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About The Omaha morning bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 1922-1927 | View Entire Issue (Aug. 20, 1922)
7 The World Outside lmll4 rrm r. Th, Uy Harold MacGruih T!!K MTNPATf BEE: OMAHA, AUGUST 20, 1922. ing In know tin for certainly. IhoUfclt I lie wanting had no defined ic.tou for being. Perhaps, in hit firtt romantic! contact with tin female of (le tpetir, he dreaded tlitilliitton. Jin di..rl Luiky for hrr, for she would have rrrtlvrd Slant trillion elsewhere, coming out (if the night ilif had and at that hour. Comely, ven In Iter de draggled condition, with a mule a compelling aa sunshine. Wit thru really a dog? would never know, fit course; but thai did not Irstrn the wanting. To begin the new day, to enter the new world, with a substantial faith in woman kind; perhapt that it what he real ly wanted. That h should, being only half awake, begin the day tjr question ing riiolivrt would li due to the insidious poison hy which be had hern Inoculated by the prior it-iior-ihe teller of adventuret, 1 he man had stirred numeroua doubta, ai to the honeity r( liia errand, a to hit identity,' hi actual though hidden intention; and at these doubts were alill active, the gill naturally (ell under the shadow of lliem, Why honld the girl lie or in vent Ia4cs, Bancroft arKued in her behalf ? Why ahotitd he trll him there was a do(f if there wasn't? He hadn't quizzed her; ahe had been under no obligation to re- ronnt any of hrr adventure or to effer explanation. Her declara tion had been gratuitous. There fore thre wat a dog, and she had (tone borne to him under extreme difficulties, and that wa all there wa to that. J uut the rt of a girl to chae around the world, even iu mighlmaret, Jfe rued hi ptineliliou regard for the rule of convention, ex acted for no other reason than to impress the girl with the fact that he knew how to behave. At if a country bumpkin should know what wat what in the world of manncnl Why hadn't he boldly Kivrn hi name and asked for hers? She would be In New York, whitlnr he wan, bound, but he would have at uiuch chance of finding her as he would in particu larizing; one grain of land from another on-a vast beach. That man, though 1 Hanrroft stared at the bills, hit brow fur rowed. He could rot dismiss the potion that the whole affair cloaked entirely another game and that he had been subtly invited to search for it. Hence, the sinister sugges tion that had entered hit mind the niftlit before and now recurred. No doubt Snell'a letter had furnibhed , the background. Rattle, murder and sudden death for sale I That wm the flaw; it was almost a covert threat . , , O, pshaw I the" whole thing wat ridiculous rubbish without ulterior purpose. Perhaps the puzzle the assumption that there wa a "nig grr in the woodpile" arose from the puerility of the scheme and the formidable intellect of the promot er. An ordinary man, ; promoting such a crazy proposition, would not have been a puzzle, but a j6ke. The man's laughter the hollow nesi of it and the shading mockery was in itself something to specu late upon. Had he ever known Si las Bancroft There seemed to he only one way of solving; the riddle, and that was to sign the contract, if there was such an instrument. It wat no fool't curiosity. If Si las Bancroft had been shocked to death hit son wanted to know wliy and by whom. First, he would call on Lawyer Snell and get all the business de tails off the slate; then he would quiz the head cleric, Johnson, as to that gentleman's suspicions that Silas Bancroft had been seared to death. After thit he would be free to go where end act how he pleased. Under an assumed name he would find lodgingt in some modest rooming house prefera bly one of hi own and then he would fare forth in quest of know ledge, for he wanted to learn something about the life of the great city before he essayed to match lane with the Great Ad venture company. Seven million! and w hat was he going to do with it all? 'J here was mo inclination toward clothe and irwelryj expensive automobiles, a New iuk house with servant. What um to be done to keep the income normal? That was the Old Man of the Sa. Certainly lie !.ukrd, the miner taint, for there Was no deiie to add to the fortune ir to hu-hand it. What he wanted p4'Uitlarly was a creditable way of getiiiitf rid of some of it, Dissi pation i out ot the qnr.tnni, for lie had no provm atii.n. There was 10 be suit, the chorus girl I'rotil account he bad tead in itewp ei rr:iiuinn thr pretty little iwiiiMuiils, h wm now mired that Moloch' reputation wat a Hailed thing in comparative appr Mr. They oiled to swiftly that it .d.it,t for nan to ruined and virtuous at the same time, Odd, that there should be so many volume n how to make money (aUa) a failure) and none on how to iiwml it (which would naturally be a tuccets), Thi con ceil made him chuckle. Hit father came back tlito hi thought. The mote he mulled it over the more decided he be came thai the qurttion of bit father bring a miser teemed open to de hate, No one in the village wat able to rite definitely a case in point, Perhaps ft wat because hit father had never bothered to re fute the allegation, preferring .aloofneit to defense. Still, there was the miser' ton, himself, hit cheap clothes, hit empty pockets. Flul ibis argument wat weakened by the knowledge that there were many farmert' ont hereabouts no better off than be, or whose youth had matched hit in poverty ttriek enness. Vet, that did not teem to hold. The farmert were poor be yond any doubt, white rumor con tended thai hit father wat secretly a rlih man. It was probably upon this prrmie that the villagert had built up the father' reputation. There wat a mi!y tou, h in all thete year of neglect. It seemed queer that all hi thoughlt thi morning should be inconclusive. Whichever, way they ran they encountered walls. Hit father, the girl, the teller of adven tures, his own problem, all were on the other tide of systeriou walls. The vista caught hit eyet again, and be (tared for some time at the hill top, and presently the vista dis solved and out of this dissolution came the fare of the girl at the moment of her smile. Nothing could be more honest than that smile; he did not require experience to discern this: it wat palpable. But so had the tmile of the adventurer been honest the tender smile he had addressed to one of those old chairs. More walls. Bancroft rum pled his hair in perplexity . , . I-ove. Well, he hadn't given that much actual contemplation. He had never gone to church social or barn nances, knowing that he would have been unwelcome: and it wa at these festivities that boy and girls began to pick and choose. He hail been an bnlsider, living under the somber aegis of the miser. On the other hand, be could not recall thai he had pricved particularly. The village rhebe and Alices, with their incessant giggles and cheap perfumery, had amused him. He had his revenge by comparing them with those ra diant creations, urban and bucolic, of the great minds that had been bis comrades. He sometimes wor ried a little for fear that hit imagi nation, setting his dream too high, might allow the real girl to pass bun without his being any the wiser. Supposing he wasn't Silas Ban croft's son? The question, com ing like a bolt from the blue, had the effect of bludgeoning hit fac ulties. For a moment he ttood dazed. What agency had permit ted such a question to disrupt his sentimental musings? Not Silas Bancroft's son? Surely his mind was full of unaccountable kinks this morning;. lie heard voices below and lent an ear. "And nobody ever dreamt of it!" "No more did I." "What's he going to do with it?" "I'm sure I don't .know, Mrs. Linden," answered the voice of Mrs. Home. So Williams had spread the news as quickly as this? Bancroft shrugged. It had to be known; so it didn't matter. All the girls would be making eyes at him now; and those who had prophesied his eventual hanging would refer to him as "that fine young chap Bancroft. Not a horse trough I "1 suppose he'll go to New York where he can spend it," said Mrs. Linden, bitterly. "He will," replied Bancroft, sot to voice; "and this very night!" "Autymobilcs and moving pic ture actresses, and all that, He ain't so innocent. Or he'll go on gouging folks the way hit lather did." "What he does with his money Is his own business," "Did you know that there was a young woman here last night and that he went with her over to the Central?" "Yci, and 1 gave the poor young thinij a pair of Mocking and my best short." "Ill" A f in-e 'What did be have otiJ" "Nothing " ' bat - after all vour m,h of fnitlitul . r. ue ' Will, I neur heard, . . ," "I wai ri'gntaily paid. Uut bow tt d VM I nd Oft there w mil. lion.V "Why. be lold Wdhamt tai n'ghl. ,ve niiilionil And the (Hd l ord knew how much IiUhhI ft on that money. Millions, and he never gave a cru to this town, where both his wile and ton were born. He didn't even ram i I the mortgage on the First l'rcbt"f lan chuich. (), I know where he la this minute." "1 wouldn't slander the dead, Mr. Linden. You all ought lo be satisfied with the way you treated him when he was alive. There my cotfee't boiling over. I can smell it. You'll have lo excute me." Silence followed. Bancroft peer ed from behind hit curtain. He law Mrs. Linden something of a grenadier inarching alormlly down the path lo the gale. He blew a mocking km after her; for this conversation had suggested a fine idea". He went into the bathroom and filled the tub, which wa of bat tered tine, walled in with cherry. He shaved first, then look lo the tub, speaking noisily. Busy body Linden, eh? And she would spread her new that there had been no legacy for Mrs, Home Aunty, a he familiarly and lovingly called her. Hi father' title would now be riven with spikes; eternally he would be in this town the miser. He wat hungry when he entered jhe dining room. "Chow, Aunty!" he called. "Chow I" She came in with platters in .both hand, one heaped with smoking golden brown panraket and the other rizzling with bacon and fried egg. He fell to, health ily. Mr. Home hovered about lnm. He jc.ssxd with her between bites, but when he had drunk hi second cup of coffee hi face be-' came serious. "Aunty, am I really Silas Ban croft' ton? "What? Land o' Cosheti, Jerry boy, whatever put that into your head? What makes you think you mightn't be?" curiously, "O. I don't know, l'opped into my head. It reems lo me a real father would have left some advice with all this money, considering; that until recently I never saw a hundred dollars in a lump sum." "Jerry, I was present when your father and mother were married. I was with your mother when you came and when she died a week later." , . "Maybe he hated me for having called her death?" "No, he never spoke a harsh word to you, boy, or ever laid a heavy hand on you. You wasfl't ever whipped. But that was becaufe you war a good boy. Thev went lo New York, but came back when she, was took ill. This was her houe?. lie went back to New York and left you with me. He got pneumony and was in a hosni tal for weeks. When he finally came back he told me lie was go ing lo live here. But, O, bo v chanced he was!" "Then he was different once?" eagerly. "He was something like you, Jerry, energetic. But after he came back he didn't seem to take any interest in anything but money money. lie moved about, like be wasn't sure, and spoke little. But now I know it was his heart. If I was you, Jerryf boy, I'd go away from this mean town and never come back. O, I know. They'll be after you, trying to Kiss your boots them as yanked their (laughters inside the gates when they saw you and wouldn't let their boys play with you. Yes, sir; that's what I'd do if I was you." The klcntical advice offered by the adventurer, but that was all. The two impulses were totally dif ferent. "I am going to New York, aunty, this very night. I'll be gone sev eral months. I want you to keep the house for me. I'll write you from time to time, but .nobody must know where I am. You see. that rhan last night was the begin ning. The door is going to be hammered loose by men and women who'll have schemes a thousand of them by which they hope to transfer some of mv shek els to other pockets. Tell them I've gone away and will not re turn under six months." "Take rare o' yourself. New York is a dreadful ritrund you like Red Kidingliood!" "That't pretty good, aunty, But I'll fight shy of wolves who pre. tend to be mv grandmothers. I sha'n't go to New York with nn v illusions about it. I'm not goiui; in search of fortunes I have one. But I've got to have this town for awhile, So why not to the big citv, and git my eiliicaiii.n over uith? I bate ht.tiu; I uaul to hud out bow lo ue Ihrm." Mrs. Home retired picc'pitaUly to Ihe lili hen to have a good ci v. I or thi boy wai as her own, ,She bad taught ii prayers. And How bis inno.eine and all this money might rninttiii to detroy bim. When r cam in lo clear th u!.le she found iint tt!) m bis chair, figuring on the bark of an envelope. "Why, whal't the matter?" be wauled lo know, observing Ihe ted ne of her eve. "I'm afraid r He Jumped up and put his arm around her. "Hon't worry about me, Aunty, I'm a country bump kin, but not the kind New York er ever taw before. My middle name, at the boy used to say at tamp, it Caution instead of Jerryt and nobody will know who Jere miah Collingswood is' "'Jhe iiionry'H never make )ou happy." "j 'ir haps not. I didn't ak for It; but now 1 have it, I'll do the brtt 1 ran with it, I'll write oik in auhile. and you can reply in rare of Ihe attorneys, whoe ad dret 1 will give you before I go." Then he kissed her check. He slole away al tundown and look the 6:30 for New York. Hit only piece of luggage was a cane suitcase willi a battered loth. In order lo keep ihe case from falling open he had had lo bind it with a length of clothes-line. He wore a suit of village more clothe and t a shocking derby hat. It wa all deliberately planned, hither hi education wat lumber, or it' was hi ready servant. It wat to be a test of hit courage and resource; a test of the readiness of hit tongue to speech. Here on thi train and on the street of the city he would not be particularly noticed; but at the desk of tome famous hotel. If he passed this or deal, if he put through hi little comedy, New York would hold no terrors for Jiim. Once the train had reached it maximum speed, he began to ex amine the typewritten sheets which enumerated hi wordly posses sions. There were thousand up on thousand in the banks; there were all manner of gilt edged bonds and ttocks; ships, homes, apartment and tenements. There wa here none of those lordly edi fice rich men erect as monuments to themsclvef. All the real estate, with one exception, lay below Twenty-third street pickups aft er old families had petered out, gold mine in brick and brown stone, "Ah!" be said aloud. Here was the item for which he was search ing. The first Presbyterian rhurch, mortgage for $6.2M, interest pay able annually What should he do with it? He stared out of the win dow into Ihe falling night. All at once he began to laugh, a joyoti rollicking laughter. What a re venge what a completely raiis fymg revenge I Very good. He would cancel this mortgage upon one condition, that he should be permitted to furnish al hi own ex pense a memorial window dedicat- ' ed to his father. If that didn't Mir theJii, Gabriel's trumpet wouldn't! He would submit Ihe proposition in person. He wouldn't miss see mg the vestrymen's faces for half his fnrtuhe. Oh, he knew. They would writhe and twist, hem and haw ami agree. But there should he no loophole. It was to be agreed also that if the window were broken, he rould have the right to present another, and so on, so long as he lived and the church stood the church his father had been married in and buried from. His laughter roused the young man in the seat behind. The stranger smiled. It was not at any thought, but at a picture; the clothes line around the suitcase, the cheap, ill-fitting clothe, the derby which recalled Ihe headgear of Joe Weber when old Broadway was somewhere. A boob, pure and simple, heading into the big town, with seven millions -in hi leans! 'Jhe move had been so quick that lie hadn't had. tiire to wire the professor. O, will; he would call him up a soon as Mr. Hick tied himself up for the night. He would probably bunt up some $2 caravansarie. All right. Where ever he went, a certain, guy known as The Shadow, would toddle along after. Taxis, surface cars, tub way, or on the hoof, it was alt Ihe same. The Shadow would never lose sight of The Substance, Bancroft became inordinately elated. The possibility of avenging himself, without hurt to any one, was Ihe most satisfying emotion be hud yel known, Miser' ton! Miser's soul Yah! To avenge himnrlf for thai, for Ihe years of talloiu tK, hit iuii and in null a manner as lo male all ihe neigh boring town sick with lauttlilrrt The ironic humor of the memorial window would tuioitie a county ctaii But be had anoihtr blow in s'oie. The memorial would hii;iiil the vilLiKer. bill this f. ond blow would ulun them, l l.nd In the home town three fueudt, no linnet Mrs, Home, rioffnr Miller, piiueipat of the villa academy, and M Hewtt, It ladtd tpiiitter whn .tvri !. oruan in the Filst Ptet1ni,riao church, l or levrral vrar lie had pumped the bellow s of (hat oigailj nd alter rehearsals, Siimd.? to'ghu, she had ud to p'ay for him, rouipotitioiit not generally beard intide of country ebinihei! filling hi boy'l soul with irlrttiaJ happmcii, Out of kindiie.t (or a I'nloru pirith, who wa guilty of no crime save thai of bung ihe son of Silt Bancroft, .Sol in bit will, but now! Wbeif they were growing old and bent and betplets, when a speej of j k nets would lob them of all they bad saved up, if Ihey bad tawd up anything. Now, while Ihey could rnjry il. To make thete three hap ly who had tried lo lighten a sent), live boy' misery. Not to add, lh enduring happi'ms of a grnerout acl. Tomorrow, one of the first things be did. It would serve at an eternal bulkier against all future misforlunes. Out of these millions, more or leu lawfully acquired, should come happiness to three lonely human beings. He would give each a check, certified, for 5.0f)0. Die thought lightened his step at be wandered through the mars of the Grand Central terminal. Out side, al Ihe curb, he paused, hut ryes and cars bewildered. 1 1 waa the first time he bad ever seen New York at night, during the theater hour. Thoutauds of vehicles twist ing in and out, surface cars clang ing a postage through the stream! of hurrying humans, dazzling, changing lights, His brain was ftf oared; he had often visited New York London, Paris but for all that, the a.'lual fairly stunned him; there was a glory to it and a menace. Here was this world outside he bad always longed ro keenly to see. Here he would be shunted and buf feted for months, because he had determined lo play the part of i poor young man who had come lo seek his fortune and become a part of Ihe world Shakespeare) called "the middle of humanity." In a few days his brain would absorb all these sights and tort out the confusions, and he would grow used to the city, But just now he) was a little afraid. One thing was' in bis favor, a kind of buckler; he had always been lonely, so loneli ness here would not depress hint any more than it had at home, if as much. Across the way was a giant hos telry, brilliant with lamps. Ban- croft eyed this with humorous speculation. That vast rookery had many a queer nest in it; there) would be the crow, the peacock, the sparrow and the hawk; and somewhere a bird by the name of Cieorge Bellman. Supposing ho put up there for the night and get the lay of the land? Providing he coiild p-iss the censor at the desk, df they balked at lu'j suitcase and his derby there was always Alad din's lamp in his pocket $10,000, Comforting thought! Behind hint stood The Shadow1, smiling tolerantly. The poor boob didn't know what to do, ch, ot, which way to turn? It was a great temptation to offer the hick some; friendly Silvice, but the tuofessor had banned any such Samaritan ism. Seeing an opening, Bancroft strode forward resolutely, The Shadow at his shoulder, ready to give him a friendly shove if he hesitated. The worst thing that could happen to the Great Adven ture company would be the acci dental bumping off of Collings wood Jeremiah Bancroft. Lord what a monicker! Sounded like one of those oofty-goofa that get into the Sunday supplements fot) nothing. And Jeremiah hit mid, die name, tool The passage was made in safety, however. But as Bancroft started to mount the ho tel steps, The Shadow slipped his hand to hi forehead. "Holy smokel I'll have lo wif ness tin's, whether lie pipes me or not, They'll give him the air with' a springboard. O, the poor bickl" (('!,) ruhl, !t (To Be Continued) 1 i B.tuk messenger in V1 street w ill le dressed iu bright red coals, ami have portable safes attached to padlocked belts around their w-aNii, I'mler this syttrm, it it believed the public will rush to ihe rescue of any retl-coated met enger attacked by rohhrtt. V JJiKHUioo temple U to br erected in Ste, Anne de Beaiipre, Oucbec, lo replace the one de stroved. A monastery costing it Ma ins) will aio be built tor th Hcili uiploi is fathers. l eiry metal is a new al'ny J had. uHWiu, hatiuin and until amount . i.ifu r roiuliHn n't 1 ha, alloy it praitnally tuittxiitnah!, i ii " The Vnited State conmmM t i,. iMnlt if di. world's lulbtf I M.ilnr! i n