CHAPTER XVI.
THE VERGE OF RUIN.
STEPPING hastily from his car, John Tweedy hurried across the sidewalk, and entered the lobby of the Bangor House. His plump face had an oddly sunken, pasty look. The jowls were pendulous, and there were dark rings under the eyes. His whole manner, in fact, was that of a man on the verge of a nervous collapse, holding himself together by sheer determination of will.
Inside the door he paused a moment, staring almost furtively to right and left, as if the ruin he knew to be so imminent was already a matter of public knowledge and comment. The fairly well-filled lobby held a number of familiar faces, whose owners either did not or would not see the stout man. Tweedy made sure that the slight was intentional, and a nervous tremor quivered on his lips.
“Bah!” he muttered, hastening on toward the desk, “They’re beginning to cut me. After the fire last night they think I’m out for more credit. It’s the beginning of the end.”
To his supersensitive mind the very desk clerk, who had so often laughed obsequiously at the lumber magnate’s jokes and pocketed with effusive thanks his expensive cigars, delayed purposely in attending him. It was the subtle impertinence of an inferior which seems to cut so much more deeply than any other kind, and it stung Tweedy into a momentary flash of his old spirit.
“Griggs!” he snapped, in a voice which brought the clerk instantly forward. “I have an appointment to meet Mr. Bainbridge here at twelve,” he went on, transfixing the young man with an icy stare. “Has he left any word for me?”
Before the flushed, embarrassed youth could answer, a hand dropped lightly on Tweedy’s shoulder, and a cheery, familiar voice sounded in his ear:
“Well, John, you’re certainly on the dot. Put it there, old man! I’m mighty glad to see you.”
It was Bob, clean, fresh, and well groomed. His eyes sparkled, the glow of health was in his cheeks. There was an air of vigor and physical fitness about him which made Tweedy stare in bewilderment, wondering whether his partner was made of iron.
“I’m certainly glad to see you, Bobby,” he echoed, gripping the strong, brown fingers. “I don’t know how you can stand the pace, though. I’m about all in sitting up most of the night trying to figure out our losses from the incomplete”
“Just one second, John,” interrupted Bainbridge, and only then was his partner aware of the pleasant-faced, rather distinguished-appearing, gray-haired man who stood just behind the young lumberman. “I want you to meet Mr. Wolcott Sears, of Boston. He’s been up in the woods fishing, and we got acquainted up there.”
Tweedy acknowledged the introduction with the best grace he could summon, in view of the fact that he was burning to get Bob by himself, and find out something of where the firm stood. He knew Sears by reputation as an influential and powerful capitalist, and it was his policy always to be agreeable to moneyed men. But even that, combined with the Boston man’s undoubted charm of manner, did not prevent Tweedy from being a trifle austere. He only thawed completely when Sears presently announced that he would have to tear himself away at once, or else miss the Boston train.
“I was afraid he’d stick around for hours,” Tweedy said, as Bob returned from seeing Sears to the door. “Let’s go over here where there’s less crowd.”
“Couldn’t have a better man,” said Bob, falling into step with his partner. “He’s one of the best ever, John, and has been a good friend to me.”
“Of course, of course!” returned Tweedy, with a nervous sort of pettishness. “That’s all very well, but we don’t want anybody else around just now. Tell me about the mill. Complete loss, I suppose?”
Bainbridge nodded. “Just about. Saved a few hundred thousand feet of pine stacked at the upper end of the yard. Everything else went.”
A facial muscle quivered, as if the confirmation of what Tweedy had feared, yet hoped desperately against, had touched a raw nerve. He dropped down in one of the row of leather-covered chairs facing Main Street, and took out his handkerchief.
“My country!” he groaned, staring in bewilderment at his companion. “I don’t see how you can take it all so easy. You know as well as I do that there’s not a cent of insurance on the stock. You must realize that Lancaster was the only mill we had capable of taking care of a big drive.”
Bainbridge sat on the arm of the adjoining chair, one leg lightly swinging back and forth.
“That’s true enough,” he nodded, feeling for his cigarette case. “I’ve always contended, though, that with proper equipment, the mill at Colport could turn out a third more cut lumber than the Lancaster mill.”
Tweedy groaned, and cast up his eyes. “What if it could?” he demanded. “How in creation are we going to find out? We’re broke—busted—cleaned out!” Even in the stress of his emotion he remembered to lower his voice cautiously. “We’ve hardly an asset left except the drive. We’ve no credit. One of our notes for eight thousand dollars is due in less than twenty-four hours—due to the very scoundrel who’s brought us where we are, and whose plotting won’t stop there.”
At last he seemed to find a shaft capable of penetrating the armor of Bob’s self-possession. With a start, the young man dropped the match, and stared fixedly at Tweedy, the fresh-lighted cigarette dangling unheeded between the fingers of his other hand.
“Crane?” he exclaimed sharply. “You mean to say he’s bought up that note?”
“Precisely.”
“Huh!” Bainbridge lifted the cigarette, and took a thoughtful puff or two. “That must be why he sent the message I found here a little while ago. Said if I was quite ready to crawl he’d be in his office till two this afternoon.”
He hesitated a second longer, and then stood up with a sudden, determined squaring of his wide shoulders.
“How about it, John?” he asked, a curious gleam in the dark eyes. “What do you say to making a call on the genial Elihu?”
Tweedy rose heavily. “I give up,” he said, with a deep sigh. “Do as you like, son, it’s all one to me. Only don’t for an instant expect any mercy from Elihu Crane. Personally I’d rather spare myself the humiliation of an interview which can result in no possible good, but if you’re keen on it”
He finished with an eloquent gesture of resignation which brought a sudden softness into the young man’s eyes.
“By Jove, but you’re a sport!” he exclaimed, with a touch of his hand on the other’s shoulder, which was almost a caress. “Don’t you care, though, old man. It won’t take long, and I’ll attend to the talk. All you’ll have to do will be to furnish me with the moral support of your presence.”