Part 24 (1/2)

”By George!” cried Sheridan. ”I THOUGHT I'd smelt it on you a good deal lately, but I wouldn't 'a' believed you'd take more'n was good for you.

Boh! To see you like a common hog!”

Roscoe chuckled and threw out his right arm in a meaningless gesture.

”Hog!” he repeated, chuckling.

”Yes, a hog!” said Sheridan, angrily. ”In business hours! I don't object to anybody's takin' a drink if you wants to, out o' business hours; nor, if a man keeps his work right up to the scratch, I wouldn't be the one to baste him if he got good an' drunk once in two, three years, maybe.

It ain't MY way. I let it alone, but I never believed in forcin' my way on a grown-up son in moral matters. I guess I was wrong! You think them men out there are waitin' to talk business with a drunkard? You think you can come to your office and do business drunk? By George! I wonder how often this has been happening and me not on to it! I'll have a look over your books to-morrow, and I'll--”

Roscoe stumbled to his feet, laughing wildly, and stood swaying, contriving to hold himself in position by clutching the back of the heavy chair in which he had been sitting.

”Hoo--hoorah!” he cried. ”'S my principles, too. Be drunkard all you want to--outside business hours. Don' for Gossake le'n'thing innerfere business hours! Business! Tha.s.sit! You're right, father. Drink! Die!

L'everything go to h.e.l.l, but DON' let innerfere business!”

Sheridan had seized the telephone upon Roscoe's desk, and was calling his own office, overhead. ”Abercrombie? Come down to my son Roscoe's suite and get rid of some gentlemen that are waitin' there to see him in room two-fourteen. There's Maples and Schirmer and a couple o' fellows on the Kinsey business. Tell 'em something's come up I have to go over with Roscoe, and tell 'em to come back day after to-morrow at two.

You needn't come in to let me know they're gone; we don't want to be disturbed. Tell Pauly to call my house and send Claus down here with a closed car. We may have to go out. Tell him to hustle, and call me at Roscoe's room as soon as the car gets here. 'T's all!”

Roscoe had laughed bitterly throughout this monologue. ”Drunk in business hours! Tha.s.s awf'l! Mus'n' do such thing! Mus'n' get drunk, mus'n' gamble, mus'n' kill 'nybody--not in business hours! All right any other time. Kill 'nybody you want to--'s long 'tain't in business hours! Fine! Mus'n' have any trouble 't'll innerfere business. Keep your trouble 't home. Don' bring it to th' office. Might innerfere business!

Have funerals on Sunday--might innerfere business! Don' let your wife innerfere business! Keep all, all, ALL your trouble an' your meanness, an' your trad--your tradegy--keep 'em ALL for home use! If you got die, go on die 't home--don' die round th' office! Might innerfere business!”

Sheridan picked up a newspaper from Roscoe's desk, and sat down with his back to his son, affecting to read. Roscoe seemed to be unaware of his father's significant posture.

”You know wh' I think?” he went on. ”I think Bibbs only one the fam'ly any 'telligence at all. Won' work, an' di'n' get married. Jim worked, an' he got killed. I worked, an' I got married. Look at me! Jus' look at me, I ask you. Fine 'dustriss young business man. Look wha.s.s happen' to me! Fine!” He lifted his hand from the sustaining chair in a deplorable gesture, and, immediately losing his balance, fell across the chair and caromed to the floor with a crash, remaining prostrate for several minutes, during which Sheridan did not relax his apparent attention to the newspaper. He did not even look round at the sound of Roscoe's fall.

Roscoe slowly climbed to an upright position, pulling himself up by holding to the chair. He was slightly sobered outwardly, having progressed in the prostrate interval to a state of befuddlement less volatile. He rubbed his dazed eyes with the back of his left hand.

”What--what you ask me while ago?” he said.

”Nothin'.”

”Yes, you did. What--what was it?”

”Nothin'. You better sit down.”

”You ask' me what I thought about Lamhorn. You did ask me that. Well, I won't tell you. I won't say dam' word 'bout him!”

The telephone-bell tinkled. Sheridan placed the receiver to his ear and said, ”Right down.” Then he got Roscoe's coat and hat from a closet and brought them to his son. ”Get into this coat,” he said. ”You're goin'

home.”

”All ri',” Roscoe murmured, obediently.

They went out into the main hall by a side door, not pa.s.sing through the outer office; and Sheridan waited for an empty elevator, stopped it, and told the operator to take on no more pa.s.sengers until they reached the ground floor. Roscoe walked out of the building and got into the automobile without lurching, and twenty minutes later walked into his own house in the same manner, neither he nor his father having spoken a word in the interval.

Sheridan did not go in with him; he went home, and to his own room without meeting any of his family. But as he pa.s.sed Bibbs's door he heard from within the sound of a cheerful young voice humming jubilant fragments of song:

WHO looks a mustang in the eye?...

With a leap from the ground To the saddle in a bound.

And away--and away!