Part 28 (1/2)

”No one,” said the Colonel, ”could blame you for firing him out. He has not only wronged you directly, but at the same moment has attacked your credit in the city where you are owing bills.”

”That is true,” said the Professor.

”It is only a matter of discretion what to do,” said Alex. ”All the direct equities are against Miller.”

”There is no decision so fair as by a secret ballot,” said Harding. ”Let us take a vote on the proposition of Miller's expulsion, and all must take part.”

This was agreed to. Nine slips of paper were prepared, all of one size and length, one was given to each man to write ”expulsion, yes,” or ”expulsion, no,” as he pleased. A hat was placed on the table for a ballot-box; each in turn deposited his ballot and resumed his seat.

The silence was growing painful when Brewster said: ”Carlin, Miller wrote back to you; you will have to write to him. Suppose you be the returning board to count the votes and make up the returns.”

Carlin arose and went to the table. There he paused, and his face wore a look of extreme trouble; but he shook off the influence, whatever it was, stretched out his hand in an absent-minded way, picked up a ballot and slowly brought it before his eyes. He looked at it, turned it over and looked on the other side, then with a foolish laugh he said: ”Why, the ballot is blank.”

He transferred it to his left hand, picked up another ballot with his right hand; looked at it; it, too, was blank.

So in turn he took up one after another. They all were blank.

As he called the last one and started to resume his seat, Harding, in a low voice, as to himself, said: ”Thank G.o.d!”

All looked a little foolish for a moment, and then the Colonel said: ”Why, Carlin, you are not much of a returning board, after all.”

Said Corrigan: ”It sames the convintion moved to make it unanimous.”

Said Carlin: ”I could not vote to expel Miller. He has long been my friend. I know how sensitive he is. He wronged us a little, but I just could not do it.”

Said Brewster: ”I could not do it, because that would be the quickest way to cause a man, when on the down grade, to keep on. To make him feel that those who have been most intimate with him, despise him, may be exact justice, but it seldom brings reformation.”

Said the Colonel: ”I could not do it in his absence. It would have had a look of a.s.sa.s.sination from behind.”

”I could not do it,” said the Professor. ”The news would have got out and the Club would have been disgraced.”

”It was not much more than an error of judgment, on Miller's part,” said Wright. ”He never intended to wrong us out of a penny. Crime is measured only by the intention.”

”That is the true inwardness of the whole business, Wright, and that thought kept my ballot blank,” was Alex's suggestion.

”I could not do it,” said Ashley. ”His expulsion would have looked as though we measured friends.h.i.+p by dollars. If a man ever needs friends, it is when he is in trouble.”

”I could not do it,” chimed in Corrigan. ”Suppose all our mistakes shall be remimbered against us, how will we iver git admitted to the great Club above?”

”I could not do it, because I love him,” said Harding.

”I feared,” said Brewster, ”that things were going wrong with Miller a week ago, when I noticed that in lieu of the costly chair which he first brought to the Club, he was using that old, second-hand cheap affair.”

”I think,” said Harding, ”that I have a right to tell now what has been a secret. You know Miller and myself worked together. We were coming up from the mine one evening, ten days ago, when we chanced to pa.s.s old man Arnold's cabin--Arnold, who was crippled by a fall in the Curry some months ago. The old man was sitting outside his cabin and resting his crippled limb on a crutch. Miller stopped and asked him how he was getting on, and talked pleasantly with him for a few minutes, when an express wagon came by. Miller left the old man with a pleasant word, asked me if I would not wait there a few minutes, hailed the expressman, jumped upon his wagon, said something to the man which I did not understand, and the wagon was driven rapidly away.

”In a few minutes it returned; Miller sprang down; the expressman handed him the great easy chair; he carried it into the door of the cabin, setting it just inside; then lifted the old man in his arms from his hard chair, placed him in the soft cus.h.i.+ons of the other, moved it gently until it was in just the position where the old man could best enjoy looking at the descending night; then, picking up the old battered chair, he said, cheerily: 'Arnold, I want to trade chairs with you,' and walked so rapidly away that the old man could not recover from his surprise enough to thank him. This old chair is the one he brought away.

”Coming home he said to me: 'Harding, don't give me away on this business, please. We are all liable to be crippled some time, and to need comforts which we do not half appreciate now. I would have given the old man the chair two weeks ago, but I did not have it quite paid for at that time.'

”I tell you the story now because I do not think there is any obligation to keep it a secret any longer.”