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The valet cleared his throat.
"I'm sorry to say, sir, I haven't."
"Sorry?" Gordon's eyes were smiling.
"A mere figure of speech, sir."
"Ah – I see. They must be – painful."
"Very, I should think, sir. But, beg pardon, sir, I believe in some – ahem – low places, they sell two for five cents!"
"Two? I – I wonder if the sanitary authorities know about it."
Gordon smiled into the serious face of his devoted henchman. Then he went on rapidly —
"What baggage do you suggest for a six months' trip?"
"Europe, sir?"
"No."
"South, sir?"
"I – haven't made up my mind."
"General then, sir. That'll need more. There's the three large trunks. The steamer trunk. Four suit cases. Will you need your polo kit, sir, and your – ?"
Gordon shook his head.
"Guess your focus needs adjusting. Now, suppose you were getting a man ready for a six months' trip – a man who smoked those two-for-five cigars. What would you give him?"
Harding's eyelids flickered. He sighed.
"It would be difficult, sir. I shouldn't give him clean under-garments, sir. I should suggest the oldest suit I could find. You see, sir, it would be waste to give him a good suit. The axles of those box cars are so greasy. I'm not sure about a toothbrush."
"Your focus is adjusting itself."
"Yes, sir, thank you, sir."
"And the five-cent-cigar man?"
Harding's verdict came promptly.
"A hand bag with one good suit and ablutionary utensils, sir. Also strong, warm under-garments, and a thick overcoat. One spare pair of boots. You see, sir, he could carry that himself."
"Good," cried Gordon delightedly. "You prepare for that five-cent-cigar man. Now I want some food. Better ring down to the restaurant."
"Yes, sir. An oyster cocktail? Squab on toast, or a little pheasant? What about sweets, sir, and what wine will you take?"
"Great gods no, man! Nothing like that. Think of your five-cent-cigar man. What would he have? Why, sandwiches. You know, nice thick ones, mostly bread. No. Wait a bit. I know. A club sandwich. Two club sandwiches, and a bottle of domestic lager. Two things I hate – eternally. We must equip ourselves, Harding. We must mortify the flesh. We must readjust our focus, and outrage all our more delicate susceptibilities. We must reduce ourselves to the requirements of the five-cent-cigar man, and turn a happy, smiling world into a dark and drear struggle for existence. See to it, good Harding, see to it."
The man withdrew, puzzled. Used as he was to Gordon's vagaries, the thought of his master dining off two hideous club sandwiches and a bottle of domestic lager made his staunch stomach positively turn.
His perfect training, however, permitted of no verbal protest. And he waited on the diner with as much care for punctilio as though a formal banquet were in progress. Then came another violent shock to his feelings. Gordon leaned back in his chair with a sigh of amused contentment.
"Do you think you could get me a – five-cent cigar, Harding?" he demanded. "Say, I enjoyed that food. That unique combination of chicken, hot bacon and – and something pickly – why, it's great. And as for domestic lager – it's got wine beaten a mile. Guess I'm mighty anxious to explore a – five-cent cigar."
Harding cleared his throat.
"I'll do my best, sir. It may be difficult, but I'll do my best. I'll consult the clerk downstairs. He smokes very bad cigars, sir."
"Good. You get busy. I'll be around in my den."
"Yes, sir," Harding hesitated. Then with an unusual diffidence, "Coffee, sir? A little of the '48 brandy, sir?"
Gordon stared.
"Can I believe my ears? Spoil a dinner like that with – '48 brandy? I'm astonished, Harding. That focus, man; that five-cent-cigar focus!"
Gordon hurried off into his den with a laugh. Harding gazed after him with puzzled, respectful eyes.
Once in the privacy of his den, half office, half library, and wholly a room of comfort, Gordon forgot his laugh. His mind was quite made up, and he knew that a long evening's work lay before him.
He picked up the receiver of his private 'phone to his father's office and sat down at the desk.
"Hello! Hello! Ah! That you, Harker? Splendid. Guess I'm glad I caught you. Working late, eh? Sure. It's the way in er – big finance. Yes. Got to lie awake at nights to do the other feller. Say. No. Oh, no, that's not what I rang you up for. It's about – finance. Ha, ha! It's a check for me. Did the governor leave me one? Good. Five thousand dollars, isn't it? Well, say, don't place it to my credit. Get cash for it to-morrow, and send it along to – Let me see. Yes, I know. You send along a bright clerk with it. He can meet me at the Pennsylvania Depot to-morrow, at noon – sharp. Yes. In the waiting-room. Get that? Good. So long."
"That's that," he muttered, as he replaced the receiver. "Now for Charlie Spiers."
He turned to the ordinary 'phone, picked up the receiver, gave the operator the number, and waited.
"Hello! Hello, hello, hello! That you, Charlie? Bully. I wasn't sure getting you. Guess my luck's right in. How are you? Goo – No, better not come around to-night. Fact is, I'm up to my back teeth packing and things. I've got to be away awhile. Business – important." He laughed. "Don't get funny. It's not play. No. Eh? What's that? A lady? Quit it. If there's a thing I can't stand just about now it's a suggestion of immorality. I mean that. The word 'immoral' 's about enough to set me chasing Broadway barking and foaming at the mouth. I said I'm going away on business, and it's so important that not even my mother knows where I'm going. Yes. Ah, I'm glad you feel that way. It's serious. Now, listen to me; it's up to you to do me a kindness. I'm going to write the mater now and again. But I can't mail direct, or she'll know where I am, see? Well, I can send her mail under cover to you, and you can mail it on to her. Get me? Now, that way, you'll know just where I am. That's so. Well, you've got to swear right along over the wire you won't tell a soul. Not the governor, or the mater, or Gracie, or – or anybody. No, I don't need you to cuss like a railroader about it. Just swear properly. That's it. That's fine. On your soul and honor. Fine. I'm glad you added the 'honor' racket, it makes things plumb sure. Oh, yes, your soul's all right in its way. But – Good-by, boy. I'll see you six months from to-day. No. Too busy. So long."
Gordon hung up the receiver and turned back to his desk with a sigh. He opened a drawer and took out his check-book, and gave himself up to a few minutes of figures. There was not a great deal of money to his credit at the bank, but it was sufficient for his purposes. He wrote and signed three checks. Then he tore the remaining blanks up and flung them into the waste-basket.
After that he turned his attention to a systematic examination of his papers. It was a long, and not uninteresting process, but one that took a vast amount of patience. He tore up letter after letter, photographs, bills, every sort of document which a bachelor seems always to accumulate when troubled by the disease of youth.
In the midst of his labors he came across his father's private code for cable and telegraph. It brought back to him the memory of his position as one of his father's secretaries. He smiled as he glanced through it. It must be sent back to the office. He would hand it to the clerk who brought him his money in the morning. So he placed it carefully in the inside pocket of his coat and continued his labors.
Half an hour later Harding appeared.
"Beg pardon, sir," he said. "I had some difficulty, but" – he held up an oily-looking cigar with a flaming label about its middle, between his finger and thumb – "I succeeded in obtaining one. I had to take three surface cars, and finally had to go to Fourth Avenue. It was a lower place than I expected, sir, seeing that it was a five-cent cigar."
"That means it cost me twenty cents, Harding – unless you were able to transfer."
Gordon eyed the man's expressionless face quizzically.
"I'm sorry, sir. But I forgot about the transfer tickets."
Gordon sighed with pretended regret.
"I'm sure guessing it's – bad finance. We ought to do better."
"I could have saved the fares if I'd taken your car, sir," said Harding, with a flicker of the eyelids.
"Splendid, gasoline at thirteen cents, and the price of tires going up."
Gordon drummed on the desk with his fingers and became thoughtful. He had a painful duty yet to perform.
"Harding," he said at last, with a genuine sigh, his eyes painfully serious. "We've got to go different ways. You've – got to quit."
The valet's face never moved a muscle.
"Yes, sir."
"Right away."
"Yes, sir."
Then the man cleared his throat, and laid the oily-looking cigar on the desk.
"I trust, sir, I've given satisfaction?"
"Satisfaction?" Gordon's tone expressed the most cordial appreciation. "Satisfaction don't express it. I couldn't have kept up the farce of existence without you. You are the best fellow in the world. Guess it's I who haven't given satisfaction."
"Yes, sir."
"Oh – you agree?"
"Yes, sir. That is, no, sir."
Harding passed one thin hand across his forehead, and the movement was one of perplexity. It was the only gesture he permitted himself as any expression of feeling.
"I'm going away for six months – as a five-cent-cigar man," Gordon went on, disguising his regret under a smile of humor. "I'm going away on – business."
"Yes, sir." The respectful agreement came in a monotonous tone.
"So you'll – just have to quit. That's all."
"Yes, sir."
"Ye-es."
"You will – need a man when you come back, sir?" The eagerness was unmistakable to Gordon.
"I – hope so."
Harding's face brightened.
"I will accept temporary employment then, sir. Thank you, sir."
Gordon wondered. Then he cleared his throat, and held out two of the checks he had written.
"Here's two months' wages," he said. "One is your due. Guess the other's the same, only – it's a present. Now, get this. You'll need to see everything cleared right out of this shanty, and stored at the Manhattan deposit. When that's done, get right along and report things to my father, and hand him your accounts for settlement. All my cigars and cigarettes and wine and things, why, I guess you can have for a present. It don't seem reasonable to me condemning you to five-cent cigars and domestic lager. Now pack me one grip, as you said. I'll wear the suit I've got on. Mind, I need a grip I can tote myself – full."
"Very good, sir. Thank you, sir. Anything else, sir?"
"Why, yes." Gordon was smiling again. "Hand this check in at the bank when it opens to-morrow, and get me cash for it, and bring it right along. That's all, except you'd better get me another disgusting sandwich, and another bottle of tragedy beer for my supper. There's nothing else."
With a resolute air Gordon turned back to his work, as, with an obvious sigh of regret, Harding silently withdrew.
CHAPTER III
GORDON ARRIVES
Gordon Carbhoy sat hunched up in his seat. His great shoulders, so square and broad, seemed to fill up far more space than he was entitled to. His cheerful face showed no signs of the impatience and irritability he was really enduring. A seraphic contentment alone shone in his clear blue eyes. He was a picture of the youthful conviction that life was in reality a very pleasant thing, and that there did not exist a single cloud upon the delicately tinted horizon of his own particular portion of it.
In spite of this outward seeming, however, he was by no means easy. Every now and again he would stand up and ease the tightness of his trousers about his knees. He felt dirty, too, dirty and untidy, notwithstanding the fact that he had washed himself, and brushed his hair, many times in the cramped compartment of the train devoted to that purpose. Then he would fling himself into his corner again and give his attention to the monotonously level landscape beyond the window and strive to forget the stale odor so peculiar to all railroad cars, especially in summer time.
These were movements and efforts he had made a hundred times since leaving the great terminal in New York. He had slept in his corner. He had eaten cheaply in the dining-car. He had smoked one of the delicious cigars, from the box which the faithful Harding had secreted in his grip, in the smoker ahead. He had read every line in the magazines he had provided himself with, even to the advertisements.
The time hung heavily, drearily. The train grumbled, and shook, and jolted its ponderous way on across the vast American continent. It was all very tedious.
Then the endless stream of thought, often fantastic, always unconvincing, always leading up to those ridiculous cyphers representing one hundred thousand dollars. If only they were numerals. Nice, odd numerals. He was a firm believer in the luck of odd numbers. But no. It was always "noughts." Most disgusting "noughts."
He yawned for about the thousandth time on his two days' journey, and wondered hopelessly how many more times he would yawn before he reached the Pacific.
Hello! The conductor was coming through again. Going to tear off more ticket, Gordon supposed. That tearing off was most interesting. He wondered if the ticket would last out till he reached Seattle. He supposed so.
Seattle! The Yukon! The Yukon certainly suggested fortune, the making of a rapid fortune. But how? One hundred thousand dollars! There it was again.
His eyes were following the movements of the rubicund conductor. The man looked enormously self-satisfied, and was certainly bursting with authority and adipose tissue. He wondered if he couldn't annoy him some way. It would be good to annoy some one. He closed his smiling eyes and feigned sleep.
The vast bulk of blue uniform and brass buttons bore down upon him. It reached his "pew," dropped into the seat opposite, and tweaked him by the coat sleeve.
Gordon opened his eyes with a pretended start.
"Where are we?" he demanded irritably.
"Som'eres between the devil an' the deep sea, I guess," grinned the man. "Your – ticket."
Gordon began to fumble slowly through his pockets. He knew precisely where his ticket was, but he searched carefully and deliberately in every other possible place. The man waited, breathing heavily. He displayed not the slightest sign of the annoyance desired. At last Gordon turned out the inside pocket of his coat. The first thing he discovered amongst its contents was his father's private code book, and the annoyance was in his eyes rather than in those of the conductor. His resolve to return it had been entirely forgotten.
He forthwith produced his ticket.
"The devil's behind us, I s'pose," said Gordon. "Anyway, we're told it's the right place for him. I'll be glad when we reach the sea."
The conductor examined the ticket, while Gordon returned the code book to his pocket.
