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Title: Riding the whirlwind
Author: Helen R. Hull
Illustrator: Garrett Price
Release date: November 6, 2026 [eBook #79930]
Language: English
Original publication: Chicago: Tribune Publishing, 1928
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/79930
Credits: Jens Sadowski. This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive.
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RIDING THE WHIRLWIND ***
Riding the Whirlwind
Just the average henpecked husband until he was bitten
by the virus of success——then he became, miraculously,
the dominant male.
Helen R. Hull
Illustrations: Garrett Price
Chicago Tribune, vol. 87, Feb. 5, 1928, Magazine, pp. 1-2, 5.
Walter hesitated at the door of the kitchen. The picture before him was
pretty enough, a small pot of orange tulips on the painted breakfast
table, the gay cretonne of his wife’s morning dress like more flowers,
the river far beneath the window a strip of crinkled silver, the
Palisades beyond a tapestry of violet and blue, the dark head of his
small daughter an adorable accent in the foreground as she knelt on the
bench beside the table, peering down at the river. A pleasant whiff of
toast, of coffee. Walter wrinkled his nose; it wasn’t coffee. Some
denatured stuff.
“You couldn’t make me a cup of decent coffee, Lucy?” he ventured. Behind
him, with the dismaying frankness of small apartment life, he heard the
bathroom door flounce shut. Well, he had hurried, as if he hadn’t a
right in his own bathroom in the morning.
“You know mother and Lena can’t drink coffee, and this is much better
for you.” Lucy, with her brisk, neat motions, poured a cup of whatever
it was for him, pushed Virginia into proper position, and sat down
expectantly on her side of the narrow table. “Hurry with your breakfast,
Virginia. Grandma and Aunt Lena will be out soon.” Her blue eyes said
the same thing to Walter, adding, “Now that they can have a chance at
the bathroom.”
“I can’t shave at night; it doesn’t last.” Walter squeezed into the
corner by the ice chest. Virginia lifted her long lashes toward him, a
droll hint of comprehension in her brown eyes.
“When we bought this apartment, Lucy”—Walter took a hopeful swallow of
his beverage; it looked like coffee, and he wanted to believe in it—“you
said I could have that small room for a workshop.”
“That was before mother and Lena came. And what have you done in it,
except blow out fuses?” Lucy darted to the stove, whisked off the
skillet of bacon, and stood at Walter’s elbow, her small face with the
shingled fair hair quietly determined. “You must see how absurd it is,
making every one uncomfortable because you want a room for some wire and
things. You can keep them in a box on the top shelf of the linen closet,
and I really haven’t room even there. Maybe we get some good out of the
radio if you stop fussing.”
Walter looked at her. He looked for a moment at Virginia’s lifted eyes;
she was sorry for him, her father!
“How long are they planning to stay?” he asked. “They’ve been here all
winter.”
“You don’t grudge my mother and sister a roof! As mother says, if you
put your attention on business, it would be better for all of us.”
Walter settled more heavily in his niche; his thick shoulders drooped,
the lines down his sallow cheeks deepened. He felt the mock coffee and
the egg settling inside him in a lump right against his solar plexus.
“It’s just that the apartment’s rather crowded,” he apologized,
wondering whether he had a digestive tablet in his pocket.
“If I can stand it, when I’m here all day, you surely shouldn’t
complain. If we had more money——”
Walter pried himself slowly up from the bench, folding the fringed
napkin carefully. “You ready, Jinny,” he asked. It was his fault, of
course. He should provide a duplex on Park avenue, where all relatives
could spend the winter in New York with no inconvenience.
“She will be by the time you have the car round.” Lucy presented her
cheek for his kiss. “And I’m going to pile all your litter into a box,
as I said. O—where is that grocery list?”
“Good morning, children.” At the doorway stood Mrs. Trotter, a brisk
morning smile on her face—a face curiously like Lucy’s, only tighter,
drier. “I’m sorry to be late, but I couldn’t bathe earlier.”
“Of course, with Walter’s shaving.” Lucy was hunting through her purse.
“Here it is, Walter. Just stop at the grocery. No, Lena never feels like
going out in the morning, and it’s a shame to waste a telephone call
when you drive right past. Virginia, ask Lena to let you wash your
hands. She’ll be at the door as soon as you are, Walter. Good-by. I
suppose”—she responded to the pressure of her mother’s hand—“I suppose
you think you must have the car all day?”
“I’ve got to drive a prospect out to the Beautiful Homes sites.”
“Such lovely weather!” sighed Mrs. Trotter.
“If I can get back early, I’ll leave the car here for you.” Walter
closed the apartment door, pulled his soft hat down over a resigned
forehead, and rang for the elevator. Five minutes later, having driven
the small sedan out of the corner garage, he sat waiting for Virginia,
listening anxiously to the sound of the motor. Rather nice, since she
started to school, this driving her down every morning. There she came,
dashing through the huge entrance, hurling herself into the car.
“I was scared you’d go!” She giggled at him, rubbing her small brown
shoulder against his arm. “They all kep’ at me so!”
“They do.” Walter nodded. “Which way do we go this morning?”
“Le’s go by Riverside drive, ’cause there’s not so much truffic.”
“Traffic.” Walter shifted gears tensely, inched across Dyckman street
between threatening trucks, and relaxed as he swung up the slight grade
with which the drive curved out to the river. The lump at his solar
plexus softened; perhaps he wouldn’t have indigestion after all. Spring
air cut in at the lowered window with a faint river smell; a tug hurried
down with the tide, its flat barges following in dignity, dwarfing its
busy puffiness. That’s me, he thought: puffing and hustling. The barge
with the derrick is Lucy, that load of sand’s Lena. “O, my conscience!”
At his exclamation the child turned from the river. “I forgot that
grocery order!” Her dismay mirrored his for an instant, and then broke
into a chuckle.
“We didn’t go past the store, did we?”
Walter’s toe lifted automatically from the gas lever, and he dug under
his overcoat for his watch. Too late to go back. The sudden clamor of a
horn behind him was the voice of Lucy; he dodged humbly, as a shining
car streaked past him, the chauffeur thrusting his chin at him with the
air of “What the hell kind of driving do you call that?”
“I’ll have to call your mother up, that’s all.” Walter drove on, his
brief moment of pleasure shattered. He’d like to tell that chauffeur who
had passed not to drive so close to a fellow. He’d like—that lump
increased in weight at the pit of his stomach.
“I have to keep my playthings in the hall closet, too,” said Virginia,
sympathetically, “since grandma and Aunt Lena came.”
“You do?” Walter looked at her earnest face. Then he jerked his
shoulders up from their slump. Jinny was too smart. But he didn’t want
his things moved into a box, not right now. Lucy didn’t understand that
it might take quite a while to work out an idea. If he could try that
other method of winding the wire, say. The trouble with him was too much
static in his life! No clear waves. He honked suggestively at a car
ahead of him, dawdling along in the middle of the way. He honked again.
“Louder, daddy” Jinny watched the obstinate rear of the car. “Maybe he
doesn’t hear you.”
Walter tried to edge past, but the drive had narrowed, and he had to
duck back, ignominiously, from an approaching taxi. Then, as they
reached a crossroad, the dawdling car cut ahead of him, the driver
leering back. Heard him all the time! Walter should have bullied him
into getting over. As usual, he hadn’t. Then the clear space down to the
viaduct, up the curve past Grant’s tomb, gave him a brief illusion of
competent power.
In the hundreds he turned east toward Virginia’s school. He couldn’t
take chances with her aboard, could he, he demanded of himself, as two
cars sailed past him across Broadway, as if they dominated the steady
flood of downtown traffic by some exuding of will. Walter waited until
there seemed to be a reasonable gap. The sign, “School street, no
traffic,” brought an instinctive withdrawal, but he passed it; he had to
get Jinny to the door, didn’t he? He always expected the school officer
to follow his disapproving glance with hard words.
Virginia sighed, as if she felt his weariness. He ought to take driving
easier, the long time he’d been doing it. A constant strain—like the
rest of life.
“Good-by, Jinny; be a good girl.”
* * * * *
He swung back onto Broadway. If he didn’t step right along he’d be late
at the office.
Good thing he was in the uptown branch of the real estate firm instead
of down on lower Broadway. Good Lord, what——He ground down on brake and
clutch, yanked at his emergency, and sat, aching with rigidity, his
fender tucked snugly against the mammoth wheel of a truck which had
emerged, haunches first, like a modern dinosaur, straight into his path
from a corner excavation.
“Hey, you!” The truck driver added epithets. “Why don’t you watch your
step? What’s the idea of owning the street?”
The taxi at Walter’s left tacked past, the driver grinning back. Walter
knew he ought to yell an answer; his voice felt thin as he said, “I had
the right of way. You——” Then, as he backed cautiously from the contact
with the wheel, the truck driver ducked into his seat. A policeman
strolled along, calling up at him, “You trying to be funny? Where’s your
guard here?”
Walter drove on, a disagreeable tissue paper feeling in his veins. Damn
it all! He still had to telephone Lucy about the groceries. Then he’d
have that red faced, heavy paunched fellow, Arner, to drive out to the
section the firm was developing. The third time. “Why don’t you make him
clinch the matter?” That was Clement, the boss, inquiring caustically.
Walter had to drive around the corner to find a parking place. Every
one, even a truck driver, knew he could be bullied. That was the trouble
from the time he’d been a little boy, a nearsighted, sickly cub, and his
competent mother had said, “Have some spirit, Walter!”
He ought to assert himself, somewhere. He locked the car and walked
around the corner toward the plate glass window. The city roared at him
in the passing motors, yapped in the taxi horns, chattered in the
riveter on the high building across the street; he was no more than his
shadowy reflection in the great window, through which he glimpsed the
long, narrow office, islands of desks along the walls. His glimpse gave
him Clement, the head of the branch office, the very angle of his head
assured, dominant; the stenographer, laying an indolent finger against
the mathematical wave of her hair; the gangly office boy.
As Walter pushed open the door he took a long breath, puffing out his
chest. Things roared at you, rushed at you, backed out on you, stared at
you, and unless you gave them as good as you took, you were down under a
wheel. It was a battle, that was what it was. Vaguely, as he nodded to
Clement and tried to lengthen his step into impressiveness on his way
into the lighted twilight of the rear of the office—vaguely, he felt
himself assailed an all quarters. He needed something to put his back
against. A wall. One quarter, within himself, where he knew he was
invulnerable, safe. Then he could fight better.
He hung up his coat and hat, sat down at the glass topped desk, pulling
toward him the basket of mail. Assurance. Everybody thrust out antennae,
feeling the opponent; almost as ants sniff on meeting. And he curled up.
No assurance. Even at home. O Lord! He reached for the vest pocket where
he had tucked that grocery list. Swiftly, without real thought, he
considered Lucy; he had sought assurance there, and she, like all the
rest, had beaten him down. He pressed one hand against the lowest button
of his vest; if he could find time, he’d slip out for a cup of coffee.
That might set him up.
Meantime—he thumbed through the circulars, bills, ads, a letter from a
fussy tenant who wanted her hinges oiled. Perhaps he hadn’t been getting
sleep enough, fussing with that radio experiment. If he could put that
over! Maybe, as Lucy said, he needed to put his mind more completely on
this work instead of thinking about a lamp socket attachment. If he
didn’t make a deal soon he’d be out of luck. No extra commission since
January. No one on the string but that red faced nibbler, Arner. Young
Phillips, Clement’s son-in-law, was getting all the plums. Picking them
off Walter’s tree, too.
“Mr. Clement wishes to confer with you.” The stenographer flipped her
notebook impertinently as she strolled past. Walter made a pretense of
finishing his mail before he pushed through the railing that set off
Clement’s flat desk in symbolical majesty, and stood, heavily conscious
that the pain under his vest had changed from a fist into a corkscrew.
“Morgan, how about the Arner deal? You get anywhere yesterday? He’s got
an appointment this morning, eh?” Clement cut the end of his cigar with
the silver clip on his watch chain. “I may as well send Phillips out
with him. He’s got a knack at clinching matters. A knack.”
“But I——” Why should he hear Jinny’s eager voice, “Blow harder,
daddy”—“I’ve done a lot of work with him.”
“Have to consider the good of the firm. Now——” he turned his hard,
smooth face away, as the office boy hung at the railing. “Well?”
“Mister Morgan on the phone.”
“All right, Morgan. We’ll see what Phillips can do. There are some rents
on Amsterdam you can see to.”
The office boy’s gamin face had a secret leer. He knew. Walter
hesitated, bending his fingers up against damp palms.
“Better see who wants you,” Clement turned to the waiting stenographer.
“Take this letter, Miss Emmons.”
Walter’s ears were scarlet as he walked the length of the room to his
own desk. Phillips! Rents on Amsterdam! He ran his tongue over dry lips
before he pulled the telephone towards him.
“Hello, Morgan? This is Simons. Say, I guess you’ve done it, old boy.
Yeuh. Listen, they’re trying it out. Going to have a directors’ meeting.
I just thought I’d give you a ring.”
The twitching under Walter’s dark eyes had stopped; he leaned forward
over the telephone as if he would swallow the instrument, engulf it.
“Simons! You sure? Simons, listen! You tell ’em I’m working on that hum.
I got an idea about that. I got the voltage down to six, all right. Last
night I rectified that hum till it wasn’t so loud as a bee. You tell
’em, will you?”
“They think you got the best line on it. Their factory expert told me
that. This is inside dope, see? Don’t let on you know yet. But I kinda
wanted to hand it to you this morning. You’re made, all right, once they
take it.”
* * * * *
Walter released the telephone slowly, sliding it down the bracket with a
hand too tense to quiver. Simons, the grubby little fellow in the radio
shop where he had bought supplies; it was he who had insisted that
Walter patent the stages of his invention, he who had turned it over to
the company—“interested parties”—Simons called them. Walter let his hand
withdraw slowly from the telephone. Last fall they’d thought another
fellow had beat him to it, but he had got rid of just one battery. Then
a month ago his company had failed, the device wasn’t good enough.
The office boy laid a folder on his desk. “Mister Clement says there’s
the Amste’dam addresses.”
Walter seized his coat and hat, and rushed up the office to Clement’s
desk. “There’s your rent list.” He flung the folder on the desk.
“Phillips can see to it. Arner’s my prospect, and I’m going to keep him,
see?” He ground his fists into his pockets, to keep from brandishing
them.
“If anybody sells Arner, it’s me. It’s my commission, too.” He resisted
a final “Ha!” at the sight of Clement’s bland, amazed face, and wheeled
toward the door. It was opening for the bulk of a large man in seal
collared overcoat.
“Just in time, Arner!” Walter seized his elbow, whirled him out through
the door in one swift movement. “Car’s around the corner. This is your
last free ride, too.”
He wasn’t sure he could get the key into the door. His hand wobbled,
then drove it in. I’m crazy, he thought, as he wedged himself under the
wheel. Crazy. I’ve done it! Revolutionilized—reonution—whole bigbest new
industry of radios. I got it in me to do more. Arner’s red, round face
at his shoulder was a ridiculous, harmless moon, not a contemptuous
threat.
“Can’t give you much time,” Walter snapped. “You got to sign on the
dotted line or lose your chance, that’s all. Yes, sir.” He swung out
from the curb recklessly, and a down swooping taxi swerved from his
path, grinding profanely to a stop. Walter waved an eloquent hand and
completed his circle, reaching Broadway as the traffic officer lifted
his whistle. Zip! Walter slid past him as he blew.
Walter’s silence broke into words: all the real estate phrases he had
heard for so long, all he had struggled awkwardly to use, lovely,
enticing, compelling phrases, as he drove, a conqueror, along the avenue
where great buildings lifted facades pale blue with spring shadows.
In the late afternoon Walter drew up at the curb in front of the office
window; he edged his car into the space just ahead of the coupe that
Clement drove, instead of leaving room for some possible departure of
Clement. Then he walked into the office, through the railing gate, and
laid on Clement’s desk a thin green slip, a certified check for eight
thousand.
“Arner’s down payment,” he said, briefly. “He took the whole corner.
Coming in tomorrow morning.”
Clement pressed his finger tips against the check, drawing it along the
glass surface toward the light. “Fine, Morgan.”
“Damn fine. Biggest deal this year.” Walter stared over Clement’s head
down the long room; each separate island of desk had its lighthouse,
green shaded, except Phillips’. Phillips was out—on Amsterdam avenue,
maybe. Suddenly the corners of the room seemed crowded with shadows of
old humiliations, urging him to reprisals.
“Have a cigar, Morgan?” Clement had put on his bluff, hearty air.
“Thanks, no.” Walter put a forefinger on the check. “You stow that in
the safe tonight, will you? I’ll want my commission tomorrow.” It was
funny. Clement had a way of keeping you standing, like a clerk, while he
sat enthroned. Now Walter swelled above him, almost as if he pushed his
hand over the smooth, puzzled face, squashing it down into the striped
necktie.
“I want an understanding, too, Clement. Phillips is a nice young fellow,
and of course you want your son-in-law to get ahead. But he’s through
picking up commissions that belong to me. I’m his senior here.” That was
the way; roar him down before he had the chance to roar you down!
Clement pushed his chair back and rose. He didn’t like having his face
squashed!
“See here, Morgan, are you trying to imply——”
“I’m not implying a thing. I said it.” Walter bent forward, his hand
closing around the goose neck lamp, twisting it so that the metal shade
lay like a bowl, holding the bulb. Walter stared at the filaments, the
strong, reflected light shining up on his brilliant eyes, his eager
nostrils, his lean, dark shaven cheeks and chin. “You’d never guess how
damn noisy that light is, would you? Lucky we can’t hear it, or we’d
never turn on a light. Worse than any amount of static.” He tipped it
slightly, so that the light burst up over Clement’s face, turning him
into a blinking, puzzled owl. “Didn’t even know it was noisy, did you?
Well I’ve almost got it tamed.” He twisted the lamp into its proper,
inverted position. “Good night.”
Clement stared after him. As Walter climbed into his car he saw him
staring, like fish in an aquarium, through the window. Walter laughed
and started the car.
He had, in the first hour of his excitement, expected it to break at any
moment, letting him slump into the usual Walter Morgan. Instead of that
it had accumulated. The long stream of home bound traffic floated him
triumphantly between the lighted banks of Broadway, up to the heights of
the city; he even negotiated on high the long, curving hill at the
apartment entrance; he might want to hunt up Simons after dinner. The
elevator lifted him swiftly as if it moved with his own elation.
Lucy opened the door for him; her cheek, averted from his kiss, was
brittle with restrained indignation. Well, what ailed her? Walter hung
away his coat, whistling softly.
“There’s not much for dinner,” she began, severely. “I waited all day
for the groceries to come.”
“Groceries?” Walter felt in his vest pocket. That list! Over her
shoulder, in the living room, he saw Mrs. Trotter pretending to read the
evening paper. Around him brushed the cobwebby net of domestic
disapproval. Little Simons’ voice, “They think you got the best line on
it.” Why, he, Walter Morgan, had at last done it! His head lifted high
above the little tingling net Lucy spread.
“And we stayed in all this heavenly afternoon, because you said you’d
leave the car for me. I suppose you forgot the order, and——”
“I did.” With a brusque gesture Walter demolished the net. “Three women
with nothing to do all day. Why should I do your errands?” He strode
through the living room and, finding the bathroom door closed, rattled
the handle. A faint squeal sounded within, and Mother Trotter called
from her chair, “O Wallie! Lena’s dressing to go out!”
Lena in the bathroom; Mrs. Trotter mixing up the pages of the newspaper
in the living room; Lucy, rigid with disapproval, moving from kitchen to
dining room. He opened the bedroom door and Virginia, sitting in the
corner, lifted a tear smeared face.
“Why, Jinny! What’s the trouble?”
“Walter, you needn’t pet Virginia. She was impertinent to her poor
grandma.” Lucy had followed him to the doorway.
“Was she?” Walter looked at Lucy’s icy fairness. “That’s good.”
“Why, Walter Morgan!”
“I just said”—Jinny screwed her small mouth—“that you weren’t just like
all men, an’——”
“You needn’t repeat it, Virginia. It was bad enough once. Walter, will
you come out here, and——”
Walter closed the door softly against Lucy’s words and bent over
Virginia, kissing her moist cheek. “Stood up for me, did you? Wouldn’t
let them pick on me, eh? Bless your heart!” He pulled out his
handkerchief. “There, blow hard.” She sniffed and puffed into it. “Feel
better? Take a brace. We’ll fix it up.” Her arms tied around his neck
for an instant, and she gave a faint, stuttering giggle.
Walter, his hand on the door knob, listened. It wasn’t good for Jinny
having all these folks around. Kept Lucy stirred up. Yes, he had thought
so. Plaintive sounds from Mother Trotter. “I heard him say it, Lucy. He
said it was good! Good that his child was impudent to me, a helpless——”
Sniff, sniff.
* * * * *
Walter opened the door softly and, reaching across the hall, rattled the
bathroom knob. “My gracious!” Lena’s voice rattled back. “Can’t you wait
one minute?”
“Not any longer. I’m starved and I have to wash my hands.”
Lucy, with a kind of baffled determination, pulled at his arm.
“For heaven’s sakes, what ails you, Walter? You can wash your hands at
the kitchen sink.” She tugged at him and he followed, resisting just
enough to make her pull harder. “Are you—have you been drinking?” She
put her nose up to sniff; but Walter, the flat of his hand resolute
against her shoulder, pushed her away.
“Is dinner ready?” He let the water trickle over his hands.
“You’ve hurt mother’s feelings terribly, and spoiled all I said to
Virginia, and I don’t know what’s got into you.” Bright color warmed
Lucy’s face. Walter stared at her reflectively. Usually she just kept
still, and under her silence he sank into a dwindled speck.
“Why, you act—you act crazy!” she added, vindictively, as he lifted a
stalk of celery from a dish and munched it, strolling out of the
kitchen, pausing in the living room door to inspect his mother-in-law’s
quivering eyelids.
“Next time you pick on me,” he said, “wait till Jinny’s out of the room.
See?” He picked up the rumpled paper, crackling it with swoops of his
arms as he refolded it. Lena tilted into the room, buckles of brilliants
sparkling on her toes, her skirt rippling just over her plump knees.
“Well!” She made round, accusing eyes at him. Walter pushed a floor lamp
nearer a chair, and sat down, holding his paper high. He knew suddenly
why he didn’t like having Lena and Mother Trotter in his house. Aside
from the lack of space, that was. They were each of them too like the
things in Lucy he minded.
Three women to one man, at least in a small apartment, wasn’t a decent
balance. He had an amusing picture of huge brass scales, with Lucy,
Lena, and Mother Trotter weighting down one tray, while he, a dwarfed,
puny male, rode high and light on the other. It was hard enough—he
dropped his paper and found Lucy standing—a belligerent, slight figure,
in the doorway—hard enough to keep the delicate balance between a man
and his wife, without adding all her female relatives.
“Dinner’s ready. What are you so pleased about? I should think——” She
stopped as Mrs. Trotter rose, one hand pressed to her marcelled hair,
murmuring, “I can’t eat a thing, Lucy; my head——”
“O, mother!” Lucy darted after her as she retreated dismally toward her
bedroom. “You must! We want to see that new picture tonight.”
* * * * *
Walter marched brightly out to the dining room and seated himself. If
they went to the pictures, all of them, he’d have a chance to do some
work. Lena’s voice rose above the undertone of the others. “You don’t
care what he says, mother. Come on! He didn’t mean anything.”
Then all three appeared, edging together through the portieres, Lucy
with her arm around her mother. “I told mother you would apologize,” she
said.
Walter reflected swiftly; if he didn’t, they might not go out that
evening. “Sure,” he said, jauntily. “Didn’t mean to take away your
appetite.”
That air of disapproval, in which three women chattered over his head as
if he were invisible, usually gave him indigestion. Tonight it merely
put an edge on his appetite. He ate in silent dignity, amusing himself
with unspoken repartee. Trouble was, they’d stayed too long, making a
winter resort of his home.
He rose suddenly, with a plate on which he had made a pyramid of green
peas beside a plump baked potato. “I’m going to take this to Virginia.
She can’t go without her supper, a growing child.” He thrust his chin
stubbornly toward Lucy’s beginning protest, and left the room. He
stopped in the kitchen for a glass of milk, spilling it in his haste.
His hand reached for a cloth, and then withdrew; he grinned at the
widening pool. As he passed the dining room he heard Lucy, “Do you think
he looks feverish?”
“Here’s a party for a bad girl.” He winked soberly at Virginia and moved
the lamp from the small table to make room for the plate. He was sitting
on the bench before the dressing table, listening to the child’s story
of what happened at school, when Lucy came in. Her mouth was tight as a
coin slot, thought Walter, tight and hard.
“It’s time you went to bed, Virginia,” she said. “Come.”
“I’ll put her to bed.” Walter swung one leg easily. “You run along to
your movie.”
“I don’t know”—Lucy’s voice faltered—“as it’s safe to leave you.” She
tried to see herself in the mirror, twisting her shoulder away from
Walter. “Are you coming down with something?”
[Illustration: “I don’t know”—Lucy’s voice faltered—“as it’s safe to
leave you.”]
“Yes, I’m breaking out. Here, sit down. Lots of room.” He edged along
the bench. He wanted to tell her: he, Walter Morgan, out of his own head
had done something to make the world sit up.
“Hurry up, Lucy, or we’ll miss the coming attractions, and mother wants
to see those.” Lena pattered past the door, and leaned toward the
mirror, powdering her nose.
“How much longer”—Walter was amazed at the way his voice rang out—“how
much longer are those two going to camp here?” Lucy turned, her pink
puff arrested under one eye, quite ruining the effect of her horrified
stare. He heard a rustle of attention outside and saw Virginia lift her
head alertly. “Are they going to stay forever, or only part of
eternity?”
“Sh-h!” Lucy dropped the puff, a little cloud of powder floating around
it. “Sh-h! They’ll hear you. You—O!” She hurried toward the door,
stopping to peck at Virginia’s cheek, saying in a loud, excited voice,
“Go right to bed, Virginia, and say your prayers, and try to be a better
girl tomorrow. All ready, folks? Come along. We must hurry.” She was
herding them out of the apartment, as if she hoped to get them away
before Walter’s words reached them.
“Now they’ll be mad at you,” observed Virginia, rounding up the last pea
on her plate.
“I hope so.”
“Do I have to go to bed right away?” Her face had a slight flush, as if
she tingled with excitement.
“In fifteen minutes.” Walter walked to the door. “I’ve got some work to
do.” He paused. “Did they put away my stuff, Jinny?” She nodded. “In the
closet?”
“Uh-huh.”
He looked into the small room which had been his. Rapid transformation.
A mirror hung behind his table, on which an array of toilet things was
spread around a ridiculous lamp, a porcelain lady holding a fringed
parasol over the bulb. Solemnly and swiftly Walter set to work. He piled
the toilet articles on a red lacquered table in the living room, parked
the porcelain lady on the phonograph, draped the silk garments from the
closet over the davenport, and as final touch, set the orange mules one
each side of the lady on the phonograph. Jinny watched him with wide,
dark eyes, and when he opened the window to let out the odor of perfume
and scented rouge which was Lena’s trail, she clasped her hands over her
stomach, sighing.
“Now you must go to bed, Jinny.” He helped her with buttons, a little
contrite that she had to share his excitement as such tenseness.
“If they go away, I won’t have to sleep with grandma, will I?” She poked
her head up from the cot where he had tucked her in, to stare at the bed
across the room. “She’s nice, but she bothers me.”
“You go right to sleep, I’ve to work hard.” Walter kissed her, put out
the light, and locked himself into his restored workroom.
He was so intent that the first sounds, some hours later, reached him
without significance. A kind of hysterical shriek. The handle of his
door turned sharply. He made a brief motion with a free hand, as if he
brushed away a fly, and bent over his table.
“Walter Morgan!” Lucy’s voice shrilled with incredulity. “Walter!”
He turned his head to look at the door. The creamy, solid surface
reassured him.
“I’m busy,” he called. “Go away.”
He heard their voices, the tones without words setting up all sorts of
vibrations, blurring the margin of his concentration. He dragged over
his ears the phone harness, and huddled over his mysterious array.
Fumbling in his pocket, he produced a small notebook, in which he made
strange entries, figures, symbols, abbreviations. Then he bent to
withdraw the plug from a wall socket, and stood for a moment above the
table. How still the world was, suddenly, with those countless snarls
and whines cut off. Even the apartment was still. They’d gone to bed,
had they?
He drove one fist sharply into the palm of the other hand. By Jove, he
had needed an eliminator for his household, too! He squared his
shoulders staring at the closed door. No more interference for him! All
his life he’d been tuning in on too many stations. He hadn’t known he
was any good. From now on he got his own wave length, he, Walter Morgan.
At the door he paused. Why penetrate into that silent apartment? He
looked at the cot installed for Lena, and with a single motion yanked
from it the velour cover, kicking under the cot one of the small silk
cushions. No pajamas. Well, B. V. D.’s could serve one night. As he lay
flat on his back, his hands serene over his chest, he heard the soft
scuff of a slipper outside the door. He grinned in the dark, and fell
asleep.
* * * * *
In the morning he banged ostentatiously into the bathroom. From the
corner of his eye he saw Lucy patting into shape the davenport pillows.
When, after leisurely bath and shave, he strolled toward the kitchen, a
spring breeze puffed out the silk curtains of the living room windows,
and a steady murmur came from the closed door of Mother Trotter’s room,
her voice and Lena’s.
Virginia sat demurely at the kitchen window, her eyes wary, expectant.
Lucy turned from the stove, almost as if she dreaded to look at him.
Walter pricked up his nose. That smelled like—it was!—real coffee! He
sat down, looking at Lucy. The cords of her smooth, white neck were
tense; the clash of confused, struggling impulses spilled sudden color
into her pale face.
“Say it,” urged Walter, as he started on his orange.
Lucy dropped onto the bench opposite him, her hands clutched in her lap
so tightly her shoulders trembled.
“If you—” her voice hummed—“if you’d only said you had to have that
room—instead of in-insulting them that way—w-with mules right on the
phono——”
“Graph?” finished Walter. “You knew I wanted it. I had to work last
night. Couldn’t wait to explain.”
“Locking the door. I wanted to speak to you.”
“Yeuh. I was awful busy.” Walter poured cream over his breakfast food.
“You aren’t sick?” Lacy glanced helplessly at Virginia. She couldn’t
just bust out with the child there, thought Walter.
“Never better. Hurry up, Jinny. I got to make a good start this morning.
O, that’s so, it’s Saturday and no school. That’s good coffee, Lucy.” He
smacked his lips and set down the cup as Lucy dabbed at her eyes with
the fringed yellow napkin. He didn’t want her to cry. Steady, now; he
heard a warning whisper; don’t spoil everything.
“Can I have some more?” he said loudly, and Lucy refilled his cup, her
face averted.
“You didn’t even put up the car,” she said. “I just wanted to tell you
that, last night.”
“Why, so I didn’t! What do you think of that?” He drained the second
cup, left his napkin in a rumpled wad, and rose. Should he tell her, or
wait till he saw Simons and things were settled? He patted her shoulder
and opened the hall closet for his coat. From that inner room came the
low murmur, a little intermittent now. Going to stay under cover till he
went, were they? He chuckled as he pulled on his coat. Suddenly Lucy
flung herself at him, her hands gripping his arms.
“Are you—really all right?” She shook at his coat sleeves, her face
quite pale again, tears in her gold lashes.
[Illustration: “Are you—really all right?”]
“Sure.” Walter kissed her. Not the usual morning kiss, but one with
savor: tears salted, he thought, as Lucy pulled away, darting back into
the kitchen.
“Good-by, Jinny!” He bent for a hug from his daughter.
* * * * *
Yes, there was the car, trickles of night moisture on its hood. Too bad
Jinny wasn’t riding down with him; she’d appreciate the way he cut ahead
of that truck—try to take his right of way, would it? How that clear air
sang in his ears!
Walter drew up in front of the office. He’d made good time this morning;
Clement wasn’t in yet. He nodded carelessly to Miss Emmons, found the
office boy staring at him with a queer duplication of the look in Lucy’s
eyes. He must have overheard that final conversation with Clement
yesterday.
Walter pulled the telephone bracket toward him as he sat down. He’d call
up Simons’ shop and have a package made of the things he wanted. Simons
might have some more news.
Simons’ clerk answered. No, Simons hadn’t come in yet.
“You make a bundle of stuff for me, so I can pick it up this noon.”
Walter spread his notebook on the desk, translating its cryptographics.
Emmons was listening; he saw her feeling pensively of her water wave as
she watched him.
“Got all that? You make a package. What’s that?” Simons had just come
in. Walter waited a moment, his mind busy with a new method of winding
number 30 s. s. c. wire, until Simons’ voice broke his coil.
Then what Simons said was battery acid dropping on the surface of Walter
Morgan’s confidence. He had spoken too soon. The directors weren’t ready
to take the first patent. The failure of that other company had scared
them. They wanted to wait until Morgan had perfected the elimination.
“Hello, Morgan? You there? You hear me?”
“O, my God, yes!” said Walter, his tongue ash coated. “Hear you?”
“They’re keen about it. Want to keep the option. But they are scared,
see? I told ’em another week, maybe. I’ll send your bundle round for
you.”
Walter hung up the instrument gingerly, as if it were hot. He collapsed
a little in his chair, his chin down on his necktie. He was spinning
round and round the sloping sides of a black eddy, down swiftly to the
bottom of the vortex. What a fool, what a fool he’d been! Thinking he
was something, was something. He lifted his head, queer lines of white
under his dilated pupils, his nostrils wide. Drunk, crazy, and now? The
light at the front of the room seemed obscured; as his eyes focused he
saw that Clement and Arner were standing before the window.
The office boy thrust his face into Walter’s line of vision. “Mister
Clement says will you come down front.”
Walter dragged one hand over his hair and slowly pushed up to his feet.
Wanted to fire him, like as not. After what he’d said yesterday. He
rocked an instant on his heels, dizzy from the cataclysmic, whirling
descent; then he walked the length of the office, trying to ease his
shoulders back.
“Arner’s telling me,” Clement’s tone was suave, man-to-man, “that he’s
thought over your talk yesterday.”
Thought it over! Walter looked at the cigar that dragged down a corner
of Arner’s hard mouth. Thought it over, like the rest of the world, and
this was the morning after.
“He wants to take the opposite corner, too, in his wife’s name. He
says”—did Clement wink, or was it a trick of Walter’s eyes?—“that if
half you said is so, he can’t afford not to take it. I told him you’d
make out the papers, it was your deal. Just have Miss Emmons run off the
deeds.”
Miss Emmons produced the proper papers. She could take it right on her
machine if Mr. Morgan didn’t mind coming back to her desk. Walter sat
beside her, under cover of her tapping, instructing her with the top of
his mind, while the rest of it moved slowly into position to consider
himself. He brushed aside the long cigar Arner offered. A puff of that
would complete the upheaval under his vest.
For the sum of a dollar and other valuable considerations—party of the
first part——The phrases had a soothing effect.
“What’s your wife’s name?” Walter’s throat was so dry he miscalculated
his pitch, and the words roared out so that Arner’s bulk quivered to
attention.
“Samantha,” he offered, almost apologetically.
“Sam—spell it,” said Walter, and as Arner obeyed, Walter felt laughter
creeping up through his disordered interior. It was funny. Funnier than
anything he ever heard of. As if he’d fallen over a precipice, down an
elevator shaft, and these men didn’t know it. They thought he was still
on the top floor, on the mountain peak. They hadn’t missed him, hadn’t
seen his mangled remains!
He reached for a handkerchief and let his laughter out in the disguise
of a violent cough. He left Miss Emmons, her fingers poised expectantly
over the keys, and rushed to the water cooler. He ached with laughter;
he couldn’t share this joke, for if he did, he wouldn’t get that
commission. The cool water washed the ashes down his throat; he had
never noticed how pleasant an act just swallowing could be.
Back at his desk the laughter vanished, leaving in its trail a kind of
cunning. At any minute Arner would find him out, or Clement. He tested
their blindness.
“You’ll have to get your wife’s signature and have this back here early
Monday. Can’t have any delay.” To which Arner hauled out his check book,
his pen imbedded anxiously in his fat hand. “Name your sum. I’ll pay it
all down if you like, and you can call the bank.”
* * * * *
When Arner had gone Clement laid on Walter’s desk a check from the firm.
Walter stared at it. Some time since he’d seen his name in a check for
four figures. He laid it in his shabby billfold, and as he returned it
to his pocket his fingers touched the familiar edge of his notebook. The
directors wanted to wait. His face muscles sagged and he chewed on his
lower lip. He was tired, flat tired.
“If you have time Monday I wish you’d look at that Riverdale tract. If
you care to handle that, I think the firm’d make you a good proposition.
There’s been some uncertainty, but I may say they are impressed. Yes,
impressed.”
When, at one o’clock, the others had gone, Walter sat at his desk in the
empty office, staring at the neat brown package from Simons’ shop. He
opened a drawer and tried to cram it inside, but it was just too long.
He got into his coat, pulled down his hat, and started toward the door,
leaving the package on his desk. He blinked, at the sunlight beyond the
window, glanced back at the desk, and with an impatient lunge returned.
He might as well take the bundle along. It could go on the closet shelf
with the rest of the paraphernalia. For it wouldn’t, he was sure, take
Lucy and Lena and Mother Trotter any time at all to discover what Arner
and Clement had not noticed. Probably Lena had been reinstalled by the
time he had reached the office.
He sat for a moment at the wheel, looking out at the gold letters of the
firm’s name behind the heads of hurrying people. An awful joke on them.
Still, that check was in his billfold. The first clear thought he had
met that day swam slowly to the surface of his mind. People put things
over on you as far as you let them. If he could keep up that bluff——His
palms stuck to the wooden wheel. How could he? Yesterday he had thought
he had a solid wall at his back. He’d be discovered. As soon as he
reached home. With a sigh he swung out into the traffic.
“They’re interested,” Simons had insisted. “They just want to wait till
you finish perfecting.” Last night he’d been sure he was on the right
track. He drove automatically, engrossed in his misery, until he started
across a traffic signal. The sardonic inquiries of the officer reduced
him to a cautious snail on wheels.
He stood a moment at the apartment door before he rang. In his ears
buzzed that hostile murmur he had heard at breakfast. He’d have a hard
time placating three women. No one answered his ring. He found his own
key and let himself in. Quiet, empty, with a glimpse of sunlit river far
below the living room windows. He dropped his package in a corner of the
hall, hung away his coat, half listening as if he expected some one to
pounce at him. They were all out.
He’d neglected to stop for any lunch. Maybe if he ate something he could
pull himself together. He was sawing off a slice of bread when the door
clicked. He turned, the knife in his hands the only defensive note in
his whole appearance. Lucy was there, the green bowl of her hat a
charming calyx for her face, and Jinny at her heels. No one else before
the door closed.
“O, you haven’t had your lunch! Wait a second.” She flew into the next
room in some vibration of excitement. Virginia tiptoed to her father’s
side, hugging his arm.
“We went to the train with them,” she whispered. “Grandma said she
wouldn’t have believed her own daughter would say she outstayed her
welcome, and Aunt Lena——”
“Virginia!” Lucy’s voice had an overtone of suspicion. “Come take off
your things.” In another minute Lucy returned to the kitchen door, her
hands busy with the button on her gray apron. Walter had straightened
his limp shoulders, and his hand tightened over the handle of the
carving knife.
“Did Virginia tell you——” Lucy was breathless, engrossed in her button.
“I thought I heard her——”
“Is it true? Have they gone?” He saw Lucy waver, as if she tried to
choose among varying emotions. Perhaps that knife made him seem
formidable.
“They’ve gone to Atlantic City for a week or so, before they go back to
Denver. Lena—well, I told her you had some rights, and she must admit
you’d been very patient, and she couldn’t talk that way about my
husband. Here, let me cut that bread.” She pried the knife from his
fingers, her eyelids down softly against her cheeks. “When relatives
stay too long, they really forget it’s not their own house. And after
all——”
Walter settled on the bench beside the table, his eyes squinting a
little as he watched Lucy’s deftness with his sandwich.
“Would you like coffee?” She set the plate before him, her fingers
brushing his shoulder.
“No, not this time.” Walter spoke in a loud, magnanimous voice. “I want
to get to work. I’m on the track of a real discovery. A real one,” he
added, as Virginia appeared at the doorway, her dark head cocked like a
wise little bird.
Transcriber’s Notes
Transcribed from Chicago Tribune, vol. 87, Feb. 5, 1928, Magazine, pp.
1-2, 5.
New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public
domain.
The original spelling and punctuation were mostly preserved.
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