The Web of Life Part 44

"Rag," Webber snapped, recognizing the doctor. "And I'm done for this time sure thing--_every red copper_. I made two thousand last week on Tin, and this morning I chucked the whole pile into Rag."

"You'd better come with me," Sommers urged. "The Exchange is closing for to-day, anyway."

The clerk laughed, and replied: "Let's have a drink. I've just got enough to get drunk on."

"You're drunk already," the doctor answered gruffly.

"I'll be drunker before the morning," the clerk remarked, with a feeble laugh. "I wish I had Dresser here; I'd like to pound him once."

That desire was repeated in the looks of many men, who were still glowering at the afternoon's quotations. Carson, the idol of the new "promotions,"

seemed to be the man most in demand for pounding. Einstein was explaining to a savage customer why he had advised him to buy "Rag."

"I got it over the telephone this morning from a man very close to Carson that Rag was the thing, the peach of the whole lot. He said it was slated to cross Biscuit to-day."

The man growled and ground a cigar stub into the floor.

"Come, we'll have a drink," a white-faced young fellow called out to an old man, an acquaintance of the hour. "Somebody's got my money!" The two pa.s.sed out arm in arm.

Webber had his drink, and then another. Then he leaned back in the embrasure of the bar-room window and looked at Sommers.

"I guess it's the lake this time. I can't go back to her and tell her it's all up."

Sommers watched the man closely, trying to determine how far the disease had gone. Webber's vain, rather weak face was disguised with a beard, which made him look older than he was, and the arm that rested on the table trembled nervously from the flaccid fingers to the shoulder-blades.

"They've put up some trick between them," Webber continued, in a grumbling tone. "Carson or Porter is making something by selling Rag. They'd ought to be in the penitentiary."

"What rot!" Sommers remarked deliberately. "They've beaten you at your game, and they will every time, because they have more nerve than you, and because they know more. There's no use in d.a.m.ning them. You'd do the same thing if you knew when to do it."

"They're nothing but sharps!" the clerk protested feebly, insistent like a child on his idea that some one had done him a personal injury.

Sommers shrugged his shoulders in despair. "I must be going," he said at last. "I don't suppose you'll take my advice, and perhaps the lake would be the best thing for you. But you'd better try it again--it's just as well that everything has gone this time. There won't be any chance of going back to the game. Tell her, and if she'll take you, marry her at once, and start with the little people. Or stay here and have a few more drinks," he added, as he read the irresolute look upon Webber's face.

The clerk rose wearily and followed the doctor into the street, as if afraid of being alone.

"You needn't be so rough," he muttered. "There are lots of the big fellows who started the same way--in the market, wheat or stocks. And I had a little ambition to be something better than a clerk. I wanted her to have something different. She's as good as those girls Dresser is always talking to her about."

Sommers made no reply to his defence, but walked slowly, accommodating his pace to Webber's weary steps. When they reached Michigan Avenue, he stopped and said,

"I should put the lake off, this time, and make up my mind to be a little fellow."

Webber shook hands listlessly and started toward the railroad station with his drooping, irresolute gait. Sommers watched him until his figure merged with the hurrying crowd. Habit was taking the clerk to the suburban train, and habit would take him to the Keystone and Miss M'Gann instead of to the lake. Habit and Miss M'Gann would probably take him back to his desk. But the disease had gone pretty far, and if he recovered, Sommers judged, he would never regain his elasticity, his hope. He would be haunted by a memory of hot desires, of feeble defeat.

The wavering clerk had succ.u.mbed to the mood of the hour. And the mood of the hour in this corner of the universe was hopeful for weak and strong alike. Cheap optimism, Sommers would have called it once, but now it seemed to him the natural temper of the world. With this hope suffused over their lives, men struggled on--for what? No one knew. Not merely for plunder, nor for power, nor for enjoyment. Each one might believe these to be the gifts of the G.o.ds, while he kept his eyes solely on himself. But when he turned his gaze outward, he knew that these were not the spur of human energy. In striving restlessly to get plunder and power and joy, men wove the mysterious web of life for ends no human mind could know. Carson built his rickety companies and played his knavish tricks upon the gullible public, of whom Webber was one. Brome Porter rooted here and there in the industrial world, and fattened himself upon all spoils. These had to be; they were the tools of the hour. But indifferent alike to them and to Webber, the affairs of men ebbed and flowed in the resistless tide of fate.

CHAPTER XIII

The dinner at the Hitchc.o.c.ks' was very simple. Parker had gone out "to enjoy his success in not getting to Cuba," as Colonel Hitchc.o.c.k expressed it grimly. The old merchant's manner toward the doctor was cordial, but constrained. At times during the dinner Sommers found Colonel Hitchc.o.c.k's eyes resting upon him, as if he were trying to understand him. Sommers was conscious of the fact that Lindsay had probably done his best to paint his character in an unflattering light; and though he knew that the old colonel's shrewdness and kindliness would not permit him to accept bitter gossip at its face value, yet there must have been enough in his career to lead to speculation. While they were smoking, Colonel Hitchc.o.c.k remarked:

"So you're back in Chicago. Do you think you'll stay?"

Sommers described the offer Dr. Knowles had made.

"I used to see Knowles,--a West Side man,--not very able as a money-getter, I guess, but a good fellow," Colonel Hitchc.o.c.k emitted meditatively.

"He has a very commonplace practice," Sommers replied. "An old-fas.h.i.+oned kind of practice."

"Do you think you'll like Chicago any better?" Colonel Hitchc.o.c.k asked bluntly.

"I haven't thought much about that," the doctor admitted, uncomfortably. He felt that the kind old merchant had lost whatever interest he might have had in him. Any man who played ducks and drakes with his chances in life was not to be depended upon, according to Colonel Hitchc.o.c.k's philosophy.

And a man who could not be depended upon to do the rational thing was more or less dangerous. It was easier for him to understand Parker's defects than Sommers's wilfulness. They were both lamentable eccentricities.

"Chicago isn't what it was," the old man resumed reminiscently. "It's too big, and there is too much speculation. A man is rich to-day and poor to-morrow. That sort of thing used to be confined to the Board of Trade, but now it's everywhere, in legitimate business. People don't seem to be willing to work hard for success." He relapsed into silence, and shortly after went upstairs, saying as he excused himself,--"Hope we shall see you again, Dr. Sommers."

When Colonel Hitchc.o.c.k had left the room, Miss. .h.i.tchc.o.c.k said, as if to remove the sting of her father's indifference:

"Uncle Brome's transactions worry papa,--for a time papa was deeply involved in one of his schemes,--and he worries over Parker, too. He doesn't like to think of--what will happen when he is dead. Parker will have a good deal of money, more than he will know what to do with. It's sad, don't you think so? To be ending one's life with a feeling that you have failed to make permanent your ideals, to leave things stable in your family at least?"

Instead of replying Sommers left his chair and walked aimlessly about the room. At last he came back to the large table near which Miss. .h.i.tchc.o.c.k was seated.

"You know why I came to-night," he began nervously.

Miss. .h.i.tchc.o.c.k put down the book she held in her hands and turned her face to him.

"Will you help me--to live?" he said bluntly.

She rose from her seat, and, with a slight smile of irony, replied,

"Can I?"

"The past,--" Sommers stammered. "You know it all better than any one else."

"I would not have it different, not one thing changed," she protested with warmth. "What I cannot understand in it, I will believe was best for you and for me."

"And the lack of success, the failure?" Sommers questioned eagerly; a touch of fear in his voice. "I am asking much and giving very little."

"You understand so badly!" The smile this time was sad. "I shall never know that it is failure."

CHAPTER XIV

Miss. .h.i.tchc.o.c.k's wedding was extremely quiet. It was regarded by all but the two persons immediately concerned as an eccentric mistake. Even Colonel Hitchc.o.c.k, to whom Louise was almost infallible, could not trust himself to discuss with her, her decision to marry Dr. Sommers. It was all a sign of the irrational drift of things that seemed to thwart his energetic, honorable life. Even Sommers's att.i.tude in the frank talk the two men had about the marriage offended the old merchant. Sommers had met his distant references to money matters by saying bluntly that he and Louise had decided it would be best for them not to be the beneficiaries of Colonel Hitchc.o.c.k's wealth to any large extent. He wished it distinctly understood that little was to be done for them now, or in the future by bequest.

Louise had agreed with him that for many reasons their lives would be happier without the expectation of unearned wealth. He did not explain that one potent reason for their decision in this matter was the hope they had that Colonel Hitchc.o.c.k would realize the futility of leaving any considerable sum of money to Parker, and would finally place his money where it could be useful to the community in which he had earned it.