CHAPTER X.
JIM GETS A RAISE.
Jim opened the fatal telegram in the post-office, and his face must have been a study; for Jarrod, who was observing it from a distance, became interested and at once approached his young friend.
"No bad news, I hope, Jim?"
The boy laughed and held out the telegram.
"Just a kick in the dark, Mr. Jarrod, and it only hurts because it was so unexpected. I've been a model clerk, you know, and now that I've just spent my surplus capital on a vacation, I'm granted another and longer one, without pay. Well," with an involuntary sigh, "there are other clerkships, of course, and I'll probably get one. But you've no idea, sir, how much labor it takes to find a job at twelve a week—especially in the summer season."
"Jim," said Jarrod, thoughtfully, "this is a bit of good luck, if judged from my own selfish viewpoint. I need some one very badly, to help me clear up a lot of accumulated work. Would you mind being my clerk for a few weeks?"
Jim's face was beaming.
"Do you really mean it, Mr. Jarrod? Can I be of use to you?"
"Indeed you can, my boy. You'll have to stay at Tamawaca, but as a worker instead of a drone. Can you run a typewriter?"
"Yes; I used one at college for a couple of years, and got to be fairly expert. But I know nothing of short-hand."
"That is n't necessary. I shall require your services every forenoon, but you may have the afternoons to yourself. I'll give you twenty dollars a week and pay your board at the hotel."
"Is n't that too much, Mr. Jarrod?"
"Not for the work you must do. Any intelligent man would cost me that much, and I will need you but a couple of months—until I go home."
"Very good, sir. I'll do my best to please you."
"Then you're my secretary. Come around to my cottage at nine o'clock Monday morning."
"Thank you, Mr. Jarrod."
That evening Jim told Susie he would not have to bid her good-bye, as they had expected, for he had been discharged as a dry-goods clerk and employed as a private secretary, which was a distinct advance in his fortunes.
Susie listened gravely, but was evidently much pleased.
"The girls told me yesterday," she said, "that Katie had written her father and asked him to discharge you, because you had been impudent enough to become acquainted with the exclusive young ladies of Tamawaca under false pretenses."
"But I did n't, Susie! I met them through your accident, and they never asked me how I earned a living."
"I know; but they forget that. They say you imposed upon them by assuming that you are a gentleman."
Jim laughed merrily.
"Where do you draw the line, Susie, between a gentleman and—and—what's the other thing?—an undesirable acquaintance?"
"Perhaps so. I don't draw the line, myself, so you must ask the girls to explain. Perhaps, now that you've become the private secretary of a famous lawyer, you will be cultivated instead of being snubbed. But I'm not sure of that."
Jim started work Monday morning and found his task no sinecure. Jarrod had a lot of correspondence to answer and a good many papers to be copied. Also there was an inventory to be made of the property covered by the option given by Easton and Wilder, and their books to be gone over. But Jim was both industrious and intelligent, and seemed to "fit the job" very well indeed.
Katie Glaston's triumph was brief. She had actually boosted Jim several pegs on the road to fortune, and when the girl discovered this she was so provoked that she left Tamawaca and went to visit friends at Spring Lake.
The other girls began to be properly ashamed of themselves, although the heiress refused to alter her opinion that "a poor young man had no business at a summer resort."
Gladys and Betty began nodding to Jim as he passed by, and although he returned the salutations with graceful politeness he never stopped or attempted to resume the old friendly relations. He had grown wonderfully fond of plain little Susie, who had remained his faithful adherent, and her society seemed just now fully sufficient to satisfy all his needs. He even took her to some of the dances, and found her a much more satisfactory partner than on that first evening when he met her and tested her accomplishments as a Terpsichore. She was still a bit awkward, but the little speeches they whispered to each other made them forget they were dancing until the music stopped and reminded them of the fact. The heiress had a new beau—a bulky blond named Neddie Roper—who was reputed a social lion and a railway magnate, although it afterward transpired he worked in the Pullman shops. Therefore Clara positively ignored "that Smith girl and her dry-goods clerk," who ought to have felt properly humiliated, but did n't.
Wilder came to Jarrod in a day or so and said:
"Well, dear boy, I've got the cold cash in hand to take up that option; so if you'll turn it over to me I'll settle the matter in a jiffy."
"In what way?" asked Jarrod.
"Why, I'll pay Easton his twenty thousand and let him go. And then I'll begin an era of public improvements, and try to induce the cottagers to fix things up a bit."
"I can't let you have the option," replied Jarrod. "It was given to me as trustee for the cottagers, and belongs to them."
"Have they got thirty thousand dollars to take it up?"
"No; not yet."
"And they never will have it," declared Wilder. "Your cottagers are a lot of corn-cobs, and you could n't squeeze any juice out of them with a cider-press."
"I'm not sure of that," returned Jarrod, smiling. "Anyhow, the option is theirs to accept or reject, and I've called a meeting for Saturday night to find out what they wish to do."
That worried Wilder a little until he reflected that the cottagers' meetings were all "hot air and soap-bubbles." They could n't raise thirty thousand dollars for Tamawaca in thirty years, and sooner or later the option would be turned over to him as a matter of course.
Meantime old man Easton had been quietly observant of the situation, and after the meeting of the cottagers was announced his suspicions that Jarrod was "not honest" took definite form and threw him into a condition bordering upon nervous prostration. He made a bee-line for the lawyer's cottage, and found Jarrod sunning himself on the front porch.
"Good morning, Mr. Jarrod," he began, cordially.
Jarrod nodded, but did not ask his visitor to be seated. He had just been going through the books of the partners and had discovered things that to his mind rendered social intercourse with a man like Easton impossible.
"I've called around to get that option," remarked the old man, seating himself upon the porch railing.
"What option?"
"The one I gave you so as to fool Wilder. You know what I mean," with an attempt at a jocose laugh which ended in an hysterical gurgle.
"Do you refer to the option you granted to me, as trustee for the cottagers of Tamawaca?" asked the lawyer, coldly.
"Why—why—that was only a bluff, you know. I gave you the option so as to buy out Wilder. You know that well enough."
Jarrod shook his head.
"The option belongs to the cottagers," he said. "You can't have it, Mr. Easton."
"What! Can't have the option!" His voice expressed both astonishment and reproach.
"By no means."
"I—I'm—afraid I'm going to—to faint!" gasped Easton in a wailing voice, as he fanned himself with his hat.
"I would n't," remarked the lawyer.
"But I— Oh, this is terrible—terrible!" gasped the old man, piteously. "If I don't get that option, Mr. Jarrod, I shall be ruined—utterly ruined!"
His frail body swayed from side to side, and with eyes half shut he watched the effect of his misery upon the stern faced man seated before him.
"Quite likely," said Jarrod, yawning.
"Ruined—ruined! At my age to face the poor-house! Oh, my poor family—oh,—oh,—oh!"
He leaned backward, threw up his arms and fell over the rail of the porch to lie motionless on the soft sand beneath.
Jarrod laughed. After a minute or so of silence he said calmly:
"There's a red spider crawling up your left pant-leg."
Easton sat up and with a nervous motion shook the bottoms of his trousers. Then he glanced at his persecutor, who was just now gazing reflectively over the smooth waters of the lake, which showed between the foliage of the trees.
"Sir," said the old man, in a voice trembling with emotion, as he dusted the sand from his clothes and once more mounted the steps of the porch, "you are a cold-blooded brute!"
"I know," acknowledged Jarrod. "But I'm not as bad as I used to be. Ask my wife. She'll tell you I have n't knocked her down and stamped on her in over a month."
Easton sighed. He must change his tactics, evidently.
"I take it," he remarked, in a mournful voice, "that this is a business matter."
"You should have taken it that way before," said Jarrod.
Easton brightened.
"Of course," he rejoined. "How careless of me! But now, I trust, we understand each other. How much, Mr. Jarrod?"
"Eh?"
Easton glanced furtively around to assure himself there were no listeners.
"How much will you take to deliver to me that paper—the option I gave you the other day?"
"Sir!"
"That's all right. Get as indignant as you like, Mr. Jarrod. I admire you for it. But just state your figure and I'll write you a check." He took out a check-book, and began to unscrew his fountain-pen. "Every man has his price, of course; but I know you won't rob me, Mr. Jarrod. You'll be reasonable, because I'm an old man and can't afford to"
A door slammed and he looked up startled. The porch was empty save for his own astonished person, and after waiting five or ten minutes for the lawyer to return Easton slowly slid his check-book into his pocket and tottered home with feeble, uncertain steps.
After that interview Jarrod seemed different, even to his friends. His jaw was set and his eyes had a steely gleam in them that boded no good to any who might interfere with his purposes. Never before, even in those wild days when he strove to control the Crosbys, had he felt so humiliated and humbled in his own estimation, and his one desire was to have done with this miserable business as soon as possible.
The cottagers' meeting was a surprise not only to Wilder, who took pains to be present and had pains because of it, but to the participants themselves. Jarrod's report of what had been accomplished set them wild with enthusiasm, and when they realized that their committee had faithfully served their interests and found a way to release them from the bondage of Easton and Wilder, they promptly awoke from their customary lethargy and voted to take up the option. Every person present agreed to subscribe for stock in a new company composed exclusively of cottagers, which would thereafter own and control Tamawaca and operate the public utilities without profit and for the benefit of the community as a whole.
"But," said Wilder to Jarrod, next day, "you can't issue stock until you have the property, and you have no way to raise the thirty thousand to get the property. Why not turn the option over to me without any more fooling?"
"Wait," replied the lawyer, smiling. He did not resent Wilder's eagerness to get the option, because he was frank and straightforward in his methods. But his one word was so far from encouraging that Wilder looked at him and shuddered involuntarily. Never in his experience had he encountered a man like this, who did n't know when he was beaten and could n't be cajoled or bulldozed. From that moment his fears grew, until he was forced to realize that in carrying out his clever scheme to oust his partner he had also ousted himself from a peculiarly profitable business enterprise.
Wilder was right in his statement that it had always been impossible to induce the cottagers to put any money into public improvements; yet that was because they realized they were asked to pay for things that Easton and Wilder should have done at their own expense. But conditions had now changed. Jarrod could have had a hundred thousand dollars as easily as the thirty required to take up the option. A dozen stood ready to advance the money, but the lawyer selected three of the most public spirited and liberal of the cottagers, and made them popular by letting them advance ten thousand each. The option was taken up, because neither Easton nor Wilder could find a way to legally withdraw from its terms, and the transfer was consummated, all the property being formally deeded to the newly incorporated Tamawaca Association.
Thus ended one of the most amusing financial intrigues on record. The amount involved was insignificant; Tamawaca itself is almost unknown in the great world. Yet the three-cornered game was as carefully planned and played as any of the campaigns of Napoleon, and it was won because each of the partners conspired against the other and was finally content to be a loser by the deal as long as he could cause annoyance to his enemy. Never, in all probability, could the cottagers in any other way have been able to secure control of the beautiful resort where they had built their summer homes.
As for Jarrod, he hid to escape congratulations that were showered upon him from every side, and in the seclusion of his side porch breathed a sigh of relief.