Alger Horatio Jr.
Herbert Carter's Legacy; Or, the Inventor's Son
CHAPTER XXIII
TEMPLE THE TEMPTER
“This is my son, James, Mr. Temple,” said the squire, as the young gentleman came in to supper a little late.
“Indeed! How old are you, James?”
James took in at a glance the visitor’s appearance, which did not give the impression of prosperity, and answered, with haughty condescension: “I am almost sixteen.”
“I congratulate you, Mr. Leech,” said Temple. “I am not blessed with a son. I would gladly give twenty thousand dollars could I have a son of your boy’s age.”
James pricked up his ears. Temple spoke as if he had the twenty thousand dollars to give. He must be a man of property and so entitled to respect.
“What are you going to do with your boy?”
“I have not decided. Perhaps he may go to college.”
“I think I shall be a lawyer,” said James.
“A good profession. Some of our New York lawyers make great incomes.”
“Do you live in New York?” asked James.
“Yes; that is my residence. You must establish yourself in the city when you are ready to practice.”
“That is just what I want to do; I don’t want to bury myself in a one-horse country town like this.”
“And be a one-horse lawyer,” suggested Temple, laughing. “Quite right, my young friend. In the city alone you will find a broad field of action.”
“That’s just the way I think,” said James.
“I needn’t say I would do all in my power to push you, and I flatter myself I have some influence.”
“You are very kind, Mr. Temple,” said Mrs. Leech; “but I hoped that James could still continue to live with us.”
“You can’t expect me to live at home all my life,” said James, impatiently.
“Perhaps your husband may be persuaded himself to remove to the city,” said Temple. “I really think he stands in his own light in staying in a small place like this.”
“Just so,” said James, who would have liked nothing better than to live in New York. “There is no society here. I have no boys to associate with in my own position. Why won’t you move to New York, father?”
“That requires consideration,” said Squire Leech.
“I should like to talk with you on that subject after supper,” said Temple. “Mrs. Leech, may I ask for another cup of tea?”
When supper was over Squire Leech led the way into the sitting room, and his guest followed. The vista of future wealth which his visitor had opened to him had not been without its effect and he began to make inquiries.
“I suppose,” he said, “there are ways of investing money to good advantage in New York?”
“Most certainly—many ways.”
“Real estate?”
“That may do, but it is too slow for me. I owned a house uptown. I sold for thirty thousand dollars. In six weeks I made twenty thousand more out of it.”
“Is it possible?” ejaculated the squire. “Twenty thousand, did you say?”
“To be sure. Of course that was extra good luck. You can’t expect to do as well often, but there are always ways of turning over capital.”
“May I ask in what way you made this large sum?”
“To be sure. I speculated in Erie. It is all the time fluctuating. I became convinced that it was on the rise. I went in and the event justified my action.”
Temple spoke quietly, as if it were no great matter, after all. His host was very much impressed, and felt like a man who has discovered a gold mine. He had succeeded in saving up about two thousand dollars a year for some years; but what was that to twenty thousand dollars made in six weeks? Still, prudence led him to suggest: “But isn’t there danger of losing heavily?”
“Not if you are acquainted with the stock market. It is the ignoramuses that get bit.”
“I know very little of the stock market myself,” confessed Squire Leech. “I own some bank stocks.”
“No money to be made in bank stocks.”
“They pay good dividends.”
“No doubt; but there is little or no variation in value. It’s fluctuation that gives a man a chance.”
“I should be as likely to lose as gain, knowing as little as I do of the market.”
“True; but I should be happy to place my knowledge at your disposal. As an old friend and schoolmate I naturally feel interested in your prosperity.”
“You are very kind,” said the squire; “but wouldn’t it be too much trouble?”
“Not at all. In fact, it’s my business, and wouldn’t inconvenience me in the least. By the way, how is your property invested?” asked Temple, carelessly.
“Mostly in real estate.”
“It must pay you very little.”
“That is true. After deducting taxes and repairs, there is very little left.”
“So I supposed. It would pay you to mortgage your property, or sell it, and use the money in Wall Street.”
“I have about twenty thousand dollars in bank stock.”
“That could readily be sold.”
“What investments would you suggest?”
“I couldn’t tell you on the moment; but I think favorably of a mining stock lately put on the market. I have private advices that it is likely to develop extraordinary richness and the stock may even treble in three months.”
“Where is the mine?” asked the squire, eagerly.
“Out in Nevada. A friend of mine has just returned from there and he has given me strictly confidential information in regard to it. He has so much faith in it that he has bought fifteen thousand dollars’ worth of shares.”
“Could I get any?” asked Squire Leech.
“I think you could if you go to work quietly. If you went into the market openly, they would suspect something and raise the price on you.”
“Yes, I see. Do you think that is better than Erie?”
“At present, nothing is to be made in Erie. It is likely to go down before it goes up. The time may come when you can buy to advantage but not now.”
“I have a great mind to go up to the city with you, and investigate the matter,” said the squire.
“Do so, by all means. I shall be delighted, and will cheerfully render you all the assistance in my power. But, my friend, let me give you one piece of advice.”
“What is that?”
“Say as little as possible to your wife on the subject. Women don’t understand business. They are frightened at risks and don’t understand speculation.”
“I think you are correct,” said his host. “Men must judge for themselves. It is a weak man who would be guided by his wife.”
“So I say. Why, my wife happened to learn that I had gone into Erie on the occasion I mentioned. She remonstrated in great alarm; but when I announced that I had cleared twenty thousand dollars, she had no more to say.”
The next day they went to New York together and within a week the squire had bought largely in the Nevada mine. He subscribed to a financial paper, and was fully embarked on the dangerous sea of speculation.
CHAPTER XXIV
JAMES IS SNUBBED
In accordance with the invitation, Cameron walked to supper with Squire Leech. His social position as the son of a rich manufacturer insured him a cordial welcome and great attention from the whole family.
“You must find our village very dull, Mr. Cameron,” said his host.
“Oh, no, sir; I think I shall enjoy it very well.”
“We have very little good society, I am sorry to say.”
“That’s so, father,” broke in James. “I wish you would move to the city.”
“That may come some day,” said his father, thinking of Mr. Temple and his operations.
“How do you occupy your time, Mr. Cameron?” asked Mrs. Leech.
“I walk about in the forenoon. In the afternoon I am occupied with my professor,” answered the young man.
“Your professor!” repeated the lady, in surprise. “Is one of your college professors staying here?”
“No; they are too busy to leave New Haven. I refer to my young reader, Herbert Carter.”
“Herbert Carter!” repeated James, scornfully.
“Yes,” said Cameron, ignoring the scorn; “he reads my lessons to me and then questions me upon them. That is why I call him my professor.”
“I should hardly think you would find him competent,” said the squire.
“He don’t know much,” said James, contemptuously.
“On the contrary, I find him very intelligent. He reads clearly and distinctly, and I congratulate myself on obtaining so satisfactory an assistant.”
Squire Leech shrugged his shoulders and had too much wisdom to continue detracting from Herbert’s merits, seeing that his guest seemed determined to think well of him. Not so James.
“He is from a low family,” he said, spitefully.
“Low?” interrogated Cameron, significantly.
“His mother is very poor.”
“That’s a very different thing,” observed Cameron.
“Mrs. Carter is a very respectable person,” said the squire, condescendingly. “Indeed, I have offered to relieve her by taking her house at a high valuation; but, under a mistaken idea of her own interest, she refuses to sell.”
“But you’ll get it finally, father,” asked James.
“I shall probably have to take it in the end, as I have a mortgage on it for nearly its value.”
Cameron looked down upon his plate and said nothing.
“My son will be happy to accompany you about the neighborhood, Mr. Cameron,” said Squire Leech.
“I can go round with you ‘most any time,” said James.
“Thank you both. You are very kind,” said Cameron, politely, but without expressing any pleasure.
“I think I may send James to Yale,” observed his host, “I have a high idea of your college, Mr. Cameron.”
“Thank you. I think your son could hardly fail of deriving benefit from a residence at Yale.”
“James is my only child and I intend him to enjoy the greatest educational advantages. I should like to have him become a professional man.”
“I should like to be a lawyer; that’s a very gentlemanly profession,” said James.
“You might rise to be a judge,” said Cameron, with a smile.
“Very likely,” said James, in a matter-of-course way, that amused the young man exceedingly.
“What an odious young cub!” he said to himself, as he wended his way back to the hotel at ten o’clock. “I never met such a combination of pride and self-conceit.”
James thought Cameron had taken a fancy to him.
“He must get awfully tired of that low-bred Herbert Carter,” he said to himself. “I guess I’ll go round tomorrow morning and take a walk with him.”
He met Cameron on the steps of the hotel.
“I thought I’d come and walk with you,” he said.
“Very well,” said Cameron. “Do you know the way to Mr. Crane’s?”
“The carpenter’s?”
“Yes.”
“There’s nothing to see there,” said James.
“I beg your pardon. I want to see Herbert at his work.”
“Oh, well, I’ll show you the way,” said James.
Herbert was hard at work when the two came up.
“How are you, professor?” asked Cameron.
“Very well, Mr. Cameron. How are you, James?”
“I’m well enough,” answered James, who always found it hard to be decently civil to our hero. “Don’t you get tired working?”
“I haven’t worked long enough this morning for that. I dare say I shall be tired before noon.”
“Then your other work will begin,” said Cameron.
“That kind of work will be a rest to me, it’s so different.”
“If you had an extra hoe I would help you a little. It would be as good as exercise in the gymnasium.”
“Perhaps I could borrow two and so employ both of you,” remarked Herbert, with a glance at James, who was sprucely dressed and wore a flower in his buttonhole.
“None for me, thank you,” said James, with a look of disgust. “I don’t intend to become a laborer.”
“You’ll have to labor if you study law,” said Cameron.
“That’s genteel; besides I don’t call it labor. Shall we go on, Mr. Cameron?”
“Not just yet. I want to watch Herbert a little longer.”
So he lingered, much to the dissatisfaction of James.
“Won’t you go out rowing?” he asked, when they were walking away.
“I have no objection,” said Cameron; and they spent an hour on the pond.
“Do you think I can get into the crew if I go to Yale?” asked James, complacently.
“I should say not, unless you improve in rowing.”
“Don’t I row well?”
“There is considerable room for improvement. However, you have time enough for that.”
They were cruising near the shore when a boy of ten came down to the bank and called out to them.
“James,” he said, “will you let me go across in the boat with you?”
“Why should I?” demanded James, not very amicably, for the boy belonged to what he termed the lower classes.
“Do let me,” urged the boy. “I left mother very sick and went for the doctor. She was all alone and I want to get back as soon as I can.”
By the road the boy would have to walk about a mile and a quarter, while he could be rowed across the pond in six or seven minutes.
“I can’t take anybody and everybody in my boat,” said James, disagreeably. “Go ahead and walk.”
“How can you refuse the boy, when he wants to get home to his sick mother?” said Cameron, indignantly. “Jump in, my boy, and we’ll take you over.”
“I don’t know about that,” said James, sullenly.
“Look here!” said Cameron, shortly. “Refuse this boy and I shall get out of the boat immediately and refuse hereafter to be seen in your company.”
James was disagreeably surprised.
“Jump in, my boy,” said Cameron, kindly.
“Thank you, sir,” said the boy, gratefully. James was not a little mortified at the snubbing he had received, but he did not venture to expostulate.
Cameron was fond of boating, but did not care to be indebted to James for the loan of his boat.
“I’ll have a boat sent on to me,” he secretly determined, “and when I leave Wrayburn I’ll give it to Herbert.”
CHAPTER XXV
THE NEW BOAT
Herbert worked steadily every forenoon on his farm. Cameron then proposed that they should take the forenoon for their studies and walk out or exercise in some other way in the afternoon.
One afternoon Cameron said: “Let us take a walk to Prospect Pond; I think I should enjoy a little rowing.”
“I will accompany you with pleasure, Mr. Cameron,” said Herbert, “but don’t ask me to go out in the boat with you.”
“Why not? Are you afraid I will upset you?”
“No,” answered Herbert; “I have confidence in your skill. Besides, I can swim.”
“What is your objection, then?”
“If the boat belonged to anyone but James Leech I would not mind.”
“Why should you mind that?”
“I met him last evening and he told me not to get into his boat again. He said he was perfectly willing you should use it, but he didn’t choose to have me.”
“It appears that I am a greater favorite with James Leech than you are,” said Cameron, smiling.
“He looks down upon me as a poor boy.”
“Well, I suppose James is entitled to his prejudice; but if you can’t use the boat, I won’t.”
“Don’t let that interfere with your pleasure, Mr. Cameron,” said Herbert, eagerly. “I don’t trouble myself in the least about the way James treats me.”
“Let us go down to the pond, at any rate. We can sit down on the bank, if nothing better.”
“All right.”
An easy walk brought them to the edge of the pond. Herbert naturally looked for James Leech’s boat. He thought something was the matter with his eyes, for where there should be but one boat there were now two.
“Why, there’s another boat!” he exclaimed.
“Is there?” asked Cameron, indifferently.
“Yes, don’t you see it?”
“Well, it does look like a boat, I admit. I should say it was nicer than the other.”
“I should say it was. Isn’t she a regular beauty?” exclaimed Herbert, enthusiastically. “I wonder whose it is? James wouldn’t want two.”
There was a smile on Cameron’s face that attracted Herbert’s attention.
“Is it yours?” he asked.
“No; I know who owns it, though.”
“It isn’t the landlord, is it?”
“No.”
“Then I can’t imagine whose it is,” said Herbert.
“Can’t you?”
“No,” said Herbert. “Will you tell me?”
“It is yours!”
“Mine!” exclaimed our hero, in the utmost surprise,
“Yes; I intended at first not to give it to you till I went away; but I may as well give it now, on one condition—that you let me use it whenever I please.”
“How kind you are!” said Herbert, gratefully. “I never received such a splendid present in my life. I have done nothing to deserve it.”
“Let me be the judge of that. Now, with your consent, we will try her.”
With the utmost alacrity Herbert followed Cameron aboard the new craft, and took the oars. Smoothly and easily the boat glided off on the surface of the pond.
“I like it much better than James’,” said Herbert.
“It’s a better model. His is rather clumsy. Besides, this is new and he must have had his for some time.”
“He has had it three years.”
“It needs painting.”
“Even if it were painted it wouldn’t come up to this.”
“I agree with you,” said Cameron. “I am afraid James will be stirred with envy when he sees your boat.”
“I am afraid so, too. He won’t believe it is mine.”
“It may be your duty, out of a delicate regard to his feelings, to give it up, or exchange,” suggested Cameron.
“That’s a little further than I carry my delicate regard to his feelings,” responded Herbert.
After half an hour’s rowing, Cameron said, suddenly: “I must go back to the hotel. I came near forgetting an important letter, which must be sent off by this afternoon’s mail.”
Herbert was a little disappointed, still he said, cheerfully: “All right, Mr. Cameron.”
“Don’t you cease your rowing,” said the collegian.
“I thought you might not like to walk back alone.”
“I don’t mind that. I shall hurry back, and should be poor company. We will meet to-morrow morning.”
Cameron set out on his return home. He had gone less than quarter of a mile when he met James Leech.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Cameron,” said James, who was always polite to the rich manufacturer’s son.
“Good afternoon, James.”
“Won’t you go out in my boat, Mr. Cameron?”
“Thank you, I have just returned from the pond. I am obliged to go back to the hotel to write a letter.”
“I should have been glad of your company.”
“You won’t be alone,” said Cameron, mischievously. “I left Herbert Carter at the pond.”
“Was he out in the boat?” asked James, hastily.
“Yes.”
Without a word James walked abruptly away. He was very angry with Herbert, who, he naturally concluded, was out in his boat.
“He’s the most impudent and cheeky boy I ever met!” he said to himself. “Last evening, I positively forbade his getting into my boat and he don’t take the slightest notice of it. He needn’t think he can take such liberties.”
Cameron smiled, as he read James’ feelings in his face.
Just before reaching the pond there was rising ground, from which James could take a general survey of the lake. Herbert was cruising about and had not yet seen James.
“He don’t think I’m so near,” thought James. “He thinks I won’t know anything about his impudence. I’ll soon make him draw in his horns.”
In his excitement, James did not notice the boat particularly. If he had he would have seen that it was not his boat. But, so far as he knew, there was no other boat on the pond. Indeed, there was no boy whose father could afford to buy him one, and James had come to think himself sole proprietor of the pond, as well as of the only craft that plied on its surface.
“I wonder,” he thought, “whether I couldn’t have Herbert fined for taking my property without leave, especially after I have expressly forbidden him to do it. I must ask my father this evening. It would bring down his pride a little to be taken before a justice.”
Herbert had got tired of cruising, and made a vigorous stroke, as if to cross the pond. James put up his hand to his mouth and shouted at the top of his voice: “Come right back, Herbert Carter!”
CHAPTER XXVI
THE RIVAL BOATMEN
Herbert, bending over his oars, heard the peremptory order of James to come back and smiled to himself as he instantly comprehended the mistake which the latter had made. From James’ standpoint his own boat was not visible and it was not surprising that he should suspect our hero of having appropriated his boat.
“I won’t undeceive him,” he thought.
“What do you want?” he asked, resting on his oars, and looking back at James.
“You know what I want,” said James, provoked.
“How should I know?”
“I want you to come right back, at once.”
“What’s happened? What am I wanted for?”
“You’ll be wanted by the constable.”
“I don’t understand you,” said Herbert, shrugging his shoulders. “You appear to be mad about something.”
“So I am, and I have a right to be.”
“Well, I’m sure I have no objection, if you like it.”
James was pale with rage.
“Bring that boat right back here,” he said.
“If you’ll give me a good reason, perhaps I will; but I don’t think it necessary to obey you without.”
“You are a thief.”
“Say that again,” said Herbert, sternly, “and I will come ashore and give you a whipping.”
“You can’t do it.”
“I can try.”
“Don’t you know I can have you arrested for stealing my boat, you loafer?”
“Who’s been stealing your boat, you loafer?”
“You have.”
“Are you sure of it?”
“Why, you are in my boat this very minute.”
“I think you are mistaken,” said Herbert, quietly.
“Don’t you call that a boat you are in?”
“Yes, I do; but there’s more than one boat in the world, and this isn’t your boat.”
He rowed near the shore as he spoke, and James, his attention drawn to the boat, saw that it wasn’t his. At the same time, walking nearer the edge of the pond, he caught sight of his own boat moored at its usual place.
“I guess I made a mistake,” said James.
“I think you have,” returned Herbert, quietly.
“Where did that boat come from?” demanded James.
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t? Then you’ve taken it without leave.”
“Oh, the owner won’t object to my using it,” said Herbert, with a queer smile.
“How do you know?”
“He’s an intimate friend of mine.”
“The owner?”
“Yes.”
“I suppose it belongs to Mr. Cameron, then?”
“He bought it.”
“Do you call him your intimate friend? He’d be proud if he heard it,” said James, with a sneer.
“Would he?” said Herbert.
“I should think he would, considering your high position in society.”
“I think he’s a pretty good friend of mine but I have never called him an intimate friend.”
“Yes, you have. You said the owner of that boat was an intimate friend of yours.”
“So he is. I’m with him all the time.”
“Then why do you deny that you called Mr. Cameron your intimate friend?”
“Because Mr. Cameron doesn’t own the boat.”
“Just now you said he bought it.”
“So he did, but he doesn’t own it.”
“Then who does?”
“I do,” was the unexpected reply.
“You—own—that—boat?” ejaculated James.
“Yes.”
“Did Mr. Cameron give it to you?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t believe it. That boat must have cost sixty or seventy dollars. I don’t believe he would give you such a present as that.”
“I don’t know as it makes much difference.”
“When did he give it to you?”
“This afternoon. I’ll row in. Perhaps you would like to examine it.” James surveyed with envious eyes the neat, graceful boat, for he saw at a glance that his own boat, even when new, was by no means its equal.
“Isn’t it a beauty?” asked Herbert, not without pride.
“Very fair,” answered James, condescendingly. “Did you ask Mr. Cameron to give it to you?”
“I never ask for gifts,” said Herbert, with emphasis. “What makes you ask such a question as that?”
“I thought it queer that he should have given you such a handsome present.”
“It was certainly very generous in him,” said Herbert.
“I shouldn’t think you’d want to accept it, though.”
“Why not?”
“Because you are a poor boy and it don’t correspond with your position.”
“Perhaps not; but that don’t trouble me.”
“A less expensive boat would have been more appropriate.”
“Perhaps it would; but you wouldn’t have me refuse it on that account?”
James did not answer and Herbert asked: “Are you going out in your boat this afternoon?”
“I should like to try yours,” said James.
“I shall be glad to have you,” said Herbert, politely.
“And you may take mine,” said James, with unwonted politeness.
“All right.”
The two boys got into the boats and pulled out. James was charmed with the new boat. In every way it was superior to his own boat, apart from its being newer. It was certainly very provoking to think that a boy like Herbert Carter, poor almost to beggary, should own such a beautiful little boat, while he, a rich man’s son, had to put up with an inferior one.
“I say, Herbert,” he began, when they returned, “don’t you want to exchange your boat for mine?”
“Not much; I should be a fool to do that.”
“I don’t mean even, for I know your boat is better. I’ll give you five dollars to boot.”
“No, thank you; there’s a good deal more than five dollars’ difference between your boat and mine.”
“Five dollars would come handy to a poor boy like you,” said James, in his usual tone of insolent condescension.
“I don’t want it enough to exchange boats.”
“Well, I’ll give you ten dollars,” said James. “That’s an offer worth thinking about.”
“I shan’t need to think about it. I say no.”
“You’ve got an extravagant idea of your boat. Mine is nearly as good but I’ve taken a fancy to yours. How will you trade, anyway?”
“I don’t feel at liberty to trade at all. Mr. Cameron gave me the boat, but he is to have the use of it while he is here. He wouldn’t be willing to have me exchange.”
“He can have the use of it all the same if it is mine.”
“It won’t do, James,” said Herbert, shaking his head.
“You are very foolish, then,” said James, disappointed.
“I may be, but that is my answer.”
James walked away. He made up his mind, since he could not have Herbert’s boat, to tease his father to buy him a new one. As to rowing in an inferior one, his pride would not permit it.
