that hovered over them, any more than thousands of families in America
have of the business risks and contingences upon which their prosperity
and luxury hang.
A sudden call upon Mr. Bolton for a large sum of money, which must be
forthcoming at once, had found him in the midst of a dozen ventures, from
no one of which a dollar could be realized. It was in vain that he
applied to his business acquaintances and friends; it was a period of
sudden panic and no money. “A hundred thousand! Mr. Bolton,” said
Plumly. “Good God, if you should ask me for ten, I shouldn’t know where
to get it.”
And yet that day Mr. Small (Pennybacker, Bigler and Small) came to Mr.
Bolton with a piteous story of ruin in a coal operation, if he could not
raise ten thousand dollars. Only ten, and he was sure of a fortune.
Without it he was a beggar. Mr. Bolton had already Small’s notes for a
large amount in his safe, labeled “doubtful;” he had helped him again and
again, and always with the same result. But Mr. Small spoke with a
faltering voice of his family, his daughter in school, his wife ignorant
of his calamity, and drew such a picture of their agony, that Mr. Bolton
put by his own more pressing necessity, and devoted the day to scraping
together, here and there, ten thousand dollars for this brazen beggar,
who had never kept a promise to him nor paid a debt.
Beautiful credit! The foundation of modern society. Who shall say that
this is not the golden age of mutual trust, of unlimited reliance upon
human promises? That is a peculiar condition of society which enables a
whole nation to instantly recognize point and meaning in the familiar
newspaper anecdote, which puts into the mouth of a distinguished
speculator in lands and mines this remark:–“I wasn’t worth a cent two
years ago, and now I owe two millions of dollars.”
CHAPTER XXVII.
It was a hard blow to poor Sellers to see the work on his darling
enterprise stop, and the noise and bustle and confusion that had been
such refreshment to his soul, sicken and die out. It was hard to come
down to humdrum ordinary life again after being a General Superintendent
and the most conspicuous man in the community. It was sad to see his
name disappear from the newspapers; sadder still to see it resurrected at
intervals, shorn of its aforetime gaudy gear of compliments and clothed
on with rhetorical tar and feathers.
But his friends suffered more on his account than he did. He was a cork
that could not be kept under the water many moments at a time.
He had to bolster up his wife’s spirits every now and then. On one of
these occasions he said:
“It’s all right, my dear, all right; it will all come right in a little
while. There’s $200,000 coming, and that will set things booming again:
Harry seems to be having some difficulty, but that’s to be expected–you
can’t move these big operations to the tune of Fisher’s Hornpipe, you
know. But Harry will get it started along presently, and then you’ll
see! I expect the news every day now.”
“But Beriah, you’ve been expecting it every day, all along, haven’t you?”
“Well, yes; yes–I don’t know but I have. But anyway, the longer it’s
delayed, the nearer it grows to the time when it will start–same as
every day you live brings you nearer to–nearer–”
“The grave?”
“Well, no–not that exactly; but you can’t understand these things, Polly
dear–women haven’t much head for business, you know. You make yourself
perfectly comfortable, old lady, and you’ll see how we’ll trot this right
along. Why bless you, let the appropriation lag, if it wants to–that’s
no great matter–there’s a bigger thing than that.”
“Bigger than $200,000, Beriah?”
“Bigger, child?–why, what’s $200,000? Pocket money! Mere pocket money!
Look at the railroad! Did you forget the railroad? It ain’t many months
till spring; it will be coming right along, and the railroad swimming
right along behind it. Where’ll it be by the middle of summer? Just
stop and fancy a moment–just think a little–don’t anything suggest