The Clarion

CHAPTER II

OUR LEAD­ING CIT­IZEN

The year of grace, 1913, com­mend­ed it­self to Dr. L. An­dré Sur­taine as an ex­cel­lent time in which to be alive, rich, and six­ty years old. Thor­ough­ly, keen­ly, ebul­lient­ly alive he was. Thor­ough­ly rich, al­so; and if the truth be told, rather ebul­lient­ly con­scious of his wealth. You could see at a glance that he had paid no usu­ri­ous in­ter­est to Fate on his suc­cess; that his vig­or and zest in life re­mained to him undi­min­ished. Vi­tal­ity and a high sat­is­fac­tion with his en­vi­ron­ment and with him­self as well placed in it, ra­di­at­ed from his bulky and hand­some per­son; but it was the vi­tal­ity that im­pressed you first: im­pressed and warmed you; per­haps warned you, too, on shrewder ob­ser­va­tion. A gleam­ing per­son­al­ity, this. But be­hind the ra­di­ance one sur­mised fire. Oc­ca­sion giv­en, Dr. Sur­taine might well be formidable.

The world had been his oys­ter to open. He had cleaved it wide. Ill-​na­tured per­sons hint­ed, in ref­er­ence to his busi­ness, that he had used poi­son rather than the knife where­with to loosen the stub­born hinges of the bi­valve. Mon­ey gives back small echo to the cries of calum­ny, how­ev­er. And Dr. Sur­taine's Certi­na, that in­fal­li­ble and guar­an­teed blood-​cure, erad­ica­tor of all known hu­man ills, “fa­mous across the map of the world,” to use one of its ad­ver­tis­ing phras­es, un­der the catch­word of “Pro­fes­sor Cer­tain's Certi­na, the Sure-​Cure” (for he pre­served the old name as a trade-​mark), had made a vast deal of mon­ey for its pro­pri­etor. Wor­thing­ton es­ti­mat­ed his for­tune at fif­teen mil­lions, grow­ing at the rate of a mil­lion year­ly, and was not pre­pos­ter­ous­ly far afield. In a city of two hun­dred thou­sand in­hab­itants, claimed (one hun­dred and sev­en­ty-​five thou­sand al­lowed by a nig­gling and sus­pi­cious cen­sus), this is all that the most needy of mil­lion­aires needs. It was all that Dr. Sur­taine need­ed. He en­joyed his high sat­is­fac­tion as a hard-​earned in­cre­ment.

Some­thing more than sat­is­fac­tion beamed from his face this blus­tery March noon as he await­ed the Wor­thing­ton train at a small sta­tion an hour up the line. He fid­get­ed like an ea­ger boy when the whis­tle sound­ed, and be­fore the cars had fair­ly come to a stop he was up the steps of the sleep­er and in­side the door. There rose to meet him a tall, care­ful­ly dressed and pressed youth, whose ex­cla­ma­tion was even­ly ap­por­tioned be­tween wel­come and sur­prise.

“Dad!”

“Boy-​ee!”

To the amuse­ment of the oth­er pas­sen­gers, the two seized each oth­er in a bear-​hug.

“Oof!” pant­ed the big man, re­leas­ing his son. “That's the best thing that's hap­pened to me this year. George” (to the porter), “get me a seat. Get us two seats to­geth­er. Aren't any? Per­haps this gen­tle­man,” turn­ing to the chair back of him, “wouldn't mind mov­ing across the aisle un­til we get to Wor­thing­ton.”

“Cer­tain­ly not. Glad to oblige,” said the stranger, smil­ing. Peo­ple usu­al­ly were “glad to oblige” Dr. Sur­taine whether they knew him or not. The man in­spired good will in oth­ers.

“It's near­ly a year since I've set eyes on my son,” he added in a voice which took the whole car in­to his friend­ly con­fi­dence; “and it seems like ten. How are you feel­ing, Hal? You look chirp as a crick­et.”

“Couldn't pos­si­bly feel bet­ter, sir. Where did you get on?”

“Here at State Cross­ing. Thought I'd come up and meet you. The of­fice got on my nerves this morn­ing. Work didn't hold me worth a cent. I kept fig­ur­ing you com­ing near­er and near­er un­til I couldn't stand it, so I banged down my desk, told my sec­re­tary that I was go­ing to Cal­ifor­nia on the night boat and mightn't be back till evening, hung the scrap-​bas­ket on the stenog­ra­pher's ear when she tried to hold me up to sign some let­ters, jumped out of the fifth-​sto­ry win­dow, and here I am. I hope you're as tick­led to see me as I am to see you.”

The young man's hand went out, fell with a swift move­ment, to touch his fa­ther's, and was as swift­ly with­drawn again.

“Wor­thing­ton's just wait­ing for you,” the Doc­tor rat­tled on. “You're put up at all the clubs. Peo­ple you've nev­er heard of are lay­ing out din­ners and dances for you. You're a dis­tin­guished stranger; that's what you are. Wel­come to our city and all that sort of thing. I'd like to have a brass band at the sta­tion to meet you, on­ly I thought it might jar your qui­et Eu­ro­pean tastes. Eh? At that, I had to put the boys un­der bonds to keep 'em from dec­orat­ing the fac­to­ry for you.”

“You don't seem to have lost any of your spir­it, Dad,” said the ju­nior, smil­ing.

“No­ticed that al­ready, have you? Well, I'm hold­ing my own, Boy­ee. Up to date, old age hasn't scratched me with his claws to any no­tice­able ex­tent--is that the way it goes?--see 'Fa­mil­iar Quo­ta­tions.' I'm get­ting to be a reg­ular book-​worm, Hal. Shake­speare, R.L.S., Kipling, Arnold Ben­nett, Hall Caine--all the high-​brows. And I _get_ 'em, too. Soak 'em right in. I love it! Tell me, who's this Balzac? An agent was in yes­ter­day try­ing to make me be­lieve that he in­vent­ed cul­ture. What about him? I'm pret­ty hot on the cul­ture trail. Look out, or I'll over­haul you.”

“You won't have to go very far or fast. I've got on­ly smat­ter­ings.” But the boy spoke with a sub­dued com­pla­cen­cy not whol­ly lost up­on the shrewd fa­ther.

“Not so much that you'll think Wor­thing­ton dull and provin­cial?”

“Oh, I dare say I shall find it a very de­cent lit­tle place.”

But here Hal touched an­oth­er pride and loy­al­ty, quite as gen­uine as that which Dr. Sur­taine felt for his son.

“Lit­tle place!” he cried. “Two hun­dred thou­sand of the livest peo­ple on God's earth. A gen-​u-​wine Amer­ican city if there ev­er was one.”

“Ev­ident­ly it suits you, sir.”

“Couldn't suit bet­ter if I'd had it made to or­der,” chuck­led the Doc­tor. “And I did pret­ty near make it over to or­der. It was a dead-​and-​alive town when we opened up here. Didn't care much about my busi­ness, ei­ther. Now we're the biggest thing in town. Why Certi­na is the cross-​mark that shows where Wor­thing­ton is on the map. The busi­ness is sim-​plee BOOM­ING.” The word ex­plod­ed in rap­ture. “Noth­ing like it ev­er known in the pro­pri­etary trade. Wait till you see the shop.”

“That will be soon, won't it, sir? I think I've loafed quite long enough.”

“You're on­ly twen­ty-​five,” his fa­ther de­fend­ed him. “It isn't as if you'd been idling. Your four years abroad have been just so much cap­ital. Ed­uca­tion­al cap­ital, I mean. I've got plen­ty of the oth­er kind, for both of us. You don't need to go in­to the busi­ness un­less you want to.”

“Be­ing an Amer­ican, I sup­pose I've got to go to work at some­thing.”

“Not nec­es­sar­ily.”

“You don't want me to live on you all my life, though, I sup­pose.”

“Well, I don't want you to want me to want you to,” re­turned the oth­er, laugh­ing. “But there's no hur­ry.”

“To tell the truth, I'm rather bored with do­ing noth­ing. And if I can be of any use to you in the busi­ness--”

“You're ready to re­sume the part­ner­ship,” his fa­ther con­clud­ed the sen­tence for him. “That was the foun­da­tion of it all; the old days when I did the 'spiel­ing' and you took in the dol­lars. How quick your lit­tle hands were! Can you re­mem­ber it? The smelly smoke of the torch­es, and the shad­ows chas­ing each oth­er across the crowds be­low. And to think what has grown out of it. God, Boy­ee! It's a mir­acle,” he ex­ult­ed.

“It isn't very clear in my mem­ory. I used to get pret­ty sleepy, I re­mem­ber,” said the son, smil­ing.

“Poor Boy­ee! Some­times I hat­ed the life, for you. But there was no­body to leave you with; and you were all I had. Any­way, it's turned out well, hasn't it?”

“That re­mains to be seen for me, doesn't it? I'm rather at the start of things.”

“Most young­sters would be con­tent with an un­lim­it­ed al­lowance, and the world for a play­ground.”

“One gets tired of play­ing. _And_ of globe-​trot­ting.”

“Good! Do you think you can make Wor­thing­ton feel like home?”

“How can I tell, sir? I haven't spent two weeks al­to­geth­er in the place since I en­tered col­lege eight years ago.”

“Did it ev­er strike you that I'd care­ful­ly planned to keep you away from here, and that our pe­ri­ods of com­pan­ion­ship have all been abroad or at sum­mer places?”

“Yes.”

“You've nev­er spo­ken of it.”

“No.”

“Good boy! Now I'll tell you why. I want­ed to be ab­so­lute­ly es­tab­lished be­fore I brought you back here. Not in busi­ness, alone. That came long ago. There have been ob­sta­cles, in oth­er ways. They're all over­come. To-​day we come pret­ty near to be­ing king-​pins in this town, you and I, Hal. Do you feel like a prince en­ter­ing in­to his realm?”

“Rather more like a fresh­man en­ter­ing col­lege,” said the oth­er, laugh­ing. “It isn't the town, it's the busi­ness that I have mis­giv­ings about.”

“Mis­giv­ings? How's that?” asked the fa­ther quick­ly.

“What I can do in it.”

“Oh, that. My doubts are whether it's the best thing for you.”

“Don't you want me to go in­to it, Dad?”

“Of course I want you with me, Boy­ee. But--well, frank and flat, I don't know whether it's gen­teel enough for you.”

“Gen­teel?” The younger Sur­taine re­peat­ed the dis­taste­ful ad­jec­tive with sur­prise.

“Some folks make fun of it, you know. It's the ad­ver­tis­ing that makes it a fair mark. 'Certi­na,' they say. 'That's where he made his mon­ey. Patent-​medicine mil­lions.' I don't mind it. But for you it's dif­fer­ent.”

“If the mon­ey is good enough for me to spend, it's good enough for me to earn,” said Hal Sur­taine a lit­tle grandil­oquent­ly.

“Humph! Well, the busi­ness is a big suc­cess, and I want you to be a big suc­cess. But that doesn't mean that I want to com­bine the two. Isn't there any­thing else you've ev­er thought of turn­ing to?”

“I've got some­thing of a lean­ing to­ward your pro­fes­sion, Dad.”

“My prof--oh, you mean medicine.”

“Yes.”

“Noth­ing in it. Doc­tors are a lot of prej­udiced pedants and hyp­ocrites. Not one in a thou­sand is more than an inch wide. What start­ed you on that?”

“I hard­ly know. It was just a no­tion. I think the sci­en­tif­ic and so­ci­olog­ical side is what ap­peals to me. But my in­ter­est is on­ly the­oret­ical.”

“That's very well for a hob­by. Not as a pro­fes­sion. Here we are, half an hour late, as usu­al.”

The sud­den and vi­olent bite of the brakes, a char­ac­ter­is­tic op­er­ation of that mum­my among rail­roads, the Mid-​State and Great Mud­dy Riv­er, com­mon­ly known as the “Mid-​and-​Mud,” flung for­ward in an in­vol­un­tary plunge the in­cau­tious who had arisen to look af­ter their things. Hal Sur­taine found him­self sup­port­ing the weight of a for­tu­itous cit­izen who had just made his way up the aisle.

“Thank you,” said the stranger in a dry voice. “You're the prodi­gal son of whom we've heard such glow­ing fore­cast, I pre­sume.”

“Well met, Mr. Pierce,” called Dr. Sur­taine's jovial voice. “Yes, that's my son, Har­ring­ton, you're hang­ing to. Hal, this is Mr. Elias M. Pierce, one of the men who run Wor­thing­ton.”

Re­leas­ing his bur­den Hal ac­knowl­edged the in­tro­duc­tion. Elias M. Pierce, re­ced­ing a yard or so in­to per­spec­tive, re­vealed him­self as a spare, mid­dle-​aged man who looked as if he had been hewn out of a block, square, and glued in­to a per­ma­nent black suit. Un­der his pale­ly sar­don­ic eye Hal felt that he was be­ing ap­praised, and in none too ami­able a spir­it.

“A fa­vorite pleas­antry of your fa­ther's, Mr. Sur­taine,” said Pierce. “What be­came of Dou­glas? Oh, here he is.”

A clean-​shaven, rather florid­ly dressed man came for­ward, was in­tro­duced to Hal, and in­quired cour­te­ous­ly whether he was go­ing to set­tle down in Wor­thing­ton.

“Prob­ably de­pends on how well he likes it,” cut in the dry Mr. Pierce. “You might help him de­cide. I'm sure William would be glad to have you lunch with him one day this week at the Huron Club, Mr. Sur­taine.”

Some­what sur­prised and a lit­tle an­noyed at this cu­ri­ous­ly vi­car­ious sug­ges­tion of hos­pi­tal­ity, the new­com­er hes­itat­ed, al­though Dou­glas prompt­ly sup­port­ed the of­fer. Be­fore he had de­cid­ed what to re­ply, his fa­ther ea­ger­ly broke in.

“Yes, yes. You must go, Hal,” he said, ap­par­ent­ly obliv­ious of the fact that he had not been in­clud­ed in the in­vi­ta­tion.

“I'll try to be there, my­self,” con­tin­ued Pierce, in a flat tone of con­de­scen­sion. “Dou­glas rep­re­sents me, how­ev­er, not on­ly legal­ly but in oth­er mat­ters that I'm too busy to at­tend to.”

“Mr. Pierce is pres­ident of the Huron Club,” ex­plained Dr. Sur­taine. “It's our lead­ing so­cial or­ga­ni­za­tion. You'll meet our best busi­ness men there.” And Hal had no al­ter­na­tive but to ac­cept.

Here William Dou­glas turned to speak to Dr. Sur­taine. “The Rev­erend Nor­man Hale has been look­ing for you. It is some mi­nor hitch about that Mis­sion mat­ter, I be­lieve. Just a lit­tle diplo­ma­cy want­ed. He said he'd call to see you day af­ter to-​mor­row.”

“Mean­ing more mon­ey, I sup­pose,” said Dr. Sur­taine. Then, more loud­ly: “Well, the busi­ness can stand it. All right. Send him along.”

With Hal close on his heels he stepped from the car. But Dou­glas, hav­ing the cue from his pa­tron, took the younger man by the arm and drew him aside.

“Come over and meet some of our fair cit­izens,” he said. “Noth­ing like start­ing right.”

The Pierce mo­tor car, very large, very qui­et­ly com­plete and el­egant, was wait­ing near at hand, and in it a pre­ma­ture­ly el­der­ly, sub­dued non­de­script of a wom­an, and a pret­ty, sen­si­tive, sen­su­ous type of brunette, al­most too well dressed. To Mrs. Pierce and Miss Kath­leen Pierce, Hal was du­ly pre­sent­ed, and by them gra­cious­ly re­ceived. As he stood there, bare­head­ed, grace­ful­ly at ease, smil­ing up in­to the in­ter­est­ed faces of the two ladies, Dr. Sur­taine, pass­ing to his own car to await him, looked back and was warmed with pride and grat­itude for this fur­ther hon­orar­ium to his cap­ital stock of hap­pi­ness, for he saw al­ready in his son the as­sur­ance of so­cial suc­cess, and, on the hour's reck­on­ing, summed him up. And since we are to see much of Har­ring­ton Sur­taine, in evil chance and good, and see him at times through the eyes of that shrewd ob­serv­er and cap­ital­iz­er of men, his fa­ther, the sum­ming-​up is worth our present heed, for all that it is to be con­sid­er­ably mod­ified in the mind of its pro­po­nent, as events de­vel­op. This, then, is Dr. Sur­taine's es­ti­mate of his beloved “Boy­ee,” af­ter a year of sep­ara­tion.

“A lit­tle bit of a prig. A lit­tle bit of a cub. Just a _lit­tle_ mite of a snob, too, maybe. But the right, sol­id, clean stuff un­der­neath. And my son, thank God! _My_ son all through.”