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About The Choteau Montanan (Choteau, Mont.) 1913-1925 | View This Issue
The Choteau Montanan (Choteau, Mont.), 21 Dec. 1923, located at <http://montananewspapers.org/lccn/sn85053031/1923-12-21/ed-1/seq-3/>, image provided by MONTANA NEWSPAPERS, Montana Historical Society, Helena, Montana.
Joseah Greer and His Daughter ' By HENRY KI^CHELL WEBSTER Copyright by The Bobbs-MerrlU Co. JENNIE MAC ARTHUR SYNOPSIS.— Joseph Greer, a black-bearded pirate of fifty, having discovered a process of extracting fiber from-flax straw, is made director of a big corpo ration. For years distrusting men of affairs, Greer has played a lone hand. Now holding what he considers the winning cards, he is willing to sublet his wits to wealth. To protect his own Interests, Joe has foisted his own secretary, Jennie MacArthur, upon the company. Henry Cra ven, a bank clerk related to John Williamson, the millionaire back er of Greer’s new company, is offered by Williamson the posi tion of treasitrer of the new com pany, with the generally under stood purpose of watching Gr««w. CHAPTER I— Continued. —2— He had no -answer ready, and she went on a moment later to add the capstone to the fanciful edifice. “How do you know,” she asked, \that there isn’t some one else he wants your place In the bank for?” “I haven’t any proof that he doesn’t,” he said then, gently. “But that doesn’t square with his history. He’s shown us as much real kindness and good-will, during the last fifteen years, as we’ve found in anybody. If he treats me as a pawn it’s because that’s wlmt I really am—on the business chess-board.” “You’re three times as intelligent hs he is,” she protested. “So was father,\ he reminded her. “Intelligence isn’t the thing they play this game with. It wants a certain stupidity, really, to keep you munch ing away at it all day long like one of John’s Holstelns. Father couldn’t do that; couldn't keep his mind on it. He didn’t hate It until those last years, because he began by getting the bet ter of it. Well—of course, I didn’t begin that way. And until John showed me this chance today at lunch, It looked as if I never would get the better of It, short of retiring on a wretched little pension when I was sixty-five or so, too old to have any life left. This thing, of course, may fall. I suppose you’re right, that It’s more than likely to. But, if it doesn’t, lt‘s a way out. It’s a chance to live a little, while I’ve still got some thing— ’’ . He pulled up short. He’d communed with himself in this strain often enough, but he’d never heard himself saying such tilings aloud. The meeting the next afternoon was, so far as its actual proceedings went, a dull affair, the Inevitable legal hocus- pocus occupying most of the time. Two lawyers were present; a man named Nathan, who seemed to be Greer’s attorney, and, across the table, young Craig from Aldrich’s office, who acted at first as secretary of the meeting. Sometimes they differed sol-' emnly and, it seemed to Henry, inter minably, over a trivial matter of phrasing. Sometimes one of the prin cipals took a hand. Once Henry heard Craig say to John Williamson: “Mr. Aldrich will accept this. He gave me a special memorandum on it.\ It might, from the solemnity with which he spoke, have been a special tablet from Mount Sinai, and John nodded with an air of complete satisfaction, his momentary uneasiness quite ban ished. To Henry, trying hard to keep awake, this seemed mildly ludicrous. But Greer sprang a sensation along in the middle of the meeting. Of the permanent directors, three, by agree ment, were to be elected at his nom ination: himself, of course; his law yer, Nathan, and J. MacArthur, who was, also by agreement, to be made secretary of the company. When the election had taken place and they were ready to go on as a directors’ meeting, John turned to Greer and asked: . \Where Is MacArthur? If he’s to be secretary he ought to be here to take charge of the minutes. Can you get hold of him?” Greer’s answer was to tilt back In his chair and, reaching around without rising, press a button on his desk. Henry guessed In that instant, from a gleam in his eye, that something was going to happen. When an office boy answered the buzzer. Greer said, “Ask Miss MacAr thur to come in.\ Well, there was nothing unprece dented about It, of course. Plenty of wohien were directors of companies and officers, too. But that they should have been led-Into electing her in the •dark like this gave them a sense of having been tricked. John and Greg ory Corbett looked pretty blank. Greer glanced around from one set, serious face to the next with an open grin. The door opened just .then, and she came in. They all got up, of course, and Greer Introduced them around. Her maimer, if not her appearance, was Immediately reassuring. She took young Craig’s chair at Greer’s right hand. Two or three cleanly directed questions and a cursory look through liis notes put her abreust of the situa tion. She knew her business; so much was easy to see. Yet she was not, Henry felt, quite the type- of business woman he was acquainted with. Her dress had a somewhat mannish air which they, as a rule, are careful ti avoid. When the meeting broke up, Henry’s delay,, occupied by the meticulous ad justment of his muffler before putting •on his overcoat,\ gave MI s 3 MacArthur an opportunity, almost an Invitation, oerhsuM, to come up and speak to him. “ Wouldn’t you like to see your new office, Mr. Craven, before you go?\ He followed her down the corridor with a curiously stimulating sense of ad venture. “This was Mr. Ferris’ dfflee,\ she said as she ushered him Into a room that was just the conventional quur- tered-oak and ground-glass box-stall. “He was treasurer of the old com pany. -At least,” she added without a smile, “he was called treasurer.” He perceived plainly enough that she meant to tell him something, and waited, with a trepidation he was afraid wasn’t quite concealed, for her to go on. * “ I only meant,” she explained, \that Mr. Greer is always so full of the one thing that happens to be on his mind that the rest of us have to catch hold just anywhere and fill In.” After she had gone he dropped down Into the swivel-chair—his swivel-clmir now— feeling the imperative need of a few minutes in which to get himself together. But before the process of recollection had fairly found time to begin, he heard steps—Greer’s, he was sure— come down the corridor and turn into the secretary's office next door. “Oh, hello!” he heard her say. “I thought you’d gone.” The other said—it was Greer—“ God frey. what an afternoon 1\ and plumped down heavily on ljer desk. “Well,\ Greer went on after striking a match, “I guess we’re really started, at last. I don’t believe there’s any more* d—d fee-fo-fum that they can think of. - See you tomorrow?\ he asked. “ How about dinner up at the flat? My train doesn't go until mid night.” “ I can’t come to dinner. But lunch Is all right, if you like, and the rest of the afternoon.\ \D—n it, Jennie, can’t you leave the one decent workday iq the week alone?” “You have too many workdays as It is. I’ll be there at one, but I won’t wait. So if you’re at work and don’t feel like stopping, you needn’t.\ “ Oh, all right! One o’clock, then. You’re an Infernal tyrant, Jennie.\ “So would you be, Joe” (or did she call him Joey), “if you got the chance, I guers.” The next moment Henry heard her going. Then, before he could move or think, the communicating door was thrown open, and Greer, at peace with the world, came in upon him. He gave Henry an amiable smile, pleased to find him there. Before speaking he devoted a moment to 1 a prodigious yawn and stretch. “Well,” he said, as he squeezed the water out of his eyes, “ that’s over. We’re through with that sort of hoakum for a while, anyway. You found it as dull as I did; I could see that. Let's go somewhere and have a chin—and a drink,\ he added. “ I’m drier right now than this country will ever be.” Greer piloted him back into a sort of grill where, apparently, food was to be had as well as liquor. Greer\ ordered bourbon for himself, and Hen ry chose a pot of orange pekoe. “What do you make of Williamson?\ Greer asked abruptly. “Make of him?\ Henry echoed. “Why, I don’t know. I’ve known him, you see, for a great many years. He married a cousin of mine.\ “Murried, Is he?\ Greer reflected. Then, “Living with his wife?” Henry jumped. “Yes,\ he said. \Oh. yes, certainly.” Apparently, from his host’s point of view, it wus by no means a corollary. But, having received Henry’s assur ance on the point, he was content to let it drop and go back to the main theme. “ Well, I don’t get any of these fel lows,\ he said; “ the financial gang. I don’t see how they get away with it. I don’t see how they keep themselves alive. Oh, I know you’re on their side. You were in the bank, weren’t you? And they put you in here to keep an eye on me. But you’re no more like them really than I am. I saw that well enough at the meeting. There were a dozen times today when we both wanted to say, *To h—1 with it I’ But you’ve worked for ’em, seen ’em close to, so I thought maybe you could tell me the answer.\ “I’m not sure I quite understand what it is you find puzzling about them,” Henry said, sipping his tea and feeling queerly at ease for the mo ment with his companion. “ I ’ve worked for them, as you say, a good part of my life, but they’ve never struck me as—enigmatic, especially. Of course, they’re— my own people. But you’re quite right that I ’m not one of them—I’d have been a musician, if I could,” lie added. \There you are,\ said Greer; “ that’s something. I suppose music’s Just a form of engineering, really, only it happens to be one that a man can’t make a living by— unless he’s a sort of freak. Well, then, you’re ,a musi cian ; I’m an engineer. But what the devil are they? What do they see? What do they think they see? Oh, money, of course, but mcney’s nothing but a way of getting things done. Wliat is it they’re trying to get done? If I had Williamson’s money I’d do something with it. So would you. I doubt if he even has fun with it. Not as much as I have—on perhaps a twentieth as much. Round and round he goes looking for safe Investments for an income that’s already five or six times what he can spend—making more work for himself all the time.\ \I suppose,\ Henry put in, “ that It’s really power he wunts rather than money.\ The other man snatched the word away from him. “ Power! 1 under stand power, or I think I do. Power is what enn be used' to move some thing. Well, now, see here! Here’s a man who’s got a hobby for buying electric storage-cells and charging them, and he goes on collecting more and more of them and you go to him and say, 'What are you going to do with all this?’ and he says, 'Oh, I’m going to run a motor-generator outfit to charge more cells.’ Couldn’t you take him before u judge and get a conservator appointed on the strength of that? Of course you could. Well, what’s the difference? What does Williamson want to run? The city? He could, if he liked—Roger Sullivan did. A railroad? A steamship line? An opera company? A harem? I don’t care what. But it ought to be something.” He Illuminated this statement with a dazzling grin, but went straight on: “ Williamson gets a bound report on me and reads it, or, for all I know, hires somebody else to read it for him, and sends me word he’ll go in. But in all this time— three montlis, mind you—lie’s never come out to our laboratory on the West side, where he could have seen the thing done, ac tually done under, semi-commercial conditions. He doesn’t care about how it’s done. Nor, for that matter, what we do. Any damn thing In the world that would show the same profit between raw material and finished product, and the sume demand, would interest him Just as much—it would be the same thing to him. “Cellulose fiber is one of the most interesting things In the world. I’ve been thinking about It, off and on, ever since the first time I found myself In a tropical jungle. And the things you can do by dissolving it, or by matting and compressing it, or by using it as a binder in plastic substances— there’s no end. And we’re just at the begin ning. back in the Old Testament. But it might be putty for all Williamson cares—or prunes.” He interrupted himself here to take another drink, and Henry said: “You’re partly right, of course, but .he knows more about that process of yours than you think. And he knows he's not a technical man. - It may be caution as much as lack of interest that’s kept him away.\ Greer caught that Instantly over the edge of his up-raised glass. Henry found thut glance of his curiously stimulating. “Anyhow,\ Henry went on, “he told me himself quite a little about it— about the—bug, he called it, that you’d discovered.” “H—1!’’ said Greer, putting down his glass, “I didn’t discover any bug. Pm not a bacteriologist. I hired a fellow —a young professor of botany at one of the universities, and told him to discover It. It took him more than a year, and if I hadn’t been there to speed him up it might have taken him twenty. They’re queer birds, too, these pure scientists, when it comes to that. They don’t care what any thing’s for any more than the bank ers care how it works. It Isn’t till a man like me comes along and takes one In one hand and another in the other and cracks their heads together that anything really happens in the world.” The Inward grimace Henry allowed himself at#this must have shown some reflection in his face, perceptible to Greer, for almost Instantly, with a shrug and a smile, be went on: “That sounds like brag to you. Per haps It is. But we're trying to get ac quainted, aren’t we? The sooner we do. the better all around; isn’t :hat the idea? Well, then, you may as well know that I think I'm a better man than John Williamson or any of his crowd. I think you are, too, and that you know It. He Inherited ills money, didn’t he? \Wasn’t old Nick Williamson his fa ther? Well, the old man, I guess, had the goods. But his son—why, he’s had everything done for him. Turn him out in the woods without a guide and a pack-train, and I don’t believe he could keep alive a month. I don’t be lieve he could have earned his living with -Ills hands and educated himself for a profession at the same time. Well', I did that, and I’ve done the other. And I could do it again if 1 had to, though I am fifty years old.” - “F ifty!” Henry’s surpris” was gen uine. He’d been thinking of the man as a contemporary. Greer nodded. “ Unless I've lost count,” he said. ' He paused reflectively over his drink, and gave Henry a chance he had uncomfortably been waiting for. \O f course,\ he said, “I couldn’t keep alive in the woods either, not even as long as John. I could hardly have kept alive, I’m afraid, even in the ordinary ways of civilization if I hadn’t been helped. And thé person who gave me that help, with a per fectly ungrudging kindness, was John Williamson.\ “ Well, your game’s a different game from his and from mine,\ Greer said. “You're like some other people 1 know, writers und painters and such. All you really ask for is a chance to look on. But you can see what I’m driving at, and these fat people couldn’t— Oh, they have their good side, I know,” he conceded. \That’s more than I’d have admitted twenty years ago. I was a good deal of a sorehead at thirty. I had a grudge World,\ Greer Told Her. that used to keep me awake nights against the gang that has everything brought to them on a platter. I want ed them kicked out, to give better men a chance. But I ’ve got over that. I’m willing they should play their game as long as they’ll let me play mine. But—’’ His look belled his words, Henry thought. His eyes, smoldering, gazed out across the room. There was f >od for thought, for John and his friends, perhaps, in the look of them. Many persons less given to analysis than Henry Craven had speculated during the past half-dozen years about the relation between Joe Greer and Jennie MacArthur. They suw, just as Henry did, that it differed somehow from the accepted standard for Im portant, busy employers and their ef ficient, infallible secretaries. Jennie was competent, and long ago she had made herself Indispensable. But that was only the beginning of it. She took to Joe from the start. What appeared to others as his truly In fernal temper never worried Jennie a bit. He could think harder and faster than anybody else, and a long succes sion of contucts with muddled minds or irresolute wills drove him every now and then frantic. Her method with him was to let him rave until he got the worst of it out of his system, and then grin at him. She learned the trick of toning dpwn his letters without making them sound tame and colorless, and before she’d worked for him a year, he’d given up dictating al together. “You’re the only stenographer Jn the world,” he said to her, apropos of some such performance as this. “Go to the bookkeeper and tell him your salary is fifty dollars a week. Any time you think that isn’t enough, say so, but don’t you dare leave me on any account. You belong to me, see.” He added, “ You’re not thinking of go ing off and getting married, are you?’’ When she told him she wasn’t, he gave a sort of satisfied grunt which carried with it the implication that she’d better not try. When he formed his company for the manufacture of airplane parts, tie made her secretary of It and fixed her salary at six thousand a year. In every ramification of his business In terests lie gave her his whole confi dence, which wns something no one else, she was. sure, shared with her, for he was naturally suspicious and secretive. During the whole seven years, from the day when she’d first gone into his private office to the day of the direc tors' meeting that Henry Craven at tended, she had never considered leaving Joe. She’d spoiled him. She'd endured much. She had occasionally flared up to match the red of her hair and driven some rebuking home truths Into him. But, on the whole, she’d enjoyed herself enormously. There was a zest about the whole thing that\ made It moré than a mere job, a sparkle of variety, and a spice, too, of danger. It was facts, however, .lather th&v appearances that she had to look out for. As regarded the latter, she could afford a superb Indifference. She was a magnificently independent person In that there was no one in the world whose moral disapproval could affect adversely\ her economic status. She’d gone with Joe on many a business trip Washington, New York, and elsewhere, and the Grundy aspect of such an adventure, or of her going to dine alone with him in his flat, never disturbed her in the least. A smile like the one which had so exercised the speculative faculties of Henry Craven at the board meeting was the only tribute that she ever paid to the Moloch of propriety. CHAPTER II The Better Half. .Joe invited her to such a dinner one night In May about a month after the directors’ meeting, and within a few days of his return from a trip to the Northwest where he’d been engaged in settling the last details and letting the contracts for the construction of their flax factories. Invitations of this son weren’t so very frequent, and they generally had a real occasion. He had something he wanted to talk with her about, he said. “Oh, it’s got nothing to do with any of this.” He smiled as he added on leaving her, “I’m going to surprls» you, Jennie.” A dinner at Joe’s flat, whatever It»* occasion, deserved to be treated as a party, so she went home a little early from the office— there wasn’t so very much to do these days—and dresseii in a leisurely and luxurious manner in a satin frock which she had bought, luckily, only the week before. Jennie candidly enjoyed dressing up, and one of her few grievances against the sort of life she led was that it offered so few opportunities for this indulgence. The dinner was at seven-thirty, and '.t wns still broad daylight when she parked her little coupe in the side street nearest Joe’s doorway. In the doorway she found Joes chauffeur waiting under his employer’s orders for her to drive up so that he might take her car into the garage and bring it around aguin whenever she want ed it. He was a prepossessing youngster who had taken this job on getting de mobilized from the array a few weeks previously. The irregular hours and the touch of variety about it made it, Jennie supposed, less unattractive to him than most of the berths opeo to a man In his position. But he was too good, she thought, for this sort of thing—taking Joe’s nctresses on joy rides in the small hours of the morn ing, and so on; and she made a men tal note, as she spoke to him, of a resolution to persuade Joe to find something better for him to do. His name was George Burns. She told him her car was all right where It was, and that when she was ready to go she wouldn’t mind going out to it alone, so If this was to have been his only duty for the evening he might ns well consider himself at lib erty. He thanked her, but she guessed from his mnnner that he didn’t intend to act upon her permis sion. In the same moment she real ized, and she blushed a bright pink as It broke over her, that the boy wns shocked. That he attributed—It must be that—a sinister Interpretation to her visit. Once or twice he’d driven her home from the office when she’d worked late, and they’d got to be quite good friends. Tonight he seemed to see her in a new and rather lurid light. In the elevator she decided she’d say nothing about the encounter to Joe, at least until she’d cooled down enough to laugh over it But he, meeting her In the hall ns the butler opened the door for her, had it all out of her In two minutes, “Good Lord, Jennie! What’s the mntter with you?” h* asked at sight of her. And to her “ Well, wuat is?” he an swered. “You look—aa if you’d just been kissed by a traveling man.” At that, she laughed and told him. “That’s a nice mess.” he commented with a grin. “ Here, give me your keys. And go and take off your cloak You know the room, don’t you? I’ll be back in a minute. No, I don’t blame him a bit. It’s nil your fault.’’ He had, it struck her, a rather thoughtful air when he joined her a few minutes later in the drawing-room. He stood for a moment a little way off, candidly regarding her before he spoke. “You wear better-looking clothes than most of the women who have nothing to do but buy them. How do you manage It, Jennie?” She felt that her new frock was vindicated, for It wasn’t often he showed the slightest consciousness of what she wore. “I happen to be the right size to wear models.” she said. “That’s the answer. It saves a lot of trouble.” “The right size and the right shape,” he amended. ’It’s more than your clothes that looks good to me.” There wns the same quality, oddly reflective for him, about his gesture, for as he finished speaking he came up anr’ took her by both bare arms Just arjo-e the elbow, gently enough as If he merely meant to hold her there untb the end of bis train of thought. 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