Part 2 (2/2)

”A missionary,” he responded soberly. ”That is, you understand, not one of these theological, India's-coral-strand guys; but one who goes about the United States of America in a modest and una.s.suming way, doing good so far as in him lies.”

”I see,” said I, punning horribly, ”'in him lies.'”

”Eh?... Yes. Have another cigar. Well, now, you can't defend this foreign-mission business to me for a minute. The hills, right in this vicinity, are even now white to the harvest. Folks here want the light just as bad as the foreign heathen; and so I took up my burden, and went out to disseminate truth, as the soliciting agent of the Frugality and Indemnity Life a.s.sociation, which presented itself to me as the capacity in which I could best combine repentance with its fruits.”

”I perceive,” said I.

”Perfectly plain, isn't it, to the seeing eye?” he went on. ”You see it was like this: Charley Harper and I had been together in the Garden City Land Company, years ago, during the boom--by the way, I didn't mention that in my report, did I? Well, of course, that company went up just as they all did, and neither Charley nor I got to be receiver, as we'd sort of laid out to do, and we separated. I went back to my literature--hotel registers, with an advertising scheme, with headquarters at Cleveland.

That's how I happened to be an Ohio man at that national convention.

Charley always had a leaning toward insurance, and went down into Illinois, and started a mutual-benefit organization, which he kept going a few years down on the farm--Springfield, or Jacksonville, or somewhere down there; and when I ketched up with him again, he was just changing it to the old-line plan, and bringing it to the metropolis.

Well, I helped him some to enlist capital, and he offered me the position of Superintendent of Agents. I accepted, and after serving awhile in the ranks to sort of get onto the ropes, here I am, just starting out on a trip which will take me through a number of states.”

”How does it agree with you?” I inquired.

”Not well,” said he, ”but the good I accomplish is a great comfort to me. On this trip, now, I expect to do much in the way of stimulating the boys up to their great work of spreading the light of the gospel of true insurance. Sometimes, in these days of apathy and error, I find my burden a heavy one; and notwithstanding the quiet of conscience I gain, if it weren't for the salary, I'd quit to-morrow, Al, danged if I wouldn't. It makes me tired to have even you sort of hint that I'm actuated by some selfish motive, when, in truth and in fact, I live but to gather widows and orphans under my wing, so to speak, and give second husbands a good start, by means of policies written on the only true plan, combining partic.i.p.ation in profits with pure mutuality, and--”

”Never mind!” said I with a silence-commanding gesture. ”I've heard all that before. You're onto the ropes thoroughly; but don't practice your infernal arts on me! I hope the salary is satisfactory?”

”Fairish; but not high, considering what they get for it.”

”You used to be more modest,” said I. ”I remember that you once nearly broke your heart because you couldn't summon up courage to ask Creeshy Hammond to go to the 'Fourth' with you; d'ye remember?”

”Well, I guess, yes!” he replied. ”Wasn't I a miserable wretch for a few days! And I've never been able to ask any woman I cared about, the fateful question, yet.”

We went into the parlor-car, and talked over old times and new for an hour. I told him of my marriage and my home, and I studied him. I saw that he still preserved his humorous, mock-serious style of conversation, and that his hand-to-hand battle with the world had made him good-humoredly cynical. He evinced a knowledge of more things than I should have expected; and had somehow acquired an imposing manner, in spite of his rather slangy, if expressive, vocabulary. He had the power of making statements of mere opinion, which, from some vibration of voice or trick of expression, struck the hearer as solid facts, thrice b.u.t.tressed by evidence. He bore no marks of dissipation, unless the occasional use of terms traceable to the turf or the gaming-table might be considered such; but these expressions, I considered, are so constantly before every reader of the newspapers that the language of the pulpit, even, is infected by them. Their evidential value being thus destroyed, they ought not to be weighed at all, as against firm, wholesome flesh, a good complexion, and a clear eye, all of which Mr.

Elkins possessed.

”It's funny,” said I, ”how seldom I meet any of the old neighbor-boys.

Do you see any of them in your travels?”

”Not often,” he answered, ”but you remember little Ed Smith, who lived on the Hayes place for a while, and brought the streaked snake into the schoolhouse while Julia Fanning was teaching? Well, he was an architect at Garden City, and lives in Chicago now. We sort of chum together: saw him yesterday. He left Garden City when the land company went up. I tell you, that was a hot town for a while! Railroads, and factories, and irrigation schemes, and prices scooting toward the zenith, till you couldn't rest. If I'd got into that push soon enough, I shouldn't have made a thing but money; as it was, I didn't lose only what I had. A good many of the boys lost a lot more. But I tell you, Al, a boom properly boomed is a sure thing.”

”You're a constant source of surprise to me, Jim,” said I. ”I should have thought them sure to lose.”

”They're sure to win,” said he earnestly.

I demurred. ”I don't see how that can possibly be,” said I, ”for of all things, booms seem to me the most fickle and incalculable.”

”They seem so,” said he, smiling, but still in earnest, ”to your rustic and untaught mind, and to most others, because they haven't been studied. The comet, likewise, doesn't seem very stable or dependable; but to the eye of the astronomer its...o...b..t is plain, and the time of its return engagement pretty certain. It's the same with seventeen-year locusts--and booms; their visits are so far apart that the ma.s.ses forget their birthmarks and the W's on their backs. But if you'll follow their appearances from place to place, as I've done, putting up my ante right along for the privilege, you'll become an accomplished boomist; and from the first gentle stirrings of boom-sprouts in the soil, so to speak, you can forecast their growth, maturity, and collapse.”

”I must be permitted to doubt it,” said I.

”It's easy, my son,” he resumed, ”dead easy, and it's psychology on the hugest scale; and among the results of its study is constant improvement of the mind, going on coincidentally with the preparation of the way to the owners.h.i.+p of steam-yachts and racing-stables, or any other similar trifles you hanker for.”

”Great brain, Jim! Ma.s.sive intellect!” said I, laughing at the fantastic absurdity of his a.s.sertion. ”Why, such knowledge as you possess is better than straight tips on all the races ever to be run. It's better than our tropical island and Spanish galleons. You get richer, and you don't have to look out for men-of-war. Do I hold my job as Grand Vizier?”

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