Youth Challenges Part 10

"Um!... Make yourself comfortable. Say, was that breakfast all right?

Find cigars in that top drawer." The magic of Influence!

In twenty minutes Lightener's huge form pushed through the station door. "Morning, Lieutenant. Got a friend of mine here?"

"Didn't know he was a friend of yours, Mr. Lightener. He wouldn't give his name, and never asked to have you notified till this morning....

He's in my office there."

Lightener strode into the room and shut the door.

"Well?" he demanded.

Breathlessly, almost without pause, Bonbright poured upon him an account of last night's happenings, making no concealments, unconsciously giving Lightener glimpses into his heart that made the big man bend his brows ominously. The boy did not explain; did not mention accusingly his father, but Lightener understood perfectly what the process of molding Bonbright was being subjected to. He made no comment.

"I don't want father to know this," Bonbright said. "If it can be kept out of the papers.... Father wouldn't understand. He'd feel I had disgraced the family."

"Doggone the family," snapped Lightener. "Come on."

Bonbright followed him out.

"May I take him along, Lieutenant? I'll fix it with the judge if necessary.... And say, happen to recognize him?"

"Never saw him before."

"If any of the newspaper boys come snoopin' around, you never saw me, either. Much obliged, Lieutenant."

"You're welcome, Mr. Lightener. Glad I kin accommodate you."

Lightener pushed Bonbright into his limousine. "You don't want to go home, I guess. We'll go to my house. Mother'll see you get breakfast.

... Then we'll have a talk.... Here's a paper boy; let's see what's doing."

It was the morning penny paper that Lightener bought, the paper with leanings toward the proletariat, the veiled champion of labor. He bought it daily.

"Huh!" he grunted, as he scanned the first page. "They kind of allude to you."

Bonbright looked. He saw a two-column head:

YOUNG MILLIONAIRE URGES ON POLICE

The next pyramid contained his name; the story related how he had rushed frantically to the police after they had barbarously charged a harmless gathering of workingmen, trampling and maiming half a dozen, and had demanded that they charge again. It was a long story, with infinite detail, crucifying him with cheap ink; making him appear a ruthless, heartless monster, l.u.s.ting for the spilled blood of the innocent.

Bonbright looked up to meet Lightener's eyes.

"It--it isn't fair," he said, chokingly.

"Fairness," said Lightener, almost with gentleness, "is expected only when we are young."

"But I didn't.... I tried to stop them."

"Don't try to tell anybody so--you won't be believed."

"I'm going to tell somebody," said Bonbright, his mind flas.h.i.+ng to Ruth Frazer, "and I'm going to be believed. I've got to be believed."

After a while he said: "I wasn't taking sides. I just went there to see. If I've got to hire men all my life I want to understand them."

"You've got to take sides, son. There's no straddling the fence in this world.... And as soon as you've taken sides your own side is all you'll understand. n.o.body ever understood the other side."

"But can't there ever be an understanding? Won't capital ever understand labor, or labor capital?"

"I suppose a philosopher would say there is no difference upon which agreement can't be reached; that there must somewhere be a common meeting ground.... The Bible says the lion shall lie down with the lamb, but I don't expect to live to see him do it without worrying some about the lion's teeth."

"It's one man holding power over other men," said Bonbright.

As the car stopped at Malcolm Lightener's door, sudden panic seized Bonbright.

"I ought not to come here," he said, "after last night. Mrs.

Lightener... your daughter."

"I'll bet Hilda's worrying you more than her mother. Nonsense! They both got sense."

Certainly Mrs. Lightener had.

"Just got him out of the police station," her husband said as he led the uncomfortable Bonbright into her presence. "Been shut up all night.... Rioting--that's what he's been doing. Throwing stones at the cops."

Mrs. Lightener looked at Bonbright's pale, weary, worried face. "You let him be, Malcolm.... Never mind HIM," she said to the boy. "You just go right upstairs with him. A warm bath and breakfast are what you need. You don't look as if you'd slept a WINK."

"I haven't," he confessed.

When Bonbright emerged from the bath he found the motherly woman had sent out to the haberdashers for fresh s.h.i.+rt, collar, and tie. He donned them with the first surge of genuine gratefulness he had ever known. Of course he had said thank you prettily, and had thought he felt thanks.... Now he knew he had not.

"Guess you won't be afraid to face Hilda now," said Lightener, entering the room. "I notice a soiled collar is worn with a heap more misgiving than a soiled conscience.... Grapefruit, two soft-boiled eggs, toast, coffee.... Some prescription."

Hilda was in the library, and greeted him as though it were an ordinary occurrence to have a young man just out of the cell block as a breakfast guest. She did not refer to it, nor did her father at the moment. Bonbright was grateful again.

After breakfast the boy and girl were left alone in the library, briefly.

"I'm ashamed," said Bonbright, chokingly.

"You needn't be," she said. "Dad told us all about it. I thought the other night I should like you. Now I'm sure of it." She owned her father's directness.

"You're good," he said.

"No--reasonable," she answered.

He sat silent, thinking. "Do you know," he said, presently, "what a lot girls have to do with making a fellow's life endurable?... Since I went to work I--I've felt really GOOD only twice. Both times it was a girl.

The other one just grinned at me when I was feeling down on my luck. It was a dandy grin.... And now you..."

"Tell me about her," she said.