Part 11

"Well, where's your money? I've got to have some money right away."

Miriam fumbled for an instant at her waist. She did this more for appearance' sake than anything else, for she well knew that she had none to give him. Every day she had given him about everything she made.

"Yes, Laurie," she faltered, "yes, of course." And turning to Shirley, added by way of apology for him: "Such an ordeal as Laurie has been through--such a strain."

Shirley was in a panic. What she had seen was enough to make her heart-sick.

"Oh," she suddenly exclaimed, "I have forgotten all about father! I left him alone--I simply must go now. You don't know how glad ..." And turning to Challoner, she held out her hand to him. But ignoring her completely, he again said to his wife:--

"Miriam, where is that money?"

"Laurie is such a business man now, Shirley," said Miriam, smiling bravely at the girl.

But the contempt which Shirley felt for the man before her was too great for words; and she merely repeated:--

"Yes, I must be going now!"

Half way across the room she halted, hesitated for a moment, and then finally opening her purse, took from it a fifty dollar bill.

"There, Miriam," she said with a note of relief, "I have been meaning for a long time to pay back that fifty dollars I borrowed from you a few years ago--when I was so hard up for money. I'm ashamed not to have returned it before; and it's just like you not to remind me. There, dear, I've put it on the chiffonier; and now, good-bye!" And she was gone before Miriam could even protest against her action.

For Miriam knew quite as well as did Shirley that there never had been such a loan between them; and rushing out into the hall, she called to the other to come back; but Shirley by this time was well out of hearing.

"She's gone!" Miriam declared forlornly, panting from her fruitless chase.

Shirley's flight did not worry Challoner. He took advantage of Miriam's temporary absence to steal to the chiffonier and to seize the fifty dollar bill. Miriam entered the room in time to see him thrusting it into his pocket, and cried out angrily:--

"Laurie, I wish you to put that back! We are not thieves; it does not belong to us; and I'm going to send it back to Shirley."

Challoner grinned.

"What do you think I am?" he finally asked. "A fool?"

He tried to pass her; she blocked his way, and repeated:--

"I want you to put that back!"

"I have got to have some money," he maintained sulkily, stowing it still further in his trousers pocket.

"Give me that fifty dollar bill, I say!" went on Miriam, clutching at him.

"No, I will not!" returned her husband, stubbornly, and sought to escape; but she caught him by the arm and pulled him back. He tried to wrench himself away; but for once her strength was superior to his. She was beside herself with sudden anger, with shame, with ignominy, with agony.

"You give that bill to me!" she said through her closed teeth.

"You let me go!" he growled, almost jerking himself out of her grasp. Then followed a struggle that was short, sharp but decisive, inasmuch as he finally succeeded in wrenching himself free from her. And now, turning quickly, he smote her with his clenched hand full in the face.

Miriam staggered back; her eyes opened wide in humiliated astonishment.

"Oh! Laurie!" she cried, not with physical pain, although there upon her face, now red, now white, was a broad, blotched mark--the bruise that the brute had left there.

He made a movement to go; but again she was in time to prevent him; for quick as a flash she had darted to the chiffonier, opened the top drawer and drawn forth a weapon.

"Stop!" she cried in a hard voice. "Don't you dare to leave this room with that money!"

Challoner blinked at her stupidly.

"What are you going to do?" he demanded.

Miriam laughed hysterically.

"What am I going to do? I know what you're going to do! You're going to bring that fifty dollars back here to me!"

"Indeed? Well I'm not!" reiterated Challoner.

Miriam tapped the pistol in her hand.

"Do you see this?"

He grunted fearlessly.

"Well, what of it?"

"Give me that money," she insisted, approaching him. As yet she had not levelled the weapon; and Challoner, seeing his opportunity, started once more.

"_Stop!_" It was a new voice that spoke now: the blow that had struck her face had suddenly transformed her into a desperate woman.

Challoner stopped; for he saw the weapon trained upon him. Again, without affecting her aim, she tapped it.

"Listen to me!" she cried, her voice growing hoarser as she went on, "this thing has been responsible for one murder, and now, Lawrence Challoner, I'm going to kill you with it. It's the last straw that breaks the camel's back. I hate you! I despise you!" she raged. "I loved you once, I have always loved you until now; you loved me once, too, I know--though other people thought that you had married me for my money. But I knew different--you couldn't fool me about that! And it was because of that love that I have lived for you and nothing else. You have been everything in the world to me--my god, almost. But it is all over now! I'm through with you, and I'm going to have you thrown like some soiled rag into the gutters of humanity--where you belong!"

She paused for breath, but not once did her weapon falter.

"There are two things," she resumed, "that stand out in my memory just now. The first is the night when you did not come home! Do you remember that night?--No--there were too many of them later on! But I have never forgotten that night I spent in the torture chamber! It was a white night for me."

Again she paused, and her voice deepened as she said:--

"Lawrence Challoner, the time will come when you will wail and whine and wonder why I don't come to you--why it is not my footsteps that you hear! But you will wait for me through a long, long night, and I shall never come....

"Oh, it does me good when I recall the day that Prosecutor Murgatroyd told those twelve men the kind of a man you were," she declared scornfully. "It does me good, too, to recall how you writhed under the lash and quivered when he cut you to the quick. But now I'm going to do more to you than you ever did to me--more than Murgatroyd did to you...."

She stopped, and then went on mercilessly:--

"I'm going to tear your soul out--yes, you've got a soul, or I would never have gone down into the depths with you! But now I'm through serving you without receiving so much as a smile," she continued fiercely, her body swaying, but her aim still true. "I don't ask for my rights or my just dues; a smile and a kind word now and then is all I ask. My pride is not all gone; I'd like to be proud of you just once. I lie about you to my friends--to my dearest friends--and you convict me with the miserable truth! I clung to you through all your vices, I clung to you even when you killed, I clung to you because I knew that somewhere within you there was something that clamoured for me, that clung to my affection. But feeble as it was, it is dead now. And you are the shell, the ugly hulk, a thing without the soul that I cared for! But I'm through with you--I'm going to kill you--don't you move--I'm through with you--through--" The next moment she dropped the weapon, and it fell clattering to the floor.

"No, no," she cried, apparently calm now. "I won't kill you--I wouldn't be guilty of such a thing. You're not worth it," she burst out into a wild laugh. "You're not worth it--no--no--no--" she cried, trailing off into hysteria.

At that instant Shirley Bloodgood once more entered the room. Some instinct had brought her back again.

"Miriam!" she exclaimed.

Miriam burst forth into another wild laugh, and then threw herself into the arms of the girl, where she lay unconscious for some moments.

"She's fainted," said Shirley, glancing at Challoner, accusingly.

Challoner stood stupidly where he was for an instant. Then he thrust his hand into his trousers pocket and pulled out a fifty dollar bill, saying in a new strange tone:--

"Shirley, I took this fifty dollar bill from the drawer over there--you'd better take it--it belongs to you."

The girl took it wonderingly.

"I'll take care of her," Challoner went on, gently taking the form of his young wife from Shirley and holding her in his arms.

It was thus that Shirley Bloodgood left them; and as the door closed on her, Challoner leaned over Miriam and stroked her face and kissed her affectionately while the tears rolled down his cheeks. That same night she was taken to a hospital with a raging fever.

XIII

The following morning, James Lawrence Challoner did that which he had never done since his marriage: he started out to look for a job. Something, which he could not explain, was forcing him to try to get work; but had he been given to self-analysis, he would have known that it was Miriam's wrath in her adversity that had kindled into flame the flickering, dying spark of his manhood.

Until now, Challoner had assumed that work was to be had by any man for the mere asking of it; but he was surprised, startled, shocked, to find that it was not; that is to say, the clerkships and such work as he thought would be to his liking; and each night he returned to his cheerless, lonely room in the tenement, sore, leg-weary, after a long unsuccessful quest. Work? Little by little he was learning that there was no work "lying round loose" for the James Lawrence Challoners of this world! And yet he persevered.

"I must find something to do," he kept saying over and over again to himself.

And then one day at the end of two weeks he found himself at the end of a long line of Italian labourers who were seeking employment.

When the foreman came to Challoner, he called out in surprise:--

"What do you want?"

"Work!" replied the man inside the shell of Challoner.

"With the 'ginneys'?"

"With the 'ginneys,'" assented Challoner.

The foreman stared.

"All right," he said, after thinking a bit, "let's have your name."

For a brief second Challoner hesitated; there was a new light in his eyes when he said:--

"Challoner--J. L."

And all that day he worked--worked with his hands, and with his feet--worked with the gang tamping concrete. It is a simple enough process when one stands aside and looks at it; but after two hours of it, Challoner thought he would drop in his tracks.

It so happened that his work was on a new department store going up in town. Concrete suddenly had come into prominence as a building material. Challoner and the gang stood inside a wooden mould some two or three feet wide and as long as the wall which they were building; another gang poured in about them a mixture of sand, cement, and stone. Sand, cement, and stone meant nothing to Challoner, except that when those three things were mixed with water and dumped down into his trench, he had to lift up his tamper and pound, pound, pound the mixture into solidity, in order to fill the crevices, and to make the wall hard and smooth. Meanwhile, his feet were soaked; his boots were caked with cement; his hands were blistered frightfully; and his face was burned by the sun. Nevertheless, Challoner sweated, toiled on.

For days after this first day of labour he was stiff, lame, and sore all over. In his soul he wanted to die; but he lived on. And then, much to his amazement, he found that the harder he worked, the better he felt: the poison of his dissolute living was working toward the surface.

At last the day came when the doctors allowed him to visit Miriam in the hospital.

"I've got a job, dear," he whispered to her. That was all he told her then; but those five words were a history to Miriam.

Another day when again visiting her at the hospital, he told her how they mixed the stuff, how they made the wooden moulds, and about the crowds that gathered around them, for the process was a new one.

"People don't believe in it, don't think it will stand," he said, watching her closely.

On her face came the interested look that he so desired, and she asked:--

"Will it, Laurie?"

"Like a rock," he assured her.

But Challoner was ignorant of the danger then, for he had not reckoned with the human element in the character of construction. All he knew was that he worked from morning until night at the cheapest of all cheap, unskilled labour.

After a little while Miriam put out a thin hand and let it rest in his, saying:--

"How much do they give you, dear?"

Not without a suggestion of pride in his voice, the man answered:--

"A dollar and a half a day."

A dollar and a half a day! Surely a mere pittance; and yet the woman's face was radiant with joy.

It was not long before Challoner found that his arms and back and shoulders were perceptibly enlarging. At first it was merely at his physical strength that he rejoiced; but this, in turn, soon made way for a greater joy: he realised that his soul was surging back into his body; he had driven it out, but it would not stay away.

From time to time, Challoner noted that the tamping was developing him too much on one side. With the long broom handle, the weight down at the end, his downward stroke had been a right-handed one. So now he tried using force from the left side. And with that Challoner made a discovery!

After many experiments it had been gradually borne in upon him that light but incessant and vigorous tamping in one spot was more effective than the heavy, battering strokes employed by the Italians. The stuff was smooth and slippery when it first came in, and, consequently, all that was necessary was something to induce the stones to slip gently into solidity.

"If the tampers were only light enough," he argued to himself, "a fellow could almost use two of them, one in each hand."

And so he tried it with the two tampers that were on the work; but they proved to be too heavy. Then, one night, he made a pair of lighter ones and experimented with them. It was too much of a strain; he could not handle them satisfactorily. Somehow, the work needed the concentrated effort of two arms.

All one night he sat up trying to figure it out. "And yet," he assured himself repeatedly, "I'm on the right track." And so it proved. For at four o'clock in the morning the idea came.

"I've got it!" he exclaimed, jumping to his feet. "A pump handle!"

A week later, Challoner rigged up a simple contrivance depending upon strong leverage--one that would do the work of a man much more easily.

"It will do the work of _two_," he told himself.

But when Challoner had taken it to the works, the authorities refused him permission to use it.

"This here is a real job. We haven't time to monkey with things like that!" they told him with a sneer.

But Challoner was not to be turned aside so easily; and still he persisted:--

"It will do the work of two."

Now it must not be supposed that Challoner was of a particularly inventive nature; not a bit of it. Simply, he was a man of average intelligence, working at a dollar and a half a day. His intelligence, however, was superior to that of the men about him. Moreover, his brain was independently busy, while his hands worked.

So now he rigged himself up a small trial mould, bought some sand and cement and rock, and demonstrated the superiority of his pump-handle contrivance with its strong leverage, its regularity and its strong, steady beat, beat, beat, with two light tampers upon adjacent spots. When they knocked off the mould, these same authorities found that Challoner was right: this bit of concrete wall was as solid as if it had been cut out of smooth azoic rock. So they called out:--

"All right, Challoner--try it on!"

Challoner tried it on the big wall. It worked like a charm.

At the pay-window, at the end of the week Challoner said:--

"I want two dollars and a half--two dollars and a half a day, now."

"What for?" came from the voice inside.

Challoner replied firmly:--

"Because I've done the work of more than two men." The next day he was paid at the rate of two dollars a day.

Now he was allowed to have one of the corners all to himself for his contrivance. The week after that they laid off two men: Challoner now was doing the work of three men. In fact, from that time he and his machine were made the pace-makers for the entire line of workmen.

The boss was jubilant.

"Gee! I guess we'll get this job done on time after all!" he was heard to say. "I thought for a while the old man was in for a few fines sure."

Nobody else tried Challoner's device; nobody else knew how to use it. In a way, that was a satisfaction to him. It was a toy, something that he had created to lighten his labours. On the other hand, he found that in his eagerness he laboured three times as hard as before; besides, he was even better at the work than the Italians who knew it, had become accustomed to it, and who were better fitted for it. And yet, there was nothing wonderful in this contrivance of his. But Challoner was convinced that if, sometime, he could induce the boss to put it into constant operation, it would save that gentleman a great deal of money. Nor did it ever enter Challoner's head to have it patented. Its principle was that of the lever, and, of course, even if he had tried, he could not have obtained a patent. In no way was there a dollar in it.

"But," he told himself, "if ever I go into this concrete business, I shall insist upon its use. As a business," he went on, "what can be more profitable than concrete? It produces a wall as solid as a rock and as indestructible as brick. Bricklayers receive five and six dollars a day,--and brick costs money. But this sand, cement, stone and _unskilled_ labour...." Challoner could see millions in it!

Meanwhile, he was useful at two and a half dollars a day. As we have seen, they had made him a pacemaker; now, they determined to put his brain to work for them: it became his duty to direct the mixing-gang at his end of the new store.

"Don't forget, now, watch out," said the superintendent, taking him aside. "So many barrels of cement, so many barrels of sand, and so much stone. Now say it as I told you."

And Challoner repeated for him: so many barrels of cement, so many barrels of sand, and so much stone. But when he was again alone, he said half aloud:--

"So, that's all there is to the concrete business!"

Challoner little knew.

The very first day that he watched the mixing process, he discovered that the mixer had put in too much rock and too much sand--and too little cement.

"Look here!" cried Challoner, "you've made a mistake! Two more barrels of cement go in there--do you understand?"

But the mixer merely grinned.

"Two more barrels of cement, I told you," persisted Challoner. The head-superintendent had given him his instructions, and Challoner meant to see that they were properly carried out.

Another grin from the mixer was all the satisfaction that he received. Instantly, Challoner leaped up on the platform and stood over the mixer. At that, the man waved his arm; his signal brought not the head-superintendent, but the general foreman of the work, who demanded gruffly:--

"What's the trouble here?"

Challoner explained in a few words.

"You blamed idiot!" burst out the raging foreman. "You leave the man alone! Do you think that he don't know how to mix concrete? Leave him alone, I say!"

But Challoner, now, was not a man to be so easily turned from his orders; and again he insisted:--

"Two more barrels of cement, I told you!"

And he kept on insisting so strenuously, that a little knot of labourers gathered around them to await the result. Finally, the foreman saw that the head-superintendent was coming toward them from far down the street.

"All right, then," he conceded reluctantly, "make it two more barrels of cement."

But that same afternoon, the foreman singled Challoner out and paid him. Then he lunged out, and striking Challoner on the shoulder lightly, he exclaimed:--

"There, you infernal jackass! You're discharged!"

"Discharged!" The exclamation fell from his lips before Challoner could check it; and notwithstanding his great disappointment, he made no further comment, but turned on his heel and left. The next day, however, he brought his case before the head-superintendent, who said:--

"If Perkins discharged you, I can't help it. I won't interfere."

"But what was I discharged for?"

"Oh, come now!" cried the superintendent; "you must know that you were discharged for stealing cement!"

Stunned for a moment, Challoner said not a word. Then slowly he began to understand. Graft! Yes, that was the solution of the matter. Cement was worth money in any market; and in the concrete business, nobody could tell,--until it was too late,--just how many barrels went into the mixture. With _bricks_--there was no doubt about bricks. A brick was good or bad; you could tell that by a trowel. But concrete was bound to be a problem henceforth to the end of time.

So it turned out that Challoner was discharged for doing the thing the foreman was guilty of doing. At the time he had little thought of resentment. It is true that he might have "peached" on the foreman, complained to the head-superintendent, and got them to test the walls with a testing-hammer. But it was too late, besides, he knew now that the head-superintendent was tarred with the same stick.

After this incident, Challoner cultivated a habit of strolling into the offices of the various dealers in the city.

"What are the proper concrete proportions?" was his request in all of them.

Charts were taken out and consulted. There was no difference of opinion: all agreed that the head-superintendent's figures were out of the way, and by one barrel of cement.

Graft! There was no doubt about it in his mind; and he proceeded to figure out just where the trouble lay. On that department-store job there were several mixers. On every mixing the head-superintendent made one barrel of cement. There were several foremen. On every individual mixing, the foremen, severally, made two barrels of cement. In every mixing three barrels of cement were left out.

"But what about the _wall_?" Challoner asked himself when once more alone.

And so it came about that he found that in this business, of all businesses, there was a chance for an honest man. After a little while, he found another job--still at two dollars a day. It was beginning once more at the bottom, and working up, yet he did it. But the instant he had worked up, he was again confronted with a similar situation. It was a question of "shut up or get out!" Gradually, it is true, the burden of the song of these men shifted slightly, and became, "Come in with us, or keep silent."

A few more experiences of this sort, and it was given to Challoner to perceive that he had knowledge of these things in advance of the general public. People looked upon concrete as something marvellous. The agitation among the construction men, the newspaper accounts about its cheapness, together with the wonderful results obtained by its use in other cities, all combined to dazzle owners about to build.

From day to day, Challoner could see the demand for concrete increasing. He saw, too, that the price of brick was falling off, because concrete had awakened a new interest in the minds of the people, had aroused their enthusiasm. Plainly, Challoner was excited. He could see, could talk of nothing else. While Miriam was in the hospital he had begun to talk concrete with her; when she was convalescing and had returned to their rooms,--they had three now,--figuratively speaking, they had cement for breakfast and for supper. But it was his business now, and his whole mind was concentrated upon it.