Samuel Hopkins Adams - The Clarion

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Then, from a recess in his memory, there popped out the word "genteel."
His father had characterized the Certina business as being, possibly,
not sufficiently "genteel" for him. He caught at the saving suggestion.
Doubtless that was the trouble. It was the blatancy of the business, not
any evil quality inherent in it, which had offended him. Kindest and
gentlest of men and best of fathers as Dr. Surtaine was, he was not a
paragon of good taste; and his business naturally reflected his
personality. Even this was further than Hal had ever gone before in
critical judgment. But he seized upon the theory as a defense against
further thought, and, having satisfied his self-questionings with this
sop, he let his mind revert to his trip through the factory. It paused
on the correspondence room and its attractive forewoman.

"She seemed a practical little thing," he reflected. "I'll talk to her
again and get her point of view." And then he wondered, rather amusedly,
how much of this self-suggestion arose from a desire for information,
and how much was inspired by a memory of her haunting, hungry eyes.

On the following morning he kept away from the factory, lunched at the
Huron Club with William Douglas, Elias M. Pierce, who had found time to
be present, and several prominent citizens whom he thought quite dully
similar to each other; and afterward walked to the Certina Building to
keep an appointment with its official head.

"Been feeding with our representative citizens, eh?" his father greeted
him. "Good! Meantime the Old Man grubbed along on a bowl of milk and a
piece of apple pie, at a hurry-up lunch-joint. Good working diet, for
young or old. Besides, it saves time."

"Are you as busy as all that, Dad?"

"Pretty busy this morning, because I've had to save an hour for you out
of this afternoon. We'll take it right now if you're ready."

"Quite ready, sir."

"Hal, where's Europe?"

"Europe? In the usual place on the map, I suppose."

"You didn't bring it back with you, then?"

"Not a great deal of it. They mightn't have let it through the customs."

Dr. Surtaine snapped a rubber band from a packet of papers lying on his
desk. "Considering that you seem to have bought it outright," he said,
twinkling, "I thought you might tell me what you intend doing with it.
There are the bills."

"Have I gone too heavy, sir?" asked Hal. "You've never limited me, and I
supposed that the business--"

"The business," interrupted his father arrogantly, "could pay those
bills three times over in any month. That isn't the point. The point is
that you've spent something more than forty-eight thousand dollars this
last year."

Hal whistled ruefully. "Call it an even fifty," he said. "I've made a
little, myself."

"No! Have you? How's that?"

"While I was in London I did a bit of writing; sketches of queer places
and people and that sort of thing, and had pretty good luck selling 'em.
One fellow I know there even offered me a job paragraphing. That's like
our editorial writing, you know."

"Fine! That makes me feel easier. I was afraid you might be going soft,
with so much money to spend."

"How I ever spent that much--"

"Never mind that. It's gone. However, we'll try another basis. I'd
thought of an allowance, but I don't quite like the notion. Hal, I'm
going to give you your own money."

"My own money? I didn't know that I had any."

"Well, you have."

"Where did I get it?"

"From our partnership. From the old days on the road."

"Rather an intangible fortune, isn't it?"

"That old itinerant business was the nucleus of the Certina of to-day.
You had a profit-sharing right in that. You've still got it--in this.
Hal, I'm turning over to you to-day half a million dollars."

"That's a lot of money, Dad," said the younger man soberly.

"The interest doesn't come to fifty thousand dollars a year, though."

"More than half; and that's more than plenty."

"Well, I don't know. We'll try it. At any rate, it's your own. Plenty
more where it comes from, if you need extra."

"I shan't. It's more than generous of you--"

"Not a bit of it. No more than just, Boyee. So let the thanks go."

"All right, sir. But--you know how I feel about it."

"I guess I know just about how you and I feel toward each other on
anything that comes up between us, Boyee." There was a grave gentleness
in Dr. Surtaine's tone. "Well, there are the papers," he added, more
briskly. "I haven't put all your eggs in one basket, you see."

Going over the certificates Hal found himself possessed of fifty
thousand dollars in the stock of the Mid-State and Great Muddy Railroad:
an equal sum in the Security Power Products Company; twenty-five
thousand each in the stock of the Worthington Trust Company and the
Remsen Savings Bank; one hundred thousand in the Certina Company, and
fifty thousand in three of its subsidiary enterprises. Besides this, he
found five check-books in the large envelope which contained his riches.

"What are these, Dad?" he asked.

"Cash on deposit in local and New York banks. You might want to do some
investing of your own. Or possibly you might see some business
proposition you wanted to buy into."

"I see some Security Power Products Company certificates. What is that?"

"The local light, heat, and power corporation. It pays ten per cent.
Certina never pays less than twenty. The rest is all good for six, at
least and the Mid-and-Mud averages eight. You've got upwards of
thirty-seven thousand income there, not counting your deposits. While
you're looking about, deciding what you're going to do, it'll be your
own money and nobody else's that you're spending."

"Do you think many fathers would do this sort of thing, Dad?" said Hal
warmly.

"Any sensible one would. I don't want to own you, Boyee. I want you to
own yourself. And to make yourself," he added slowly.

"If I can make myself like you, Dad--"

"Oh, I'm a good-enough piece of work, for my day and time," laughed the
father. "But I want a fine finish on you. While you're looking around
for your life-work, how about doing a little unpaid job for me?"

"Anything," cried Hal. "Just try me."

"Do you know what an Old Home Week is?"

"Only what I read in to-day's paper announcing the preliminary
committee."

"That gave you enough idea. We make a big thing of Old Home Week in
Worthington. This year it will be particularly big because it's the
hundredth anniversary of the city. The President of the United States
will be here. I'm to be chairman of the general committee, and I want
you for my secretary."

"Nothing I'd like better, sir."

"Good! All the moneyed men in town will be on the committee. The work
will put you in touch with the people who count. Well, that settles our
business. Good luck to you in your independence, Boyee." He touched a
bell. "Any one waiting to see me, Jim?" he asked the attendant.

"Yes, sir. The Reverend Norman Hale."

"Send him in."

"Shall I go, Dad?" asked Hal.

"Oh, you might take a little ramble around the shop. Go anywhere. Ask
any questions of anybody. They all know you."

At the door, Hal passed a tall, sinewy young man with heavy brows and
rebellious hair. A slight, humorous uptilt to his mouth relieved the
face of impassivity and saved it from a too formal clericalism. The
visitor was too deeply concerned with some consideration of his inner
self to more than glance at Hal, who heard Dr. Surtaine's hearty
greeting through the closing door.

"Glad to see you, Mr. Hale. Take a chair."

The visitor bowed gravely and sat down.

"You've come to see me about--?"

"Your subscription to the East End Church Club Fund."

"I am heartily in sympathy with the splendid work your church is doing
in the--er--less salubrious parts of our city," said Dr. Surtaine.

"Doubtless," returned the young clergyman dryly.

"Seems to be saving his wind," thought Dr. Surtaine, a little uneasily.
"I suppose it's a question," he continued, aloud, "of the disposition of
the sum--"

"No: it is not."

If this bald statement required elucidation or expansion, its proponent
didn't seem to realize the fact. He contemplated with minute scrutiny a
fly which at that moment was alighting (in about the proportion of the
great American eagle) upon the pained countenance of Old Lame-Boy.

"Well?" queried the other, adding to himself, "What the devil ails the
man!"

The scrutinized fly rose, after the manner of its kind, and (now reduced
to normal scale) touched lightly in its exploratory tour upon Dr.
Surtaine's domed forehead. Following it thus far, the visitor's gaze
rested. Dr. Surtaine brushed off the insect. He could not brush off the
regard. Under it and his caller's continued silence he grew fidgety.

"While I'm very glad," he suggested, "to give you what time you need--"

"I've come here because I wanted to have this thing out with you face to
face."

"Well, have it out," returned the other, smiling but wary.

The young clergyman drew from his pocket a folded newspaper page to
which was pinned an oblong of paper. This he detached and extended to
the other.

"What's that?" asked the doctor, making no motion to receive it, for he
instantly recognized it.

"Your check."

"You're returning it?"

"Without thanks."

"You mean to turn down two thousand dollars!" demanded the other in slow
incredulity.

"Exactly."

"Why?"

"Is that question asked in good faith?"

"It is."

"Then you haven't seen the letter written by the superintendent of our
Sunday School to the Certina Company."

"What kind of a letter?"

"A testimonial letter--for which your two thousand dollars is payment, I
suppose."

"Two thousand for a church testimonial!" Dr. Surtaine chuckled at his
caller's innocence. "Why, I wouldn't pay that for a United States
Senator. Besides," he added virtuously, "Certina doesn't buy its
testimonials."

"Then it's an unfortunate coincidence that your check should have come
right on top of Mr. Smithson's very ill-advised letter."

By a regular follow-up mechanism devised by himself, every donation by
Dr. Surtaine was made the basis of a shrewd attempt to extract from the
beneficiary an indorsement of Certina's virtues, or, if not that, of the
personal character and professional probity of its proprietor. This is
what had happened in the instance of the check to Mr. Hale's church,
Smithson being the medium through whom the attempt was made.

The quack saw no occasion to explain this to his inquisitor. So he
merely said: "I never saw any such letter," which was, in a literal
sense, true.

"Nor will you know anything about it, I suppose, until the name of the
church is spread broadcast through your newspaper advertising."

Now, it is a rule of the patent medicine trade never to advertise an
unwilling testimonial because that kind always has a kick-back. Hence:--

"Oh, if you feel that way about it," said Dr. Surtaine disdainfully,
"I'll keep it out of print."

"And return it to me," continued the other, in a tone of calm
sequentiality, which might represent either appeal, suggestion, or
demand.

"Don't see the point," said the quack shortly.

"Since you do not intend to use it in your business, it can't be of any
value to you," countered the other.

"What's its value to you?"

"In plain words, the honor of my church is involved. The check is a
bribe. The letter is the graft."

"Nothing of the sort. You come here, a minister of the gospel," Dr.
Surtaine reproached him sorrowfully, "and use hard words about a
transaction that is perfectly straight business and happens every day."

"Not in my church."

"It isn't your letter, anyhow. You didn't write it."

"It is written on the official paper of the church. Smithson told me so.
He didn't understand what use would be made of it when he wrote it. Take
your check back, Dr. Surtaine, and give me the letter."

"Persistency, thy name is a jewel," said Dr. Surtaine with an air of
scholarliness. "You win. The letter will be returned to-morrow. You'll
take my word, I suppose?"

"Certainly; and thank you."

"And now, suppose I offered to leave the check in your hands?" asked the
Doctor curiously.

"I couldn't take it," came the decisive reply.

"Do you mind telling me why?"

The visitor spread out upon the table the newspaper page which he had
taken from his pocket. "This morning's 'Clarion,'" he said.

"So that's the trouble! You've been reading that blackmailing sheet.
Why, what's the 'Clarion,' anyway? A scandal-mongering, yellow
blatherskite, on its last legs financially. It's for sale to any bidder
who'd be fool enough to put up money. The 'Clarion' went after me
because it couldn't get our business. It ain't any straighter than a
corkscrew's shadow."

"Do I understand you to say that this attack is due to your refusal to
advertise in the 'Clarion'?"

"That's it, to a T. And now, you see, Mr. Hale," continued Dr. Surtaine
in a tone of long-suffering and dignified injury, "how believing all you
see in print lures you into chasing after strange dogs."

The visitor's mouth quivered a little at this remarkable paraphrase of
the Scripture passage; but he said gravely enough:

"Then we get back to the original charges, which the 'Clarion' quotes
from the 'Church Standard.'"

"And there you are! Up to three years ago the 'Standard' took all the
advertising we'd give them, and glad to get it. Then it went daffy over
the muckraking magazine exposures, and threw out all the proprietary
copy. Now nothing will do but it must roast its old patrons to show off
its new virtue."

"Do you deny what the editor of the 'Standard' said about Certina?"

Dr. Surtaine employed the stock answer of medical quackery when
challenged on incontrovertible facts. "Why, my friend," he said with
elaborate carelessness, "if I tried to deny everything that
irresponsible parties say about me, I wouldn't have any time left for
business. Well, well; plenty of other people will be glad of that two
thousand. Turn in the check at the cashier's window, please. Good-day
to you."

The Reverend Norman Hale retired, leaving the "Clarion's" denunciation
lying outspread on the table.

Meantime, wandering in the hallway, Hal had encountered Milly Neal.

"Are you very busy, Miss Neal?" he asked.

"Not more than usual," she answered, regarding him with bright and
kindly eyes. "Did you want me?"

"Yes. I want to know some things about this business."

"Outside of my own department, I don't know much."

"Well; inside your own department, then. May I ask some questions?"

With a businesslike air she consulted a tiny watch, then glanced toward
a settee at the end of the hall. "I'll give you ten minutes," she
announced. "Suppose we sit down over there."

"Do the writers of those letters--symp-letters, I believe, you call
them--" he began; "do they seem to get benefit out of the advice
returned?"

"What advice? To take Certina? Why, yes. Most of 'em come back for
more."

"You think it good medicine for all that long list of troubles?"

The girl's eyes opened wide. "Of course it's a good medicine!" she
cried. "Do you think the Chief would make any other kind?"

"No; certainly not," he hastened to disclaim. "But it seems like a wide
range of diseases to be cured by one and the same prescription."

"Oh, we've got other proprietaries, too," she assured him with her
pretty air of partnership. "There's the Stomachine, and the headache
powders and the Relief Pills and the liniment; Dr. Surtaine runs 'em
all, and every one's a winner. Not that I keep much track of 'em. We
only handle the Certina correspondence in our room. I know what that
can do. Why, I take Certina myself when there's anything the matter with
me."

"Do you?" said Hal, much interested. "Well, you're certainly a living
testimonial to its efficacy."

"All the people in the shop take it. It's a good tonic, even when you're
all right."

The listener felt his vague uneasiness soothed. If those who were
actually in the business had faith in the patent medicine's worth, it
must be all that was claimed for it.

"I firmly believe," continued the little loyalist, "that the Chief has
done more good and saved more lives than all the doctors in the country.
I'd trust him further than any regular doctor I know, even if he doesn't
belong to their medical societies and all that. They're jealous of him;
that's what's the matter with them."

"Good for you!" laughed Hal, feeling his doubts melt at the fire of her
enthusiasm. "You're a good rooter for the business."

"So's the whole shop. I guess your father is the most popular employer
in Worthington. Have you decided to come into the business, Mr.
Surtaine?"

"Do you think I'd make a valuable employee, Miss Milly?" he bantered.

But to Milly Neal the subject of the Certina factory admitted of no
jocularity. She took him under advisement with a grave and quaint
dubiety.

"Have you ever worked?"

"Oh, yes; I'm not wholly a loafer."

"For a living, I mean."

"Unfortunately I've never had to."

"How old are you?"

"Twenty-five."

"I don't believe I'd want you in my department, if it was up to me," she
pronounced.

"Do you think I wouldn't be amenable to your stern discipline?"

Still she refused to meet him on his ground of badinage. "It isn't
that. But I don't think you'd be interested enough to start in at the
bottom and work up."

"Perhaps you're right, Miss Neal," said Hal, a little startled by the
acuteness of her judgment, and a little piqued as well. "Though you
condemn me to a life of uselessness on scant evidence."

She went scarlet. "Oh, please! You know I didn't mean that. But you seem
too--too easy-going, too--"

"Too ornamental to be useful?"

Suddenly she stamped her foot at him, flaming into a swift exasperation.
"You're laughing at me!" she accused. "I'm going back to my work. I
won't stay and be made fun of." Then, in another and rather a dismayed
tone, "Oh, I'm forgetting about your being the Chief's son."

Hal jumped to his feet. "Please promise to forget it when next we meet,"
he besought her with winning courtesy. "You've been a kind little friend
and adviser. And I thank you for what you have said."

"Not at all," she returned lamely, and walked away, her face still
crimson.

Returning to the executive suite, the young scion found his father
immersed in technicalities of copy with the second advertising writer.

"Sit down, Boyee," said he. "I'll be through in a few minutes." And he
resumed his discussion of "black-face," "36-point," "indents," "boxes,"
and so on.

Left to his own devices Hal turned idly to the long table. From the
newspaper which the Reverend Norman Hale had left, there glared up at
him in savage black type this heading:--

CERTINA A FAKE

_Religious Editor Shows Up Business and Professional_

_Methods of Dr. L. Andre Surtaine_

The article was made up of excerpts from a religious weekly's expose,
interspersed with semi-editorial comment. As he skimmed it, Hal's wrath
and loyalty waxed in direct ratio. Malice was obvious in every line, to
the incensed reader. But the cause and purpose were not so clear. As he
looked up, brooding upon it, he caught his father's eye.

"Been reading that slush, Hal?"

"Yes, sir. Of course it's all a pack of lies. But what's the reason for
it?"

"Blackmail, son."

"Do they expect to get money out of you this way?"

"No. That isn't it. I've always refused to have any business dealings
with 'em, and this is their way of revenge."

"But I didn't know you advertised Certina in the local papers."

"We don't. Proprietaries don't usually advertise in their own towns.
We're so well known at home that we don't have to. But some of the side
lines, like the Relief Pills, that go out under another trade name, use
space in the Worthington papers. The 'Clarion' isn't getting that copy,
so they're sore."

"Can't you sue them for libel, Dad?"

"Hardly worth while. Decent people don't read the 'Clarion' anyway, so
it can't hurt much. It's best just to ignore such things."

"Something ought to be done about it," declared Hal angrily.

Stuffing the paper into his pocket he took his wrath out into the open
air. Hard and fast he walked, but the farther he went the hotter burned
his ire.

There was in Harrington Surtaine a streak of the romantic. His inner
world was partly made up of such chimerical notions as are bred in a
lively mind, not in very close touch with the world of actualities, by a
long course of novel-reading and theater-going. Deep within him stirred
a conviction that there was a proper and suitable, nay, an almost
obligatory, method made and provided for just such crises as this:
something that a keen-spirited and high-bred youth ought to do about it.
Suddenly it came to him. Young Surtaine returned home with his resolve
taken. In the morning he would fare forth, a modern knight redressing
human wrongs, and lick the editor of the "Clarion."

Overnight young Mr. Surtaine revised his project. Horsewhipping would be
no more than the offending editor deserved. However, he should have his
chance. Let him repent and retract publicly, and the castigation should
be remitted. Forthwith the avenger sat him down to a task of
composition. The apology which, after sundry corrections and
emendations, he finally produced in fair copy, was not alone complete
and explicit: it was fairly abject. In such terms might a confessed and
hopeless criminal cast himself desperately upon the mercy of the court.
Previsioning this masterly _apologium_ upon the first page of the
morrow's "Clarion,"--or perhaps at the top of the editorial
columns,--its artificer thrilled with the combined pride of authorship
and poetic justice.

On the walls of the commodious room which had been set aside in the
Surtaine mansion for the young master's study hung a plaited dog-whip.
The agent of just reprisals curled this neatly inside his overcoat
pocket and set forth upon his errand. It was then ten o'clock in the
morning.

Now, in hunting the larger fauna of the North American continent with a
dog-whip, it is advantageous to have some knowledge of the game's
habits. Mr. Harrington Surtaine's first error lay in expecting to find
the editorial staff of a morning newspaper on duty in the early
forenoon. So much a sweeper, emerging from a pile of dust, communicated
to him across a railing, further volunteering that three o'clock would
be a well-chosen hour for return, as the boss would be less pressed upon
by engagements then, perhaps, than at other hours.

In the nature of things, the long delay might well have cooled the
knightliest ardor. But as he departed from the office, Mr. Surtaine took
with him a copy of that day's "Clarion" for perusal, and in its pages
discovered a "follow-up" of the previous day's outrage. Back home he
went, and added to his literary effort a few more paragraphs wherein the
editorial "we" more profoundly cringed, cowered, and crawled in
penitential abasement. Despite the relish of the words, Hal rather hoped
that the editor would refuse to publish his masterpiece. He itched to
use that whip.

CHAPTER VI

LAUNCHED

For purposes of vital statistics, the head office boy of the Worthington
"Daily Clarion" was denominated Reginald Currier. As this chaste
cognomen was artistically incompatible with his squint eye, his militant
swagger, and a general bearing of unrepressed hostility toward all
created beings, he was professionally known as "Bim." Journalism, for
him, was comprised in a single tenet; that no visitor of whatsoever kind
had or possibly could have any business of even remotely legitimate
nature within the precincts of the "Clarion" office. Tradition of the
place held that a dent in the wall back of his desk marked the
termination of an argument in which Reginald, all unwitting, had essayed
to maintain his thesis against the lightweight champion of the State who
had come to call on the sporting editor.

There had been a lull in the activities of this minor Cerberus when the
light and swinging footfall of one coming up the dim stairway several
steps at a time aroused his ready suspicions. He bristled forth to the
rail to meet a tall and rather elegant young man whom he greeted with a
growl to this effect:

"Hoojer wanter see?"

"Is the editor in?"

"Whajjer want uvvum?"

The tall visitor stepped forward, holding out a card. "Take this to him,
please, and say that I'd like to see him at once."

Unwisely, Reginald disregarded the card, which fluttered to the floor.
More unwisely, he ignored a certain tensity of expression upon the face
of his interlocutor. Most unwisely he repeated, in his very savagest
growl:

"Whajjer want uvvum, I said. Didn' chu hear me?"

Graceful and effortless as the mounting lark, Reginald Currier rose and
soared. When he again touched earth, it was only to go spinning into a
far corner where he first embraced, then strove with and was finally
tripped and thrown by a large and lurking waste-basket. Somewhat
perturbed, he extricated himself in time to see the decisive visitor
disappear through an inner door. Retrieving the crumpled and rejected
card from its resting-place, he examined it with interest. The legend
upon it was "Mr. Harrington Surtaine."

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