Chapter 4

THE FOSDICK FAMILY

In each of America's great cities, East, West, South, Far West, a cliff of marble glistening down upon the thoroughfare where the most thousands would see it daily; armies of missionaries, so Fosdick liked to call them, moving everywhere among the people; other armies of officers and clerks, housed in the clifflike palaces and garnering the golden harvests reaped by the missionaries�such was the scene upon which Horace Armstrong looked out from his aerie in the vastest of the palaces o� the O.A.D. And it inspired him.

Institutions, like individuals, have a magnetism, a power to attract and to hold, that is quite apart from any analyzable quality or characteristic. Armstrong had grown up in the O.A.D., had preached it as he rose in its service until he had preached belief in it into himself�a belief that was unshaken by the series of damning exposures of its Wall Street owners and users, and had survived his own discoveries, as the increasing importance of his successive positions had forced the "inside ring" to let him deeper and deeper into the secrets. He had not been long in the presidency before he saw that the whole system for gathering in more and more policy holders, however beneficent incidental results might be, had as its sole purpose the drawing of more and more money within reach of greedy, unclean hands. The fact lay upon the surface of the O.A.D. as plain as a great green serpent sprawled upon the ooze of a marsh. Why else would these multimillionaire money hunters interest themselves in insurance? And not a day passed without his having to condemn and deplore�in his own mind�acts of the Fosdick clique. But morals are to a great extent a matter of period and class; Armstrong, busy, unanalytic, "up-to-date" man of affairs, accepted without much question the current moral standards of and for the man of affairs. And when he saw the inside ring "going too far," here and there, now and then, he no more thought of denouncing it and abandoning his career than a preacher would think of resigning a bishopric because he found that his fellow bishops had not been made more than human by the laying on of hands.

Where he could, Armstrong ignored; where he could not ignore�he told himself that the end excused the means.

The busy days fled. He had the feeling of being caught in a revolving door that took him from bedtime to bedtime again without letting him out to accomplish anything; and he was soon so well accommodated to the atmosphere of high finance that he was breathing it with almost no sensation of strangeness. When old Shotwell died�of "heart failure"�Armstrong took out the undelivered speech.

The day after the "testimonial," he had decided that to read that speech would be dangerously near to the line between honor and dishonor; besides, it probably contained many things which, whether true or prejudiced, might affect his peace of mind, might inflict upon his conscience unnecessary discomforts. A wise man is careful not to admit to his valuable brain space matters which do not help him in the accomplishment of his purposes. Should he mail the manuscript to Shotwell? No. That might tempt the old man to a course of folly and disaster. Armstrong hid the "stick of dynamite" among his private papers. But now, Shotwell was dead; and�well, he still believed in the O.A.D.�in the main; but many things had happened in the months since he came on from the West, many and disquieting things. He felt that he owed it to himself, and to the O.A.D., to gather from any and every source information about the Fosdick ring. He unfolded the manuscript, spread it before him on the desk.

Eleven typewritten pages, setting forth in detail how Fosdick had slyly lured Shotwell into committing, apparently alone, certain "indiscretions" for which there happened to be legal penalties of one to ten years in the penitentiary at hard labor; how Shotwell, thus isolated, was trapped�though, as he proceeded to show, he had done nothing morally or legally worse than all the others had done, the Fosdick faction being careful to entangle in each misdeed enough of the Galloway faction to make itself secure. And all the offenses were those "mere technicalities" which high finance permits the law to condemn only because they, when committed in lower circles, cease to be justifiable exceptions to the rule and become those "grave infractions of social order and of property rights" which Chamber of Commerce dinners and bar associations of corporation lawyers so strenuously lecture the people about. And so, Shotwell had fallen.

Armstrong read the document four times�the first time, at a gallop; the second time, line by line; the third time, with a long, thoughtful pause after each paragraph; the fourth time, line by line again, with one hand supporting his brow while the index finger of the other traced under each separate word. Then he leaned back and gazed from peak to peak of the skyscrapers, stretching range on range toward harbor and river. He was not thinking now of the wrongs, the crimes against that mass of policy holders, so remote, so abstract. He was listening to a different, a more terrible sound than the vague wail of that vague mass; he was hearing the ticking of a death-watch. For he had discovered that Fosdick had him trapped in just the same way.

As a precaution? Or with the time of his downfall definitely fixed?

Armstrong began to pace the limits of his big private room. For a turn or so it surprised him to find that he could move freely about; for, with the thought that he was in another man's power, had come a physical sensation of actual chains and bolts and bars, of dungeon walls and dungeon air. In another man's power! In Fosdick's power! He, Horace Armstrong, proud, intensely alive and passionately fond of freedom, with inflexible ambition set upon being the master of men�he, a slave, dependent for his place, for his authority, for his very reputation. Dependent on the nod of a fellow man. He straightened himself, shook himself; he clenched his fists and his teeth until the powerful muscles of his arms and shoulders and jaws swelled to aching, until the blood beat in his skin like flame against furnace wall.

The door opened; he saw as he was turning that it was Josiah Fosdick; he wheeled back toward the window because he knew that if he should find himself full face to this master of his before he got self-control, he would spring at him and sink his fingers in his throat and wring the life out of him. The will to kill! To feel that creature under him, under his knees and fingers; to see eyes and tongue burst out; to know that the brain that dared conceive the thought of making a slave of him was dead for its insolence!

"Good morning, my boy!" Josiah was saying in that sonorous, cheery voice of his. He always wore his square-crowned hard hat or his top hat well back from his brow when he was under roof downtown; and he was always nervously chewing at a cigar, which sometimes was lighted and sometimes not. Just now it was not lighted and the odor of it was to Armstrong the sickening stench of the personality of his master.

"My master!" he muttered, and wiped the sweat from his forehead; with eyes down and the look of the lion cringing before the hot iron in its tamer's hand he muttered a response.

"I want you to put my son Hugo in as one of the fourth vice-presidents," continued the old man, seating himself and cocking his trim feet on a corner of the table. "He must be broken to the business, and I've told him he's got to start at the bottom of the ladder."

Armstrong contrived to force a smile at this ironic pleasantry of his master's. He instantly saw Josiah's scheme�to have the young man inducted into the business; presently to give him the dignity and honor of the presidency, ejecting Armstrong, perhaps in discredit to justify the change and to make it impossible for him to build up in another company.

"You'll do what you can to teach him the ropes?"

"Certainly," said Armstrong, at the window.

Fosdick came up close to him, put his hand affectionately on his shoulder. "You've grown into my heart, Horace. I feel as if you were another son of mine, as if Hugo were your younger brother. I want you to regard him as such. I'm old; I'll soon be off the boards. I like to think of you two young fellows working together in harmony. It may be that��"

Armstrong had himself well within the harness now. He looked calmly at Fosdick and saw a twinkle in those good-natured, wicked eyes of his, a warning that he had guessed Armstrong's suspicion and was about to counter with something he flattered himself was particularly shrewd.

"It may be I'll want your present place for the boy, after a few years. Perhaps it will be better not to put him there; again it may be a good thing. If I decide to do it, you'll have a better place�something where there'll be an even bigger swing for your talents. I'll see to that. I charge myself with your future."

Armstrong turned away, bringing his jaws together with a snap.

"You trust me, don't you?" said Fosdick, not quite certain that Armstrong had turned to hide an overmastering emotion of gratitude.

"I'd advise against making Hugo a vice-president just at present," said Armstrong.

"Why?" demanded Fosdick with a frown.

"I think such a step wouldn't be wise until after this new policy holders' committee has quieted down."

Fosdick laughed and waved his arm. "Those smelling committees! My boy, I'm used to them. Every big corporation has one or more of 'em on hand all the time. The little fellows are always getting jealous of the men who control, are always trying to scare them into paying larger interest�for that's what it amounts to. We men who run things practically borrow the public's money for use in our enterprises. You can call it stocks or bonds or mortgages or what not, but they're really lenders, though they think they're shareholders and expect bigger interest than mere money is worth. But we don't and won't give much above the market rate. We keep the rest of the profits�we're entitled to 'em. We'd play hob, wouldn't we, lying awake of nights thinking out schemes to enable John Jones and Tom Smith to earn thirty, forty, fifty per cent on their money?"

"But this committee�" There Armstrong halted, hesitating.

"Don't fret about it, young man. The chances are it'll quiet down of itself. If it doesn't, if it should have in it some sturdy beggar who persists, why, we'll hear from him sooner or later. When we get his figure, we can quiet him�put him on the pay roll or give him a whack at our appropriation for legal expenses."

"But this committee�" Armstrong stopped short�why should he warn Fosdick? Why go out of his way to be square with the man who had enslaved him? Had he not done his whole duty when he had refused to listen to the overtures of the new combination against Fosdick? Indeed, was it more than a mere suspicion that such a combination existed?

"This committee�what?"

"You feel perfectly safe about it?"

"It couldn't find out anything, if there was anything to find out. And if it did find out anything, what'd it do with it? No newspaper would publish it�our advertising department takes care of that. The State Government wouldn't notice it�our legal department takes care of them."

"Sometimes there's a slip-up. A few years ago��"

"Yes," interrupted Fosdick; "it's true, once in a while there's a big enough howl to frighten a few weak brothers. But not Josiah Fosdick, and not the O.A.D. We keep books better than we did before the big clean-up. A lot of good those clean-ups did! As if anybody could get up any scheme that would prevent the men with brains from running things as they damn please."

"You're right there," said Armstrong. He had thought out the beginnings of a new course. "Well, if you put Hugo in, I suggest you give him my place as chairman of the finance committee. My strong hold is executive work. Let those that know finance attend to taking care of the money. I want to devote myself exclusively to getting it in."

Armstrong saw this suggestion raised not the shadow of a suspicion in Fosdick's mind that he was trying to get rid of his share in the responsibility for the main part of the "technically illegal" doings of the controllers of the company. "You simply to retain your ex officio membership?" said he reflectively.

"That's it," assented Armstrong.

"If you urge it, I'll see that it is considered. Your time ought all to be given to raking in new business and holding on to the old. Yes, it's a good suggestion. Of course, I'll see that you get your share of the profits from our little side deals, just the same."

"Thank you," said Armstrong. He concealed his amusement. In the company there were rings within rings, and the profits increased as the center was approached. He knew that he himself had been put in a ring well toward the outside. His profits were larger than his salary, large though it was; but they were trifling in comparison with the "melons" reserved for the inner rings, were infinitesimal beside the big melon Josiah reserved for himself, as his own share in addition to a share in each ring's "rake off." The only ring Josiah didn't put himself in was the outermost ring of all�the ring of policy holders. There was another feature in which insurance surpassed railways and industrials. In them the controller sometimes had to lock up a large part of his own personal resources in carrying blocks of stock that paid a paltry four or five or six per cent interest, never more than seven or eight, often nothing at all. But in insurance, the controller played his game wholly with other people's money. Josiah, for instance, carried a policy of ten thousand dollars, and that was the full extent of his investment; he held his power over the millions of the masses simply because the proxies of the policy holders were made out in blank to his creatures, the general agents, whom he made and, at the slightest sign of flagging personal loyalty, deposed.

Fosdick was still emitting compliment and promise like a giant pinwheel's glittering shower when the boy brought Armstrong a card. He controlled his face better than he thought. "Your daughter," he said to Fosdick, carelessly showing him the card. "I suppose she's downtown to see you, and they told her you were in my office."

"Amy!" exclaimed Fosdick, forgetting his manners and snatching the card. "What the devil does she want downtown? I'll just see�it must be important."

He hurried out. In the second of Armstrong's suite of three offices, he saw her, seated comfortably�a fine exhibit of fashion, and not so unmindful of the impression her elegance was making upon the furtively glancing underlings as she seemed or imagined herself. At sight of her father she colored, then tossed her head defiantly. "What is it?" he demanded, with some anxiety. "What has brought you downtown to see me?"

"I didn't come to see you," she replied. "I sent my card to Mr. Armstrong."

"Well, what do you want of him?" said Josiah, regardless of the presence of Armstrong's three secretaries.

"I'll explain that to him."

"You'll do nothing of the sort. I can't have my children interrupting busy men. Come along with me."

"I came to see Mr. Armstrong, and I'm going to see him," she retorted imperiously.

Her father changed his tactics like the veteran strategist that he was. "All right, all right. Come in. Only, we're not going to stay long.

"I don't want you," she said, laughing. "I want him to show me over the building."

"Lord bless my soul!" exclaimed Fosdick, winking at the three smiling secretaries. "And he the president! Did anybody ever hear the like!" And he took her by the arm and led her in, saying as they came, "This young lady, finding time heavy on her hands uptown, has come to get you to show her over the building."

Armstrong had risen to bow coldly. "I'm sorry, but I really haven't time to-day," said he formally.

Fosdick's brow reddened and his eyes flashed. He had not expected Armstrong to offer to act as his daughter's guide; but neither had he expected this tone from an employee. "Don't be so serious, young man," said he, roughness putting on the manner of good nature. "Take my daughter round and bring her to my office when you are through."

To give Armstrong time and the opportunity to extricate himself from the impossible position into which he had rushed, Amy said, "What grand, beautiful offices these are! No wonder the men prefer it downtown to the fussy, freaky houses the women get together uptown. I haven't been here since the building was opened. Papa made a great ceremony of that, and we all came�I was nine. Now, Mr. Armstrong, you can count up, if you're depraved enough, and know exactly how old I am."

Armstrong had taken up his hat. "Whenever you're ready, we'll start," said he, having concluded that it would be impossible to refuse without seeming ridiculous.

When the two were in the elevator on their way to the view from the top of the building, Amy glanced mischievously up at him. "You see, I got my way," said she. "I always do."

Armstrong shrugged and smiled stolidly. "In trifles. Willful people are always winning�in trifles."

"Trifles are all that women deal in," rejoined she.

At the top, she sent one swift glance round the overwhelming panorama of peak and precipice and canon swept by icy January wind and ran back to the tower, drawing her furs still closer about her. "I didn't come to see this," she said. "I came to find out why you don't�why you have cut me off your visiting list. I've written you�I've tried to get you on the telephone. Never did I humiliate myself so abjectly�in fact, never before was I abject at all. It isn't like you, to be as good friends as you and I have been, and then, all at once, to act like this�unless there was a reason. I haven't many friends. I haven't any I like so well as you�that's frank, isn't it? I thought we were going to be such friends." This nervously, with an air of timidity that was the thin cover of perfect self-possession and self-confidence.

"So did I," said Armstrong, his eyes on hers with a steadiness she could not withstand, "until I got at your notion of friendship. You can have dogs and servants, hangers-on, but not friends."

"What did I do?" she asked innocently. "Gracious, how touchy you are."

In his eyes there was an amused refusal to accept her pretense. "You understand. Don't 'fake' with me. I'm too old a bird for that snare."

"If I did anything to offend you, it was unconscious."

"Perhaps it was�at the time. You've got the habit of ordering people about, of having everybody do just what you wish. But, in thinking things over, didn't you guess what discouraged me?"

She decided to admit what could not be denied. "Yes�I did," said she. "And that is why I've come to you. I forgot, and treated you like the others. I did it several times, and disregarded the danger signals you flew. Let's begin once more�will you?"

"Certainly," said Armstrong, but without enthusiasm.

"You aren't forgiving me," she exclaimed. "Or�was there�something else?"

His eyes shifted and he retreated a step. "You mustn't expect much from me, you know," said he, looking huge and unapproachable. "All my time is taken up with business. You've no real use for a man like me. What you want is somebody to idle about with you."

"That's just what I don't want," she cried, gazing admiringly up at him. And she was sad and reproachful as she pleaded. "You oughtn't to desert me. I know I can't do much for you, but� You found me idle and oh, so bored. Why, I used to spend hours in trying to think of trivial ways to pass the time. I'd run to see pictures I didn't in the least care about, and linger at the dressmakers' and the milliners' shops and the jewelers'. I'd dress myself as slowly as possible. You can't imagine�you who have to fight against being overwhelmed with things to do. You can't conceive what a time the women in our station have. And one suggestion you made�that I study architecture and fit myself to help in building our house�it changed my whole life."

"It was the obvious thing to do," said he, and she saw he was not in the least flattered by her flattery which she had thought would be irresistible.

"You forget," replied she, "that we women of the upper class are brought up not to put out our minds on anything for very long, but to fly from one thing to another. I'd never have had the persistence to keep at architecture until the hard part of the reading was finished. I'd have bought a lot of books, glanced at the pictures, read a few pages and then dropped the whole business. And it was really through you that I got father to introduce me to Narcisse Siersdorf. I've grown so fond of her! Why is it the women out West, out where you come from, are so much more capable than we are?"

"Because they're educated in much the same way as the men," replied he. "Also, I suppose the men out there aren't rich enough yet to tempt the women to become�odalisques. Here, every one of you is either an odalisque or trying to get hold of some man with money enough to make her one."

"What is an odalisque? It's some kind of a woman, isn't it?"

"Well�it's of that sex."

"You think I'm very worthless, don't you?"

"To a man like me. For a man with time for what they call the ornamental side of life, you'd be�just right."

"Was that why�the real reason why�you stopped coming?"

"Yes."

He was looking at her, she at the floor, gathering her courage to make a reply which instinct forbade and vanity and desire urged. Hugo's head appeared in the hatchway entrance to the tower room. As she was facing it, she saw him immediately. "Hello, brother," she cried, irritation in her voice.

He did not answer until he had emerged into the room. Then he said with great dignity, "Amy, father wants you. Come with me." This without a glance at Armstrong.

"Would you believe he is three years younger than I?" said she to Armstrong with a laugh. "Run along, Hugo, and tell papa we're coming."

Hugo turned on Armstrong. "Will you kindly descend?" he ordered, with the hauteur of a prince in a novel or play.

"Do as your sister bids, Hugo," said Armstrong, with a carelessness that bordered on contempt. He was in no very good humor with the Fosdick family and Hugo's impudence pushed him dangerously near to the line where a self-respecting man casts aside politeness and prudence.

Hugo drew himself up and stared coldly at the "employee." "You will please not address me as Hugo."

"What then?" said Armstrong, with no overt intent to offend. "Shall I whistle when I want you, or snap my fingers?"

Amy increased Hugo's fury by laughing at him. "You'd better behave, Hugo," she said. "Come along." And she pushed him, less reluctant than he seemed, toward the stairway.

The three descended in the elevator together, Amy talking incessantly, Armstrong tranquil, Hugo sullen. At the seventeenth floor, Armstrong had the elevator stopped. "Good-by," he said to Amy, without offering to shake hands.

"Good-by," responded she, extending her hand, insistently. "Remember, we are friends again."

With a slight noncommittal smile, he touched her gloved fingers and went his way.

There was no one in Fosdick's private room; so, Hugo was free to ease his mind. "What do you mean by coming down here and making a scandal?" he burst out. "It was bad enough for you to encourage the fellow's attentions uptown�to flirt with him. You�flirting with one of your father's employees!"

Amy's eyes sparkled angrily. "Horace Armstrong is my best friend," she said. "You must be careful what you say to me about him."

"The next thing, you'll be boasting you're in love with him," sneered her brother.

"I might do worse," retorted she. "I could hardly do better."

"What's the matter, children?" cried their father, entering suddenly by a door which had been ajar, and by which they had not expected him.

"Hugo has been making a fool of himself before Armstrong," said Amy. "Why did you send him after me?"

"I?" replied Fosdick. "I simply told him where you were."

"But I suspected," said Hugo. "And, sure enough, I found her flirting with him. I stopped it�that's all."

Fosdick laughed boisterously�an unnatural laugh, Amy thought. "Do light your cigar, father," she said irritably. "It smells horrid."

Fosdick threw it away. "Horace is a mighty attractive fellow," he said. "I don't blame you, Mimi." Then, with good-humored seriousness, "But you must be careful, girl, not to raise false hopes in him. Be friendly, but don't place yourself in an unpleasant position. You oughtn't to let him lose sight of the�the gulf between you."

"What gulf?"

"You know perfectly well he's not in our class," exclaimed Hugo, helping out his somewhat embarrassed father.

"What is our class?" inquired Amy in her most perverse mood.

"Shut up, Hugo!" commanded his father. "She understands."

"But I do not," protested Amy.

"Very well," replied her father, kissing her. "Be careful�that's all. Now, I'll put you in your carriage." On the way he said gravely, tenderly, "I'll trust you with a secret�a part of one. I know Armstrong better than you do. He's an adventurer, and I fear he has got into serious trouble, very serious. Keep this to yourself, Mimi. Trust your father's judgment�at least, for a few months. Be most polite to our fascinating friend, but keep him at a safe distance."

Fosdick could be wonderfully moving and impressive when he set himself to it; and he knew when to stop as well as what to say. Amy made no reply; in silence she let him tuck the robe about her and start her homeward.