Part 5

JOHN was not back at the office “within the week.” He forgot the office and Simeon Tetlow and Tomlinson. He had eyes only for a white face looking up to him from the pillow and his ear listened only for low moans that broke the darkness. The spirit of courage had driven the thin body a step beyond the line where the soul has its way, and the body had turned and struck back.

Tomlinson, waiting in his daughter’s home, wondered a little at the silence, but waited, on the whole, content. Since his talk with John a hope had sprung up in him that, somehow, the boy would do for him what he could never do for himself. He had started out for Bayport more because he wanted to look Simeon Tetlow in the face than because he hoped for justice at his hands. But since he had talked with the hoy, his purpose had changed imperceptibly and his shrewd Scotch sense of justice asserted itself. He would speak the president of the road fair. The man should have his chance. He should not be condemned unheard. So Tomlinson waited, his sullen mood passing gently into tolerance.

But his daughter, a buxom woman, many years Eddie’s senior, grew impatient at the delay. She prodded Tomlinson a little for his inaction.

“What is it like, that Johnny Bennett--a slip of a boy--can do for ye with Simeon Tetlow?” she had demanded scornfully when the week had gone by and no word had come.

“He has a way ye can trust, Jennie--the boy has,” the old man had replied.

“Best trust yourself,” said the woman.

“Go and stan’ up before Sim Tetlow. Tell him to his face what ye want. And if he won’t give it to ye--then _curse him!_”

So the old man wavered forth, half driven to a task to which he felt himself unequal. But his reliance was on the boy. He would find him and ask what to do.

“John Bennett?” The assistant bookkeeper, hurrying back from luncheon a little late, paused in the doorway, looking at the tall, red-eyed Scotchman who put the anxious question.

“John Bennett?” He wrinkled his brow a little, as if trying to place so unimportant a person--“I think he works up above--top floor. Take the elevator.” He passed on, chuckling a little at the invasion of the sacred territory. “‘Nobody comes up here,’” he said mincingly, as he drew the ledger toward him and plunged into work, harrying to make ap lost time.

Tomlinson looked a little fearfully at the iron cage, plying up and down. He cast an eye about for the more friendly stairway. He was not afraid of any engine, however mighty and plunging, that held to solid earth, keeping its track with open sky; but these prisoned forces and office slaves, clacking back and forth in their narrow walls, and elevators knocking at a man’s stomach, were less to his mind. He climbed laboriously up the long stairs, flight after flight, his spent breath gasping at each turn. At the top floor he gazed around him, his mouth a little open.

“A queer place for the lad,” he said to himself, his faith in John oozing a little as he walked across and knocked at the door of the room.

There was a moment’s silence; then the scraping legs of a chair, and silence.

Tomlinson had raised his hand ready to rap again. The door receded before his knuckles....

It was the president of the road, himself, Simeon Tetlow--whom all men hated and feared--standing there grim and terrible.

Tomlinson’s nerveless hand rose to his hat.

“I’m wanting to ask you something, sir.”

The man surveyed him with a scowl. “Who told you to come up here?” he demanded.

“It were Johnny Bennett, sir.”

The scowling face changed subtly. It seemed to grow more human beneath its mask.

Tomlinson took heart. “It’s only a word I want with you, sir.”

“Come in.”

Tomlinson shut the door circumspectly and stood turning his hat in his fingers.

“Well?”

“It ’s the place, sir--I ’m Tomlinson,” he said.”_Oh--you--are--Tomlinson_--”

The old man shrank a little, as if each word had struck him lightly in the face. Then he raised his head. “I ’ve served the road forty year,” he said, repeating his lesson, “and I’ve never done harm. I’ve worked early and I’ve worked late for ye, and never a word of complaint.”

The president of the road stirred sharply. “The Bridgewater wreck--”

The old man raised his hand. “It’s that I wanted to speak about, Mr. Tetlow.” There was a simple dignity in the words. “I’d been on duty seventeen hour--and ten hour before that--with not a wink of sleep. They run us hard on the hours, sir.”

“The other men stand it--the young men.” The words had a kind of cutting emphasis.

The old man raised his red eyes. “They’ve not gi’ed their strength to the road, sir, as I have--” He threw out a hand. “The road’s had all o’ me.”

Simeon eyed him keenly, the bent look and worn shoulders. His glance traveled up and down the thin frame slowly.... Not an ounce of work left in him.

“We ’ve no place for incompetents,” he said, turning away.

Tomlinson made a step forward, as if he would touch him with his hands. Then he stood quiet. “There might be a boy’s place, sir--”

The man wheeled sharply, driven without and within--“I tell you we’ve nothing for you. You ’ve done your work. You ’ve had your pay. You ’re used up.” It was the biting truth and the old man shrank before it.

“I can’t spend any more time on you,” said the president of the road. He turned decisively to his desk.

For a moment Tomlinson stood with bent head. Then he raised his red-rimmed eyes, fixing them on the man before him. His right hand lifted itself significantly. “May the God in heaven curse ye, Simeon Tetlow, as ye have cursed me this day. May He shrivel ye, body and soul, in hell--” The words were shrill. “Curse ye--curse ye!”

He drew a step nearer, his eyes still on the other’s face.... Gradually a change seemed to come over him. The bent figure straightened itself. It towered above the president of the road, filling the little room. The chieftain of some mighty Highland clan might have stood thus, defying his enemy. His lifted right hand grew tense and flung itself, and a torrent of broad Scotch poured forth. Words of fire, heard in Tomlinson’s boyhood and forgotten long since, were on his tongue. The elemental passions were afire within him. Like the slow-burning peat of his native bogs, his soul, nourishing its spark through the years, had blazed forth--a scorching torrent. The words rolled on, a mighty flood, enveloping the man before him. Scathing tongues of flame darted at him and drew back, and leaped high--to fall in fiery, stinging showers on his head.

At the first words of the imprecation the president of the road had lifted his head with a little smile--almost of scorn--on his lips, as one might watch some domestic animal reverting to its ancestral rage. But as the broad Scotch rolled on--stem, implacable and sinister--the smile faded a little and the man seemed to shrivel where he stood, as if some fiery blast touched him. When he raised his head again, the look in his eyes was of cold steel.

He waited a minute after the voice had ceased, then he lifted his hand quietly. “You ’ve had your say, Tomlinson. Now I ’ll say mine--You leave this office and you leave the road. You ’ll never touch brake or throttle or switch on it again. You ’re not fit--do you understand!”

He moved his hand toward the door and Tomlinson went out, a tottering old man once more.

For a long minute the president of the road stood staring at the closed door. The hand that had pointed to it had not trembled; but now it began subtly, as if of its own will, to move. Slowly the vibration communicated itself to the whole frame till the man threw himself into a chair, broken from head to foot. He leaned toward his desk, gasping a little. “My God!” he said under his breath, “My God!” He lifted his hand and wiped the moisture from his forehead with the dazed look of one who has come through some mighty upheaval unharmed.

XIII

Another week went by before John was free to go back. The day before his return he received a letter, addressed in a huge, sprawling hand:

I seen him. I cursed him.

Hugh Tomlinson.

Simeon made no reference to the visit or the curse, and John waited, wondering a little whether it might be possible, even now, to undo the consequences of the old man’s folly.

That there was any connection between Simeon’s growing weakness and the old Scotchman’s visit did not occur to him. There were difficulties enough in the office to account for it without going outside. As the days went by and he watched the worn face, he grew more anxious. A look haunted the eyes--something almost crafty--they gazed at the simplest thing as if unseen terror lurked in it; and he started at any sudden noise as one pursued.... When John, leaning across the desk, pushed a book to the floor, he leaped to his feet, his hand upraised to strike, his lip drawn back from his teeth in quick rage.

That night John made a midnight journey, traveling all night and coming back at dawn. He had been to consult Dr. Blake, the great specialist, laying the case before him--withholding only the name of the man whose health was in question.

The physician had listened, his head a little bent, his eyes looking out as if seeing the man whom John described. “It’s the same story--I hear it every day,” he said. “I call it Ameri-canitis--It does n’t make much difference what you call it.... He must stop work--at once.”

“He won’t do it,” said John as promptly.

The physician looked at him keenly. “I suppose not--one of the symptoms. You have influence with him--?”

John shook his head slowly. “Not enough for that. I might get him to do other things, perhaps.”

The physician nodded.

“He would take medicine?”

John smiled at the picture.

“Perhaps.” He waited a little. “I ’m afraid he ’s losing his mind,” he said. “That’s really what I want to know--I don’t dare let him go on.”

The physician assented. “If I could see him ten minutes, I could tell, perhaps--more. But not in the dark, like this. You ask too much,” he said with a smile.

John gave a quick sigh. “He will never come to you,” he said.

The physician had drawn a paper toward him and was writing on it. “I can give certain general directions. If they don’t help, he _must_ come.”

John waited while the pen scratched on. “These baths,” said the physician, “are good. They may help.”

John’s eyes grew dubious--a little wide with anxiety.

“These other things,” went on the physician, “are for your discretion. He ’s probably under-nourished. Raw eggs will give him what he needs--tax him least.”

“How many?” asked John.

“All you can get into him.”

The young man’s eyes grew larger--at the way before him....

“He does n’t half breathe, I suppose?”

“I--I don’t know,” said John.

“Watch him. Take him in hand. He must breathe deep--all the time, night and day. Here, I will show you.” He put his hand on the young man’s chest. “Go on--I ’ll tell you when to stop--” He held the hand in place a few minutes, then he withdrew it with a smile. “Tell him to breathe like that,” he said quietly. “He ’ll get well then.”

“Don’t everybody breathe that way?” asked the youth helplessly.

The physician laughed out. “If they did, they would n’t be nervous wrecks.” He handed him the list of instructions. “He must be spared any nervous worry, of course. That is the most important of all. Good-by. If he gets unmanageable, send him to me.”

“I wish I could,” said John with a little smile that was half a frown. He was not appalled at the details of nursing thrust upon him. He had cared for his mother too long and skilfully to be worried by these. But Simeon--yielding gracefully to being dieted--told what to eat and how to breathe and little things like that--!

During the home journey he devoted himself to planning ambushes for Simeon’s obstinacy; and when, after a vigorous bath, he arrived at the office, he was equipped with a dozen “strictly fresh” eggs in a paper bag; a small egg-beater in one pocket and a flask of brandy in the other. This last was a little addition of John’s own--prompted by wisdom, and a knowledge of Simeon. He put the eggs carefully on a high shelf. It would not do to rouse untimely prejudice against them by untoward accidents. The egg-beater and brandy he concealed skilfully behind a row of ledgers. When Simeon entered a little later, irritable and suspicious, there was no sign that the office was to be turned into a kind of fresh air hospital.

The windows were open and a little breeze came in. John, refreshed by his bath, was hard at work, the broad, phlegmatic back a kind of huge mountain of strength. The little man threw himself into his chair with a grunt. He would rest more looking at that back than he could in a bed all night, tossing and turning through the hours.

Schemes had haunted him--visions for the road--New tracks to be run--new regulations. Investments along the route, a little here and a little there, not for the corporation, but to build up the country--capital to help out feeble enterprises. And athwart the visions ran black shadows--disturbing dreams of the C., B. and L., always waiting, weapon in hand, to spring upon him.... If only they would fight fair! He had tossed restlessly, seeking a cool place for his tired head. There was no time to spend in fighting.--So much to be done--his whole life-work to build anew.... Then he had fallen again to staring at the vision as it flared across the night, the vision of light and wonder.... When morning came, he had slept perhaps an hour..

But here, in the cool office, he could rest. The boy came and went with quiet step, his hand everywhere, yet without hurry, and his thought running always ahead of Simeon’s, smoothing the way.

The president of the road had intended to rest, but before he knew it, he was hurrying feverishly to finish a letter for the ten o’clock mail. His head throbbed and his hand, as it dipped the pen in the ink, shook quick spatters across the paper. He swore under his breath, dabbing the blotter here and there.... There was a gentle shiver of egg shell, a little whirring sound that buzzed, and then, upon the air of the room, a subtle, pervasive odor. Simeon raised his head and sniffed. Then he looked around. The boy was at his elbow.

“You’d better take this, sir,” he said casually. He set it down beside him, picked up a pile of papers and returned to his own desk.

Simeon dropped an eye to the glass of yellow foam. He looked hastily away. He particularly and fervently hated an egg--and an egg that foamed--“Bah!” He wrote savagely, the gentle odor stealing up wooingly, appealingly to his nostrils. He moved restlessly in his chair, throwing back his head, as if to shake it off. Then his hand reached out slowly--shook a little--and closed upon it.

John, with his back to him, went on slowly sorting papers. When he looked around, the glass, with its little flecks of foam, stood empty and Simeon was writing fiercely. The boy took the glass to the faucet and washed it, humming a little, gentle tune to himself as the water ran. The first step in a long and difficult way had been taken.

But no one knew better than John that it was only a first step and that the road ahead was strewn with difficulties.... It was at the seventh egg that Simeon rebelled openly, and John was forced to retire upon six-thankful to have achieved as much as this, and thankful to have discovered the limit. “As many as you can get into him,” the physician had said. John had not known what this number might be, until the day of the explosion--when the seventh egg was proffered and rejected.

He had swept up the fragments of glass and repaired damages with grateful heart.... Six a day was the limit. But there ought to be a great deal of nourishment in six eggs.

That there was, Simeon’s conduct proved. He rose to a kind of new, fierce strength that exhausted itself each day.

“He ’s just eggs!” thought the youth, watching him gloomily. “He has n’t gained an inch. It all goes into work.” And he set himself anew to spare the nervous, driven frame.

There were times when he hoped, for a little, that a permanent gain had been made. But an emergency would arise and three days would be used up in one blaze of wrath.

The C., B. and L. was tireless in its attacks, goading him on, nagging him--now here, now there--till he shook his nervous fists, palpitating, in air.

“They’ve held back those machines on purpose,” he said, one morning, late in September.

“Those machines” were a consignment of harvesters, sidetracked somewhere along the C., B. and L. and not to be located. The “B. and Q.” had been telegraphing frantically for weeks--only to receive cool and regretful apologies. Farmers were besieging the road. A whole crop depended on the issue.

Simeon tossed the last telegram to John with a grunt. “We ’ll have to give it up,” he said grimly, “it’s too late. But they shall pay for it--if there is a law in the land, they shall make it good--every cent. Think of that crop--wasted for deviltry!” He groaned suddenly and the hand resting on the desk trembled heavily.

“You could n’t have helped it, sir,” said John. “They would have done it, anyway, and you’ve made them trouble enough.”

“I don’t know--I don’t know.” He turned his head restlessly, as if pursued. “I think any other man would have made ’em.”

The young man laughed out. “They ’re afraid of you, sir--for their life! You ’ve _made_ the ’R. and Q.’”

The man gulped a little. He glanced suspiciously at the door. “I’ve ruined it, I think,” he said slowly. “_There ’s a curse on everything I touch!_”

“Nonsense! Look at _me!_” The young man threw back his head, choosing the first words at hand to banish the look in Simeon’s face. It was this look--the shadow haunting the eyes, that troubled him. Sometimes when he turned and caught it, his own heart seemed suddenly to stop its beat, at what it saw there. “Look at me!” he said laughing. “You have n’t ruined _me!_”

The man looked at him--a long, slow, hopeless look. Then he shook his head. “It’s no use, John. I’m broken--! The road has used all of me--” He stopped suddenly, his gaze fixed on the floor.... A memory rang in his ear. The high Scotch voice thrilled through it. “They’ve not gi’e their strength to the road, as I have. The road’s had all o’ me.”

That night John visited Dr. Blake again.

XIV

The assistant bookkeeper had returned from his two weeks’ vacation--most of which had been spent in the vicinity of the main offices of the C., B. and L.--feeling a little sore. He had not been treated with the respect due to a person entrusted with important interests. Certain reports which represented hours of faithful work had been looked upon as of little worth, and others--facts most difficult, even dangerous, to obtain--had been demanded crassly. Moreover, his statement that the president of the “R. and Q.” was practically a broken-down man had been openly flouted.

“You don’t know him,” the manager of the C., B. and L. had declared, sitting back in his big chair. “He’s been a broken-down man for years. I’d like to be broken-down, myself, the way he is, a little while!” Eds chair creaked comfortably. “He ’s a steel trap! That ’s what he is!” he said sharply. “Look out for your fingers.”

The assistant bookkeeper had smiled ruefully, rubbing the fingers together. “Of course, I’ve never seen him before,” he said respectfully, “but if I know a man that ’s pretty near frazzled out--he ’s the man. There’s nothing to him but a blaze.”

“You don’t know him,” said the manager brusquely. He took a sealed envelope from the desk and held it out.... “When you report again, we want the names of all parties shipping, with rates--and rebates,” he added significantly. “This won’t do, you know.” He tapped the report that had cost the assistant bookkeeper many anxious hours--lightly with his finger.

The bookkeeper, whose hand almost of itself had reached out for the envelope, hesitated a little. “I don’t know that I shall stay with the ’R. and Q.,’” he said softly.

“Don’t you!” The manager’s keen eyes read his little soul through--and smiled. “You have n’t any particular position in mind where you can draw a better salary for keeping one set of books, have you!”

“I don’t know that I have--just now.” The tone was defiant--but wobbly.

“All right, stay where you are. You won’t do better. Take my advice. You ’re getting along all right.”

The assistant bookkeeper glanced again at the envelope--and took it. “You better see Tetlow, yourself,” he said as he went out.

The manager nodded. “You ’re all right,” he repeated.

“Harrington will bear watching,” he said to the division superintendent. “I don’t trust him.”

“Don’t trust anybody,” said the superintendent. “You won’t get fooled.”

“I wish I knew the truth about Sim Tetlow,” went on the other. “It would be just like him to pretend he was a wreck, and then spring on us and paw us all over while we ’re getting ready to squeeze him.... You can’t trust Harrington. He works for his pay.” He touched the report a little scornfully. “But who knows that Tetlow is n’t paying him--to say that he ’s a wreck--That makes three salaries--?”

“Go and see for yourself,” said the other curtly.

The manager’s face grew thoughtful. The shrewd light spread to his fat cheeks. “It ’s a good idea. I ’ll do it--right off.”

XV

JOHNS’s second visit to Dr. Blake was much briefer than the first.

The doctor had refused to advise further without direct consultation. “I must see the man,” he said decisively.

And when John had demurred, he had asked the patient’s name.

“Simeon Tetlow!” he said thoughtfully, but smiling a little. “Why did n’t you tell me at first it was Sim Tetlow?”

“Do you know him?” asked John.

“I knew him years ago, in college. He was n’t what he is now--more human blood. I knew him pretty well up to the time he was married.”

John looked up. “I did n’t know he was married!”

“A beautiful woman,” said the doctor, “too good for him--She died the next year--and the baby--That was twenty years ago and more........ So it’s Sim! I might have guessed. There is n’t a man in a thousand miles that fits the case as he does--Driving himself to death!”

The young man waited directions.

“Send him to me,” said the doctor. “He ’ll come--Yes. He won’t mind seeing _me!_” He laughed a little.

John started for home with lighter heart. Simeon would obey the great doctor--and all would be well. He even slept a little on the way. But when the train reached Bay-port, it was not yet three o’clock. He hesitated as he left the station. He had not expected to reach home before morning and his mother was not expecting him. She would be sure to waken--perhaps lie awake the rest of the night. He turned his steps toward the “R. and Q.” office building. There was a cushioned settle in the little upper office; he had had it brought in lately--in the hope that Simeon would use it. He would spend the rest of the night there, and be on hand in the morning.

He turned the key noiselessly in the lock and went in. The great building lay silent and shadowy as he made his way from room to room, up flight after flight of long stairs, guided only by the sense of touch and familiarity. The darkness about him seemed filled with whispers--plots, counterplots. He felt them vaguely, as he climbed--yet with a certain serenity of heart. Simeon would see Dr. Blake. All would be right. Let the master of the road once be master of himself and the shadows would melt. He crossed the upper loft and went into the little room. The air was stifling, after the freshness outside, and he threw open the windows, leaning out to breathe deep. He heard the roar of the engine coming into the yard on the still air and saw the lights gleam through the smoke.