The Deluge Read online

  VIII. ON THE TRAIL OF LANGDON

  I had Monson with me twice each week-day--early in the morning and againafter business hours until bed-time. Also he spent the whole of everySaturday and Sunday with me. He developed astonishing dexterity as ateacher, and as soon as he realized that I had no false pride and wasthoroughly in earnest, he handled me without gloves--like a boxing teacherwho finds that his pupil has the grit of a professional. It was easy enoughfor me to grasp the theory of my new business--it was nothing more than "Benatural." But the rub came in making myself naturally of the right sort.I had--as I suppose every man of intelligence and decent instincts has--adisposition to be friendly and simple. But my manner was by nature what youmight call abrupt. My not very easy task was to learn the subtle differencebetween the abrupt that injects a tonic into social intercourse, and theabrupt that makes the other person shut up with a feeling of having beeninsulted.

  Then, there was the matter of good taste in conversation. Monson found,as I soon saw, that my everlasting self-assertiveness was beyond cure. AsI said to him: "I'm afraid you might easier succeed in reducing my chestmeasure." But we worked away at it, and perhaps my readers may discovereven in this narrative, though it is necessarily egotistic, evidence of atleast an honest effort not to be baldly boastful. Monson would have likedto make of me a self-deprecating sort of person--such as he was himself,with the result that the other fellow always got the prize and he got left.But I would have none of it.

  "How are people to know about you, if you don't tell 'em?" I argued. "Don'tyou yourself admit that men take a man at his own valuation less a slightdiscount, and that women take him at his own valuation plus an allowancefor his supposed modesty?"

  "Cracking yourself up is vulgar, nevertheless," declared the Englishman."It's the chief reason why we on the other side look on you Americans as alot of vulgarians--"

  "And are in awe of our superior cleverness," I put in.

  He laughed.

  "Well, do the best you can," said he. "Only, you really must not brag andswagger, and you must get out of the habit of talking louder than any oneelse."

  In the matter of dress, our task was easy. I had a fancy for brightcolors and for strong contrasts; but I know I never indulged in clashesand discords. It was simply that in clothes I had the same taste as inpictures--the taste that made me prefer Rubens to Rembrandt. We cast out ofmy wardrobe everything in the least doubtful; and I gave away my jeweledcanes, my pins and links and buttons for shirts and waistcoats except plaingold and pearls. I even left off the magnificent diamond I had worn foryears on my little finger--but I didn't give away that stone; I put itby for resetting into an engagement ring. However, when I was as quietlydressed as it was possible for a gentleman to be, he still studied medubiously, when he thought I wasn't seeing him. And I recall that he saidonce: "It's your face, Blacklock. If you could only manage to look lesslike a Spanish bull dashing into the ring, gazing joyfully about forsomebody to gore and toss!"

  "But I can't," said I. "And I wouldn't if I could--because that's_me_!"

  One Saturday he brought a dancing master down to my country place--DawnHill, which I bought of the Dumont estate and completely remodeled. I sawwhat the man's business was the instant I looked at him. I left him in thehall and took Monson into my den.

  "Not for me!" I protested. "There's where I draw the line."

  "You don't understand," he urged. "This fellow, this Alphonse Lynch, out inthe hall there, isn't going to teach you dancing so that you may dance, butso that you shall be less awkward in strange company."

  "My walk suits me," said I. "And I don't fall over furniture or trip peopleup."

  "True enough," he answered. "But you haven't the complete control of yourbody that'll make you unconscious of it when you're suddenly shot by abutler into a room full of people you suspect of being unfriendly andcritical."

  Not until he used his authority as trainer-in-full-charge, did I yield. Itmay seem absurd to some for a serious man like me solemnly to caper aboutin imitation of a scraping, grimacing French-Irishman; but Monson wasright, and I haven't in the least minded the ridicule he has brought on meby tattling this and the other things everywhere, since he turned againstme. It's nothing new under the sun for the crowds of chuckleheads to laughwhere they ought to applaud; their habit is to laugh and to applaud in thewrong places. There's no part of my career that I'm prouder of than thewhole of this thorough course of education in the trifles that are yet nottrifles. To have been ignorant is no disgrace; the disgrace comes when onepersists in ignorance and glories in it.

  Yet those who make the most pretensions in this topsy-turvy of a worldregard it as a disgrace to have been obscure and ignorant, and pridethemselves upon their persistence in their own kind of obscurity andignorance! No wonder the few strong men do about as they please with such arace of nincompoopery. If they didn't grow old and tired, what would theynot do?

  All this time I was giving myself--or thought I was giving myself--chieflyto my business, as usual. I know now that the new interests had in factcrowded the things down town far into the background, had impaired myjudgment, had suspended my common sense; but I had no inkling of this then,The most important matter that was occupying me down town was pushingTextile up toward par. Langdon's doubts, little though they influenced me,still made enough of an impression to cause me to test the market. I soldfor him at ninety, as he had directed; I sold in quantity every day. But nomatter how much I unloaded, the price showed no tendency to break.

  "This," said I to myself, "is a testimonial to the skill with which Iprepared for my bull campaign." And that seemed to me--all unsuspicious asI then was--a sufficient explanation of the steadiness of the stock which Ihad worked to establish in the public confidence.

  I felt that, if my matrimonial plans should turn out as I confidentlyexpected, I should need a much larger fortune than I had--for I wasdetermined that my wife should have an establishment second to none.Accordingly, I enlarged my original plan. I had intended to keep closeto Langdon in that plunge; I believed I controlled the market, but Ihadn't been in Wall Street twenty years without learning that the worstthunderbolts fall from cloudless skies. Without being in the leastsuspicious of Langdon, and simply acting on the general principle thatsurprise and treachery are part of the code of high finance, I had preparedto guard, first, against being taken in the rear by a secret change of planon Langdon's part, and second, against being involved and overwhelmed by asudden secret attack on him from some associate of his who might think hehad laid himself open to successful raiding.

  The market is especially dangerous toward Christmas and in thespring--toward Christmas the big fellows often juggle the stocks to get themoney for their big Christmas gifts and alms; toward spring the motive is,of course, the extra summer expenses of their families and the commencementgifts to colleges. It was now late in the spring.

  I say, I had intended to be cautious. I abandoned caution and rushed inboldly, feeling that the market was, in general, safe and that Textile wasunder my control--and that I was one of the kings of high finance, withmy lucky star in the zenith. I decided to continue my bull campaign on myown account for two weeks after I had unloaded for Langdon, to continueit until the stock was at par. I had no difficulty in pushing it toninety-seven, and I was not alarmed when I found myself loaded up withit, quoted at ninety-eight for the preferred and thirty for the common. Iassumed that I was practically its only supporter and that it would slowlysettle back as I slowly withdrew my support.

  To my surprise, the stock did not yield immediately under my efforts todepress it. I sold more heavily; Textile continued to show a tendency torise. I sold still more heavily; it broke a point or two, then steadiedand rose again. Instead of sending out along my secret lines for insideinformation, as I should have done, and would have done had I not been ina state of hypnotized judgment--I went to Langdon! I who had been studyingthose scoundrels for twenty-odd years, and dealing directly with and forthem for ten years!


  He wasn't at his office; they told me there that they didn't know whetherhe was at his town house or at his place in the country--"probably in thecountry," said his down-town secretary, with elaborate carelessness. "Hewouldn't be likely to stay away from the office or not to send for me, ifhe were in town, would he?"

  It takes an uncommon good liar to lie to me when I'm on the alert. As I wasdetermined to see Langdon, I was in so far on the alert. And I felt thefellow was lying. "That's reasonable," said I. "Call me up, if you hearfrom him. I want to see him--important, but not immediate." And I wentaway, having left the impression that I would make no further effort.

  Incredible though it may seem, especially to those who know how careful Iam to guard every point and to see in every friend a possible foe, I stilldid not suspect that smooth, that profound scoundrel. I do not use theseepithets with heat. I flatter myself I am a connoisseur of finesse and canlook even at my own affairs with judicial impartiality. And Langdon was,and is now, such a past master of finesse that he compels the admirationeven of his victims. He's like one of those fabled Damascus blades. Whenhe takes a leg off, the victim forgets to suffer in his amazement at thecleanness of the wound, in his incredulity that the leg is no longerpart of him. "Langdon," said I to myself, "is a sly dog. No doubt he'sbusy about some woman, and has covered his tracks." Yet I ought, in thecircumstances, instantly to have suspected that I was the person he wasdodging.

  I went up to his house. You, no doubt, have often seen and often admiredits beautiful facade, so simple that it hides its own magnificence fromall but experienced eyes, so perfect in its proportions that it hides thevastness of the palace of which it is the face. I have heard men say: "I'dlike to have a house--a moderate-sized house--one about the size of MowbrayLangdon's--though perhaps a little more elegant, not so plain."

  That's typical of the man. You have to look closely at him, to study him,before you appreciate how he has combined a thousand details of manner anddress into an appearance which, while it can not but impress the ordinaryman with its distinction, suggests to all but the very observant the mostmodest plainness and simplicity. How few realize that simplicity must beprofound, complex, studied, not to be and to appear crude and coarse. Inthose days that truth had just begun to dawn on me.

  "Mr. Langdon isn't at home," said the servant.

  I had been at his house once before; I knew he occupied the left side--thewhole of the second floor, so shut off that it not only had a separateentrance, but also could not be reached by those in the right side ofthe house without descending to the entrance hall and ascending the leftstairway.

  "Just take my card to his private secretary, to Mr. Rathburn," said I. "Mr.Langdon has doubtless left a message for me."

  The butler hesitated, yielded, showed me into the reception-room off theentrance hall. I waited a few seconds, then adventured the stairway tothe left, up which he had disappeared. I entered the small salon in whichLangdon had received me on my other visit. From the direction of an opendoor, I heard his voice--he was saying: "I am not at home. There's nomessage."

  And still I did not realize that it was I he was avoiding!

  "It's no use now, Langdon," I called cheerfully. "Beg pardon for seeming tointrude. I misunderstood--or didn't hear where the servant said I was towait. However, no harm done. So long! I'm off." But I made no move towardthe door by which I had entered; instead, I advanced a few feet nearer thedoor from which his voice had come.

  After a brief--a very brief--pause, there came in Langdon'svoice--laughing, not a trace of annoyance: "I might have known! Come in,Matt!"