Robert Kimberly Part 12

Charles had so long seen bludgeoning succeed that it had become an accepted part of his business philosophy. But in the day he now faced, new forces had arisen. Public sentiment had become a factor in industrial problems; John was blind to its dangerous power; Charles was quite alive to it.

New views of the problem of compet.i.tion had been advanced, and in advocating them, one of the Kimberlys, Robert, was known to be a leader.

This school sought to draw the sting of compet.i.tive loss through understandings, cooperation, and peace, instead of suspicion, random effort, and war.

Charles saw this tendency with satisfaction; Uncle John saw it sceptically. But Charles, influenced by the mastery of his uncle, became unsettled in his conclusions and stood liable to veer in his judgment to one side or the other of the question, as he might be swayed by apprehensions concerning the new conditions or rested in confidence in the policies of the old.

Between these two Kimberly make-ups, the one great in attack, the other in compromise, stood Robert. "Say what you please," Nelson often repeated to McCrea, "John may be all right, but his day is past.

Charlie forgets every day more than the opposition know, all told. But I call Robert the devil of the family. How does he know when to be bold? Can you tell? How does he know when to be prudent? I know men, if I do anything, McCrea--but I never can measure that fellow."

Whatever Robert liked at least enlisted all of his activities and his temperament turned these into steam cylinders. John Kimberly influenced Robert in no way at all and after some years of profanity and rage perceived that he never should. This discovery was so astounding that after a certain great family crisis he silently and secretly handed the sceptre of family infallibility over to his nephew.

Left thus to himself, Robert continued to think for himself. The same faculties that had served John a generation earlier now served Robert.

John had forgotten that when a young man he had never let anybody think for him, and the energy that had once made John, also made his younger nephew.

The shrewdness that had once overcome compet.i.tion by war now united with compet.i.tors to overcome the public by peace. The real object of industrial endeavor being to make money, a white-winged and benevolent peace, as Nelson termed it, should be the policy of all interests concerned. And after many hard words, peace with eighty per cent. of the business was usually achieved by the united Kimberlys.

It had cost something to reach this situation; and now that the West had come into the sugar world it became a Kimberly problem to determine how the new interests should be taken care of.

On the morning that Charles called he found Uncle John in his chair.

They sent for Robert, and pending his appearance opened the conference.

At the end of a quarter of an hour Robert had not appeared. Charles looked impatiently at his watch and despatched a second servant to summon his brother. After twenty-five minutes a third call was sent.

During this time, in the sunniest corner of the south garden, sheltered by a high stone wall crested with English ivy and overgrown with climbing roses, sat Robert Kimberly indolently watching Brother Francis and a diminutive Skye terrier named Sugar.

Sugar was one of Kimberly's dogs, but Francis had nursed Sugar through an attack after the kennel keepers had given him up. And the little dog although very sick and frowsy had finally pulled through. The intimacy thus established between Sugar and Francis was never afterward broken but by death.

In this sunny corner, Kimberly, in a loose, brown suit of tweed, his eyes shaded by a straw hat, sat in a hickory chair near a table. It was the corner of the garden in which Francis when off duty could oftenest be found. A sheltered walk led to the pergola along which he paced for exercise. Near the corner of the wall stood an oak. And a bench, some chairs and a table made the spot attractive. Sugar loved the bench, and, curled up on it, usually kept watch while Francis walked. On cold days the dog lay with one hair-curtained eye on the coming and going black habit. On warm days, c.o.c.king one ear for the measured step, he dozed.

Francis, when Sugar had got quite well, expressed himself as scandalized that the poor dog had never been taught anything. He possessed, his new master declared, neither manners nor accomplishments, and Francis amid other duties had undertaken, in his own words, to make a man of the little fellow.

Robert, sitting lazily by, instead of attending the conference call, and apparently thinking of nothing--though no one could divine just what might be going on under his black-banded hat--was watching Francis put Sugar through some of the hard paces he had laid out for him.

"That dog is naturally stupid, Francis--all my dogs are. They continually cheat me on dogs," said Kimberly presently. "You don't think so? Very well, I will bet you this bank-note," he took one from his waistcoat as he spoke, "that you cannot stop him this time on 'two'."

"I have no money to bet you, Robert."

"I will give you odds."

"You well know I do not bet--is it not so?"

"You are always wanting money; now I will bet you the bank-note against one dollar, Francis, that you cannot stop him on 'two'."

Francis threw an eye at the money in Kimberly's hand. "How much is the bank-note, Robert?"

"One hundred dollars."

Francis put the temptation behind him. "You would lose your money.

Sugar knows how to stop. In any case, I have no dollar."

"I will bet the money against ten cents."

"I have not even ten cents."

"I am sorry, Francis, to see a man receiving as large a salary as you do, waste it in dissipation and luxury. However, if you have no money, I will bet against your habit."

"If I should lose my habit, what would I do?"

"You could wear a shawl," argued Kimberly.

"All would laugh at me. In any case, to bet the clothes off my back would be a sin."

"I am so sure I am right, I will bet the money against your snuff-box, Francis," persisted Kimberly.

"My snuff-box I cannot bet, since Cardinal Santopaolo gave it to me."

"Francis, think of what you could do for your good-for-nothing boys with one hundred dollars."

Francis lifted his dark eyes and shook his head.

"I will bet this," continued the tempter, "against the snuff in your box, that you can't stop him this time on 'two'."

"Sugar will stop on 'two'," declared Francis, now wrought up.

"Dare you bet?"

"Enough! I bet! It is the snuff against the money. May my poor boys win!"

The sunny corner became active. Kimberly straightened up, and Francis began to talk to Sugar.

"Now tell me again," said Kimberly, "what this verse is."

"I say to him," explained Francis, "that the good soldier goes to war----"

"I understand; then you say, 'One, two, three!'"

"Exactly."

"When you say 'three,' he gets the lump?"

"Yes."

"But the first time you say the verse you stop at 'two.' Then you repeat the verse. If the dog takes the lump before you reach the end the second time and say 'three'----"

"You get the snuff!" Francis laid the box on the table beside Kimberly's bank-note.

"Sugar! Guarda!" The Skye terrier sat upright on his haunches and lifted his paws. Francis gave him a preliminary admonition, took from a mysterious pocket a lump of sugar, laid it on the tip of the dog's nose, and holding up his finger, began in a slow and clearly measured tone:

"Buon soldato Va alia guerra, Mangia male, Dorme in terra.

Uno, due-- Buon soldato Va--"