smith, upon further consideration, was forced to admit.
The enterprise had still some stormy waters to cross before it reached a sure harbor. It had progressed swimmingly up to a certain point and its operations had been conducted under cover in a way which must have delighted old Harlow's tortuous soul.
An act had been smuggled through the legislature granting all that had been desired; all the preliminary negotiations had been carried on in secret; and preparations had been made to rush the matter through the city council.
Meantime, not a word of comment, adverse or otherwise, had been aroused in the newspapers; so harmless and insignificant did the proposed measure appear, that it is doubtful if a single person in all Chicago, outside of those immediately interested, comprehended that the bill contemplated a complete revolution in the existing transit system, and the fastening of a new arrangement upon the city for all time to come.
But just at this juncture, Chicago elected a new mayor—level headed, clear sighted, honest, unswervable from what he considered the line of his duty.
The trolley people, unable to prevent his election, hoped that in his inexperience he would never be able to spot the far-reaching consequences of their invidious bill; but, since it would come up in the early days of his administration with a mass of other left-over stuff, would approve it without investigation.
They reckoned without their host. With a remarkable celerity the new mayor detected the Ethiopian in the wood-pile, and, what is more, he made his discoveries public.
The bill was hastily amended, so as to omit the chance for the monstrous steal which its progenitors had originally contemplated, and in its new form really asked from the city little more than was just and reasonable; but the -people by this time had been aroused to the magnitude of the interests involved, and the trolley situation became consequently a burning political issue.
There was no longer any possibility of the franchise being jammed through council without a full and free discussion. With downcast hearts the promoters abandoned their original program and entered upon a "campaign of education," allowing the matter to be threshed out in the newspapers, and in acrimonious debate upon the floor of the council chamber.
There is no need to describe the long struggle which ensued, the irrelevant issues which were interjected, the desperate effort of a syndicate of competitors to "butt into" the game.
Suffice it to say that when at last the atmosphere clarified, and council divided according to its predilections, it was found that upon one man hinged the final disposition of the subject. That man was the mayor.
Should he approve, the measure would become a law, and the original promoters would reap the benefit; should he cast a veto, the bill was doomed.
Bribery, intimidation, "pull" could in nowise affect this status of conditions. All of that which was possible had already been done, and now lines were too closely drawn to permit of a single recruit being gained from either side.
The matter was distinctly up to the mayor; and by his fiat would it stand or fall.
At this interesting crisis, the mayor, with a grim sense of humor, took his departure for Europe with the ostensible purpose of spending three months in the study of foreign trolley systems. He gave no hint of his ultimate intentions, and the transit question had perforce to remain unsettled until his return.
"I'll bet old Silas has been on pins and needles ever since," ruminated Smith with a grin; "for, if a veto should eventually be cast, he will recognize that all his clever scheming will have gone for naught"
"MISS HARLOW," said Smith, "if I am not mistaken in my Biblical history, there was one worthy citizen in Sodom and Gomorrah. Peradventure, is there such an one among the members of the family of your respected uncle?"
"Indeed there is," replied Cecilia warmly. "Cousin Elizabeth is one of the dearest girls that ever breathed. She has always refused to allow the differences which have sprung up between us and Uncle Silas to make any change in her attitude toward Herbert and myself."
It was a night or two after the receipt of his letter from the chief of detectives, and Smith was spending the evening at the apartment of the brother and sister.
His evident air of being at home showed that this was by no means an infrequent custom with him. Perhaps, too, he was not displeased that Herbert had been called away shortly after his arrival, thus leaving himself and Miss Cecilia tête-à-tête.
Her answer to his last interrogatory was exactly the one he had hoped to receive; for he had framed his question with a purpose.
"Then, I suppose she occasionally comes to see you?" he continued, with a well-simulated air of indifference.
"Oh, yes"—ingenuously. "Indeed I should not be at all surprised if she dropped in to-night. If she does, you must certainly stay and meet her. You will like her, I know."
Smith secretly congratulated himself upon his luck. Aloud, he murmured something about having no wish to intrude upon a family gathering; but he well knew in his heart that with a chance of meeting Elizabeth Harlow ahead, wild horses could not have dragged him from the scene.
As it turned out, his expectations and Cecilia's were destined not to be disappointed. Presently there came a ringing peal upon the door-bell, and a moment later, with a rustle of laces and chiffon, and the music of an infectious laugh, the noted belle made her appearance.
She was beautiful indeed. No one could deny that, was Smith's swift decision in the moment that he stood up to be presented to her; and later, when he was fairly launched in conversation, he discovered that she was as clever and interesting as she was comely.
Yet, for all her beauty and charm, she did not appeal to him as did her less radiant cousin—the girl with the broad, smooth brow and the steady eyes of kindly brown.
One would never have gleaned as much from his actions, however, for he at once set himself out to entertain the visitor, devoting himself so exclusively to her that any one looking on must have thought him completely captivated.
Elizabeth, on her side, seemed no less taken with the Chicagoan. Of course no mention had been made of his calling, and as he was in correct evening dress, she naturally accepted him as a person in her own rank of society, although, as she soon determined, distinctly more companionable than the dudes and half-baked mollusks with whom she was generally obliged to consort.
Smith also noted with amusement, but at the same time with a contented satisfaction, that the sudden friendliness between himself and her cousin had excited anything but feelings of complacency on the part of Cecilia.
Even the most sweet tempered and amiable of women cannot regard with equanimity any poaching by another of the sex upon preserves which she considers peculiarly her own; and Cecilia Harlow was too thoroughly feminine to be any exception to the rule.
A little frown settled between her eyebrows; and she showed her pique in the sly digs she gave her cousin from time to time, as well as in a certain frostiness and remoteness of demeanor with which she treated Smith.
Neither of the twain, however, appeared to notice her resentment, although it is possible that Elizabeth was thereby mischievously incited to greater lengths of flirtation, and that Smith, having his own ends in view, did not hesitate to play up to the fascinator's lead.
Cunningly he directed the conversation toward the subject of the market, and of big financial operations, and spoke of the strain they necessarily impose upon the men engaged in them.
"That is so," agreed old Silas' daughter. "Now, people generally claim that my father has a regular 'poker face,' and that no one can glean his intentions from any change in his expression; but that is just where they are mistaken.
"He has a peculiar little wrinkle under his left eye which keeps twitching and twitching whenever he has a big deal on until just before the climax is reached, and then it fades away as absolutely as though it had never existed.
"So often have I marked this peculiarity," she went on, "that I can tell almost to the minute when any of his notable operations are about to come to a head. For instance, I'd be willing to wager almost anything that he will stir up the street to-morrow with some big achievement, for at dinner to-night I noticed that his wrinkle was completely gone, and it has been working overtime for more than a week past."
"How very interesting," murmured Smith. "And your brother, too, I suppose has some equally tell-tale mark which you have learned to know?"
"Oh, yes," she laughed. "Bert's smile is notorious in the family. Ever since he was a little boy, that sly grin of his has been a sure sign of mischief. When there is nothing on his mind, his smile is open and normal, like anybody else's; but the minute some project begins to form in his brain, he at once begins to twist his mouth into that Mephistophelian pucker. Why, do you know—"
But a sharp peal at the door-bell interrupted her at this moment, and an instant or two later, Smith was startled to hear in the hall the voice of Bert Harlow himself.
"I had an idea I should find you here, sis," he said, as he hurriedly entered the room; "and I ran over to get you, for I want—"
Then he observed the presence of Smith, and stopped short, raising his eyebrows in a glance of quick, astonished recognition.
The smile of brotherly greeting which had lighted up his face changed to a frown of annoyance, and he bit his lip in quick, nervous chagrin.
"Mr. Smith, I want to present my brother," broke in Elizabeth upon the somewhat embarrassing pause.
"I think," rejoined Harlow significantly, "that Mr. Smith and I have met before."
The enigmatical smile which Smith recalled so well, and which was so different from the one he had worn when he entered the room, flitted across his face.
"True," returned Smith, meeting him glance for glance. "Nor do I think that the circumstances of our acquaintance have been such that either of us are ever likely to forget them."
"You are still pursuing your chosen career?" questioned Harlow, with just the suspicion of a sneer. "I know that you secured the position you desired."
"You should also know that I have lost it."
There was a challenge in the tone with which Smith answered him.
"No?" indifferently. "I confess I have been so busy of late that I have not had time to follow your progress as I intended. Your statement to me on the night we met of your somewhat unusual ambitions interested me greatly. It seemed so strange that any one should aspire to be a motorman on a trolley car."
Elizabeth, who had been following their dialogue, here broke in with an incredulous laugh.
"Is that the dream of your life, Mr. Smith," she asked; "to be a motor-man?"
"By no means a dream with me," he answered quietly. "It is my business."
"Yes," broke in Cecilia warmly. "Mr. Smith is the hero I told you of, Elizabeth, who came to our assistance the night that Herbert was injured."
"And thereby lost his job," jeered young Harlow.
Smith turned on him quicker than a flash.
"Oh, then you have been following my progress after all?"
Harlow made no answer. He saw that he was cornered, and took refuge in his smile.
"Come, Elizabeth," he said. "We must be going."
But his sister declined to be drawn away so easily; she was enjoying herself immensely.
"I don't get a chance to talk to a hero every day," she demurred; "and I am going to have Mr. Smith tell me all about his experiences."
So she and Smith chatted gaily away, while Cecilia looked anything but pleased, and Harlow openly fussed and fumed.
He sat sulkily to one side, his brows bent in thought, and that sinister smile of his ever coming and going upon his face.
At last, after remaining moodily silent for several moments, he turned abruptly to Cecilia.
"Have you a telephone in the house?" he asked.
"Yes, certainly," she replied. "You will find it in the hall."
Muttering something about wishing to send a message to a friend, he went out, closing the door after him, and Smith could hear him carrying on a long conversation over the instrument in a carefully suppressed voice.
Shortly after this, Elizabeth finally signified her willingness to depart, and the two took their leave.
The door had scarcely closed upon them before Cecilia turned to Smith with impulsive interrogatory.
"Is what he said really true," she asked, "that you lost your position because you aided us that night?"
Then, with quick realization:
"And that is what you meant when you told me that you were 'on a vacation'? It is a burning shame!"
Her lip quivered, and her face flushed with indignation. ,
There came a twinkle to Smith's eye.
"Not half such a burning shame," he declared with cool audacity, "as the icy way you have been treating me all evening."
"Well, I like that," she gasped, amazed at his effrontery; "after the way you sat up and flirted with Elizabeth right before my face."
Smith, as he had stated, was no respecter of red tape, nor of the ordinary conventions of life even in matters of the heart. With this opening, he at once plunged into a precipitate wooing; and the reader of intelligence will readily deduce from Miss Harlow's last remark that he did not have to plead his case in vain.
At any rate, it is an undeniable fact that when he left that evening he kissed her good-night.
SMITH had more than a little to occupy his mind as he strode briskly away from the Harlows' door.
A successfully culminated love affair would ordinarily seem to be quite enough to absorb all of a man's meditations, especially when he had just left the object of his heart's affections; but in addition to this Smith, it should be remembered, had to puzzle out a solution for the trolley tangles of the two greatest American cities, and also plan a way to foil the acknowledged Machiavelli in the financial world.
"So, old Silas' wrinkle stopped working to-night," he ruminated as ho walked along; "and we may look for developments on the market to-morrow. Then, I guess it is time for me to spring my first surprise. I think I will make a call on the general manager of the road."
He snapped open his watch and glanced at the time. It was twenty minutes after twelve o'clock.
"Rather late," observed Smith; "but I have a very shrewd suspicion that he will see me.
Taking a cab, he drove speedily across town, and drew up before a handsome mansion on upper Fifth Avenue.
A repeated ringing at the bell finally brought to light a sleepy-looking butler, who entered a stern disclaimer against any one seeing his master at such an hour.
"Mr. Moreland 'as gone to bed," he declared with lofty dignity, "hand H'im quite sure 'e won't be willing to be disturbed for no one."
Smith's card, however—it being accompanied by a crisp five dollar bill—soon caused him to change his mind, and he carried up the stairs the bit of pasteboard with a few penciled lines beneath the engraved name.
Five minutes later, the general manager, airily attired in dressing gown and slippers, sat in his library and listened attentively while his suspended motor-man poured a tale into his ears which alternately caused him to roar with laughter, and to draw his brows together in grave perplexity.
The mirth ceased however as the story continued, and the expression of worried concern grew and intensified.
At last Smith finished his recital, and the great man sat in silence, moodily surveying the tips of his slippers.
"Well, Mr.—er—Smith," he finally said, glancing up at the other from under his heavy brows, "you have stated the case pretty thoroughly, and have given a plausible explanation at least to a number of things which, I am free to confess, have been extremely puzzling to me. Now, what do you propose as a solution?"
This was just what Smith desired. He leaned forward, and again the low earnest hum of his voice went on, unbroken for a considerable period.
As he proceeded, getting deeper and deeper into the heart of his subject, the general manager's face cleared, and at last he slapped his knee in satisfaction.
"That is it," he said gleefully. "We will beat them at their own game."
He stepped to the telephone, and one after another called up the various newspaper offices in town.
"What have you for to-morrow in reference to street railway matters?" was the question he asked of each.
"Interviews with your superintendents," came back the invariable answer, "stating that there will be no back-down in the policy of the road, and interviews with leaders among the men, insisting that the time for arbitration has passed, and that extreme measures will now be taken."
"Will you send reporters up to my house?" blandly requested the general manager. "Motorman Smith, chairman of the arbitration committee for the men, is here with me, and we have a joint statement we wish to give out to the press."
It was three o'clock before Smith finally got free of the newspaper men, and turned his steps homeward.
He was dog-tired, worn out by the strain of events through which he had passed, and he had no thought save that of getting to bed as quickly as possible.
Reaching his boarding-house, he hurriedly mounted the stoop and entered the dark vestibule. He bent forward to fit his key into the lock
Just then the earth reeled and sprang up to hit him! A myriad of shooting stars whirled madly before his gaze!
He went down in a tumbled heap: but even as he was falling, he realized what was the matter. He had been dealt a murderous blow with a sand-bag.
For a second he lay dazed, half unconscious; then his fierce anger at the cowardly attack rallied his failing senses. He rolled over and drew himself together.
Staggering to his feet he stood at bay like a wounded lion, wrath stimulating his befogged brain to action, eager to take reprisals for the contemptible assault.
He glanced quickly hither and you about the vestibule; but there was no one there.
Then he stepped to the doorway. Ah, a man was passing down the silent street, running with swift, noiseless steps!
While Smith gazed, the fleeing figure came into the circle of radiance cast by the arc lamp on the corner. It was Fleming, the discharged motorman.
"Bert Harlow's telephone message!" was the intuitive thought that flashed across the Chicagoan's brain.
Of course it was his first impulse to pursue Fleming, and wreak a summary vengeance upon him; but he speedily realized the futility of such an effort in his present condition, and, retracing his steps entered the house.
He was bleeding profusely from a cut across the brow where he had hit the door jamb in falling, and his head felt as though it had come into contact with a pile-driver; but an investigation of his injuries speedily convinced him that they were not of a formidable nature.
"It's lucky for me I've got the skull I have," he muttered as he applied cold water in copious quantities to his aching cranium. Any sort of a crust less than an inch in thickness would have caved in like an egg-shell under such a lick as that."
Then a quizzical smile dawned over his rugged countenance.
"Talk about an eventful night," he said. "I've been sand-bagged, had my advice accepted by a big railway chief, and have won the heart of the dearest girl in all the world. That's almost enough excitement even for a man from Chicago."
THE dissatisfaction existing among the employees of the street railway company over the treatment accorded them was fully as threatening as the newspaper interviews had made it appear.
Smith and his confrères of the arbitration committee had labored unceasingly to effect a peaceable settlement; but their efforts had been entirely unproductive of results.
Now the fellows of a more radical type were demanding a recourse to more strenuous measures, and the majority of the men were being won over to their opinion. In fact, the coming day was almost certain to mark the ascendancy of the extremists, and the commencement of a bitter labor struggle.
Consequently the surprise and gratification of the men may be imagined when they read in the morning papers that the dispute had been amicably adjusted, and that all their requests were in fair way of being granted.
Holders of the securities of the company who had been following the course of events with anxious apprehension were also greatly relieved at the tidings. There could no longer be any possible excuse for a decline in the stock; but on the other hand it might be expected to show an appreciable rise.
Despite his sore head, Smith could not repress a triumphant chuckle at the thought of the consternation with which Bert Harlow would learn the news.
"I'll bet his coffee and rolls will taste like gall and wormwood to him this morning," was the Chicagoan's elated reflection.
He was suffering in no small degree from the attack made upon him the night before and felt sick and dizzy; but he did not allow this to interfere with the work he had on hand.
Instead, he hastened out to round up his committee, and complete the negotiations which he had inaugurated in his interview with the general manager.
He found his comrades in a perfect ferment of excitement over the published articles, not knowing whether to give credence to the reports or not. When Smith, however, gave them his personal assurance that the facts were exactly as stated, their relief and satisfaction were unbounded.
None of them could say too much in praise of Motorman Smith and the manner in which he had directed the affair. To him they freely accorded the entire credit for the achievement.
Feeling as he did, he would willingly have relinquished any further connection with the matter, and have gone home to bed; but the others would not hear of this. He had won their case for them, they protested, and he must act as their spokesman in arranging the final details.
Accordingly, when the committee went up that morning for their conference with the general manager, it was Smith who led the way.
The official head of the road received them with bluff cordiality, and settled himself patiently to listen to their contention.
"I'm here to hear your kick, boys," he remarked in his brusk way, "and I've promised Mr. Smith that I'll make due reparation to every man who can show some good reason for having disobeyed the rules.
"I've railroaded a bit myself, you know"—it was one of his proudest boasts that he had risen from the ranks —"and I'm not going to say that the infraction of a rule when it is done with clear-headedness and common-sense is not sometimes better than a slavish fidelity.
"Mr. Smith tells me that in every one of your cases, except one, the infraction complained of was to the manifest advantage of the company. If that can be shown, you should all be rewarded, not punished. This system wants men with heads on them, not mere machines."
For answer, Smith, as the advocate of the men, took up each of their cases seriatim, stating the details briefly, but in such a manner as to best impress his auditor. Only once did he falter, or try in the least to palliate the facts; and that was in the instance of Fleming.
There was however no adequate excuse to be presented for his dereliction—leaving his car with the controller handle still attached to the box—and even as he argued, Smith felt that the case was hopeless.
The general manager's decision was short and to the point.
"All of the men except Fleming will be reinstated," he announced; "and you will moreover be allowed full pay for the period of your enforced absence from duty.
"As for your spokesman"—here he turned with a little bow to Smith—"I think you will agree with me that he deserves some special consideration. Mr. Smith," he asked, "is there any personal favor that you would like to request from the management?"
Smith did not hesitate a moment in his answer.
"Yes, sir; there is," he said firmly. "Not for myself exactly, for I intend to-day to sever my connection with the road. I desired to be reinstated merely that I could leave your employ in good standing."
There was an immediate expression of regret and dissuasion from the men at this unexpected announcement; but the general manager's face wore a peculiar smile, as though the motorman's decision were no great surprise to him.
"What I have to ask then," continued Smith, disregarding the urgent whispers directed at him, and the pullings at his coat sleeve, "is that Fleming be pardoned for his fault and given my place."
Most of the men were aware of the bitter feeling which Fleming had consistently displayed toward Smith, and they were consequently touched and surprised at the magnanimity now shown by the latter.
But Smith had no intention of sailing under false colors.
"It is only an act of justice on my part," he hastily explained. "Fleming would never have lost his job if it had not been for me. I am the man who kidnapped his car."
This relieved the tension, and there was an audible ripple of mirth throughout the room, for the ridiculous exploit of a few weeks before had by no means been forgotten.
Even the general manager smiled. Then, remembering his position, he mustered up a frown.
He bit his lips, started to reply twice, but each time checked himself. At last his face cleared, and a twinkle gleamed in his eye.
"Well, Mr. Smith," he said, "in spite of your mischievous prank, I suppose we can't refuse you your request this time. "But," he added, "don't ever run off with any of our cars again."
With this the conference ended, and the men, joking Smith over his famous escapade, and expressing sorrow over his avowed intention to leave, trooped from the place.
On the outside, grouped along the sidewalk, were a number of the suspended men, anxiously waiting to learn the results of the interview.
When they heard that full absolution had been granted to all, they raised a hearty cheer, and Smith once more became the recipient of congratulations.
On the outskirts of the rejoicing crowd lurked Fleming, sore and wrathful to see this man whom he regarded as a spy, and his personal enemy, exalted to the position of a victorious champion, a Moses who had delivered his comrades from injustice.
The man recognized too well the flagrancy of his own offense to expect a show of mercy in the case; and consequently he stood apart, chewing the cud of envy at the good fortune of his fellows.
Just then Carter came up to him, his face beaming.
"Say, Fleming, we were dead wrong about that fellow Smith, weren't we?." he exclaimed enthusiastically. "He's as good as they make 'em!"
"Oh, yes," sneered the other viciously," he's pulled the wool over you suckers' eyes in fine shape. But I've got no cause to kotow to him. Suppose he threw it into me good and strong to the old man when he came to my case."
"Threw it into you?" cried Carter. "Why, haven't you heard? He made a special pull for you; in fact, gave up his own job so that you should have yours back."
"What!" gasped Fleming incredulously. "You're kidding, Carter. I'd be the last man on earth he'd do a turn like that for."
"Well, that is just what he did," affirmed Carter. "Ask any of the boys, if it isn't so; you don't have to take my word for it.
"And I am to have my old place back?" demanded Fleming, still scarcely able to credit the revolution in his prospects.
"Sure, you are," declared Carter; "with full pay for all the time you've been off. And it's all due to Smith."
So it happened that while Smith was striving to get away from the encomiums which his admirers were lavishing upon him, he felt and apologetic tug at his elbow, and turning beheld his quondam enemy standing beside him.
"I know I haven't got any right to ask it," said Fleming, his face flushed with shame, his voice husky from embarrassment; "but, if you can fix it, I'd like to have a few words in private with you—somewhere where everybody won't hear what I've got to say."
Smith's eye flashed, and the lines about his mouth tightened. He had made his plea for Fleming's reinstatement from a sense of justice alone, and personally he had about as much use for the man as he had for a rattlesnake.
Now, he was about to return an uncompromising negative to the fellow's request; but a sudden inspiration which popped into his brain caused him to change his purpose.
"All right," he said, and there was a grim determination in his tones. "I am on my way now to take a walk into the country back of Fort Lee. You can come with me, if you like. That ought to be private enough to suit you."
Fleming tried to urge some nearer resort; but Smith obstinately refused to listen to any other plan.
"I am not at all particular about this interview, you must understand," he said pointedly. "So if you want to have it, you will have to take it my way."
Thus it turned out that the pair journeyed together away from the throbbing, teeming city, and out into the quiet countryside.
There was little conversation exchanged between them on the road. Once or twice on the cars, and again while they were crossing the ferry, Fleming endeavored to begin his tale; but Smith bade him wait. He himself was apparently absorbed in his own meditations.
At last they reached a secluded spot back in the country, and screened by. a little patch of woods from the road by which they had come.
"This ought to be private enough for you," observed Smith, surveying the scene with approval. "Now, go ahead and tell what you have to say."
Fleming hesitated and stammered. He seemed to have difficulty in getting started. "Say," he finally blurted out, "do you know that you've got an enemy in New York?"
"That's not a very hard one," returned the other contemptuously; "is that all you had to tell me? Your friend, Bert Harlow, hasn't made much of a secret of his hostility."
"Oh, you know it was he, then?"
"Yes, he—and others," significantly.
Fleming had the grace to blush.
"I guess I'd better go ahead, and tell you the whole story," he said hastily, "and maybe you'll understand some things better than you do now."
"All right," returned Smith indifferently. I came out here to listen to you. You've got the floor now; I'll take my innings later."
"Well," began Fleming, "it's a pretty lengthy yarn; but I guess the shortest way to get at it will be to just spout out the things that have happened to me since the night you and I ran into each other down on the corner of Twenty-Third and Broadway.
"Of course you understand that I was called up the next morning and given the bounce. It was a cinch that I would get it; but naturally I was sore over it, and I made up my mind that I'd find the man who had caused me my trouble, and get even with him.
"The papers all said that the fellow was the Duke of Brixton, and I hung around the hotel where he was stopping; but of course since I was looking for a man of your description, I never saw him.
"Then one evening a stranger came to my boarding-house and inquired for me—I found out afterward that he was Harlow, but I didn't know him at the time. He told me that the duke was masquerading as a motorman and had got a job on the road; said he was doing it on a bet that he could hold the position for two weeks.
"'I've got the other end of the wager,' says Harlow; 'and I'll make it worth your while for you if you can work some scheme to get him fired or suspended before his time is up.'
"Well, that was pie for me; I could kill two birds with one stone, for I'd resolved that at the same time I was getting you fired, I was going to land on you for the muss you had got me into.
"I framed up a scheme for me and some of my friends to do you up, and then we were going to take your car and run off with it just as you did with mine. That was the reason of the rough house we started that night, for we were pretty sure that when things got going you would take a hand in it.
"There isn't any need to tell you how it turned out. We got all that was coming to us, and I was pinched. I didn't stay in long, though for I sent word to Harlow, and bright and early the next morning he was around to bail me out.
"'The duke's fired,' he says.
"'What?' says I. 'Why, he didn't do anything but his duty.'
"'That's all right,' says he, with that grin of his. 'I can fix a little thing like that.'
"Then he told me that a lot of the boys had been laid off the same way, and that he wanted me to mix around with them and get them sore so that they'd begin to make trouble for the road. 'I'll send newspaper reporters to you,' he says, 'and I want you to fill 'em up so that they will think the company is going to have all kinds of a rumpus on its hands.'
"So I shot it into the newspaper men, and I got Carter and five or six others going the way I wanted 'em to; but you kept blocking us every move we made.
"Finally Carter came to me, and told me that he'd found out you weren't the duke at all. We hunted up Harlow and put it to him, and he admitted that you weren't; but he said you were a spy, and that we ought to work up some way of getting rid of you. So—"
But Fleming suddenly shut up like a clam, and flushed darkly.
"And that's all," he finished lamely.
"Oh, no; it isn't all," returned Smith. "Come, I'll finish your story for you. You didn't know just how to get rid of me, and you were pondering over ways and means when last night you received a telephone message from Harlow."
Fleming started guiltily, and tried to interrupt; but Smith silenced him with a wave of the hand, and continued.
"He told you where I lived, and promised you good pay if you would waylay me on my road home; and"—he paused impressively; then pointing an accusing finger at the man before him —"and you did."
Fleming endeavored weakly to deny the charge; but Smith rose to his feet and threw off his coat with a gesture that meant business.
"I got you fired from the road," he said; "but I have also had you reinstated. So on that score our accounts are balanced. But I still owe you for that cowardly blow you gave me last night, and now," he thundered, "I am going to lick you within an inch of your life. Stand up and take it, you whelp, or by Heaven, I'll kick you all the way from here to New York."
That was a glorious combat out there in the open with no spectators save the blue sky above, and the green trees clustering around.
Fleming, cornered and compelled to fight, turned like a rat, and made a vicious resistance; but, of course, there could be but one result to the contest. Smith hammered his man until all his righteous indignation was expended, and the other with a muffled cry of "'Nuff! 'Nuff!" had admitted him to be the conqueror.
Then he assisted his vanquished antagonist to his feet, and helped him to remove the stains of battle from his bloodied face and disheveled wardrobe.
"I'll shake hands with you now, Fleming," he said, "and wish you good luck. I believe you've had a lesson that will, keep you from ever undertaking any dirty work again."
"And that's no lie," answered Fleming, wringing the hand outstretched to him in a hearty grip. "You did just the right thing to me, Smith, to wipe out the shame I felt, and to make me feel like a man again. As Carter said, you are as good as they make 'em."
POLITICAL circles in Chicago were all stirred up to a ferment, and there was wild racing and chasing among the clans.
The mayor had returned unexpectedly from his vacation, and it was learned with excitement that he proposed to have the rapid transit measure settled at a meeting of the city council that evening.
There had been no change in the situation during his absence. The two forces still held their lines unbroken.
The matter was still distinctly "up to" the mayor, and there was an intense curiosity to discover with which side he intended to cast his vote.
He did not leave the matter long in doubt. At noon it was reported that he was in consultation with the leaders of the crowd which had first promoted the scheme, and which were believed to represent the interest of old Silas Harlow.
As a matter of fact, he had plainly announced to these men that he intended to vote with them, and was now carefully going over with them the various provisions of the bill under consideration in order to see that the interests of the city were fully protected.
As soon as the mayor had put in his appearance that morning, a telegram of warning had been sent off to Harlow & Son apprising them of his return, and urging them to send a representative to Chicago at once.
Now a jubilant second message was despatched, announcing that everything, was all right, and that the representative might stay at home.
This latter information was received just an hour too late. Bert Harlow had already started for the scene of action.
The conferees upon the ground found the mayor in a complaisant mood. He looked singly to the interests of the city, it is true; but he made no objections which the other side were not fully prepared to grant, so matters, moved along swimmingly.
At last everything was finished, and they were just preparing to take the ordinance up to council meeting for its legal ratification, when the mayor made a pointed inquiry if the grantees named in the bill were not really men of straw, and that Harlow & Son of New York were to be the actual beneficiaries.
The others stammered, hesitated, and tried to explain; but when closely pressed, had finally to admit that such was the case.
"Well, then," said the mayor, "let it be so stated. We want no subterfuges; let everything be open and above-board, so that the people will understand just what is being done."
The conferees hastily consulted together, telegraphed to New York for instructions, and finally consented that the franchise should be made to Bert Harlow and others.
One of them made the necessary change with a pen in the typewritten document. The mayor glanced at it.
"You have the name wrong, have you not?" he asked.
"Why, no; I don't think so," doubtfully replied the man who had inserted it in the paper. "Everybody always calls him 'Bert' Harlow. Is not the way I have put it correct?"
"Not for the man I mean," answered the mayor emphatically. "Not for the one who is to get this franchise."
"Oh-well, if you are certain about it, fix it the way it should be," returned the other indifferently, handing a pen across the table, and so the mayor with his own hand made the required alteration.
In that shape the bill was presented to council, and having been passed and signed by the mayor, duly became a law.
The next morning J. Bertram Harlow arrived in Chicago after his hurried journey. He stepped from the train with a look of anxious, harassed inquiry upon his face. His mouth was twisted into his familiar smile.
His concern was speedily relieved, however. One of his lieutenants met him, and extended to him a grip of elated congratulation.
"Well, we have landed it at last," he whispered. "The mayor came into camp like a lamb."
"Ah," said Harlow with a sigh of contentment, "I was afraid from your telegram that there might be breakers ahead. You are sure that everything is all right; that there are no loopholes left which may yet cause us trouble?"
"Positive," replied the other. "However, if you have any doubts about it, come down to your attorney's office and look the franchise over for yourself. I think you will find that it is more than satisfactory."
"I believe I will glance it over," said Harlow. "Not that I doubt your word in the least, you understand, but simply to give myself the glad assurance that at last it is signed, sealed, and delivered."
A couple of hours later two pale-faced, wild-eyed men rushed into the mayor's office and breathlessly confronted that imperturbable official.
"Look here, your honor," cried the alderman who had met Harlow at the train and had assured him of the inviolability of his contract, "you have made an awful mistake. You were entirely wrong about that change of names last night. It is Bertram and not Herbert after all."
"Oh, no; I made no mistake," calmly answered the mayor, surveying the disconcerted faces of his callers with a faint smile of amusement. "It was to Herbert Harlow that I intended the franchise should be given. If, however, Mr. J. Bertram Harlow desires to purchase the interest, I am strongly of the opinion that his cousin will sell, provided that the amount tendered is equal to the sum for which the Harlow heirs are now suing their guardian. I am also authorized to state that in case of a satisfactory settlement of this matter, the suit now pending against Silas Harlow for restitution and an accounting will immediately be dropped."
Bert Harlow's face was a study. He was too greatly nonplussed, too thoroughly beside himself with rage to be able to speak. Once or twice he gasped inarticulately, and his mouth worked convulsively back and forth into his habitual smile.
At last in a measure he regained control over himself.
"Why have you done this thing?" he demanded hoarsely. "What reason did you have to play me such a trick?"
"Because," said the mayor with a sudden vengeful glare in his eye—"because for no reason on earth you proclaimed war against me, and I always fight back.
"I went East, as you know, after as much investigation as I could accomplish here, to study the actual conditions existing among street railway employees, so that in drafting this new contract I should be able from actual experience to protect and look out for their interests.
"Ignorant of my mission, yet fearing with your crafty distrust of all men that it might in some way be prejudicial to your interests, you had me trailed by private detectives from the moment I left Chicago, and yourself followed me up-town on the day of my arrival in New York.
"You knew that I did not know you, nor was then aware of your connection with our local traction measure, so you considered yourself perfectly safe. You had not then made up your mind, either, just what steps to take in regard to me; but you proposed to watch me, and shape your course according to the progress of events.
So, when you heard me make my madcap proposal to run away with the trolley car, the first thought which popped into your brain was that I was bound to get into trouble, and that if you befriended me, you might be able to learn my intentions.
"It fell out exactly as you had planned it, and when you did discover my purposes and intentions, the conception came to you that you might so direct matters as to delude me into the belief that you were planning a big coup in Manhattan, in which case I would naturally conclude that you were too much engaged there to be concerned in our Chicago measure.
"You had kept your connection with the latter project very successfully in the dark; but you knew that this Harlow suit was about to come up, and you were desperately afraid that through it I would discover the true origin of our traction deal, learn that your father was back of it, and become so prejudiced against him that I would vote with the opposition.
Afterward you grew even more desperate. You discovered my acquaintanceship with the Harlow heirs, and inferred that I had heard their story, and from it could speedily reason out the true state of affairs.
"Almost beside yourself with fear that you were going to lose the stake for which you had risked so much, you decided that the only way to save yourself was to have me put out of the way. It was something you would never have dreamed of at the start, but you had gone so far that it seemed the only solution to your problem.
"Too cowardly to attempt the deed yourself, you hired a weak wretch whom you already had employed to serve your purposes; but he proved an insufficient tool. He did not finish the job he had commenced, did not make sure of his victim, but having delivered one blow was overcome with fear and took to his heels.
"That drew the issue fairly and squarely between us, Bert Harlow. I decided to punish you, but to do it in my own way, and in the way which I thought would hurt you most. At the same time I have been able to right a great wrong, and to restore to the Harlow heirs the estate which your father stole from them."
The baffled "young Napoleon of finance" had not a word to say. He had been defeated, outgeneraled, overthrown all along the line.
He stood glaring a moment at the man who had so thoroughly bested him, then, with a gesture of surrender, he turned and left the room.
John Smith Monroe, mayor of Chicago, let his rugged face relax in one swift smile of triumph.
"I must telegraph Cecilia," he said to himself, "that we have won!"
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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