LITMIR.BIZ

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Barker.

      “But,” he added eagerly, “it shows that things were better than I had imagined. Only the others did not come, either.”

      “And you lost your twenty thousand dollars,” said Stacy curtly.

      “FIFTY thousand,” said Barker, “for of course it had to be a larger hotel than the other. And I think that Carter wouldn’t have gone into it except to save me from losing money.”

      “And yet made you lose fifty thousand instead of twenty. For I don’t suppose HE advanced anything.”

      “He gave his time and experience,” said Barker simply.

      “I don’t think it worth thirty thousand dollars,” said Stacy dryly. “But all this doesn’t tell me what your business is with me to-day.”

      “No,” said Barker, brightening up, “but it is business, you know. Something in the old style—as between partner and partner—and that’s why I came to YOU, and not to the ‘banker.’ And it all comes out of something that Demorest once told us; so you see it’s all us three again! Well, you know, of course, that the Excelsior Ditch Company have abandoned the Bar and Heavy Tree Hill. It didn’t pay.”

      “Yes; nor does the company pay any dividends now. You ought to know, with fifty thousand of their stock on your hands.”

      Barker laughed. “But listen. I found that I could buy up their whole plant and all the ditching along the Black Spur Range for ten thousand dollars.”

      “And Great Scott! you don’t think of taking up their business?” said Stacy, aghast.

      Barker laughed more heartily. “No. Not their business. But I remember that once Demorest told us, in the dear old days, that it cost nearly as much to make a water ditch as a railroad, in the way of surveying and engineering and levels, you know. And here’s the plant for a railroad. Don’t you see?”

      “But a railroad from Black Spur to Heavy Tree Hill—what’s the good of that?”

      “Why, Black Spur will be in the line of the new Divide Railroad they’re trying to get a bill for in the legislature.”

      “An infamous piece of wildcat jobbing that will never pass,” said Stacy decisively.

      “They said BECAUSE it was that, it would pass,” said Barker simply. “They say that Watson’s Bank is in it, and is bound to get it through. And as that is a rival bank of yours, don’t you see, I thought that if WE could get something real good or valuable out of it,—something that would do the Black Spur good,—it would be all right.”

      “And was your business to consult me about it?” said Stacy bluntly.

      “No,” said Barker, “it’s too late to consult you now, though I wish I had. I’ve given my word to take it, and I can’t back out. But I haven’t the ten thousand dollars, and I came to you.”

      Stacy slowly settled himself back in his chair, and put both hands in his pockets. “Not a cent, Barker, not a cent.”

      “I’m not asking it of the BANK,” said Barker, with a smile, “for I could have gone to the bank for it. But as this was something between us, I am asking you, Stacy, as my old partner.”

      “And I am answering you, Barker, as your old partner, but also as the partner of a hundred other men, who have even a greater right to ask me. And my answer is, not a cent!”

      Barker looked at him with a pale, astonished face and slightly parted lips. Stacy rose, thrust his hands deeper in his pockets, and standing before him went on:—

      “Now look here! It’s time you should understand me and yourself. Three years ago, when our partnership was dissolved by accident, or mutual consent, we will say, we started afresh, each on our own hook. Through foolishness and bad advice you have in those three years hopelessly involved yourself as you never would have done had we been partners, and yet in your difficulty you ask me and my new partners to help you out of a difficulty in which they have no concern.”

      “Your NEW partners?” stammered Barker.

      “Yes, my new partners; for every man who has a share, or a deposit, or an interest, or a dollar in this bank is my PARTNER—even you, with your securities at the Branch, are one; and you may say that in THIS I am protecting you against yourself.”

      “But you have money—you have private means.”

      “None to speculate with as you wish me to—on account of my position; none to give away foolishly as you expect me to—on account of precedent and example. I am a soulless machine taking care of capital intrusted to me and my brains, but decidedly NOT to my heart nor my sentiment. So my answer is, not a cent!”

      Barker’s face had changed; his color had come back, but with an older expression. Presently, however, his beaming smile returned, with the additional suggestion of an affectionate toleration which puzzled Stacy.

      “I believe you’re right, old chap,” he said, extending his hand to the banker, “and I wish I had talked to you before. But it’s too late now, and I’ve given my word.”

      “Your WORD!” said Stacy. “Have you no written agreement?”

      “No. My word was accepted.” He blushed slightly as if conscious of a great weakness.

      “But that isn’t legal nor business. And you couldn’t even hold the Ditch Company to it if THEY chose to back out.”

      “But I don’t think they will,” said Barker simply. “And you see my word wasn’t given entirely to THEM. I bought the thing through my wife’s cousin, Henry Spring, a broker, and he makes something by it, from the company, on commission. And I can’t go back on HIM. What did you say?”

      Stacy had only groaned through his set teeth. “Nothing,” he said briefly, “except that I’m coming, as I said before, to dine with you to-night; but no more BUSINESS. I’ve enough of that with others, and there are some waiting for me in the outer office now.”

      Barker rose at once, but with the same affectionate smile and tender gravity of countenance, and laid his hand caressingly on Stacy’s shoulder. “It’s like you to give up so much of your time to me and my foolishness and be so frank with me. And I know it’s mighty rough on you to have to be a mere machine instead of Jim Stacy. Don’t you bother about me. I’ll sell some of my Wide West Extension and pull the thing through myself. It’s all right, but I’m sorry for you, old chap.” He glanced around the room at the walls and rich paneling, and added, “I suppose that’s what you have to pay for all this sort of thing?”

      Before Stacy could reply, a waiting visitor was announced for the second time, and Barker, with another hand-shake and a reassuring smile to his old partner, passed into the hall, as if the onus of any infelicity in the interview was upon himself alone. But Stacy did not seem to be in a particularly accessible mood to the new caller, who in his turn appeared to be slightly irritated by having been kept waiting over some irksome business. “You don’t seem to follow me,” he said to Stacy after reciting his business perplexity. “Can’t you suggest something?”

      “Well, why don’t you get hold of one of your board of directors?” said Stacy abstractedly. “There’s Captain Drummond; you and he are old friends. You were comrades in the Mexican War, weren’t you?”

      “That be d–d!” said his visitor bitterly. “All his interests are the other way, and in a trade of this kind, you know, Stacy, that a man would sacrifice his own brother. Do you suppose that he’d let up on a sure thing that he’s got just because he and I fought side by side at Cerro Gordo? Come! what are you giving us? You’re the last man I ever expected to hear that kind of flapdoodle from. If it’s because your bank has got some other interest and you can’t advise me, why don’t you say so?” Nevertheless, in spite of Stacy’s abrupt disclaimer, he left a few minutes later, half convinced that Stacy’s lukewarmness was due to some adverse influence. Other callers were almost as quickly disposed of, and at the end of an hour Stacy found himself again alone.

      But not apparently in a very

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