CHAPTER XIII

THE July sun beat fiercely on the tin slate roofs of the houses forming square of Stafford. It was noon, business was at a standstill. The clerks and typewriters in Walton’s bank yawning and fanning themselves heat. The only occupied individual in the building was the banker himself, who was crouched over his desk in his little office making calculations on a pad of paper with a pencil. Toby Lassiter was at the window of the receiving-teller when an old man came in at the folding-screen door and asked if he might see Mr. Walton personally. It was Stephen Whipple, and he carried a travelling-bag in his hand; he was covered with dust, and marked in the creases of his face by drifts of fine cinders.

“I’ll see, sir, if you’ll wait a minute,” Toby answered, with his best window-manners; then he went to his employer, and returned to pilot the caller back to the office.

“Stranded on a trip and wants a check cashed without identification,” was Toby’s mental comment as he led the way. “Well, he’s come to the wrong man, as he will mighty soon find out.”

Whipple gave a searching glance at the man who was rising from the desk with impatiently lifted brows. He put his bag down at his feet, but failed to extend his hand, as Walton evidently expected him to do.

“Take a seat, sir, take a seat,” and the banker motioned to a chair near the desk.

“Thanks.” The Westerner kicked his bag along toward the chair, and sat down rather clumsily. He took out an enormous handkerchief, also considerably begrimed, and mopped his perspiring face.

“You’ve got a hot town, sir,” Whipple said, introductively.

“Some say so, and some say not,” Walton replied, succinctly. “Well, sir,” he continued, “is there anything I can do for you? The reason I make so bold as to ask is because my clerk said you wanted to see me personally.”

“Yes, it is of a sort of personal nature; at least, I reckon, you might call it that,” and the merchant reached down and caught the handle of his bag for no obvious reason than that he wanted to move it to a point equidistant between his two splaying feet. Then he looked up, and there was a decided flush of embarrassment in his face, which extended down to the soiled collar on his pudgy neck. The banker, ever quick at the reading of countenances, came to the conclusion that some sort of unbusiness-like request in regard to needed funds was forthcoming, and he was already framing his refusal.

“Well, sir—well, sir?” he said.

“The truth of the matter is that it is of such a personal nature that it is purty hard to know how to get started at it,” Whipple finally got out. “Of course, I am a stranger to you, and I’ve come, too, without any letters of introduction or papers of identification, and—is there any danger of anybody listening?”

“None whatever—none on earth!” Walton sniffed, impatiently. “You can talk at the top of your voice if you want to; the walls are thick; besides, I don’t have secrets, and I don’t know as I am in the market for any.”

“No, of course not, Mr. Walton.” The flush in the visitor’s face was dying out and giving place to an expression of rather anxious rigidity. “Well, I am glad we won’t be overheard, at any rate, for I want to talk to you in behalf of your son.”

“Oh, that’s it, huh? I see! I see!” And Walton swept the form before him with eyes in which the lights of anger were slowly but positively kindling. “It is about him, is it? Well, wait till I send this letter to the mail. I’ll be back, sir. I’ll be back.”

“All right, Mr. Walton. There’s no hurry.”

With the letter in his hand the banker rose as if from the sheer heat of the growing anger within him and went out. Standing in the door of the main counting-room he caught Lassiter’s eye and signalled him to approach. Giving him the letter, Walton said: “Mail that, and then come back and keep a peeled eye on that fat chap at my desk. Do you remember what I said when that three thousand dollars came from nowhere in particular by express awhile back, along with the mealy-mouthed yarn from Fred about changing his ways, and all that gush?”

“Yes, sir, I think so,” answered the startled Toby. “You said you thought—”

“That it was a deep-laid plan amongst him and some other sharpers to hoodwink me; and I told you, Toby, that I’d be willing to bet money that it wouldn’t be many days before somebody would hike along this way to talk it over—some go-between, you understand. Well, he’s in there now, setting humped over his satchel like a spider watching a fly. He thinks I’m the fly. I want to know what he’s got to say. I want to see his hand, you know, and I come out here to take a whiff of air and steady myself so I wouldn’t blurt out what I thought too quick and drive him away. Keep your eye on him after he leaves me, Toby, and see which way he goes. He looks to me like some shyster lawyer who has taken up the matter and thinks he is smart enough to fool me. Somebody has invested three thousand in this scheme, and the deal is to be clinched this morning. Huh! I’ll sorter tote ‘im along, Toby, and see if I can get onto his game,” and, with a sly and yet nervous wink, Walton turned away.

“Yes, sir; all right now, sir,” he said, breezily, as he returned to his desk and lowered himself into his chair. “We’ve got this room all to ourselves, and are as snug as a bug in a rug, as the fellow said. Now, fire ahead.”

“Of course, it must be a sort o’ disagreeable subject for you to talk about,” Whipple began, awkwardly, “and I’ll admit to you, Mr. Walton, that I thought over it a powerful long time before I finally made up my mind to come.”

“Oh yes, of course,” Walton said, pulling his whiskers with his long hand—“of course, you naturally would.”

“Especially as Fred had no idea of what I had in view,” the Westerner said. “You see, I had to act wholly on my own responsibility.”

“Yes, I see—I see, sir.” It was only by an effort that Walton kept a sarcastic ring of irritation out of his voice, and he stroked into the roots of his beard a smile of contempt at such puerile attempts to deceive.

“And that’s what makes the whole thing so hard on me,” the merchant went on. “You see, I took it on myself to act for Fred in, I might say, actual opposition to his wishes and judgment.”

Whipple then proceeded to give a full and accurate account of his first introduction to Fred and all that had happened to him since, withholding only his own name and the name of the town he was from. And while he talked, pausing to wipe his wet brow at times, or to clear his shaky voice, the banker watched him as a cat might a mouse. He held a pencil in his long, steady fingers, and kept the point of it on a pad of paper, raising his shrewd glance and lowering it as suited his fancy. Had he been an artist, old Simon might have sketched what to his understanding was the most subtly designing face he had ever seen. Here was a man, he told himself, who resorted even to the emotional methods of a ranting revivalist to gain his nefarious aims. It was a wonderful conception, but it wofully missed its mark, for it was being applied to a man who had no emotions. It was being applied to a man, too, who was as eagerly on the lookout for new tricks as a biologist for a new species of insect. What a weakling the fellow was, for a man of that age, and what fun it would be to suddenly undeceive him—let him know the manner of man he was attempting, in such a shallow way, to bunco!

“Yes, I decided not to wait longer,” Whipple concluded, with a sigh. “I didn’t intend to act till the remaining three thousand was paid; but, as I say, I—”

“It is only two, according to my calculations.” Walton thought he had tripped him up, and smiled knowingly.

“Fred said he felt that another thousand, at least, was due as interest at the rate you usually get.”

“Oh, I see; he’s certainly liberal.” Walton smiled at his joke, and bent his head over his pad to hide it.

“As I say,” the merchant resumed, “I intended to wait till the debt was entirely paid, but things took a sudden turn that I didn’t expect. I offered to advance the money to Fred, but he wouldn’t take it.”

“Oh, he wouldn’t take it!” Walton said, with a hurried regret that Toby was not present to enjoy the feast of stupidity being spread before him. “I see; he didn’t want it. That’s a little bit like him.” Simon’s amusement showed itself now in his voice rather than in the visage which he managed to keep unruffled. “But you say things had sorter taken a twist around?”

“Yes; he was brave enough, and bearing up mighty well till me and him took a trip, as much for pleasure as anything else, to New York, and we passed through this very town, and—”

“So you passed through here?” Walton interrupted, and then to himself he added: “I knew it. I knew Fred was hanging about Atlanta and sending money to that woman. Huh, his fat agent is certainly giving the snap away!”

“Yes, we passed through here one night, and, as our train was delayed below town by a wreck ahead of us, Fred got out and walked around. He was gone till after midnight, and when he came back to the Pullman where I was I noticed that he was powerfully upset, and begun to suspect that maybe this was his old home. He started to tell me about it then, but I stopped him, and it was not till we had been to New York and got back home that he finally told me your name and where you lived. As I said, he has not been the same since then, and, to be honest with you, Mr. Walton, I don’t know of anything in the world that will restore his peace of mind, except—”

“Except having me send for him,” Simon suddenly let himself go, “and kill the fatted bull-yearling, and put a dinky-dinky cap on his brow, and give him a key to the vault, and start in, hit or miss, exactly where me and him left off!”

“You are hard on him, Mr. Walton,” Whipple gasped, fairly staggered by the unexpected retort—“much harder, I must say, than I had hoped to find you. He declared that you wasn’t the sort that would forgive easily, but, having been a father once myself, I didn’t believe you would, after hearing about your boy’s life since he left you, refuse to—”

“See here!” Walton interrupted, laying down his pencil and staring at the visitor from eyes which fairly snapped with blended triumph and rage, “you’ve held the floor long enough; now step aside and let me take it. I don’t know as I ever had the luck to run across just such a specimen as you are. You’ve evidently had very little to do with business men. You seem to have as little common sense as a mountain school-teacher or a young preacher on his first circuit. Here you come with a long, roundabout, hatched-up tale that is so thin and full of holes that a body could throw a straw hat through it. I’d have you understand that this here house is a bank. My own granddaddy would have to be identified, if he was alive, before he could cash a check at that front window, and yet here you come—pitapat, pitapat, as unconcerned as a house-cat looking for a place to lie down—back into my private quarters, and propose something that may, or may not, involve every dollar I own on the top-side of the earth. You do all that without even taking the trouble to hint at who you are or where you hail from, and—”

“I’m not afraid to give you my name!” the merchant gasped, taken wholly off his guard by the withering attack. “It is Stephen Whipple, sir—W-h-i-double p-l-e, Whipple!” he spelled, and he leaned forward and pointed a stiff finger at Walton’s pad. “Write it down. It might get away from you.”

“Are you plumb sure it ain’t Jenkins?” the banker grinned, significantly.

“No; nor Jones, nor Smith, nor Brown. It’s Whipple—Stephen Whipple. Put it down on your paper. Huh, I’m not ashamed of it!”

“All right, there you are, in big letters.” Walton laughed, still victoriously, as he pencilled the name on the pad. “Now, one other formality, please—your postoffice address?”

“My post-office—” Whipple hesitated. His astounded gaze went down; he was all of a quiver, even to his bushy eyebrows.

“Why, it’s this way—this way—” he stammered, and, raising his helpless eyes to the banker’s taunting ones, he came to a dead halt.

“I think it must be,” Walton chuckled. “In fact, it mighty nigh always is that way when a feller gits in a corner. But surely, out of all the places in the United States, you could think of some town, railroad station, or cross-roads store. A word as uncommon as Whipple would be hard for me to think of in a pinch. It seemed to come handy to you. Maybe you’ve used it before, or had some dead friend by that name.”

“You are not fair, sir!” The merchant was becoming exasperated by the human riddle before him. “I told you I had come against your son’s knowledge or wish. He has kept his whereabouts from you up to now, and I have no moral right to let it out. I reckon he is afraid you will hound him down before he has a chance to pay back what he owes you. The Lord knows, he has plenty of reason for being cautious, for, if I am any judge, you are as hard and unforgiving as a stone wall.”

“I haven’t seen any reason to forgive him, or bother one way or another about it,” old Simon hurled into the flushed face before him. “I don’t see any difference between the way me and him stand now and six years ago. I reckon he thinks I’m on my last legs, and that the three thousand he got by some hook or crook—or from some crook—would be well invested as a gum-stickum plaster to put over my eyes before I am put under ground. After he had staked that much, he thought some oily-tongued friend of his might come and reconnoitre and report favorable. Well, you’ve reconnoitred, Mr.—Mr. Whipstock, and you can go back to Atlanta and tell him it is no go You may tell him I am much obliged to you all—whoever your gang is—for the three thousand on account. I may be making a mistake now by shooting off my mouth so quick, for if I had worked my cards right I might have secured another payment by dropping a tear or two; but it is worth something to say what I’ve said in the way I’ve said it.”

“So you don’t believe what I have told you?” Whipple gasped, in astonishment.

“Not a blessed word—not a syllable,” Walton laughed, and he threw himself back in his chair in sheer enjoyment of his visitor’s discomfiture.

“You don’t believe he is in my employment—you don’t believe he earned the money by faithful work which he sent you—you don’t believe—” Whipple paused, at the end of his resources.

“No, I don’t believe even that,” Walton jested. “But I’ll tell you one thing, and I mean it. I don’t intend to have you coming around bothering me with this matter any more at all. It is strictly my affair, anyway. That boy was a bad egg when he was here, and from the looks of you and your game I can’t see that he has improved a dang bit. I don’t say I’d arrest him, neither; half the debt has been paid, if it was paid for a sneaking reason, and he can rove where he will. He is a good riddance I used to bother about what might become of him, but I don’t now.”

“Say, look me in the eye!” Whipple suddenly demanded, and with a fierceness that almost sent a shock of surprise through the banker. “You’ve not believed what I have told you, it seems, because you thought I was after your dirty money. Hard cash is the only thing you can believe in, I see, and so I am going to use some of it to convince you. You have no faith in your son—the only child God gave you, and who is now honoring your gray hairs as they don’t deserve to be honored, but, thank Heaven! I believe in him from head to foot. Before I left Atlanta, this morning, I prepared myself for some sort of emergency like this.”

Whipple took out a long envelope and threw it on the desk under the banker’s eyes. “That contains three thousand dollars—six bills of five hundred each. Take them! Your boy’s debt is paid in full. I may have spoiled his chances with you by coming here against his knowledge, but he shall not lose by it. If I live to get back home I shall provide for him in my will. I may look like a faker, but I flatter myself—from all I have heard of you—that I am worth more to-day in the financial world than you could be if you could live another twenty-five years. Good-day, sir.”