Part 11

Without finishing the sentence, Harry knitted his brow and shook his head. It was not a pleasant thought--he told himself it was an unjust thought--but, as he had gone in to win, he might as well take every precaution. If the conditions were a little different, it might put an end to her flirtatious mood and compel a more serious consideration of his suit; it might have a tendency to emphasize his point and "wake her up," as he expressed it. Possibly, it was just the argument needed.

With this in mind, he again called upon Murray.

"I'm in a little trouble," he explained. "I ought to have had that policy made out to my wife."

"It makes no difference, unless the estate is involved in some way," explained Murray. "She'll get it through--"

"It makes a big difference," interrupted Harry. "You see, I've got to get the wife."

"What!" ejaculated Murray. "Say that again, please."

"Why, if I had an insurance policy in favor of my wife, it would make it easier to get the wife, wouldn't it?"

"Thunder!" exclaimed Murray. "I thought I was pretty well up on insurance financiering, but this beats me. Are you hanging an insurance policy up as a sort of prize package?"

"That's it, that's it!" cried Harry, pleased to find the situation so quickly comprehended. "The other fellow is worth more, but insurance looks bigger than anything else I can buy for the money, and I want to show her how much safer she will be with me than with him."

"You're all right," laughed Murray, "but I'm afraid you'll have to marry first. We can't very well make a policy payable to a person who doesn't exist, and you have no wife now. When you have one, bring the policy back if you're not satisfied to have it payable to the estate, and--"

"But she's got it."

"Who?"

"The girl. I assigned it to her, so she doesn't have to marry me to get the benefit. That wasn't good business."

Murray leaned back in his chair and looked at the youth with amusement and curiosity.

"No," he said at last, "that may have been good sentiment, but it wasn't good business. And," he added jokingly, "I don't know that this transaction is quite legal."

"Why not?" asked Harry anxiously.

"Well, we're not allowed to give prizes, and, if a girl goes with the policy, it looks a good deal like a prize-package affair. I'm not sure that that wouldn't be considered worse than giving rebates on premiums."

"You've got the wrong idea," argued Harry with solemn earnestness. "The girl doesn't go with the policy, but the policy goes with me. At least, that's what I intended."

"Better try it again with another policy," suggested Murray. "Make it payable to your estate, and then hang on to it until you get the girl. Let me give you a word of advice, too, although it's not exactly to my interest."

"Well?"

"Well, the policy that you gave to her doesn't amount to much if you stop paying premiums on it. You might suggest that to her."

"By George! I never thought of that!" exclaimed the youth. "I guess I haven't much of a financial head."

"Oh, you're all right," returned Murray. "You're the first fellow I ever knew who made a matrimonial bureau of an insurance office. I've got something to learn about this business yet."

With his second policy in his pocket, Harry reverted quite casually to the subject of insurance, although he had first taken the precaution to have a lot of insurance literature sent to Alice. From this she learned that nothing could quite equal it in making the future secure.

"I have decided," said Harry in an offhand way, "that the best investment for a young man who has any one dependent upon him is life insurance. I have just taken out another policy for a thousand dollars."

"How thoughtful of you!" exclaimed Alice.

"It's on the twenty-year endowment plan," explained Harry. "At the end of twenty years the whole sum may be drawn down or it may be left to accumulate. As provision for the future, I guess that makes any two or three thousand in the bank look like thirty cents."

"You're awfully good to me," said Alice, for this apparent evidence of unselfish devotion, in addition to what had preceded it, really made her reproach herself for her capriciousness. But it was such jolly fun to keep two men anxious!

"The insurance," Harry went on, "is payable to my estate."

"What does that mean, Harry?" she asked.

"It means," replied Harry, "that a girl has got to marry me to get a chance at it."

"I always did like you, Harry."

"Yes?"

"But you're so impatient."

Harry was beginning to develop a little strategical ingenuity.

"There is no need," he said, "to make a secret of this. I'm not ashamed to have all the girls know that I am making proper provision for the one who becomes my wife."

"Harry Renway," exclaimed Alice, "if you make our private affairs a subject of public gossip I'll never speak to you again as long as I live."

Thereupon Harry demonstrated that he was not as "simple" as he was supposed to be, for he promptly returned the kiss that she had given him on a previous occasion. There could be no misinterpreting "our" private affairs.

"When?" he asked.

"Oh, pretty soon," she replied, for the flirtatious instinct was still in evidence. Besides, under the circumstances, too much haste might be in poor taste. However, their friends were told of the engagement, and that was something. Tom Nelson was angry and disgusted.

"The fool!" he exclaimed. "A live man wants to have the use of his money, and he has tied himself up with insurance. That isn't my way."

"But he got the girl," some one suggested.

"Not yet," retorted Tom, "and you never can tell."

In truth, it seemed as if Tom's insinuation was almost prophetic, for Alice procrastinated and postponed in a most tormenting way, and Harry took it all in good part for two or three months. There was no particular reason for this delay, as the preliminaries of such a wedding as they would have could be arranged very quickly, and in time it tried the patience even of Harry.

"The semi-annual premium on that first policy is due the day after to-morrow," he remarked one evening.

"Well?" she returned inquiringly.

"If the premium isn't paid the policy lapses," he went on.

"But you'll pay it?"

"For my wife I will."

She gave him a quick look and knew that he was not going to be swayed this time by her little cajoleries.

"But, Harry," she protested, "that's so--so soon."

"I have the license in my pocket," he said; "there's a church within two blocks, and I saw a light in the pastor's study as I came by. I guess we've waited long enough. Let's go out for a little stroll."

* * * * *

It was six months later that Harry again met Dave Murray, but Murray remembered him.

"Did you get the prize with your policy?" asked Murray.

"Sure," replied Harry.

"Was it a good prize?"

"Bully!" said Harry. "A little hard to handle just at first, but you can do almost anything with insurance."

"You certainly have made good use of it," laughed Murray.

"You bet I have," answered Harry with some pride. "Why, say! an insurance policy is the greatest thing in the world for family discipline."

"For what!" exclaimed Murray.

"Family discipline. The first time we had a little rumpus she had me going seven ways for Sunday until I thought of the insurance policies. 'Well,' said I, 'if I'm not the head of the house there's no reason why I should be paying insurance premiums, and I'll default on the next one. The head of the house looks after things of that sort,' I told her, and that settled it. I'm the head of the house, and, if I don't play it too strong, I've got the thing to maintain discipline."

"Don't you want another policy?" laughed Murray.

"Well," returned Harry thoughtfully, "if I could get the same kind of prize with another, and if it wasn't against the law, I rather think I might be tempted to do it. Anyhow, there can't anybody tell me there's nothing in insurance, for I know better."

AN INCIDENTAL SACRIFICE

"I guess it's all up with us," said Sidney Kalin despairingly.

"It looks that way," admitted his brother, Albert Kalin.

The father, Jonas Kalin, sat at his desk with his head half-buried in his hands.

"There is no chance for an extension, of course," he said wearily.

"I should say not," returned Sidney. "Telmer bought up the mortgage for just one purpose, and his only hope of success lies in foreclosing. He wants to get his hands on the invention."

"Will he take an interest in the business?" asked Jonas.

"Why should he, when he can get the only thing he wants without?" returned Sidney.

"What does Dempsey say?" persisted the senior Kalin.

"It's out of his line," answered Albert, to whom the question was addressed. "If five thousand would straighten the thing out, he might risk it, but he wouldn't put up a cent more than that, and he'd want a twenty-five per cent. interest in the business for that sum."

"And, if we can save it, the thing is worth a fortune," groaned Jonas. "We've got a start already, and there's almost no limit to the possibilities. It ought to be worth fifty thousand a year inside of three years. He doesn't want much."

"Well, he's out of the question, anyway," said Sidney. "We've got to have twenty-five thousand, and we've got to have it mighty soon."

"My life insurance is more than that," mused Jonas.

"What good does that do?" retorted Sidney rather sharply. "Even if you wanted to surrender it, the cash surrender value is less than ten thousand at the present time."

"That would help," argued Jonas.

"Nothing will help that doesn't put the full sum needed within our reach," asserted Albert. "We're about due to begin life over again with a little less than nothing."

"I'll think it over," said Jonas, rising and wearily reaching for his hat. "I've always weathered the storms before. Perhaps I'll find a way to weather this one."

Jonas Kalin once had been accounted a successful real estate man, but he had lost a good deal of money in speculation, and the time and thought he gave to speculation had had an injurious effect upon his business. One of the sons had been for a time in the employ of a manufacturer of fountain pens. Later the elder Kalin had started both boys, as an independent firm, in that line of business, their pen differing sufficiently from others to avoid any infringement of patents on patented features. They had made no great amount of money, indeed barely a living income, but they had kept out of debt until Sidney invented a machine for finishing the shell or case of the pen.

His experiments had been rather costly, and the machine had been costly to construct, but he had convinced his father that it was a good thing, and Jonas had given up his dwindling real estate business and put what money he had left into his sons' firm, becoming a partner in the enterprise. Even then it had been found necessary to borrow twenty-five thousand dollars in order to establish the business on the new and larger basis, giving a mortgage on the entire plant, which included the new machine, and this mortgage had passed into the hands of a more prosperous business rival at a time when the value of the invention was just becoming apparent. This invention largely reduced the cost of production, but the exploiting so far done, although expensive and reasonably successful, had not enabled the Kalins to accumulate anything to meet their obligation. Indeed, believing they would have no difficulty in securing an extension, they had not worried about this until they found themselves in the power of a rival.

The machine had not been patented, for reasons that most successful inventors will readily understand. While a patent is supposed to protect the inventor, it does not do so in many instances; on the contrary, it frequently gives a rival just the information he needs to duplicate the device with technical variations that will at least make the question of infringement a difficult one to decide. The inventor of limited means, opposed by a company with almost unlimited capital, is at a serious disadvantage when he gets into the courts, and there are cases where the value of an invention has been largely destroyed by having the market flooded with the article before the legal rights can be definitely determined. There is hardly a single patented device of great value that has not been the basis of long and costly litigation, involving either the unauthorized use or manufacture of the device as it is or the use or manufacture of a device suggested by the original and differing from it only enough to give technical plausibility to the plea that it is not an infringement. Even the great Edison is reported to have said that he has made practically no money on his patents, but has had to enter the manufacturing business to get any material benefit from his inventions.

"When you patent an invention," the Kalins had been informed by a man of experience in such matters, "you are furnishing ammunition to the enemy. You are giving him your secret, and he will put some smart men at work to discover some method of using it himself. Edison is still busy with inventions, but you don't see his name in the patent reports any more. He has become too wise for that. Secrecy is the best protection, provided you have something that can be kept secret."

All this Jonas Kalin reviewed as he walked slowly and with bowed head toward his club. They had kept their invention secret, they had advertised extensively, and now, just as they were beginning to get returns on their investment, the dream was shattered. They had tried to interest various capitalists, but capitalists could not see the future as they saw it. Capital is exceptionally conservative when there is a question of investing in inventions that it does not understand, for inventors are proverbially optimistic and not infrequently cost capital a good deal of money.

"Thirty thousand dollars of life insurance!" muttered Jonas, as he settled himself in a corner of the reading-room. "If we could have the use of that money for a year we would be all right."

Jonas was a widower, but his wife had been living when he had taken out this insurance. Now it would go to the sons eventually, if they survived him, but, meanwhile, they would lose a fortune. Since the death of his wife, Jonas had given his every thought to the boys and their future. He reproached himself for the speculations that had deprived him of the power of helping them as he had planned in earlier days; he felt that somehow he had defrauded them. So deeply did he feel this that from the day he gave up his real estate business he never had put one dollar into a speculation of any kind, except so far as his investment in their business was a speculation.

"If we could make that go," he mused, as he crouched miserably in the big chair, "I should be content. I owe it to the boys to see them fairly started. I was in a position to do it once and I lost the money foolishly--their money, by rights, for I had put it aside for them. And here am I, almost useless--a business wreck--too old to begin again as an employee and lacking the capital to be an employer or to do business of any sort for myself. Instead of helping my boys, I am to be a burden to them--until I die. I am of value only in the grave." He shuddered and seemed to sink still lower in the chair. "It is my duty to do what I can for them," he added. "I am useless, but life is before them--a continuation of my life. I must be a success through my sons."

Benson, a friend, stopped near him.

"What's the matter, Kalin?" asked Benson. "You look blue."

Kalin looked up at Benson in a dazed way, and for a moment seemed to be unable to grasp the fact that he had been addressed.

"Benson," he said at last, his eyes wandering dreamily about the room, "is a man ever justified in committing suicide?"

Benson was startled, but he replied promptly and emphatically, "Never."

"Suppose," Kalin went on, "that your life intervened between those you love and happiness; suppose that your life meant misery and failure for them, while your death meant success and--and comfort."

Benson drew up a chair and placed his hand on Kalin's arm as if to emphasize his words.

"_The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away_," he quoted earnestly. "Life is God's gift and should be treasured as such. You may not return it until He calls, unless you would doubt His wisdom."

Kalin nodded his head thoughtfully.

"Men have gone to certain death for those they love and been glorified for so doing," he argued.

"A man may _give_ his own life to save the life of another and be a hero," returned Benson, "but he may not _take_ his own life for any cause and be aught but a coward."

"What matters it whether he takes it or gives it, so long as the purpose is the same?" asked Kalin.

Benson gripped the arm on which his hand lay and shook Kalin.

"Wake up!" he commanded sharply. "What's the matter with you to-day?"

Kalin roused himself, as if from a dream, and laughed in a forced, dreary way.

"Nothing is the matter with me," he replied. "I must have been reading something that gave my thoughts a morbid turn. Still, your reasoning seems to be that of a man who never has been tested. Your view has been my view, but I can see how a man's views may change when he is confronted by the actual conditions concerning which he has previously only theorized. I don't think you're right."

"It's a disagreeable subject, even for abstract consideration," asserted Benson. "Let's drop it."

"All right," said Kalin. "I'm going in to lunch."

In the dining-room he got into an obscure corner and the waiter had to joggle his elbow to rouse him from the reverie into which he immediately fell. Then, after barely tasting the lunch he ordered, he went to the office of the club and asked that all charges against him be footed up.

"There's nothing against me at all now?" he said inquiringly as he paid the bill.

"Nothing at all, sir," replied the clerk.

"I'd hate to leave any club debts," he remarked, as if talking aloud to himself.

At his office he found his sons still gloomily discussing the situation.

"I think," he said, "that I have found a way to save the business."

"How?" they asked eagerly.

"The details are not quite clear in my mind yet," he replied. "I would like to give them a little more thought before explaining the matter. But, if I succeed in pulling you through, you boys must be mighty careful in the future. A concern doesn't get out of this kind of hole twice, and I'm going to turn it all over to you."

"Why?" asked Albert in surprise.

"I ruined one business," was the reply. "One is enough. Be cautious. Go slow. You've got a good thing--a fortune--if you handle your finances properly and don't try to spread out too fast."

He shook hands with both the boys, to their great bewilderment.

"Where are you going?" asked Sidney. "One would think you were starting on a long journey."

"I'm taking leave of the business," he answered, with a laugh that had something of pathos in it. "I'm going to shut myself up for a day or so until I get my little scheme elaborated, and then you shall have the benefit of it, but I am out of active business."

Sidney and Albert were silent for some time after he had left. Jonas Kalin always had been a rather eccentric man, and they were accustomed to letting his whims and peculiarities of word and action pass without comment, but there was something in this parting that made them feel uncomfortable.

"I don't like it," remarked Sidney. "I wonder if the worry and disappointment have been too much for him."

"It is a hard blow to him--not for himself, but for us," returned Albert. "However, we'll see him this evening."

Mrs. Albert Kalin was the housekeeper for the three men. Sidney, being a bachelor, had always lived with his father, but Albert had married and moved away from the parental roof. Then, when his mother died, Jonas had called him back and practically turned the house over to him and his wife, reserving only one large room for himself. In this he had his own little library, and to this he frequently retired for long evenings of solitude, for, while not a recluse, he was a man who really needed no other companionship than his own thoughts and often seemed to avoid the society of others.

He was not at home, however, when his sons arrived for dinner. Mrs. Albert Kalin said he had brought home two or three bundles early in the afternoon, had gone directly to his room, where he remained for about an hour, and had then appeared with a valise.

"I never saw him look so haggard and distressed," she explained. "He kissed me most affectionately and said he had some business to attend to and would not be home to-night."

Late that evening Sidney Kalin went to his father's club, where he saw Benson and learned enough to send him to police headquarters. There was no publicity, but a search for the missing man was begun at once. The circumstances were, to say the least, disquieting.

At the moment this search was begun Jonas Kalin was crossing Lake Michigan on one of the large steamers, and his actions were such as to attract the attention of some of the other passengers. It was a Friday night boat and was crowded with excursionists bound for a Saturday and Sunday outing in Michigan. Jonas had a state-room, but he merely put his valise in it, and then paced the deck, occasionally stopping to lean over the rail and look down at the water. Once or twice he sought a secluded corner and sat for a time buried in thought, but he moved away the moment others stopped near him. About eleven o'clock, as he passed through the main cabin, he saw a woman putting a little boy to bed on a sofa, and he offered her his state-room.

"I'm very grateful to you, sir," she replied, "but we couldn't think of taking it. You'll need it yourself."

"I shall not sleep to-night," he said. "It will be vacant unless you take it. Shove the valise into a corner somewhere and I'll get it in the morning."

He dropped the state-room key on a chair and disappeared through a door leading to the deck before she could make further protest, but his face haunted her all that night. In the morning, after some search, she found him huddled up on a camp-stool against the rail of the forward deck, and she thanked him again.

"You don't look well," she ventured. "Can I do anything for you?"

"It's not a question of what any one can do for me," he answered, "but of what I can do for others."

"I don't understand you, sir," she said.

"It's a good thing you don't," he returned, and, fearing that she had to deal with a crazy man, she left him.

After landing, he went directly to a hotel, engaged a room, and shut himself up in it until afternoon. Then he went to the dock and wandered nervously back and forth, looking out over the water and occasionally down into it. The dock men watched him curiously, and one of them loosened a life-preserver that hung near, but he went back to the hotel without giving them an opportunity to use it.

He kept close to his room at the hotel, and was so unobtrusive that the clerks and the other guests hardly realized he was there, and, being registered under an assumed name, not one of them recognized him as the Jonas Kalin who was described in the Sunday papers as being missing. For, the secret search Friday night and Saturday failing to reveal any trace of him, his sons had decided to try the effect of publicity.

It was not until he had surrendered his room Sunday night that his identity was established. On the table was found a letter, sealed, addressed to Sidney Kalin.

"Kalin!" cried the clerk, when the letter was brought to him. "Good Lord! that's the man who disappeared. And there's a reward for information. I remember, too, he had all the Sunday papers sent to his room, and then kept out of the way until the moment he left."