Chapter 15

"Will you excuse me for a little while, Duncan," interrupted Captain Will, "while I give some orders at the stables and in the garden? I very nearly forgot them. Mrs. Hallam will entertain you in my absence, I'm sure."

As soon as the head of the house had made his escape through the door, Mrs. Hallam--whose friendship for Duncan had won all that is possible of privilege for itself--turned to him and asked:

"Why haven't you been taking Barbara to places? Why didn't you tell me to invite her here for supper to-night? You know I have had her here a dozen times, and you know how welcome she always is."

"Your last question is easily answered," he replied. "I did not think of asking you to invite her to supper this evening for the reason that Captain Will sent me word that he had business affairs to talk over with me."

Mrs. Hallam's face was wreathed in smiles.

"I wonder," she said, "if there ever was a young man clever enough to hold his own with a woman at word fence. And I wonder if there was ever one who didn't think he could."

"I confess," he said quickly, "that I'm not clever enough to know what you mean by those two wonderings of yours."

"Oh, yes you do. You deliberately tried to shy off my first question"--at this point she touched a bell--"by answering the second first, and then omitting to answer the first at all."

At this moment a servant appeared in answer to her ring.

"Send word to John," she commanded, "to bring the carriage at once--the open one with the bays. Now, Guilford Duncan, I have no time to talk with you except the ten minutes before the carriage comes. For I'm going to put on a hat and go after Barbara. Perhaps, between us, she and I can prevent you two men from talking business at supper. Tell me----"

"But can Barbara come on so short a notice?"

"What sort of blunderer do you take me to be? I sent her a note two hours ago saying I should go after her, and she sent me for reply, a note saying she would be more than glad to come. But you mustn't grow conceited over that. I didn't tell her you were to be here, or that I meant to put you into the carriage to escort her home. It is quite possible that if I had told her that she would have declined the invitation. Now, answer my first question. Why haven't you been taking Barbara to places--to church and all the rest of it?"

"Must I tell you the truth?"

"Yes, certainly. What would be the use of telling me anything else? I should know if your fibbed."

"I really believe you would."

"Why, of course I should. What are a woman's wits for, anyhow?"

"The carriage is at the door," said a servant, entering.

"Very well. Let it wait. Now, Guilford Duncan, go on and tell me."

"Well, the fact is, that I have not been in a position to ask Barbara to accept my escort to public places."

"Why not? Is it because of this Tandy affair?"

"No."

"Then what? Go on, and don't make me pump the information out of you, as if you were a well or a leaky barge."

"The fact is," Duncan spoke very seriously now, "that a little while ago I was betrayed by own emotions into declaring my love for Barbara, much sooner than I had intended--before she was prepared to hear it."

"Oh, nonsense! As if a girl ever needed preparation for a declaration of that sort from--- well, from the right sort of man. But go on, you know the carriage is waiting. Tell me. Has she accepted you?"

"No."

"Has she rejected you?"

"No."

Here Mrs. Duncan again rang the bell, and a servant appeared so promptly as to suggest that she had been listening just outside the door.

"Tell my maid to get into the carriage and go and fetch Miss Barbara Verne. Tell her to say that I am detained here, and am forced to send my maid in my stead."

The servant said, "Yes'm," and withdrew. Then Mrs. Duncan resumed her questioning with manifest eagerness, but with as much of seriousness as Duncan himself had shown. There was no touch of flippancy, or even of lightness in either her words or her tone. For Mrs. Will Hallam was a woman of deep and tender feeling, a woman to whom all holy things were sacred.

"Tell me about it all, Guilford. I do not understand, and I must know. I need not tell you that my interest is not prompted by curiosity. I hold you as my brother, and I love Barbara. Tell me."

And Duncan did. As he outlined the compact that Barbara had insisted upon, the smiles replaced solemn apprehension on Mrs. Hallam's face, as though she foresaw all she desired as the outcome of such an arrangement.

But all that she said was:

"I am greatly relieved."

XXVIII

THE BIRTH OF A GREAT RAILROAD

Upon becoming president of a strong bank, and the close associate of Hallam and Stafford in all their undertakings, Guilford Duncan became at once a factor to be recognized and reckoned with in all enterprises with which he had to do. He had brains, character, and indomitable energy, and these had already won for him the respect of the men of affairs. Now that he had control of money also, his power and influence were multiplied many fold.

The time was one of expansion. The flood of irredeemable and heavily depreciated paper currency which had been issued under stress of war necessities, was producing the usual effect of inflation. It gave a false seeming of value to every purchasable thing. It caused rapid and great fluctuations in all markets. It lured men everywhere into speculation. It dangerously expanded credits and prompted men to undertake enterprises far beyond their means.

Very early in his career as a banker, Guilford Duncan discovered that half the merchants in Cairo were young men of little capital and small capacity, who ought to have remained salaried clerks. These had grown ambitious, set up for themselves, and were carrying large stocks of goods almost wholly upon credit. They were staggering under loads of debt on which they were paying ruinous rates of interest.

It was easy enough for him to protect his bank by gradually reducing its loans to such men as these, but the prudence thus exercised added to the number of his enemies. He cared little for that, so long as he knew his course to be right.

Looking further afield he saw that a like condition of things existed all over the West, and was the inspiration of much greater undertakings than those of the merchants and shopkeepers.

He used often to talk of these things with Hallam.

"You're quite right," said that sagacious financier. "The country has gone on a big financial drunk, and of course the headache will come when the spree is over. But it won't be over for a considerable time to come, and in the meanwhile the country is getting a good deal of benefit from it.

"Fortunately, it is taking a better course than such sprees usually do. Ordinarily the existence of an inflated, superabundant, and depreciated currency results in a wild orgy of stock gambling, grain gambling, cotton gambling, and all the rest of it. There is no more of good in that--in fact, there is far more of harm in it to the country--than there would be if everybody went to betting at roulette or faro. It makes the lucky gamblers rich and the unlucky ones poor, but it produces nothing, even incidentally. This time the gambling is taking a more productive form. Instead of betting on market fluctuations, men are putting money into factories, mines, mills, and railroads--especially railroads. They are enormously overdoing the thing, but whenever they build a railroad, even unwisely, the railroad will remain as something to show for the money when the spree is over."

"That is true enough," said Duncan, "and of course all this railroad and other building is, incidentally, giving work and wages to great multitudes of men. But are we not paying too high a price for the good we get? We are building debts about forty per cent. faster than we are building railroads. Every mile of track is constructed with borrowed money, worth only about sixty cents on the dollar. Yet every dollar of these borrowings must some day be paid off in gold. And in the meantime the roads must pay a high interest rate on a dollar for every sixty cents' worth of money borrowed. I do not see how the country can stand it."

"It can't, permanently, and you haven't mentioned the worst feature of the matter."

"What is that?"

"Why, in the craze for building railroads, men are projecting and building many lines that are not needed at all. In some cases two, or even three, parallel roads are being built through regions that can never support more than one. It is sheer waste, and of course it means collapse sooner or later. But there is another side to the matter. The country is growing enormously in wealth, and still more enormously in productive capacity. Nothing helps such growth like the multiplication and extension of railroads. They bring men near to their markets. They make farming profitable where before it would have been a waste of labor. They multiply farms and towns, swell the population, and in that way make a market for manufactures. If we could cut out the parallel lines and other foolishly projected roads, I firmly believe the growth of the country in consequence of railroad building would more than compensate for the extra cost entailed upon us by borrowing at a time of depreciation in the currency. But we can't prevent fool projectors from building foolishly, and some day the country's sound business must shoulder all that load of bad investments. When a boy eats green apples he is in for a colic, but he generally gets over the colic. It will be so with the country."

Then the talk turned into a more practical channel.

"You feel sure, then," asked Duncan, "that we are making no mistake and doing no harm in carrying out our project of a railroad that shall bring Cairo closer to New York in the matter of railroad mileage?"

"Perfectly sure. That railroad is imperatively needed. It will develop a very rich agricultural region which has been practically shut off from the world. There is traffic enough for the road already within sight to make it pay. When it is built, it will compel a cheapening of freight rates to the advantage of the whole country."

"You are right, of course," answered Duncan reflectively. "I have gone over that subject very conscientiously. I am convinced that the road can carry the debt that must be incurred in building it, and that it will pay its way. If I had any serious doubt of that, I should have nothing to do with the thing."

"As it is," responded Hallam, "you've got the heavy end of the log to carry, so far as work is concerned. When are you going to begin your campaign?"

"Almost immediately. I've got everything in the bank into satisfactory shape now, and three days hence I shall begin a speaking tour in the interior counties. I'll make it even more a talking tour than a speaking one. For while a public speech, if it is persuasive enough, may influence many, it is the quieter talking to individuals and small groups that does most to win votes. I've already secured the co-operation of all the country editors, but they need stirring up, and worse still they need somebody to tell them what to say and how to say it in their newspapers. Of course you and Stafford and Tandy will take care of Cairo and Alexander county."

This proposed railroad was one clearly destined to be of the utmost consequence to Cairo and to the region through which the line must run. The method by which it was planned to secure its construction, was the one then in general use throughout the West. It may be simply explained. Everybody concerned was asked to subscribe to what might properly have been called an inducement fund. The subscriptions were meant to be gifts made to secure the benefit of the railroad's construction. More important than these personal subscriptions, and vastly greater in amount, were the subscriptions of counties, cities, and towns. Under the law as it then existed each county, city, or town, if its people so voted, could "lend its credit" to an enterprise of this kind by issuing its own bonds. When a sufficient sum was raised in this way, an effort was made, usually in New York, to secure the forming of a construction company. The whole volume of the subscriptions was offered as an inducement to such a construction company to undertake the building of the road. Usually the construction company was to have in addition a considerable share of the stock of the road when completed. The city, county, and town subscriptions, of course, depended upon the results of special elections held for that sole purpose.

In this case the personal subscriptions had been satisfactory, and there was no doubt that the two terminal cities, and the counties in which they lay, would vote the bonds asked of them. But there was grave doubt as to results in the rural counties, in each of which a special election was to be held a month or two later. It was Guilford Duncan's task to remove that doubt, to persuade the voters to favor the proposed subscriptions, and incidentally to secure rights of way, station sites, etc., by gift from the land owners.

During the next two months he toiled ceaselessly at this task, going to Cairo only once a week to keep in touch with his bank, and to pass the Sundays with Barbara.

Tandy also worked in the county towns, where he had a good deal of influence. He had been made president of the proposed railroad, and was supposed to be very earnestly interested in it. He was so--in his own way, and with purposes of his own.

Duncan's campaign was a tireless one, and it proved successful. When the elections occurred every county and every town voted in favor of the proposed subscription, but some of them did so by majorities so narrow as to show clearly how great the need of Duncan's work had been.

"Worse still," he said to Hallam, a few weeks later, "the smallness of the majorities in two or three counties is a threat to us and a warning. The county authorities are putting all sorts of absurd provisions into their subscriptions, and they will give us trouble if our construction company fails in the smallest particular to meet these requirements."

"Just what are the conditions?"

"Oh, every sort of thing. In every county it is provided that we shall somewhere break ground for construction before the last of January--less than two months hence--or forfeit the subscription. That gives us too little time for organization, but we can meet that requirement by sending a gang of men at our own expense to do a day's work somewhere on the line. In two of the counties there is a peculiarly absurd provision. There are rival villages there, one in each county, and the authorities have stipulated that "a track shall be laid across the county line and a car shall pass over said track from one county to the other" before the fifteenth of March. Curiously enough, I learn that Tandy himself suggested that stipulation to the county authorities. I hear he is giving it out that he had to do so to save the election, but that's nonsense, just as the provision itself is. Such a requirement will greatly embarrass us in our negotiations with capitalists. For the line will not be fully surveyed by that time, and nobody can tell, till that is done, precisely where the road ought to cross that county line, or at what grade. I can't imagine what Tandy meant by getting such a provision inserted."

"Neither can I," answered Hallam; "but we'll find out some fine morning, and we must be prepared to meet whatever comes. He's up to some trick of course."

XXIX

A SCRAP OF PAPER

When Duncan assumed control of the bank as its president, his first care was to acquaint himself minutely with its condition. In general he found its affairs in excellent shape, for Tandy was a skillful banker and, on the whole, a prudent one. There were many small loans to local shopkeepers which Duncan could not approve, and these he called in as they fell due, refusing to renew them. Beyond such matters he found nothing wrong till he came to examine the record of Tandy's own dealings with the bank.

There he found that in carrying on his multifarious enterprises, Tandy had been in the habit of borrowing and using the bank's funds in ways forbidden by the law of national banking. Had Tandy anticipated his own removal from control he would doubtless have set his account in order so that no complaint could be made. As it was, Duncan found that he was at that very time heavily in debt to the institution for borrowings made in evasion though possibly not in direct violation of a law carefully framed for the protection of stockholders and depositors.

The matter troubled Duncan sorely, and acting upon the resolution he had formed with regard to his relations with Barbara, he told her of it.

"I really don't know what to do," he said in a troubled tone. "Of course the money is perfectly safe. Tandy is good for two or three times the amount. And I learn that it is a practice among bank officers sometimes to stretch their authority and borrow their own bank's funds in this way."

"You say the thing is a violation of the law?" asked Barbara, going straight to the marrow of the matter after her uniform fashion.

"In effect, yes. I am not sure that it could be called a positive violation of law--it is so well hedged about with little fictions and pretenses--but it is plainly an evasion, and one which might get the bank into trouble with the authorities at Washington."

"You mean that it is something which the law intends to forbid?"

"Yes. It is in violation of the spirit of the law."

"Then I don't see why you should have any doubt as to what you ought to do."

"It is only that under the circumstances, if I press Tandy and call in these loans, it might look like an unworthy indulgence in spite on my part."

"I think you have no right to consider that. You have taken an oath to obey the law in the conduct of the bank, and----"

"How did you know that, Barbara?"

The girl flushed and hesitated. At last she said:

"I've been reading the national banking laws."

"What in the world did you do that for?"

"Why, I'm to help, you know. So as soon as I heard you were to be president of the bank I asked Mrs. Hallam to get Captain Hallam to lend me the books."

Duncan smiled and kept silence for a while.

"Was that wrong, or very foolish, Guilford? I can really understand the book."

"Of course you can, and it was neither wrong nor very foolish in you to try. It was only very loyal and very loving. But there was no occasion for you to do anything of the sort."

"But how can I help you if I don't try my best to understand the things you are dealing with?"

"As I said before," he answered tenderly, "it is very loyal and very loving of you to think in that way, and I thank you for it. But that isn't what I have had in mind when we have talked of your helping me. I have never had a thought of burdening you with my affairs except to ask for your sympathy when things trouble me, and your counsel on all points of right and wrong, and all that. You see, you have two things that I need."

"What are they?"

"A singularly clear insight into all matters of duty, and a conscience as white as snow. In this matter of Tandy's account, for example, you have helped me more than you imagine. You have seen my duty clearly, where I was in doubt about it, and you have prompted me to the resolute doing of it, regardless of my own feelings, or Tandy's, or of any other consideration whatever. Moreover, it is an immeasurable help to me simply to sit in your presence and feel that you want me to do right always. I think association with you would keep any man in the straight road. I _know_ that your love would do so."

"I am very, very glad," the girl answered with misty eyes, "but I must help in practical ways, too--in all ways. So I must do my best to understand all the things that you have to manage."

"God bless you!"

That was all he said. It seemed to him quite all there was to say. But early the next morning he sent a courteous note to Tandy, calling his attention to the "irregularity" of his relations with the bank, and asking him to call at once to set the matter right.

After he had sent off the note he continued his examination of the details of the bank's affairs. He had gone over the books very carefully. He had examined the notes held for collection and the like. It remained only for him to make a personal inspection of the cash and securities held by the bank, and that was his task this morning.

He had not gone far with it when he came upon a small three-cornered slip of paper, with a memorandum penciled upon it. It lay in the midst of a bundle of greenbacks.

Looking at it carefully, Duncan turned sharply upon the teller who had charge of the currency, and demanded:

"What does this mean? Why did you not bring that to my attention sooner?"

Before the teller could reply with an excuse or explanation, Tandy was announced as waiting in the bank parlor to see Mr. Duncan.

Duncan slipped the scrap of paper into his vest pocket, saying to the teller:

"Make a memorandum that I have possession of this."

Then he walked into the parlor.

There he received Tandy with cold dignity and marked reserve--more of coldness, more of dignity, and far more of reserve than he would have thought necessary if he had not found that scrap of paper.

Before seating himself, he called in one of the bookkeepers, saying:

"Mr. Leftwich, I desire you to remain with Mr. Tandy and me, during the whole of our interview."

"Surely that is unnecessary, Duncan," said Tandy hastily. "I don't care to discuss my private affairs in the presence of a clerk."

"I have no intention to discuss your private affairs at all, Mr. Tandy," Duncan replied. "The matter concerning which I have asked you to call here, is not a private affair of yours or mine. It is a matter connected with the administration of the bank. Be seated, Mr. Leftwich."

"But I insist," said Tandy, with a good deal more of heat than he was accustomed to permit himself to show, "I insist upon a confidential interview."

"You cannot have it. I do not regard myself as upon confidential terms with you, nor do I think of you as a man with whom I desire to establish confidential relations."

"Do you mean to insult me in my own--in a bank that I founded, and in which I am still a large stockholder?"

"Perhaps you had better not press me to explain myself," answered Duncan with a calmness that emphasized his determination. "I might feel it necessary to mention some facts that otherwise there is no occasion for Mr. Leftwich to know."

"Oh, very well. I ought not to have expected courtesy at your hands."

"I think I must agree with you in that," answered Duncan. "In view of the circumstances--which, I may remind you, are of your own making--I really think you ought not to have expected courtesy at my hands. Suppose we get down to business instead. What have you to suggest by way of arranging your affairs with the bank?"

"I don't know. I came here hoping and expecting that in view of all the circumstances you might be willing to let this matter of my loans from the bank rest between ourselves for a time."

Duncan was outwardly calm now, but inwardly he was in a towering rage, for Tandy's presence reminded him bitterly of the way in which the ex-banker had tried first to corrupt him and then to blast his reputation with a lie; and Tandy's manner clearly enough indicated that he had come to the bank in full expectation of warping him to his will in another matter involving his duty and his honor.

"How do you mean to 'let it rest'?" he asked, carefully controlling his voice.

"Oh, you understand, or you would if you knew anything of banking."