Read Ebook: Die Geschichte der Dampfmaschine bis James Watt by Geitel Max

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Ebook has 1924 lines and 111316 words, and 39 pages

trembling hands to the floor, where he let them lie in a heap. The servant heard him sigh dejectedly and then he said:

"I'm all in, Mike; I'm done for."

"Oh no, sir!" Michael said, with emotion, as he put the tray on the table and proceeded to gather up the books. "You feel bad, I know, sir, but it will wear off by to-morrow."

A low groan escaped the young man's lips. "No, it is too late now, Mike. Give me a cup of coffee, please--strong and hot. Oh, Mike, you can't imagine how I feel. Mike, I am at the end of my rope. I am the greatest failure in Boston. My old college friends shun me. Ladies I used to know drop their eyes when I pass, as if they are afraid of me. The other day I insulted one by staring in her face, not conscious of what I was doing. Her brother resented it yesterday in a caf? before several people. He struck me--I struck him. We went to the police court. I was fined, and scolded like a dirty street loafer."

"Here is your coffee, sir," Michael said, sympathetically. "Drink it right down, sir. You are nervous again."

Charles obeyed, as a child might. "Thank you. You are too good to me, Mike," he said, returning the empty cup and beginning to stride back and forth again. The butler was about to leave, but he stopped him. "Don't go yet," he pleaded. "Oh, I must talk to somebody--I must get it out. It is killing me. I've been awake here since three o'clock. I can't sleep. Yesterday they turned me out of my club. I'm no longer a member. I am the only man who has ever been expelled. I've been a gambler, Mike. I've been everything except dishonest. I'm rotten. I don't blame the club. I deserved it long ago. I ought to have had the common decency to send in my resignation."

"You need money, I'm sure," Michael broke in, "and I owe you five hundred dollars. I've been hoping--"

"Don't mention that," Charles broke in. "I'm glad I lent it to you. If I'd had it it would have been thrown away, and, as it was, it helped your mother, you say. No, no, never bring it up again. Let it go."

"I'll never let it go," the servant gulped. "I'll pay that debt if I work my fingers to the bone to do it. Everybody else refused to let me have it; even your brother didn't have it to spare. My oldest and best friends turned me down."

"Cut it out! cut it out!" Charles frowned. "Give me another cup of coffee. Yes, I thought it all out here this morning, Mike. I am imposing on William. They keep me at the bank only on his account. He used to protest against the way I am acting, but he has given me up--actually given me up."

"I've heard him say you did a lot of work," objected the servant. "Don't underrate yourself. It isn't right."

"Oh yes! I work when I am at it," Charles admitted. "Remorse is a great force at times, but it is the other thing, Mike. The damnable habit gets hold of me. For hours, days, and weeks I fight against it. I've even prayed for release, but to no purpose. Last night I was consorting with the lowest of the low. I had the money and they had the rags, the dirt, and the thirst. A friend found me and brought me home, or God only knows where I would have been by this time. They say it is in my blood; two grandfathers fell under it--one killed himself. Yes, I've decided--at last I've decided."

"Decided what, sir?" anxiously questioned Michael, as he took the empty cup and placed it on the tray.

"I've decided to be man enough to leave Boston forever. I shall not inflict myself longer on William and his wife and that angel child. Listen to me, Mike. There is such a thing as a conscience, and at times it burns in a man like the fires of hell itself. Do you know--you must know it, though--I practically killed my mother? She used to spend night after night awake on my account. Worry over me actually broke her down. She was always awake when I was out like I was last night. Mike, I was drunk the day she was buried--too drunk to go to the service. Yes, I am going to leave Boston before I am discharged from the bank, and I shall go away never to return. I want to--to blot my name from the memories of all living men. I am a drunkard and I may as well live like one. I am a disgrace to every one of my family. Uncle James, when he was here last, told me that he had cut me out of his will and was praying for my death. Great God! I was drinking at the time and I told him I didn't want his money, and I don't, Mike, for I am unworthy of it. He is a harsh old Puritan, but he is nearer right than I am or ever can be. Yes, don't be surprised if you miss me some day. This cannot go on."

"Surely--surely you can't be in earnest, sir--"

"Oh yes, I am. Mike, do you believe in dreams--in visions, or anything of that sort?"

"I think I do, sir--to some extent, at least. Have I never told you? Well, when I was trying to get the money for my mother, and was so miserable about it, I went to bed one night and prayed to the Lord to help me, and do you know, sir, I dreamed that a young girl all dressed in pure white, and shining all over with light, came and handed me the money. And it seemed to come true, for you gave me the money at breakfast the very next morning. Do you have dreams, sir?"

"Always, always, Mike. I am always dreaming that I am alone among strangers, away from kindred and friends, but always happy and care-free. I can't describe the feeling; it is wonderful! I know what I want to say, but I can't express it. Say, Mike, William is a good old chap. You may not believe it, but I love him. He has other troubles besides me. I don't know what they are--financial, I think. He never speaks to me of his ventures. In fact, I think he tries to keep me from knowing about them. I find him at the bank late in the night, sometimes. Yes, he is all right, Mike. I would have been kicked out of my job long ago but for him. Yes, Mike, I'll turn up missing one of these days. I've had enough."

"You'll feel differently by to-morrow, sir," the servant said, gently. "You are nervous and upset now, as you always are after--"

"After making a hog of myself," Charles said. "No, I'll not feel better, Mike. It is my very soul that is disgusted. I know that I'll never change, and I shall not inflict myself on my family any longer. Don't speak of this, Mike--it is just between you and me. Oh, they will be glad that I've left! Ruth will miss me for a little while, maybe, for the child seems to love me, but children soon forget, and I don't want her to grow up and know me as I really am. If I stay she will hear about me and blush with shame. Think of what a crime that would be, Mike--killing the ideals of a sweet, innocent child. Yes, I'm going, old man. It will be best all around. I'll be dead to everybody that has ever known me. I've lacked manhood up till now, Mike, but I'll use all I have left in trying to make restitution. Obliteration--annihilation! that is the idea, and somehow a soothing one."

The kind-hearted servant was deeply moved and he turned his face toward the open window, through which the cries of the newsboys came from the streets below.

"Anything I can do for you before I go down?" he asked.

"Nothing, thank you," was the answer. "I shall stay here all day, Mike. I don't want to show myself in town. The news of my expulsion from the club will be known everywhere. I don't want to look in the faces of my old friends. Some of them have tried to save me. This will be the last straw. They will give me up now--yes, they will be bound to."

"You will be all right by to-morrow, sir," Michael said, huskily. "Lie down and sleep. You need it. You are shaking all over."

When the servant had left the room, closing the door behind him, Charles began to walk to and fro again. Presently he paused before the old mahogany bureau and stood hesitating for a moment. "I must--I must," he said. And opening a drawer, he took out a flask of whisky and, filling a glass, he drank. Then holding the flask between him and the light, he muttered, "Oh, you yellow demon of hell, see what you have done for one spineless creature!"

Restoring the flask to the drawer, he sat down in an easy-chair, put his hands over his face and remained still for a long time.

He threw himself on his bed. He was lying with his dull stare on the white ceiling when he heard the voices of his sister-in-law and her child in the hall below. The front door opened. They were going out--out into the open air with free consciences, he told himself, with a pang of fresh pain. He stifled a groan with the end of a pillow into which he had turned his face. Then he sat up to listen. It was a step on the stair--a step he had known from childhood. It was that of his brother William.

"He is coming! He is coming up here," Charles muttered, aghast. "Well, it is his right. He waited till the others went out so that he can rave and storm to his heart's content. Yes, he is coming. He has heard about the club, and all the rest. This time he will kick me out. He has stood me long enough, in God's name."

Charles sat erect and adjusted his dressing-gown with nervous hands. The step was now near. The top of the flight of stairs was almost reached. Charles stood up as a gentle rap was sounded on the door.

"Come in," he called out, his husky voice cracking in his parched throat. The door was slowly opened and William Browne, pale, haggard, and trembling nervously, entered.

"Sit down, old man," Charles said, indicating a chair. "Sit down. I thought you'd come."

"Thank you." The movement toward the chair conveyed an idea of almost helpless groping.

"I am sorry I wasn't fit to come down," Charles faltered. "I don't show your house much respect, Billy, but at least I can hide myself when I have sense enough left."

The banker groaned as he sank into the chair and sat staring at the floor. His brother took another chair close to the table. He lowered his tangled head to the table and waited. But no further sound came from his companion.

"Oh, I've hit him hard--I've hit him hard this time!" Charles thought to himself. "He has lost all hope of me now. It is hard for him to say what he has to say, but he is going to say it. He looks like Uncle James now, with those grim lines about his mouth. Poor Billy! he deserves a better deal from me, for God knows he has been a good brother. No one else would have borne with me as he has all these years. But he has reached his limit. His endurance is ended. In the first place, I must leave the bank. Yes, that is first--then, then, yes, I must leave this house. He will say I have turned it into a hog-pen. He is calm. God! how calm he is! He is choosing his words. He has determined to speak gently. I can see that."

"Lessie and Ruth have gone out," William presently said, without raising his eyes. "Michael said you were here, and I took this opportunity to--to--"

"I know; I expected you," Charles heard his own voice as from a great distance, so faint was his utterance. He cleared his throat. "Yes, I knew you'd come. There was nothing else for you to do."

William's head rocked to and fro despondently.

"I don't think you know why I've come," he said, grimly, and he raised his all but bloodshot eyes and fixed them on his brother's lowered head.

"Oh yes, you have heard of this last debauch of mine, and the damnable acts that went with it--my expulsion from the club, the trial at the police court, along with other common loafers, and--"

"I hardly know whether I heard of them or not," William said, his stare now on his brother's face. "You speak of yourself. What about me? My God! Charlie, what about me?"

"Oh, I know that you've gone the limit."

"I know that your patience is exhausted, Billy. I know that you are sensible enough to see that I am no fit occupant of your house. Your wife is a sensitive, delicate woman. Your child is--"

Charles straightened up in his chair. He laid his slender hand with the long fingers and curving nails on the table and stared, as if bewildered by what he had heard.

"I don't know what you mean, Billy," he said, slowly shaking his head. "You can't be in earnest."

"But I am," the banker groaned. "I have wanted to tell you for a week past, and I would have done so if you hadn't begun to drink again. Do you remember when I came to your desk Friday afternoon? I wanted then to ask you into my office, but I saw you had been drinking, and I knew that you'd not understand. I've taken money from the vaults, Charlie. I'm short sixty thousand dollars, and there is no chance now to avoid detection."

It was as if the declaration had completely sobered the younger man. He rose to his feet, towering above the shrunken form in the chair.

"You can't mean that seriously," he faltered, his drink-flushed face paling. "Oh, you can't, Billy!"

"But I do. My transactions have been secret; through a broker in New York I bought copper on a margin. It kept going against me till all my funds and available collateral were used up. I was sure it would win. All hell told me it would win. I couldn't stand the disgrace of failure. It meant losing my position, too. I struggled with it all one night in the bank, and the next morning, when the time-lock opened the vaults, I took the money and, with it in my pocket, I went to New York and put it up."

"You did? You did? My God! Billy, and lost it!"

"There is nothing else to do, Charlie. Don't you see that in this way it will be all over at once? Think of the arrest, the long trial, the certain conviction, the parting, the stripes, the clipped hair! No, no, you must not oppose me. Ruth will forget me then, but, alive and in jail, I'd be a canker on her young soul. Lessie could marry again. God knows I'd want her to do so. Yes, it is the only way out, Charlie."

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