Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories Part 22

On the tenth of May he received a cablegram in his own official cipher which, translated, read:

Meet Sir Thomas Drummond, Chairman Royal Barrata Bridge Commission, arriving Cunard Liner _Campania_, thirteenth, stopping Waldorf.

Arrange personally Barrata contract. Caution.

The cablegram was unsigned, but its address, "Atwylie," betrayed not only its destination, but also the ident.i.ty of its sender. Mr. Jackson Wylie, Sr., became tremendously excited. The last word conjured up bewildering possibilities. He was about to consult his a.s.sociates when it struck him that the greatest caution he could possibly observe would consist of holding his own tongue now and henceforth. They had seen fit to criticize his handling of the matter thus far; he decided he would play safe and say nothing until he had first seen Sir Thomas Drummond and learned the lay of the land. He imagined he might then have something electrifying to tell them. He had "dealt from the bottom" too often, he had closed too many bridge contracts in his time, to mistake the meaning of this visit, or of that last word "caution."

During the next few days Mr. Jackson Wylie, Sr., had hard work to hold himself in, and he was at a high state of nervous tension when, on the morning of the fourteenth day of May, he strolled into the Waldorf-Astoria and inquired at the desk for Sir Thomas Drummond.

There was no Sir Thomas stopping at the hotel, although a Mr. T.

Drummond from London had arrived on the _Campania_ the day before. Mr.

Jackson Wylie placed the heel of his right shoe upon the favorite corn of his left foot and bore down upon it heavily. He must be getting into his dotage, he reflected, or else the idea of a five-million-dollar job had him rattled. Of course Sir Thomas would not use his t.i.tle.

At the rear desk he had his card blown up through the tube to "Mr. T.

Drummond," and a few moments later was invited to take the elevator.

Arriving at the sixth floor, he needed no page to guide him; boots pointed his way to the apartment of the distinguished visitor as plainly as a lettered sign-board; boots of all descriptions--hunting-boots, riding-boots, street shoes, lowshoes, pumps, sandals--black ones and tan ones--all in a row outside the door. It was a typically English display.

Evidently Sir Thomas Drummond was a personage of the most extreme importance and traveled in befitting style, Mr. Wylie told himself.

Nothing was missing from the collection, unless perhaps a pair of rubber hip-boots.

A stoop-shouldered old man with a marked accent and a port-wine nose showed Mr. Wylie into a parlor where the first object upon which his active eyes alighted was a ma.s.s of blue-prints. He knew these drawings; he had figured on them himself. He likewise noted a hat-box and a great, shapeless English bag, both plastered crazily with hotel and steams.h.i.+p labels hailing from every quarter of the world. It was plain to be seen that Sir Thomas was a globe-trotter.

"Mr. Drummond begs you to be seated," the valet announced, with what seemed an unnecessary accent on the "mister," then moved silently out.

Mr. Wylie remarked to himself upon the value of discreet servants.

They were very valuable; very hard to get in America. This must be some lifelong servitor in his lords.h.i.+p's family.

There was no occasion to inquire the ident.i.ty of the tall, florid Englishman in tweeds who entered a moment later, a bundle of estimates in his hand. "Sir Thomas Drummond, Chairman of the Royal Barrata Bridge Commission," was written all over him in large type.

His lords.h.i.+p did not go to the trouble of welcoming his visitor, but scanned him frigidly through his gla.s.ses.

"You are Mr. Jackson Wylie, Senior?" he demanded, abruptly.

"That is my name."

"President of the Atlantic Bridge Company, of Newark, New Jersey?"

"The same."

"You received a cablegram from your son in London?"

"Yes, your lords.h.i.+p."

Sir Thomas made a gesture as if to forego the t.i.tle. "Let me see it, please."

Mr. Wylie produced the cablegram, and Drummond scanned it sharply.

Evidently the identification was complete.

"Does any one besides your son and yourself know the contents of this message?"

"Not a soul."

"You have not told any one of my coming?"

"No, sir!"

"Very well." Sir Thomas appeared to breathe easier; he deliberately tore the cablegram into small bits, then tossed the fragments into a wastepaper basket before waving his caller to a chair. He still remained very cold, very forceful, although his stiff formality had vanished.

"Do you understand all about this bridge?" he inquired.

Wylie senior took the cue of brusqueness and nodded shortly.

"Can you build it in the time specified?"

"With ease."

"Have you submitted your bid?"

"Not yet. I--"

"What is the amount of your proposal?"

The president of the Atlantic Bridge Company gasped. This was the boldest, the coldest work he had ever experienced. Many times he had witnessed public officials like Sir Thomas Drummond approach this delicate point, but never with such composure, such matter-of-fact certainty and lack of moral scruple. Evidently, however, this Englishman had come to trade and wanted a direct answer. There was no false pose, no romance here. But Jackson Wylie, Sr., was too shrewd a business man to name a rock-bottom price to begin with. The training of a lifetime would not permit him to deny himself a liberal leeway for hedging, therefore he replied, cautiously:

"My figures will be approximately 1,400,000 sterling." It was his longest speech thus far.

For what seemed an hour to the bridge-builder Sir Thomas Drummond gazed at him with a cold, hard eye, then he folded his papers, rolled up his blue-prints, placed them in the big traveling-bag, and carefully locked it. When he had finished he flung out this question suddenly:

"Does that include the Commissioners?"

Up to this point Mr. Jackson Wylie had spoken mainly in monosyllables; now he quit talking altogether; it was no longer necessary. He merely shook his head in negation. He was smiling slightly.

"Then I shall ask you to add 200,000 sterling to your price," his lords.h.i.+p calmly announced. "Make your bid 1,600,000 sterling, and mail it in time for Wednesday's boat. I sail on the same s.h.i.+p.

Proposals will be opened on the twenty-fifth. Arrange for an English indemnity bond for ten per cent. of your proposition. Do not communicate in any manner whatsoever with your son, except to forward the sealed bid to him. He is not to know of our arrangement. You will meet me in London later; we will take care of that 200,000 out of the last forty per cent. of the contract price, which is payable thirty days after completion, inspection, and acceptance of the bridge. You will not consult your a.s.sociates upon leaving here. Do I make myself clear? Very well, sir. The figures are easy to remember: 1,600,000; 1,400,000 to you. I am pleased with the facilities your plant offers for doing the work. I am confident you can complete the bridge on time, and I beg leave to wish you a very pleasant good day."

Jackson Wylie, Sr., did not really come to until he had reached the street; even then he did not know whether he had come down the elevator or through the mail-chute. Of one thing only was he certain: he was due to retire in favor of his son. He told himself that he needed a trip through the Holy Land with a guardian and a nursing-bottle; then he paused on the curb and stamped on his corn for a second time.

"Oh, what an idiot I am!" he cried, savagely. "I could have gotten 1,600,000 to start with, but--by gad, Sir Thomas is the coldest-blooded thing I ever went against! I--I can't help but admire him."

Having shown a deplorable lack of foresight, Mr. Wylie determined to make up for it by an ample display of hindsight. If the profits on the job were not to be so large as they might have been, he would at least make certain of them by obeying instructions to the letter. In accordance with this determination, he made out the bid himself, and he mailed it with his own hand that very afternoon. He put three blue stamps on the envelope, although it required but two. Then he called up an automobile agency and ordered a foreign town-car his wife had admired. He decided that she and the girls might go to Paris for the fall shopping--he might even go with them, in view of that morning's episode.

For ten days he stood the pressure, then on the morning of the twenty-fourth he called his _confreres_ into the directors' room, that same room in which young Hanford had made his talk a number of years before. Inasmuch as it was too late now for a disclosure to affect the opening of the bids in London, he felt absolved from his promise to Sir Thomas.

"Gentlemen, I have the honor to inform you," he began, pompously, "that the Barrata Bridge is ours! We have the greatest structural steel job of the decade." His chest swelled with justifiable pride.

"How? When? What do you mean?" they cried.

He told them of his mysterious but fruitful interview at the Waldorf ten days previously, enjoying their expressions of amazement to the full; then he explained in considerable detail the difficulties he had surmounted in securing such liberal figures from Sir Thomas.

"We were ready to take the contract for 1,300,000, as you will remember, but by the exercise of some diplomacy"--he coughed modestly--"I may say, by the display of some firmness and independence, I succeeded in securing a clean profit of $500,000 over what we had expected." He accepted, with becoming diffidence, the congratulations which were showered upon him. Of course, the news created a sensation, but it was as nothing to the sensation that followed upon the receipt of a cablegram the next day which read: