Part 31 (2/2)
”Yes!” said Jim. ”Change, how?”
”Why, that I didn't quite understand,” said Antonia, ”except that there was logwood and mahogany and Mexico in it, and--and that he had made papa feel very differently toward you. After what has taken place recently I knew that was wrong--you know papa is not as firm in his ideas as he used to be; and I felt that he--and you, were in danger, somehow. At first I was afraid of being laughed at--why, I'd rather you'd laugh at me than to look like _that_!”
”You're a good girl, Antonia,” said Jim, ”and have done the right thing, and a great favor to us. Thank you very much; and please excuse me a moment while I send a telegram. Please wait until I come back.”
”No, I'm going, Albert,” said she, when he was gone to his own office.
”But first you ought to know that man told papa something--about me.”
”How do you know about this?” said I.
”Papa asked me--if I had--any complaints to make--of Mr. Elkins's treatment of me! What do you suppose he dared to tell him?”
”What did you tell your father?” I asked.
”What could I tell him but 'No'?” she exclaimed. ”And I just had a heart-to-heart talk with papa about Mr. Cornish and the way he has acted; and if his fever hadn't begun to run up so, I'd have got the rubber, or Peruvian-bark idea, or whatever it was, entirely out of his mind. Poor papa! It breaks my heart to see him changing so! And so I gave him a sleeping-capsule, and came down through this splendid rain; and now I'm going! But, mind, this last is a secret.”
And so she went away.
”Where's Antonia?” asked Jim, returning.
”Gone,” said I.
”I wanted to talk further about this matter.”
”I don't like it, Jim. It means that the cruel war is not over.”
”Wait until we pa.s.s Wednesday,” said Jim, ”and we'll wring his neck.
What a poisonous devil, to try and wean from us, to his ruin, an old man in his dotage!--I wish Antonia had stayed. I went out to set the boys wiring for news of washouts between here and Chicago. We mustn't miss that trip, if we have to start to-night. This rain will make trouble with the track.--No, I don't like it, either. Wasn't it thoughtful of Antonia to come down! We can line Hinckley up all right, now we know it; but if it had gone on--we can't stand a third solar-plexus blow....”
The sky darkened, until we had to turn on the lights, and the rain fell more and more heavily. Once or twice there were jarring rolls of distant thunder. To me there was something boding and ominous in the weather.
The day wore on interminably in the quiet of a business office under such a sky. Elkins sent in a telegram which he had received that no trouble with water was looked for along our way to Chicago, which was by the Halliday line. As the dark day was lowering down to its darker close, I went into President Elkins's office to take him home with me.
As I entered through my private door, I saw Giddings coming in through the outer entrance.
”Say,” said he, ”I wanted to see you two together. I know you have some business with Pendleton, and you've promised the boys a story for Thursday or Friday. Now, you've been a little sore on me because I haven't absolutely cut Cornish.”
”Not at all,” said Jim. ”You must have a poor opinion of our intelligence.”
”Well, you had no cause to feel that way,” he went on, ”because, as a newspaperman, I'm supposed to have few friends and no enemies. Besides, you can't tell what a man might sink to, deprived all at once of the friends.h.i.+p of three such men as you fellows!”
”Quite right,” said I; ”but get to the point.”
”I'm getting to it,” said he. ”I violate no confidence when I say that Cornish has got it in for your crowd in great shape. The point is involved in that. I don't know what your little game is with old Pendleton, but whatever it is, Cornish thinks he can queer it, and at the same time reap some advantages from the old man, if he can have a few minutes' talk with Pen before you do. And he's going to do it, if he can. Now, I figure, with my usual correctness of ratiocination, that your scheme is going to be better for the town, and therefore for the _Herald_, than his, and hence this disclosure, which I freely admit has some of the ear-marks of bad form. Not that I blame Cornish, or am saying anything against him, you know. His course is ideally Iagoan: he stands in with Pendleton, benefits himself, and gets even with you all at one fell--”
”Stop this chatter!” cried Jim, flying at him and seizing him by the collar. ”Tell me how you know this, and how much you know!”
”My G.o.d!” said Giddings, his lightness all departed, ”is it as vital as that? He told me himself. Said it was something he wouldn't put on paper and must tell Pendleton by word of mouth, and he's on the train that just pulled out for Chicago.”
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