Stories by American Authors Volume I Part 19

The directors fell upon the packages and counted their contents. The table was strewed with money. Fields contemplated the scene with curiosity. Presently it was announced that the sum was complete.

"Now, gentlemen," said Fields, "you have suffered loss. I have a hundred thousand dollars which I have forced you to present me with. That is a large sum, though to us who are so familiar with millions it seems small, almost insignificant; but, in reality, it has a great importance.

You now see, my friends, what a part of your money-making mechanism may achieve. There is no bank, even of third-rate importance, in this city, whose receiving teller or paying teller may not do exactly as I have done. On any day, at any hour, they may load themselves with valuables and go away. You, and all directors, depend servilely upon the pure honesty of your clerks. You can erect no barrier, no guard, no defence, that will protect you from the results of decayed principle in them.

They are deeply involved in dangerous elements. Ease, luxury, life-long immunity from toil, wait upon their resolution to do ill. This resolution may be the determination of an instant, or the result of long-continued sophistical reasoning. You cannot detect the approach to such a resolve in your servant, and he, perhaps, can hardly detect it in himself. But one day it is complete: he acts upon it. You are bereft of your property; he flees, and there is the nine days' stir, and all is over. Your greatest surety lies in your appreciation of your danger. I have proved to you what that danger consists of; you did not know before. Your best means of defence is to respect, to the fullest extent, the people upon whom you depend. They are worthy of it. An instant's reflection will show you that neither of you would be proof against a strong temptation. For the sake of recovering a sum of money you have compounded with felony. All of you are at this moment in breach of the law. You have submitted without a struggle to the dominant impulse. The principle of exact honor which you demand in me does not exist in yourselves. But let us end this disagreeable scene. Perhaps I have demonstrated something that you never realized. I hope you understand. I now surrender to you the one hundred thousand dollars, which you thought I had stolen. I had no intention of keeping it; I only pretended to take it in order to impress you with my ideas."

Every director arose to his feet in haste. Fields placed another packet upon the table, and, in face of the astonished board, left the apartment.

An hour afterward he was again summoned to the parlor. He advanced to his old position at the end of the table. It was clear that the temper of the a.s.sembly was favorable to him.

"Mr. Fields," said the president, "your attack upon us was singular and rapid, and I think it has made the mark that you intended it should.

Your mode of convincing us was, one might say, dramatic; and, though I believe you might have attained your object in another way, we acknowledge that your letter had but little effect. We now wish to provide for you as you claim, and as you deserve. But we cannot look upon you with quietude. It is almost impossible to see you without shuddering. We must place you elsewhere. If you remained here, you would always be in close proximity to a quarter of a million dollars."

"But you believe in my integrity?"

"Perfectly."

"You understand my motives?"

"Fully."

"And you acknowledge them to be just?"

"Unqualifiedly just."

"Well?"

"But you personify a terrible threat. You are an exponent of a great danger, and you could not ask us to live with one who showed that he held a sword above our heads. That would be impossible. We therefore offer you the position of actuary in the ---- Life. Mr. Stuart is about to resign it, and at our request he has consented to procure you the chair. Your salary will be thrice that you now receive. Do you accept?"

"Without an instant's hesitation," replied Fields.

He then shook hands with each director, and they separated excellent friends.

Fields winged his way to the farm in the country, and told the news.

That is, he told the best of it. He told the actual news after hours, when there was but one to tell it to.

There was a shriek.

"Oh, if they _had_!"

"Had what--Sun and Moon!"

"Why, sent you to prison."

"Well, we should have had to wait ten years, that's all. After that, we should have been worth, with interest added to the capital, five hundred and sixty thousand dollars."

"Sir! Can you suppose that I would ever marry a robber, a wretched robber?"

"Never! But it is different where one robs for the sake of principle."

"Y--yes, that is true; I forgot that. I think that principle is a great thing. Don't you?"

"Exceedingly great."

In the spring the face-walls and the lawns and the kiosks went forward according to the original design, and the actuary frequently brought his city friends, directors and all, down to look at them.