The Fighting Chance

Beverly Plank had grown stouter since he had returned to town from Black Fells; but the increase of weight was evenly distributed over his six feet odd, which made him only a trifle more ponderous and not abdominally fat. But Mortimer had become enormous; rolls of flesh crowded his mottled ear-lobes outward and bulged above his collar; cushions of it padded the backs of his hands and fingers; shaving left his heavy, distended face congested and unpleasantly shiny. But he was as minutely groomed as ever, and he wore that satiated air of prosperity which had always been one of his most important assets.

The social campaign inaugurated by Leila Mortimer in behalf of Beverly Plank had, so far, received no serious reverses. His box at the horse show, of course, produced merely negative results; his box at the opera might mean something some day. His name was up at the Lenox and the Patroons; he had endowed a ward in the new pavilion of St. Berold’s Hospital; he had presented a fine Gainsborough—The Countess of Wythe—to the Metropolitan Museum; and it was rumoured that he had consulted several bishops concerning a new chapel for that huge bastion of the citadel of Faith looming above the metropolitan wilderness in the north.

So far, so good. If, as yet, he had not been permitted to go where he wanted to go, he at least had been instructed where not to go and what not to do; and he was as docile as he was dogged, understanding how much longer it takes to shuffle in by way of the mews and the back door than to sit on the front steps and wait politely for somebody to unchain the front door.

Meanwhile he was doggedly docile; his huge house, facing the wintry park midway between the squat palaces of the wealthy pioneers and the outer hundreds, remained magnificently empty save for certain afternoon conferences of very solemn men, fellow directors and associates in business and financial matters—save for the periodical presence of the Mortimers: a mansion immense and shadowy, haunted by relays of yawning, livened servants, half stupefied under the vast silence of the twilit splendour. He was patient, not only because he was told to be, but also because he had nothing better to do. Society stared at him as blankly as the Mountain confronted Mahomet. But the stubborn patience of the man was itself a strain on the Mountain; he was aware of that, and he waited for it to come to him. As yet, however, he could detect no symptoms of mobility in the Mountain.

“Things are moving all the same,” said Mortimer, as he entered the reading room of the Saddle Club. “Quarrier and Belwether have listened a damned sight more respectfully to me since they read that column about you and the bishops and that chapel business.”

Plank turned his heavy head with a disturbed glance around the room; for he always dreaded Mortimer’s indiscretions of speech—was afraid of his cynical frankness in the presence of others; even shrank from the brutal bonhomie of the man when alone with him.

“Can’t you be careful?” he said; “there was a man here a moment ago.” He picked up his unfinished letter, folded and pocketed it, touched an electric bell, and when a servant came, “Take Mr. Mortimer’s order,” he said, supporting his massive head on his huge hands and resting his elbow on the writing-desk.

“I’ve got to cut out this morning bracer,” said Mortimer, eyeing the servant with indecision; but he gave his order nevertheless, and later accepted a cigar; and when the servant had returned and again retired, he half emptied his tall glass, refilled it with mineral water, and, settling back in the padded arm-chair, said: “If I manage this thing as it ought to be managed, you’ll go through by April. What do you think of that?”

Plank’s phlegmatic features flushed. “I’m more obliged to you than I can say,” he began, but Mortimer silenced him with a gesture: “Don’t interrupt. I’m going to put you through The Patroons Club by April. That’s thirty yards through the centre; d’ye see, you dunderheaded Dutchman? It’s solid gain, and it’s our ball. The Lenox will take longer; they’re a ‘holier-than-thou’ bunch of nincompoops, and it always horrifies them to have any man elected, no matter who he is. They’d rather die of dry rot than elect anybody; it shocks them to think that any man could have the presumption to be presented. They require the spectacle of fasting and prayer—a view of a candidate seated in sackcloth and ashes in outer darkness. You’ve got to wait for the Lenox, Plank.”

“I am waiting,” said Plank, squaring his massive jaws.

“You’ve got to,” growled Mortimer, emptying his glass aggressively.

Plank looked out of the window, his shrewd blue eyes closing in retrospection.

“Another thing,” continued Mortimer thickly; “the Kemp Ferralls are disposed to be decent. I don’t mean in asking you to meet some intellectual second-raters, but in doing it handsomely. I don’t know whether it’s time yet,” he added, with a sidelong glance at Plank’s stolid face; “I don’t want to push the mourners too hard… Well, I’ll see about it… And if it’s the thing to do, and the time to do it”—he turned on Plank with his boisterous and misleading laugh and clapped him on the shoulder—“it will be done, as sure as snobs are snobs; and that’s the surest thing you ever bet on. Here’s to them!” and he emptied his glass and fell back into his chair, wheezing and sucking at his unlighted cigar.

“I want to say,” began Plank, speaking the more slowly because he was deeply in earnest, “that all this you are doing for me is very handsome of you, Mortimer. I’d like to say—to convey to you something of how I feel about the way you and Mrs. Mortimer—”

“Oh, Leila has done it all.”

“Mrs. Mortimer is very kind, and you have been so, too. I—I wish there was something—some way to—to—”

“To what?” asked Mortimer so bluntly that Plank flushed up and stammered:

“To be—to do a—to show my gratitude.”

“How? You’re scarcely in a position to do anything for us,” said Mortimer, brutally staring him out of countenance.

“I know it,” said Plank, the painful flush deepening.

Mortimer, fussing and growling over his cigar, was nevertheless stealthily intent on the game which had so long absorbed him. His wits, clogged, dulled by excesses, were now aroused to a sort of gross activity through the menace of necessity. At last Plank had given him an opening. He recognised his chance.

“There’s one thing,” he said deliberately, “that I won’t stand for, and that’s any vulgar misconception on your part of my friendship for you. Do you follow me?”

“I don’t misunderstand it,” protested Plank, angry and astonished; “I don’t—”

“—As though,” continued Mortimer menacingly, “I were one of those needy social tipsters, one of those shabby, pandering touts who—”

“For Heaven’s sake, Mortimer, don’t talk like that! I had no intention—”

“—One of those contemptible, parasitic leeches,” persisted Mortimer, getting redder and hoarser, “who live on men like you. Confound you, Plank, what the devil do you mean by it?”

“Mortimer, are you crazy, to talk to me like that?”

“No, I’m not, but you must be! I’ve a mind to drop the whole cursed business! I’ve every inclination to drop it! If you haven’t horse-sense enough—if you haven’t innate delicacy sufficient to keep you from making such a break—”

“I didn’t! It wasn’t a break, Mortimer. I wouldn’t have hurt you—”

“You did hurt me! How can I feel the same again? I never imagined you thought I was that sort of a social mercenary. Why, so little did I dream that you looked on our friendship in that light that I was—on my word of honour!—I was just now on the point of asking you for three or four thousand, to carry me to the month’s end and square my bridge balance.”

“Mortimer, you must take it! You are a fool to think I meant anything by saying I wanted to show my gratitude. Look here; be decent and fair with me. I wouldn’t offer you an affront—would I?—even if I were a cad. I wouldn’t do it now, just when you’re getting things into shape for me. I’m not a fool, anyway. This is in deadly earnest, I tell you, Mortimer, and I’m getting angry about it. You’ve got to show your confidence in me; you’ve got to take what you want from me, as you would from any friend. I resent your failure to do it now, as though you drew a line between me and your intimates. If you’re really my friend, show it!”

There was a pause. A curious and unaccustomed sensation had silenced Mortimer, something almost akin to shame. It astonished him a little. He did not quite understand why, in the very moment of success over this stolid, shrewd young man and his thrifty Dutch instincts, he should feel uncomfortable. Were not his services worth something? Had he not earned at least the right to borrow from this rich man who could afford to pay for what was done for him? Why should he feel ashamed? He had not been treacherous; he really liked the fellow. Why shouldn’t he take his money?

“See here, old man,” said Plank, extending a huge highly coloured hand, “is all square between us now?”

“I think so,” muttered Mortimer.

But Plank would not relinquish his hand.

“Then tell me how to draw that cheque! Great Heaven, Mortimer, what is friendship, anyhow, if it doesn’t include little matters like this—little misunderstandings like this? I’m the man to be sensitive, not you. You have been very good to me, Mortimer. I could almost wish you in a position where the only thing I possess might square something of my debt to you.”

A few minutes later, while he was filling in the cheque, a dusty youth in riding clothes and spurs came in and found a seat by one of the windows, into which he dropped, and then looked about him for a servant.

“Hello, Fleetwood!” said Mortimer, glancing over his shoulder to see whose spurs were ringing on the polished floor.

Fleetwood saluted amiably with his riding-crop; including Plank, whom he did not know, in a more formal salute.

“Will you join us?” asked Mortimer, taking the cheque which Plank offered and carelessly pocketing it without even a nod of thanks. “You know Beverly Plank, of course? What! I thought everybody knew Beverly Plank.”

Mr. Fleetwood and Mr. Plank shook hands and resumed their seats.

“Ripping weather!” observed Fleetwood, replacing his hat and rebuttoning the glove which he had removed to shake hands with Plank. “Lot of jolly people out this morning. I say, Mortimer, do you want that roan hunter of mine you looked over? I mean King Dermid, because Marion Page wants him, if you don’t. She was out this morning, and she spoke of it again.”

Mortimer, lifting a replenished glass, shook his head, and drank thirstily in silence.

“Saw you at Westbury, I think,” said Fleetwood politely to Plank, as the two lifted their glasses to one another.

“I hunted there for a day or two,” replied Plank, modestly. “If it’s that big Irish thoroughbred you were riding that you want to sell I’d like a look in, if Miss Page doesn’t fancy him.”

Fleetwood laughed, and glanced amusedly at Plank over his glass. “It isn’t that horse, Mr. Plank. That’s Drumceit, Stephen Siward’s famous horse.” He interrupted himself to exchange greetings with several men who came into the room rather noisily, their spurs resounding across the oaken floor. One of them, Tom O’Hara, joined them, slamming his crop on the desk beside Plank and spreading himself over an arm-chair, from the seat of which he forcibly removed Mortimer’s feet without excuse.

“Drink? Of course I want a drink!” he replied irritably to Fleetwood—“one, three, ten, several! Billy, whose weasel-bellied pinto was that you were kicking your heels into in the park? Some of the squadron men asked me—the major. Oh, beg pardon! Didn’t know you were trying to stick Mortimer with him. He might do for the troop ambulance, inside!… What? Oh, yes; met Mr. Blank—I mean Mr. Plank—at Shotover, I think. How d’ye do? Had the pleasure of potting your tame pheasants. Rotten sport, you know. What do you do it for, Mr. Blank?”

“What did you come for, if it’s rotten sport?” asked Plank so simply that it took O’Hara a moment to realise he had been snubbed.

“I didn’t mean to be offensive,” he drawled.

“I suppose you can’t help it,” said Plank very gently; “some people can’t, you know.” And there was another silence, broken by Mortimer, whose entire hulk was tingling with a mixture of surprise and amusement over his protégé’s developing ability to take care of himself. “Did you say that Stephen Siward is in Westbury, Billy?”

“No; he’s in town,” replied Fleetwood. “I took his horses up to hunt with. He isn’t hunting, you know.”

“I didn’t know. Nobody ever sees him anywhere,” said Mortimer. “I guess his mother’s death cut him up.”

Fleetwood lifted his empty glass and gently shook the ice in it. “That, and—the other business—is enough to cut any man up, isn’t it?”

“You mean the action of the Lenox Club?” asked Plank seriously.

“Yes. He’s resigned from this club, too, I hear. Somebody told me that he has made a clean sweep of all his clubs. That’s foolish. A man may be an ass to join too many clubs but he’s always a fool to resign from any of ‘em. You ask the weatherwise what resigning from a club forecasts. It’s the first ominous sign in a young man’s career.”

“What’s the second sign?” asked O’Hara, with a yawn.

“Squadron talk; and you’re full of it,” retorted Fleetwood—“‘I said to the major,’ and ‘The captain told the chief trumpeter’—all that sort of thing—and those Porto Rico spurs of yours, and the ewe-necked glyptosaurus you block the bridle-path with every morning. You’re an awful nuisance, Tom, if anybody should ask me.”

Under cover of a rapid-fire exchange of pleasantries between Fleetwood and O’Hara, Plank turned to Mortimer, hesitating:

“I rather liked Siward when I met him at Shotover,” he ventured. “I’m very sorry he’s down and out.”

“He drinks,” shrugged Mortimer, diluting his mineral water with Irish whisky. “He can’t let it alone; he’s like all the Siwards. I could have told you that the first time I ever saw him. We all told him to cut it out, because he was sure to do some damfool thing if he didn’t. He’s done it, and his clubs have cut him out. It’s his own funeral.... Well, here’s to you!”

“Cut who out?” asked Fleetwood, ignoring O’Hara’s parting shot concerning the decadence of the Fleetwood stables and their owner.

“Stephen Siward. I always said that he was sure, sooner or later, to land in the family ditch. He has a right to, of course; the gutter is public property.”

“It’s a damned sad thing,” said Fleetwood slowly.

After a pause Plank said: “I think so, too.... I don’t know him very well.”

“You may know him better now,” said O’Hara insolently.

Plank reddened, and, after a moment: “I should be glad to, if he cares to know me.”

“Mortimer doesn’t care for him, but he’s an awfully good fellow, all the same,” said Fleetwood, turning to Plank; “he’s been an ass, but who hasn’t? I like him tremendously, and I feel very bad over the mess he made of it after that crazy dinner I gave in my rooms. What? You hadn’t heard of it? Why man, it’s the talk of the clubs.”

“I suppose that is why I haven’t heard,” said Plank simply; “my club-life is still in the future.”

“Oh!” said Fleetwood with an involuntary stare, surprised, a trifle uncomfortable, yet somehow liking Plank, and not understanding why.

“I’m not in anything, you see; I’m only up for the Patroons and the Lenox,” added Plank gravely.

“I see. Certainly. Er—hope you’ll make ‘em; hope to see you there soon. Er—I see by the papers you’ve been jollying the clergy, Mr. Plank. Awfully handsome of you, all that chapel business. I say: I’ve a cousin—er—young architect; Beaux Arts, and all that—just over. I’d awfully like to have him given a chance at that competition; invited to try, you see. I don’t suppose it could be managed, now—”

“Would you like to have me ask the bishops?” inquired Plank, naively shrewd. And the conversation became very cordial between the two, which Mortimer observed, keeping one ironical eye on Plank, while he continued a desultory discussion with O’Hara concerning a very private dinner which somebody told somebody that somebody had given to Quarrier and the Inter-County Electric people; which, if true, plainly indicated who was financing the Inter-County scheme, and why Amalgamated stock had tumbled again yesterday, and what might be looked for from the Algonquin Trust Company’s president.

“Amalgamated Electric doesn’t seem to like it a little bit,” said O’Hara. “Ferrall, Belwether, and Siward are in it up to their necks; and if Quarrier is really the god in the machine, and if he really is doing stunts with Amalgamated Electric, and is also mixing feet with the Inter-County crowd, why, he is virtually paralleling his own road; and why, in the name of common sense, is he doing that? He’ll kill it; that’s what he’ll do.”

“He can afford to kill it,” observed Mortimer, punching the electric button and making a significant gesture toward his empty glass as the servant entered; “a man like Quarrier can afford to kill anything.”

“Yes; but why kill Amalgamated Electric? Why not merge? Why, it’s a crazy thing to do, it’s a devil of a thing to do, to parallel your own line!” insisted O’Hara. “That is dirty work. People don’t do such things these days. Nobody tears up dollar bills for the pleasure of tearing.”

“Nobody knows what Quarrier will do,” muttered Mortimer, who had tried hard enough to find out when the first ominous rumours arose concerning Amalgamated, and the first fractional declines left the street speechless and stupefied.

O’Hara sat frowning, and fingering his glass. “As a matter of fact,” he said, “a little cold logic shows us that Quarrier isn’t in it at all. No sane man would ruin his own enterprise, when there is no need to. His people are openly supporting Amalgamated and hammering Inter-County; and, besides, there’s Ferrall in it, and Mrs. Ferrall is Quarrier’s cousin; and there’s Belwether in it, and Quarrier is engaged to marry Sylvia Landis, who is Belwether’s niece. It’s a scrap with Harrington’s crowd, and the wheels inside of wheels are like Chinese boxes. Who knows what it means? Only it’s plain that Amalgamated is safe, if Quarrier wants it to be. And unless he does he’s crazy.”

Mortimer puffed stolidly at his cigar until the smoke got into his eyes and inflamed them. He sat for a while, wiping his puffy eyelids with his handkerchief; then, squinting sideways at Plank, and seeing him still occupied with Fleetwood, turned bluntly on O’Hara:

“See here: what do you mean by being nasty to Plank?” he growled. “I’m backing him. Do you understand?”

“It is curious,” mused O’Hara coolly, “how much of a cad a fairly decent man can be when he’s out of temper!”

“You mean Plank, or me?” demanded Mortimer, darkening angrily.

“No; I mean myself. I’m not that way usually. I took him for a bounder, and he’s caught me with the goods on. I’ve been thinking that the men who bother with such questions are usually open to suspicion themselves. Watch me do the civil, now. I’m ashamed of myself.”

“Wait a moment. Will you be civil enough to do something for him at the Patroons? That will mean something.”

“Is he up? Yes, I will;” and, turning in his chair, he said to Plank: “Awfully sorry I acted like a bounder just now, after having accepted your hospitality at the Fells. I did mean to be offensive, and I’m sorry for that, too. Hope you’ll overlook it, and be friendly.”

Plank’s face took on the dark-red hue of embarrassment; he looked questioningly at Mortimer, whose visage remained non-committal, then directly at O’Hara.

“I should be very glad to be friends with you,” he said with an ingenuous dignity that surprised Mortimer. It was only the native simplicity of the man, veneered and polished by constant contact with Mrs. Mortimer, and now showing to advantage in the grain. And it gratified Mortimer, because he saw that it was going to make many matters much easier for himself and his protégé.

The tall glasses were filled and drained again before they departed to the cold plunge and dressing-rooms above, whence presently they emerged in street garb to drive down town and lunch together at the Lenox Club, Plank as Fleetwood’s guest.

Mortimer, very heavy and inert after luncheon, wedged himself into a great stuffed arm-chair by the window, where he alternately nodded over his coffee and wheezed in his breathing, and leered out at Fifth Avenue from half-closed, puffy eyes. And there he was due to sit, sodden and replete, until the fashionable equipages began to flash past. He’d probably see his wife driving with Mrs. Ferrall or with Miss Caithness, or perhaps with some doddering caryatid of the social structure; and he’d sit there, leering with gummy eyes out of the club windows, while servants in silent processional replenished his glass from time to time, until in the early night the trim little shopgirls flocked out into the highways in gossiping, fluttering coveys, trotting away across the illuminated asphalt, north and south to their thousand dingy destinations. And after they had gone he would probably arouse himself to read the evening paper, or perhaps gossip with Major Belwether and other white-haired familiars, or perhaps doze until it was time to summon a cab and go home to dress.

That afternoon, however, having O’Hara and Fleetwood to give him countenance, he managed to arouse himself long enough to make Plank known personally to several of the governors of the club and to a dozen members, then left him to his fate. Whence, presently, Fleetwood and O’Hara extracted him—fate at that moment being personified by a garrulous old gentleman, one Peter Caithness, who divided with Major Belwether the distinction of being the club bore—and together they piloted him to the billiard room, where he beat them handily for a dollar a point at everything they suggested.

“You play almost as pretty a game as Stephen Siward used to play,” said O’Hara cordially. “You’ve something of his cue movement—something of his infernal facility and touch. Hasn’t he, Fleetwood?”

“I wish Siward were back here,” said Fleetwood thoughtfully, returning his cue to his own rack. “I wonder what he does with himself—where he keeps himself all the while? What the devil is there for a man to do, if he doesn’t do anything? He’s not going out anywhere since his mother’s death; he has no clubs to go to, I understand. What does he do—go to his office and come back, and sit in that shabby old brick house all day and blink at the bum portraits of his bum and distinguished ancestors? Do you know what he does with himself?” to O’Hara.

“I don’t even know where he lives,” observed O’Hara, resuming his coat. “He’s given up his rooms, I understand.”

“What? Don’t know the old Siward house?”

“Oh! does he live there now? Of course; I forgot about his mother. He had apartments last year, you remember. He gave dinners—corkers they were. I went to one—like that last one you gave.”

“I wish I’d never given it,” said Fleetwood gloomily. “If I hadn’t, he’d be a member here still.... What do you suppose induced him to take that little gin-drinking cat to the Patroons? Why, man, it wasn’t even an undergraduate’s trick! it was the act of a lunatic.”

For a while they talked of Siward, and of his unfortunate story and the pity of it; and when the two men ceased,

“Do you know,” said Plank mildly, “I don’t believe he ever did it.”

O’Hara looked up surprised, then shrugged. “Unfortunately he doesn’t deny it, you see.”

“I heard,” said Fleetwood, lighting a cigarette, “that he did deny it; that he said, no matter what his condition was, he couldn’t have done it. If he had been sober, the governors would have been bound to take his word of honour. But he couldn’t give that, you see. And after they pointed out to him that he had been in no condition to know exactly what he did do, he shut up.... And they dropped him; and he’s falling yet.”

“I don’t believe that sort of a man ever would do that sort of thing,” repeated Plank obstinately, his Delft-blue eyes partly closing, so that all the Dutch shrewdness and stubbornness in his face disturbed its highly coloured placidity. And he walked away toward the wash-room to cleanse his ponderous pink hands of chalk-dust.

“That’s what’s the matter with Plank,” observed O’Hara to Fleetwood as Plank disappeared. “It isn’t that he’s a bounder; but he doesn’t know things; he doesn’t know enough, for instance, to wait until he’s a member of a club before he criticises the judgment of its governors. Yet you can’t help tolerating the fellow. I think I’ll write a letter for him, or put down my name. What do you think?”