Chapter 6

by William Dean Howells

　　The young man went to see Colonel Lapham shortly after his return toBoston. He paid his visit at Lapham's office, and if he had studiedsimplicity in his summer dress he could not have presented himself in afigure more to the mind of a practical man. His hands and neck stillkept the brown of the Texan suns and winds, and he looked asbusiness-like as Lapham himself.He spoke up promptly and briskly in the outer office, and caused thepretty girl to look away from her copying at him. "Is Mr. Lapham in?"he asked; and after that moment for reflection which an array ofbook-keepers so addressed likes to give the inquirer, a head was liftedfrom a ledger and nodded toward the inner office.Lapham had recognised the voice, and he was standing, in considerableperplexity, to receive Corey, when the young man opened his paintedglass door. It was a hot afternoon, and Lapham was in his shirtsleeves. Scarcely a trace of the boastful hospitality with which hehad welcomed Corey to his house a few days before lingered in hispresent address. He looked at the young man's face, as if he expectedhim to despatch whatever unimaginable affair he had come upon."Won't you sit down? How are you? You'll excuse me," he added, in briefallusion to the shirt-sleeves. "I'm about roasted."Corey laughed. "I wish you'd let me take off MY coat.""Why, TAKE it off!" cried the Colonel, with instant pleasure. There issomething in human nature which causes the man in his shirt-sleeves towish all other men to appear in the same deshabille."I will, if you ask me after I've talked with you two minutes," saidthe young fellow, companionably pulling up the chair offered him towardthe desk where Lapham had again seated himself. "But perhaps youhaven't got two minutes to give me?""Oh yes, I have," said the Colonel. "I was just going to knock off. Ican give you twenty, and then I shall have fifteen minutes to catch theboat.""All right," said Corey. "I want you to take me into the mineral paintbusiness."The Colonel sat dumb. He twisted his thick neck, and looked round atthe door to see if it was shut. He would not have liked to have any ofthose fellows outside hear him, but there is no saying what sum ofmoney he would not have given if his wife had been there to hear whatCorey had just said."I suppose," continued the young man, "I could have got several peoplewhose names you know to back my industry and sobriety, and say a wordfor my business capacity. But I thought I wouldn't trouble anybody forcertificates till I found whether there was a chance, or the ghost ofone, of your wanting me. So I came straight to you."Lapham gathered himself together as well as he could. He had not yetforgiven Corey for Mrs. Lapham's insinuation that he would feel himselftoo good for the mineral paint business; and though he was dispersed bythat astounding shot at first, he was not going to let any one evenhypothetically despise his paint with impunity. "How do you think I amgoing to take you on?" They took on hands at the works; and Lapham putit as if Corey were a hand coming to him for employment. Whether hesatisfied himself by this or not, he reddened a little after he hadsaid it.Corey answered, ignorant of the offence: "I haven't a very clear idea,I'm afraid; but I've been looking a little into the matter from theoutside.""I hope you hain't been paying any attention to that fellow's stuff inthe Events?" Lapham interrupted. Since Bartley's interview hadappeared, Lapham had regarded it with very mixed feelings. At first itgave him a glow of secret pleasure, blended with doubt as to how hiswife would like the use Bartley had made of her in it. But she had notseemed to notice it much, and Lapham had experienced the gratitude ofthe man who escapes. Then his girls had begun to make fun of it; andthough he did not mind Penelope's jokes much, he did not like to seethat Irene's gentility was wounded. Business friends met him with thekind of knowing smile about it that implied their sense of thefraudulent character of its praise--the smile of men who had been thereand who knew how it was themselves. Lapham had his misgivings as tohow his clerks and underlings looked at it; he treated them withstately severity for a while after it came out, and he ended by feelingrather sore about it. He took it for granted that everybody had readit."I don't know what you mean," replied Corey, "I don't see the Eventsregularly.""Oh, it was nothing. They sent a fellow down here to interview me, andhe got everything about as twisted as he could.""I believe they always do," said Corey. "I hadn't seen it. Perhaps itcame out before I got home.""Perhaps it did.""My notion of making myself useful to you was based on a hint I gotfrom one of your own circulars."Lapham was proud of those circulars; he thought they read very well."What was that?""I could put a little capital into the business," said Corey, with thetentative accent of a man who chances a thing. "I've got a littlemoney, but I didn't imagine you cared for anything of that kind.""No, sir, I don't," returned the Colonel bluntly. "I've had onepartner, and one's enough.""Yes," assented the young man, who doubtless had his own ideas as toeventualities--or perhaps rather had the vague hopes of youth. "Ididn't come to propose a partnership. But I see that you areintroducing your paint into the foreign markets, and there I reallythought I might be of use to you, and to myself too.""How?" asked the Colonel scantly."Well, I know two or three languages pretty well. I know French, and Iknow German, and I've got a pretty fair sprinkling of Spanish.""You mean that you can talk them?" asked the Colonel, with the mingledawe and slight that such a man feels for such accomplishments. "Yes;and I can write an intelligible letter in either of them."Lapham rubbed his nose. "It's easy enough to get all the letters wewant translated.""Well," pursued Corey, not showing his discouragement if he felt any,"I know the countries where you want to introduce this paint of yours.I've been there. I've been in Germany and France and I've been inSouth America and Mexico; I've been in Italy, of course. I believe Icould go to any of those countries and place it to advantage."Lapham had listened with a trace of persuasion in his face, but now heshook his head."It's placing itself as fast as there's any call for it. It wouldn'tpay us to send anybody out to look after it. Your salary and expenseswould eat up about all we should make on it.""Yes," returned the young man intrepidly, "if you had to pay me anysalary and expenses.""You don't propose to work for nothing?""I propose to work for a commission." The Colonel was beginning toshake his head again, but Corey hurried on. "I haven't come to youwithout making some inquiries about the paint, and I know how it standswith those who know best. I believe in it."Lapham lifted his head and looked at the young man, deeply moved."It's the best paint in God's universe," he said with the solemnity ofprayer."It's the best in the market," said Corey; and he repeated, "I believein it.""You believe in it," began the Colonel, and then he stopped. If therehad really been any purchasing power in money, a year's income wouldhave bought Mrs. Lapham's instant presence. He warmed and softened tothe young man in every way, not only because he must do so to any onewho believed in his paint, but because he had done this innocent personthe wrong of listening to a defamation of his instinct and good sense,and had been willing to see him suffer for a purely supposititiousoffence.Corey rose."You mustn't let me outstay my twenty minutes," he said, taking out hiswatch. "I don't expect you to give a decided answer on the spot. Allthat I ask is that you'll consider my proposition.""Don't hurry," said Lapham. "Sit still! I want to tell you about thispaint," he added, in a voice husky with the feeling that his hearercould not divine. "I want to tell you ALL about it.""I could walk with you to the boat," suggested the young man."Never mind the boat! I can take the next one. Look here!" The Colonelpulled open a drawer, as Corey sat down again, and took out aphotograph of the locality of the mine. "Here's where we get it. Thisphotograph don't half do the place justice," he said, as if theimperfect art had slighted the features of a beloved face. "It's oneof the sightliest places in the country, and here's the very spot "--hecovered it with his huge forefinger--"where my father found that paint,more than forty--years--ago. Yes, sir!"He went on, and told the story in unsparing detail, while his chancefor the boat passed unheeded, and the clerks in the outer office hungup their linen office coats and put on their seersucker or flannelstreet coats. The young lady went too, and nobody was left but theporter, who made from time to time a noisy demonstration of fastening adistant blind, or putting something in place. At last the Colonelroused himself from the autobiographical delight of the history of hispaint. "Well, sir, that's the story.""It's an interesting story," said Corey, with a long breath, as theyrose together, and Lapham put on his coat."That's what it is," said the Colonel. "Well!" he added, "I don't seebut what we've got to have another talk about this thing. It's asurprise to me, and I don't see exactly how you're going to make itpay.""I'm willing to take the chances," answered Corey. "As I said, Ibelieve in it. I should try South America first. I should try Chili.""Look here!" said Lapham, with his watch in his hand. "I like to getthings over. We've just got time for the six o'clock boat. Why don'tyou come down with me to Nantasket? I can give you a bed as well asnot. And then we can finish up."The impatience of youth in Corey responded to the impatience oftemperament in his elder. "Why, I don't see why I shouldn't," heallowed himself to say. "I confess I should like to have it finishedup myself, if it could be finished up in the right way.""Well, we'll see. Dennis!" Lapham called to the remote porter, and theman came. "Want to send any word home?" he asked Corey."No; my father and I go and come as we like, without keeping account ofeach other. If I don't come home, he knows that I'm not there. That'sall.""Well, that's convenient. You'll find you can't do that when you'remarried. Never mind, Dennis," said the Colonel.He had time to buy two newspapers on the wharf before he jumped onboard the steam-boat with Corey. "Just made it," he said; "and that'swhat I like to do. I can't stand it to be aboard much more than aminute before she shoves out." He gave one of the newspapers to Coreyas he spoke, and set him the example of catching up a camp-stool ontheir way to that point on the boat which his experience had taught himwas the best. He opened his paper at once and began to run over itsnews, while the young man watched the spectacular recession of thecity, and was vaguely conscious of the people about him, and of the gaylife of the water round the boat. The air freshened; the craft thinnedin number; they met larger sail, lagging slowly inward in the afternoonlight; the islands of the bay waxed and waned as the steamer approachedand left them behind."I hate to see them stirring up those Southern fellows again," said theColonel, speaking into the paper on his lap. "Seems to me it's time tolet those old issues go.""Yes," said the young man. "What are they doing now?""Oh, stirring up the Confederate brigadiers in Congress. I don't likeit. Seems to me, if our party hain't got any other stock-in-trade, webetter shut up shop altogether." Lapham went on, as he scanned hisnewspaper, to give his ideas of public questions, in a fragmentary way,while Corey listened patiently, and waited for him to come back tobusiness. He folded up his paper at last, and stuffed it into his coatpocket. "There's one thing I always make it a rule to do," he said,"and that is to give my mind a complete rest from business while I'mgoing down on the boat. I like to get the fresh air all through me,soul and body. I believe a man can give his mind a rest, just the sameas he can give his legs a rest, or his back. All he's got to do is touse his will-power. Why, I suppose, if I hadn't adopted some such rule,with the strain I've had on me for the last ten years, I should 'a'been a dead man long ago. That's the reason I like a horse. You'vegot to give your mind to the horse; you can't help it, unless you wantto break your neck; but a boat's different, and there you got to useyour will-power. You got to take your mind right up and put it whereyou want it. I make it a rule to read the paper on the boat----Holdon!" he interrupted himself to prevent Corey from paying his fare tothe man who had come round for it. "I've got tickets. And when I getthrough the paper, I try to get somebody to talk to, or I watch thepeople. It's an astonishing thing to me where they all come from.I've been riding up and down on these boats for six or seven years, andI don't know but very few of the faces I see on board. Seems to be aperfectly fresh lot every time. Well, of course! Town's full ofstrangers in the summer season, anyway, and folks keep coming down fromthe country. They think it's a great thing to get down to the beach,and they've all heard of the electric light on the water, and they wantto see it. But you take faces now! The astonishing thing to me is notwhat a face tells, but what it don't tell. When you think of what aman is, or a woman is, and what most of 'em have been through beforethey get to be thirty, it seems as if their experience would burn rightthrough. But it don't. I like to watch the couples, and try to makeout which are engaged, or going to be, and which are married, or betterbe. But half the time I can't make any sort of guess. Of course,where they're young and kittenish, you can tell; but where they'reanyways on, you can't. Heigh?""Yes, I think you're right," said Corey, not perfectly reconciled tophilosophy in the place of business, but accepting it as he must."Well," said the Colonel, "I don't suppose it was meant we should knowwhat was in each other's minds. It would take a man out of his ownhands. As long as he's in his own hands, there's some hopes of hisdoing something with himself; but if a fellow has been found out--evenif he hasn't been found out to be so very bad--it's pretty much all upwith him. No, sir. I don't want to know people through and through."The greater part of the crowd on board--and, of course, the boat wascrowded--looked as if they might not only be easily but safely known.There was little style and no distinction among them; they were peoplewho were going down to the beach for the fun or the relief of it, andwere able to afford it. In face they were commonplace, with nothingbut the American poetry of vivid purpose to light them up, where theydid not wholly lack fire. But they were nearly all shrewd andfriendly-looking, with an apparent readiness for the humorous intimacynative to us all. The women were dandified in dress, according totheir means and taste, and the men differed from each other in degreesof indifference to it. To a straw-hatted population, such as ours isin summer, no sort of personal dignity is possible. We have not eventhe power over observers which comes from the fantasticality of anEnglishman when he discards the conventional dress. In our straw hatsand our serge or flannel sacks we are no more imposing than a crowd ofboys."Some day," said Lapham, rising as the boat drew near the wharf of thefinal landing, "there's going to be an awful accident on these boats.Just look at that jam."He meant the people thickly packed on the pier, and under strongrestraint of locks and gates, to prevent them from rushing on board theboat and possessing her for the return trip before she had landed herNantasket passengers."Overload 'em every time," he continued, with a sort of dry, impersonalconcern at the impending calamity, as if it could not possibly includehim. "They take about twice as many as they ought to carry, and aboutten times as many as they could save if anything happened. Yes, sir,it's bound to come. Hello! There's my girl!" He took out his foldednewspaper and waved it toward a group of phaetons and barouches drawnup on the pier a little apart from the pack of people, and a lady inone of them answered with a flourish of her parasol.When he had made his way with his guest through the crowd, she began tospeak to her father before she noticed Corey. "Well, Colonel, you'veimproved your last chance. We've been coming to every boat since fouro'clock,--or Jerry has,--and I told mother that I would come myselfonce, and see if I couldn't fetch you; and if I failed, you could walknext time. You're getting perfectly spoiled."The Colonel enjoyed letting her scold him to the end before he said,with a twinkle of pride in his guest and satisfaction in her probablybeing able to hold her own against any discomfiture, "I've brought Mr.Corey down for the night with me, and I was showing him things all theway, and it took time."The young fellow was at the side of the open beach-wagon, making aquick bow, and Penelope Lapham was cozily drawling, "Oh, how do you do,Mr. Corey?" before the Colonel had finished his explanation."Get right in there, alongside of Miss Lapham, Mr. Corey," he said,pulling himself up into the place beside the driver. "No, no," he hadadded quickly, at some signs of polite protest in the young man, "Idon't give up the best place to anybody. Jerry, suppose you let mehave hold of the leathers a minute."This was his way of taking the reins from the driver; and in half thetime he specified, he had skilfully turned the vehicle on the pier,among the crooked lines and groups of foot-passengers, and was spinningup the road toward the stretch of verandaed hotels and restaurants inthe sand along the shore. "Pretty gay down here," he said, indicatingall this with a turn of his whip, as he left it behind him. "But I'vegot about sick of hotels; and this summer I made up my mind that I'dtake a cottage. Well, Pen, how are the folks?" He looked half-wayround for her answer, and with the eye thus brought to bear upon her hewas able to give her a wink of supreme content. The Colonel, with nosort of ulterior design, and nothing but his triumph over Mrs. Laphamdefinitely in his mind, was feeling, as he would have said, about right.The girl smiled a daughter's amusement at her father's boyishness. "Idon't think there's much change since morning. Did Irene have aheadache when you left?""No," said the Colonel."Well, then, there's that to report.""Pshaw!" said the Colonel with vexation in his tone."I'm sorry Miss Irene isn't well," said Corey politely."I think she must have got it from walking too long on the beach. Theair is so cool here that you forget how hot the sun is.""Yes, that's true," assented Corey."A good night's rest will make it all right," suggested the Colonel,without looking round. "But you girls have got to look out.""If you're fond of walking," said Corey, "I suppose you find the beacha temptation.""Oh, it isn't so much that," returned the girl. "You keep walking onand on because it's so smooth and straight before you. We've been hereso often that we know it all by heart--just how it looks at high tide,and how it looks at low tide, and how it looks after a storm. We're aswell acquainted with the crabs and stranded jelly-fish as we are withthe children digging in the sand and the people sitting underumbrellas. I think they're always the same, all of them."The Colonel left the talk to the young people. When he spoke next itwas to say, "Well, here we are!" and he turned from the highway anddrove up in front of a brown cottage with a vermilion roof, and a groupof geraniums clutching the rock that cropped up in the loop formed bythe road. It was treeless and bare all round, and the ocean,unnecessarily vast, weltered away a little more than a stone's-castfrom the cottage. A hospitable smell of supper filled the air, andMrs. Lapham was on the veranda, with that demand in her eyes for herbelated husband's excuses, which she was obliged to check on her tongueat sight of Corey.