THE DOORMAT
I
From the window of his office on the eighteenth floor of the Knickerbocker Building, Barney Creighton gazed wearily, dreamily out over the light-dotted Hudson. Down below, gangs of workmen were jumping about like busy ants, working on the structure of the new Adams Building. The sound of the riveting and hammering floated up to his ears in a particularly jarring manner.
"New York is work mad, money mad!" he cried petulantly. "What good is progress, success, money if they bring neither happiness nor peace?"
With a sigh of unutterable weariness, he turned back to his desk. He was very tired, more tired than he had ever been before in all his life. Every bone in his body ached and seemed to be moaning in plaintive misery. Even his funny-bone seemed to have lost its sense of humor. He leaned far back in his great leather chair and stretched his arms above his head. Outside a sluggish, misty rain was falling and everything looked dark and gloomy. The aspect of the sombre night seemed even to have reflected into the offices of Creighton, Sears & Co. A single electric light broke the dense pall of blackness; but instead of bringing any warmth and comfort into the room, it only served to make the shadows in the farthest corners more pronounced. The great, silent, empty building seemed strangely weird and uncanny. Somewhere down below a door banged and a bell tinkled faintly. But for these sounds Barney Creighton had no ears. His entire attention was concentred solely upon the fact that he was tired. Finally, in an unguarded moment, a sound did penetrate to his ears. It seemed like the steady chug, chug, chug of the elevator coming up from the basement, though not without a voice of protest at working after hours.
The next moment the door of the office burst open and a cheerful, good-natured voice cried, "Hello, old boy; can you loan me a match? Cursed luck, my cigar has gone out."
Barney Creighton looked up quickly, as though startled from a land of dreams.
"Hello, Dan!" he drawled, when he had at length become able to focus his mind on present things. "Where did you come from?"
"Home, originally," was the laconic reply. "But I say, old chap, can't you loan me a match? I feel as badly in need of a smoke as a fellow lost in the desert does of water. Tobacco may knock a man's nerves to pieces, but it does it in a mighty soothing manner."
Barney Creighton slid a box of matches across the desk, and Dan turned the incident into barter by reciprocating with a cigar.
For a moment, the two men smoked in silence; Barney as though in a dream, Dan as if he had just woke up. He glanced about at the exquisitely furnished office, everything mahogany, the chairs upholstered in black leather. Expensive, original paintings hung upon the wall; and the warm red velvet carpet on the floor seemed to cast a spell of peaceful calm over the entire room. Finally his eye wandered to Barney's desk, piled almost ceiling-high with letters and litter, the natural alluvium of a busy day, the one bit of chaos in that otherwise well-ordered office.
Dan Burnett whistled softly.
"What's the matter, Barney, old man?" he drawled. "Turning into a machine?"
Barney smiled wistfully.
"I seem to be narrowing down to just that," said he.
"What's the matter? Are you money mad like all the rest of New York?"
"No," was the reply, "I work, not for money, but simply because it takes my mind from other things. Somewhere I have read an old proverb about not looking backward when you put your hand to the plow. But the old saying is not complete. To it should be added not to look forward either."
The tone in which the words were uttered left no doubt of the fact that there was something bearing heavily on Barney Creighton's mind.
"Just what do you mean by that?" asked Dan presently.
"That I have put my hand to the plow, that I look neither forward nor backward. The past is over; the future will take care of itself. In the meantime, I have my work." Barney Creighton leaned forward in his chair, and now in his voice there was a strange, wonderful sincerity. Dan," he said, "I've got to work, because I've got to forget."
"What do you mean?"
"Just the same old trite sentence which ten thousand men have uttered before me. I loved a girl with all my heart and soul. The thought of her was the sweetest essence of my life. She invaded my dreams; and waking, she was ever near me. In my office sometimes as I sat dictating a letter her face seemed to laugh up into my own from the printed page before me. Sometimes I drew pictures in the smoke of my cigar, wonderful, dream-world pictures of a little home that might have been, way off somewhere in the mountains among the glorious pines and flowers. And I used to see her waiting for me by the old rustic turnstile in a garden at eventide, laughing merrily, wonderfully happy at my return. And then I would take her into my arms. But I never kissed her. Somehow it didn't seem just right."
He paused for a moment and gazed wistfully into the smoke of his cigar. "Oh, Dan," he continued presently, "can mere words describe a dream like that? To me she was an angel, a dream, a goddess. At last I had something to work for in my life … Finally a day came when business matters drew me to Alaska. I was gone three months. During all that time I received but three letters from her. That was like Marion. She always forgot a man as soon as he had gone from her sight. And then the day came for me to return home. 'Home'—what a wonderful wealth of meaning lay in that one simple word. To me it didn't represent the bald, dreary bachelor apartment in which I dwelt. To me the wondrous word meant one lovely girl—Marion Maxwell … In the natural sequence of events I arrived in New York and at once sought out her home. But it was a different home-coming to what I had imagined. You see she had been engaged two months … For seven years I knew her; seven years of my life, the best years of my life had been given entirely to her, and now she had shattered all my dreams with as little thought as a child might burst a soap bubble … Understand, I am not censoring her … She is still the only woman of my life. But, like many another, she cannot think, she cannot, does not understand. She has become a part of myself. A man cannot tear seven years from his life and begin all over again."
Barney Creighton's thin, handsome face looked strangely wan and haggard in the dull, yellow light. His hands gripped the arms of his chair until the fingers turned white to the nails. This was his one sign of emotion, but to Dan Burnett it was enough. He leaned over and placed his hand upon Barney's shoulder and in a voice that shook, he said, "Barney, was she good enough for you?"
"She was too good, Dan."
"I'm glad you feel that way about it, old man. It's to your credit. It only proves out what I have thought and known always: you are a gentleman. To stick to a woman even after a thing like this is the very essence of greatness. For my own part, I do not believe I'd have the courage."
"If you really loved a woman, you would. A man's love isn't a cloak that can be worn by any woman. It's made for just one woman. I think that explains everything. Marion Maxwell still has the cloak of my love. The fact that Roger Patterson has won her fairly cannot change the matter."
Dan Burnett sprang from his chair.
"Who did you say?" he cried excitedly.
"Roger Patterson," repeated Barney. "Do you know him?"
"Not intimately. I have run across him several times in business, much to my regret. He has been married once before, but his wife secured a divorce soon after the wedding. She has since died, I hear, so of course that is no drawback to Marion's wedding. And yet there are men in the Exchange who will not shake the hand of Roger Patterson. He is not honorable. Not a single stenographer will work for him. When a man cannot keep a stenographer, there's something wrong somewhere. I lay no specific charge at his feet. He has never committed any crime; his whole life is just given over to petty meanness."
Barney Creighton's face had grown very white. In his excitement, his cigar had slipped from his fingers and rolled to the floor forgotten.
"Tell me all you can about Roger Patterson," he said hoarsely. "Oh, Dan, I think it nothing but right that I should know."
The tone of his voice struck Dan Burnett to the heart. It seemed to him as though someone were scourging his soul with a whip. He was Barney Creighton's greatest friend, so naturally what affected Barney affected him. Truly nothing is so rare as the strong, whole-hearted friendship of two men.
"I can't tell you much about Roger Patterson," was the reply. "All that I know is that he's a stock broker, the same as you yourself, but whereas you have money to back you up, he plays the game simply on his nerve. He lives from day to day on the extreme edge of hazard. Any hour may see his ruin. His offices in the Empire Building are magnificent, but his bank balance would make R. G. Dun & Co. sick. I frankly admit that to a certain degree, I admire the man's unutterable faith in himself. He bids apparently recklessly, working solely on a margin, and yet he always seems to get through somehow. At present he is trying to manipulate a big deal in Bleecker's Infused Steel stock. He's booming the market, although he knows the stock is practically worthless. Smith & Weston own about forty per cent of the capital stock and it is orally understood that they are willing to sell. You know they have gone over entirely to cotton stock and so of course are naturally willing to accept almost anything for their shares in Bleecker's Infused Steel, especially in view of the fact that they are practically worthless."
"Why?" demanded Barney Creighton curtly.
"For a dozen reasons. In the first place, Bleecker's capital is practically wiped out. There is scarcely any available cash. Then again they are making an addition to the plant at a great cost when in reality they haven't enough work to keep the old plant in active operation. The contractors are being paid with ninety-day paper, but where the money is to come from to take it up is a problem which would tie the original inventor of algebra up in a knot. And there is also another reason, which is probably the greatest of all. Three-quarters of the company's business is the manufacture of milling cutters, and the cutters will not stand up under test. Surely that is evidence enough."
Barney Creighton sprang to his feet, and his hand crashed down on the desk with a thunderous bang.
"Yes, it is evidence enough!" he cried wildly, his eyes flashing fire. "It's evidence of a dozen things. I've been blind all my life. I almost let the girl of my heart marry a man who would ruin her life, simply because in her blind ignorance, she thought she loved him. But she shan't marry him, Dan, old man, not if I have to pick her up bodily and take her to the North Pole. If Roger Patterson wants fight, he'll get it. Some people were put on earth just to be carpets for other people to walk on!"
"What do you mean?" gasped Dan Burnett.
"Mean!" raved Barney Creighton like a throbbing furnace. "I mean that I'm sick of being a doormat for other people to trample on. All my life I've been smeared with easy-going softness. Now I'm going to take a mental bath. Every friend I own, except you, old man, has used me for years as their 'Fourth National.' I don't know why, unless I was simply born to be a doormat and have remained one simply to follow out the natural idea of things. I ought to have 'Welcome' tattooed on my back so that my friends would feel more at home when they walked over me."
As he spoke, he commenced walking up and down the room as though he were almost bursting with suppressed energy.
"But now I'm through with it all!" he cried. "Nobody'll ever use my spine for a ladder again. And as for Roger Patterson, I'll crush him against the wall until the streak of yellow in his nature rubs off on the bricks. You spoke just now of his deal in Bleecker's Infused Steel. The poor fool thinks he has a snowball in his hand when in reality he has a live-hot coal which he will eventually find he cannot handle. Bleecker's cash capital is practically wiped out because they are investing it all in buildings. I'm giving you strictly confidential, inside 'dope,' The board of managers in the past was a trifle slack, but the entire firm is being reorganized. It has contracts pending with a dozen of the biggest railroads in the country to supply all the infused steel used. It realizes that there is a big boom just ahead. As for the reason it falls down on milling-cutters, that is simple enough. There is no competent foreman or metallurgist in charge of the furnace room, nobody to see that metals are subjected to the exact degree of heat necessary, nor that the steel is infused to the proper depth. Consequently, the milling-cutters fall down under test. It is not the process that's at fault, but the manner in which it is carried out. Under the new management, this slip-shod executive condition will be eliminated."
"But how do you know all this?" asked Dan Burnett breathlessly.
"For the simple reason," replied Barney Creighton, "that I own fifty-one per cent of the capital stock of Bleecker's Infused Steel."
Dan Burnett threw up his hands in amazement.
"God help Roger Patterson!" said he.
II
Barney Creighton arrived late at his office the next morning. The clock on Old Trinity had already chimed ten before he blew in like a whirlwind.
"Mr. Duncan, of Duncan & Co. has called you up four times," his stenographer told him as he threw his hat and coat upon a chair in his usual hurried manner.
"Get him on the 'phone, please," he replied shortly. "I was late this morning because I had an appointment with Smith & Weston."
Two problems puzzled Miss Alicia Raymond. Why did he take the trouble to explain where he had been, and why did he smile in such an odd manner as he told her?
In the meantime, Barney Creighton was looking over his mail. Mrs. Lindsay wanted a donation for the colored orphan asylum.
"Nothing doing," he growled. "I'll never have any use for that."
He picked up another letter. "Can I send you a box of Havana Perfectos?" he read.
"Yes," he wrote across the bottom of the page, "if you mean it for a gift."
The telephone buzzed at that moment. Seizing the receiver, he began, "Hello! Duncan & Co.? … No. … Oh, what number are you calling, please?… Yes, this is Creighton, Sears & Co. … Barney Creighton speaking. … Yes … Oh, hello, Littlefield … Can't pay that note?… What! you want time? How would six months on Blackwell's Island strike you? … No, I won't give you another day. Note's two weeks overdue now … have the wrong number, this is not the Bureau of Charities … Words, my dear boy, will never pay that note … Good-bye."
He had hardly hung up the receiver, when the telephone buzzed again.
"This is Mrs. Clarkson speaking," came a thin, cattish voice, as he put his ear to the receiver. "I am on the board of directors of the Society for Improving the Conditions of the Poor …"
"Yes," interjected Barney peevishly.
"I know a woman who has eight children," continued the voice.
"I know one that has ten," he snapped. "You needn't have telephoned that information. You could have dropped me a card …"
As he banged up the receiver with an ejaculation of poorly suppressed anger, he gazed into the blank face of one of the office boys.
"Mr. Sears just told me he didn't need me any more," began the youth. "What do you think of that?"
"I think you're fired," said Barney curtly. "Get out!"
Miss Raymond appeared in the doorway. "Duncan & Co. are on the wire," said she.
As he took down the receiver, Barney Creighton said, "Miss Raymond, if all the kings in Europe call me up in a body, don't connect them with me unless they tell you what they want."
Then he turned his attention to the 'phone.
"Hello! Is this Mr. Duncan?… Yes, this is Creighton speaking … I say, Alf, buy up all the Bleecker's Infused stock possible, only don't mention my name. I think Roger Patterson will let you have about forty per cent of the capital stock … Yes, buy it in the open market if you like. It won't do any harm to start a boom."
******
Late in the afternoon Roger Patterson discovered that he had overstepped the extreme edge of hazard at last. He had gone short of the market on Bleecker's Infused stock by four thousand shares.
All night long Roger Patterson walked up and down the floor of his office, a prey to conflicting emotions. If Barney Creighton held him to the letter of his contract in this deal, he was practically ruined. Ponder as he would, he could find no solution to the problem. Every line of thought that raced through his tired brain led to one conclusion. There was nothing to do but to throw himself on Barney Creighton's mercy. He knew that Barney had a name for being kind-hearted. Dear old Barney Creighton, he was loved by every broker downtown. A perfect shower of invitations poured into his office in every morning's mail. And each letter was absolutely sincere. Others might be invited to dinner because the hostess thought it her duty, but Barney was invited just for his own charming self.
Roger Patterson smiled cynically as he thought of this. "If one has to balance himself on the brink of ruin," he drawled, "it's just as well to have a kindhearted fool hold the reins as any other person."
Before nine the next morning, Roger Patterson presented himself at Barney Creighton's office. As luck would have it, Barney had already arrived downtown. He listened to Roger Patterson's plea for leniency.
"If I could only have a little time," that was the drift of all his arguments.
"For the safety of the public," drawled Barney, "it might be quite a good idea."
Roger Patterson smiled in spite of himself. "Scarcely complimentary," said he.
"I only compliment the men to whom I sell," said Barney cynically. "It's one of the new business policies which I have just adopted. Another is, to hold a man to his contract at any cost. I am running a business office, not a kindergarten. If a signed contract is of no consequence, what is there upon which to base business?"
"Can't we come to terms in some way?" begged Roger Patterson.
"Yes, by delivering the stock."
"I can't."
"Then give me a check for the margin."
"I haven't enough available cash. Everything is going against me lately."
"Well, then there is only one thing to do. I will make you a special offer. It may sound ridiculous, but nevertheless I am perfectly serious. If you will hire me as your chauffeur, of course under an assumed name, I will not hold you to your contract."
Roger Patterson sat speechless with surprise.
"Of course," continued Barney, "I admit the suggestion sounds idiotic, but whether it is or not is not for you to decide. I might say, however, that I desire adventure and the humor of such a situation appeals to me. I wish to be treated exactly like a chauffeur. My position will be to run your car. There our business dealings will end. Now it's up to you to accept this offer or refuse it. Don't let me influence you. Suit yourself. The matter is of slight importance to me."
"But to me it is momentous!" exclaimed Roger Patterson. "Therefore, although I do not know your hidden reason for this offer, I accept. There is nothing else for me to do."
"No," was the cynical reply. "The result in any case is approximately the same. If I didn't drive the car for you, I'd be driving it for myself, so what's the difference?"
III
It was not until a week later that Barney Creighton in his new position had the pleasure of driving Marion Maxwell out into the country in Roger Patterson's great green touring car. So naturally the day was a red-letter one for Barney. Roger Patterson had suggested motoring to a little inn overlooking the Hudson, some fifty miles from New York. His description of the charming spot met with Marion's instant approval, and thus it was that at last Barney Creighton had the pleasure, as aforesaid, of driving the woman he loved, and the man she thought she loved, out into the country on a certain warm September morning.
Now they shot through a patch of woodland, then through a little village and again back into the woodland again. All about them hung a wondrous silence, broken softly by the many whispering voices of the wood; the chirping of crickets, the gurgling of hidden brooks and the gently soothing, sighing of the breeze through the treetops.
"Isn't it all wonderful," exclaimed Marion enthusiastically, at length; "everywhere silence, not a soul to intrude, not a voice to break the wondrous, fairylike web of solitude!"
"And do you love the silence of the open places?" asked Roger Patterson softly.
"Yes," said she wistfully. "I have loved the great outdoors all my life."
"You would love the desert," he whispered dreamily. "As I close my eyes, I can see you now, my little dream-girl of the desert, back in the great silent places where you belong. When we are married, if I can spare the time, we will go to Egypt and live alone in the desert for many months, until you tire of it."
"I often wonder whether anyone can ever tire of the desert," she mused. "It is ever the same, yet always different. There are no words that can describe the desert. One could live in it forever and never grow to understand it, never solve its wondrous silent mystery."
"Once," said he, "many years ago, I went to Persia, and at Shiraz, the Paris of the Far East, I heard a strangely lovely little legend which I have always remembered. It seems at one time there dwelt near Shiraz an old, sweet-tempered, lovable Syrian who wandered alone in the desert. As he travelled over the great billows of ever-changing sand he used to see visions of gardens of wondrous beauty, peopled by women of exquisite charm. There was one dream-girl in particular who used to come to him every night, as he sat alone out under the glorious canopy of stars. Her face was as soft as a rose, and as sweet as the most fragrant flower. Like a breath of love, she would creep to the side of the old, shrunken beggar, and press her soft warm lips to his brow. And at such moments he would forget his dirty, filthy rags, for in the eyes of this lovely vision he was a prince. Such was the dream of the old Syrian, whom some pitied, others laughed at, and a few dismissed with the simple statement that he was mad. But as for myself, when I heard of the old Syrian, I envied his wonderful dreams. But the people in the city I pitied, the people who lacked romance, and could not understand." He leaned down and took her hand in his. "But now," he continued, looking into her eyes, "I no longer envy the old Syrian, for I, too, have found my dream-girl."
She looked into his face, and as she did so she involuntarily shrank back. She also had been thinking of a honeymoon spent in the desert, but she had been thinking not of Roger Patterson, but of herself and Barney Creighton. When she realized this she was angry with herself, angry that such an idea had even entered her mind. She was engaged to Roger Patterson. Barney Creighton was a thing of the past. To change the trend of her thoughts, she leaned toward Roger.
"Tell the chauffeur to drive fast," she urged lightly. "I feel as though I would like to fly."
Obedient to her wish, Roger directed the chauffeur to increase the speed. And he did. The car shot forward as though it were trying to overtake Barney Oldfield. On over the country it tore like a thing possessed. Up hill and down dale, on and on it sped. Once it almost tipped into a lake, and Roger Patterson's heart jumped into his throat.
"You fool! Slacken down!" he cried angrily. "Are you trying to wreck the car?"
"I can't!" bellowed back the chauffeur. "The darn thing has got beyond my control! It won't stop!"
As he spoke they were racing over a mountain road particularly perilous. On one side, the rocks piled up toward the sky for almost a thousand feet; on the other, they could look down, a sheer drop of a hundred feet, to a little stream below. Even as Roger Patterson gazed down shudderingly toward the water, the car gave an ominous lurch and appeared to pause on the very brink of the cliff. He expected momentarily to be hurled into the air and dashed to pieces on the rocks below. And yet the car kept on.
Marion Maxwell crouched in one corner, her face flushed, her eyes flashing. It might be extremely perilous, she thought, but also she admitted that it was a distinct novelty. One thing she noticed which Roger Patterson had evidently overlooked. The chauffeur might have lost control of the car, but he had the steering gear under perfect control. She could tell that by the way he missed colliding a hundred times with great, huge trees on the crooked road.
At last they sped down from the dangerous cliff road and out onto a comparatively level country.
"Now is our chance!" shrieked Roger Patterson. "Jump!"
But the girl did not move. In great surprise, she realized that he was frightened. His face was pale with fear and his mouth twitched nervously. Apparently his nerves were strained almost to the breaking point. Inadvertently she could not help comparing him to the chauffeur, whose back rose up before her. To all appearances, he was no more ruffled than if he were driving at a moderate speed through a city street. With a shudder, she realized that Roger Patterson was a coward. In that moment, she felt as though she detested him.
Again a great hill with a perilous cliff road loomed up ominously before them. Roger Patterson noticed it and shuddered.
"This is our last opportunity!" he entreated wildly. "For God's sake, jump!"
"No," she replied coldly. "I am not going to jump."
She slipped the engagement ring from her finger and forced it into his hand. "Quick, you coward!" she cried, her eyes flashing, "jump before it is too late!"
Roger Patterson gave one agonizing glance toward the hill, a glance in which was blended fear and terror almost to frenzy. Then he jumped, and the car sped onward up the hill without him. And now a strange thing happened. The break-neck speed lessened considerably, until as the car came down the hill it was going at little more than a moderate rate of speed. Marion Maxwell was greatly surprised at this, but her curiosity was not gratified until they had gone another mile. Then the chauffeur abruptly stopped the car and removed his hat and goggles.
"Barney Creighton!" she cried breathlessly.
"Yes," said he. "Will you marry me? If you had taken me in the beginning we wouldn't have had all this fuss."
"But how did you get here?" she gasped.
And then he told her the whole crazy story.
"And now," he finished, "Roger Patterson's jumped out of your life. Why not let him stay out?"
"I'm going to," she whispered demurely.
And then he climbed over the seat and kissed her.
"All my life," said Barney, as he held her in his arms, "I've been a doormat for everybody. But at last somebody poured oil upon the doormat and set it afire. In the future, to others, I am going to be a Persian rug; but to you I'll always be a doormat that you can walk all over."
"I think," said she wickedly, "I'd rather sit on your lap."