Jacob's Ladder Part 43

"My secretary," Jacob indicated. "Mr. Sydney Morse--Lord Felixstowe."

The former, startled for a moment out of his gravity, solemnly shook hands.

"Glad to meet you, Lord Felixstowe," he said impressively. "Welcome to New York."

"I am very glad to be here," Felixstowe observed, as he returned the other's salute in friendly fas.h.i.+on. "Gay little hamlet, what?"

"It's a city full of interest, sir," the other affirmed.

"You'll have to show me around. I bet you know the ropes. The pick of the world's fluff on its home soil, eh?"

The New Yorker looked a little staggered and edged his way towards Jacob.

"Here is the car, Mr. Pratt," he announced, opening the door of a very handsome limousine.

"Where are you taking us?" Jacob enquired.

"To your brother's house in Riverside Drive."

"Wouldn't it be more convenient for us to go to an hotel?" Jacob suggested. "With sickness in the house, it seems to me that it would be better."

"Your brother would never forgive me if I allowed such a thing," Morse protested earnestly. "The house is very large, and there are half a dozen suites well out of hearing of Mr. Pratt's rooms. Besides, you will be able to see him then at the earliest possible moment."

"Just as you say," Jacob a.s.sented.

Their first drive through New York--up Fifth Avenue and along Riverside Drive--was far too interesting for conversation to flourish.

The brownstone house which finally turned out to be their destination, and which had once belonged to a famous multimillionaire, surpa.s.sed all their expectations. An English butler hurried forward at the sound of Morse's latchkey. A fountain banked with flowers was playing in the middle of a circular hall. The light was toned and softened by exquisite stained-gla.s.s windows. Everywhere was an air of unbounded luxury. The adjoining suites into which Jacob and his companion were ushered surpa.s.sed anything they had seen in domestic architecture.

They had scarcely had time to look around before a coloured servant in livery, with a white linen coat, presented Scotch whisky and soda, and a silver pail of ice, on a magnificent salver.

"I am going to like this country," Lord Felixstowe declared with conviction. "Say when, Jacob."

The secretary, who had left them for a few minutes, returned presently with a dignified personage whom he introduced as the senior of the physicians in attendance upon Mr. Samuel Pratt.

"Doctor Bardolf has attended your brother for many years," he explained.

"I am very glad to meet you, sir," the physician said, as he shook hands. "I am going to pull your brother through this trouble, all right, but you must be patient."

"That's good hearing," Jacob declared heartily.

"He is now," the physician continued, "in a state of coma, following upon brain fever. I'd like you not to be in any hurry to visit him for a day or two. I want him to come to himself quite naturally and not to be brought round by the shock of seeing any one unexpectedly."

"I am entirely in your hands," Jacob replied. "Now that I am on the spot, I feel much more comfortable."

"So do I," Morse echoed, with a little sigh of relief.

"Your brother is not a man with many friends, Mr. Pratt," the physician proceeded, "and in the present state of the stock markets it has not been thought advisable to advertise his illness. I dare say, therefore, that Mr. Morse will be very glad of your advice and help in many directions. I know, in fact, that he has been anxiously awaiting it."

"I have indeed," the young man confessed earnestly. "Mr. Pratt as a rule enjoys such excellent health that we have never even contemplated a situation like this."

"I shall be pleased to do what I can," Jacob promised, a little dubiously. "My brother and I are partners, of course, in the Pratt Oil Combine, but I know very little of his affairs outside."

The physician smiled.

"Your brother has the reputation of being extraordinarily fortunate,"

he said. "That, however, is outside my province. I have only to add, Mr. Pratt, that the invalid has two nurses, the best I could find in New York, in constant attendance upon him. Any change in his condition would bring me to his bedside in less than ten minutes. Until to-morrow, I beg to take my leave."

The physician hurried away, and a few minutes later Morse also excused himself, on the pretext of a heavy mail. Jacob and his young companion made luxurious use of their wonderful bathrooms, subsequently attiring themselves in the garments laid out by a ubiquitous and efficient valet, after which Felixstowe set up his typewriter and insisted upon justifying his existence. Jacob accordingly dictated a few lines to Dauncey, which his anxious secretary took down with great care.

Felixstowe smudged his fingers badly with the carbon copy and, after Jacob had appended his signature, stamped and addressed the missive with punctilious attention.

"There is no doubt whatever," he declared, as he gave the letter over to the care of a specially summoned servant and threw himself into the most comfortable of the easy-chairs, "that a certain amount of work does give spice to the day's pleasure."

"You'll have to do a great deal more than that," Jacob warned him, "when the busy days come along."

"And why not?" was the grandiloquent reply. "When I get going, I shall be able to do a great deal more without fatigue. Six o'clock, old dear," he added, glancing at his watch, "and mark you, something tells me that before long that genial blackamoor, with the smile which seems to slit his face in two, will be here with c.o.c.ktails. Footsteps outside! Why, I can hear the ice c.h.i.n.king in the shaker!"

The door opened--to admit only Morse, however. Felixstowe's face fell. The newcomer was attired in dinner clothes, which accorded fairly well with the tenets of eastern civilisation except that his jacket was unusually long and his black tie of the flowing description.

"Mr. Pratt has an excellent chef here," he announced, "but I thought that as you two gentlemen are strangers in New York, you would probably like to sample one of the best restaurants. I have ordered dinner at the Waldorf. It is not so exclusive as some of the other places, but I feel sure that you will find it amusing."

"Is the bird's-nesting good there?" Felixstowe enquired anxiously.

"Bird's-nesting? I don't quite get you," Morse replied, politely puzzled.

"The fluff," his questioner explained, "the skirts,--the little ladies who help to make the world a cheerful and a joyous place."

Mr. Morse proved that behind his severe expression and depressing spectacles he was only human. He smiled.

"The Waldorf is, I believe, very largely patronised by New York ladies," he said. "I am afraid that in that respect I am not a very efficient cicerone. I shall be able to introduce you, however, to others who may be able to atone for my deficiency in that direction."

Morse was as good as his word. He had a plentiful acquaintance, and the anxiety for news concerning Mr. Samuel Pratt brought visitors continually to his table. His answer to one was practically his answer to all.

"Just fine," he replied to an elderly stockbroker who questioned him rather closely. "He is just now back in the Adirondacks, having the time of his life, I guess. Going to bring home a great collection of heads and finish up with a fortnight at the salmon--Why, yes, Mr.

Kindacott," he went on, a little doubtfully, "I could get a little note through, if you particularly wished it, but you know what Mr.

Pratt's orders were--no business except in a matter of great urgency.

I am dealing with most everything from Riverside Drive."

The stockbroker pa.s.sed on. Felixstowe glanced at his _vis-a-vis_ with admiration.

"I should never have guessed from the look of you that you could tell 'em like that," he remarked.

Morse smiled deprecatingly.

"It is not my custom," he admitted, "to depart from the truth, but in a business life out here you have to put scruples behind you. If they knew down in Wall Street that Mr. Samuel was as ill as he is, a whole bunch of stocks we are interested in would tumble down half a dozen points. That is why I didn't introduce you, Mr. Pratt, as well as Lord Felixstowe," he added, turning to Jacob. "If they got to know that you were Mr. Samuel's brother, over from England, it would make them kind of restless."

"I quite understand," Jacob a.s.sented. "I have no desire to make acquaintances on this side until Sam is well enough to go round with me."

The meal, a very excellent and somewhat prolonged one, came to a conclusion about ten o'clock. Morse glanced at his watch.

"Gentlemen," he said, "I am now entirely at your service. If you would like to go home, I admit that it is my usual custom to retire early.