Newspapers / The Enterprise (Williamston, N.C.) / Feb. 20, 1914, edition 1 / Page 7
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S VALIANTS M SK HALLE EDMINIE PIVLS I§MB sra* ILLUSTRATIONS 6r; LAUPEN STOUT 5T^5 i" : CS* CO/°R*KF/R- OY AO&A&S+R/R/VILL CORR**YY V GTTT CMAPTKR I. . The Crash. ""Failed!" ejaculated John Valiant tlankly, and the hat be held dropped to the claret-colored rug like a huge white splotch of sudden fright. "The Corporation—failed!" The young man was the glass of fashion, from the silken ribbon on the spotless Panama to his pearl-gray gait ers, and well favored —a lithe stalwart figure, with wide-set hazel eyes and strong brown hair waving back from A candid forehead. Never had his innocuous and but ter-fly existenco known a surprise more startling. He had swung into the room with all the nonchalant hab its, the ingrained certitude of the man born with achievement ready-made In his hands. And a single curt state ment —like the ruthless blades of a pair of shears—had snipped across the one splendid scarlet thread in the woof that constituted life as he knew it He bad knotted'his lavender scarf that morning a vice-president of the Valiant Corporation—one of the great est and most successful of modern day organisations; he fat now In the fading afternoon trying to realise that the huge fabric, without warning, had toppled to Its fall. How solid and changeless It bad always seemed—that great business fabric woven by the* father he could ao dimly remember! His own Invested fortune bad been derived from the great corporation the elder Valiant had founded and controlled until his death. With almost unprecedented earnings, It had stood as a very. Gib raltar of finance, a type and sign of brilliant organization. Now, on the heels of a trust's dissolution which would be a nine-days' wonder, tbe vast atructure had crumbled up like a card board. The rains had descended and the floods hod come, and It had fallen! The mas at the desk had wheeled *'ln his revolving chair and was looking at the trim athletic back blotting the daylight, vcith a smile that was little short of a covert sn«er. He was one of the locfj managers of tbe corpora tion whos* ruin wa* to be that day's aensation.% colorlesu man who had ac quired middle age with his first long trousers hrd had been dedicated to the commercial treadmill before he bad bought a BJftfety-razor. He despised all loiterers atong the primrose paths, and John Vallaht Was but a decorative fig urehead. Valiant vtarted aa the other spoke at his elbow He had come to the win dow and was looking down at the pavement. "How quickly some news spreads!"» For thn first time tbe young man noted that tbe street below was tilling with a desultory'crowd. He distin guished H knot of Italian laborers talk ing with excited gesticulations a "It's Very Good LMng Abroad. There's a Boat Leaving Tomorrow." amuftged plasterer, tools in hand, — clerk*, some hatless and with thin alpaca coats —all peering at the voice less front of the great building, and all, he Imagined, with a thriving fear In their faces. As he watched, a wom an, coarsely dressed, ran across the street, her handkerchief pressed to her eyes. "Tbe notice has gone up on the door," said the manager "I sent word to the police. Crowds are ugly some times." Valiant drew a suddeh sharp breath. The corporation down in the mire, with crowds at Its doors ready to clamor for money entrusted to ft, tbe aggregate savings of widow and or phar, the piteous hoarded sums earned by labor over which pinched sickly faces had burned the midnight oil! The older man had turned back to the desk to draw a narrow typewrit ten slip of paper from a pigeonhole. "Here," he said, "Is a list of the bonds of the subsidiary companies recorded In your name. These are all, of course, engulfed in the larger failure. You have, however, your private for tune. If you take my advice, by the way," he added significantly, "you'll make sure of keeping that" "What do you mean?*" John Va liant faced him quickly. } The other laughed shortly. "'A word to the Wise,'" be quotejL "It's very ± - ■ i s - ■f '*.' i . T V'- * „• ' ' ... ; good Urine abroad. There's a boat leaving tomorrow." • A dull rod sprang Into the younger face. "You moan —" "Look at that crowd down there— you can beat- them now. There'll be a legislative investigation, of course. And the devll'll get the hindmost."* He struck the desk-top with his hand. "Have you ever seen the bills for this furniture? Do you know what that rug under your feet coat? Twelve thousand —It's an old Persian. What do you suppose the papers will do to that? Do you think such things will seem amusing to that rabble down there?" His hand swept toward the window. "It's been going on for too many years, I tell you! And now some one'U pay the piper. The light ning won't strike me—l'm not tall enough. You're a vice-president" "Do you Imagine that I knew these things—that I have been a party to what you seem to believe has-been a deliberate wrecking?" Valiant tow ered over him, his breath coming fast, his hands clenched hard. "You?" The manager laughed again —an unpleasant laugh that scraped the other's quivering nerves like hot sandpaper. "Oh, lord no! How should you? You've been too busy playing polo and winning bridge prizes. How many board meetings have you at tended this year? Your vote is prox led as regular as clockwork. *Rut you're supposed to know. The people down there In the street won't ask questions about patent-leather pumps and ponies; they'll want to hear about such things as rotten Irrigation loans In the Btony-Rlver Valley—to market, an alkali desert that Is the personal property of the president of thla cor poration." Valiaqt turned a blank white face. "Sedgwick?" ' Yes. You know his principle: 'lt's all right to be honest, if you're not too damn honest.' He owns the Stony- Elver Valley bag and baggage. It was a big gamble and he lost." Valiant was staring at the other with a strange look. Emotions to which in all his self-indulgent life he bad been a stranger weFe running through his mind, and outre passions had him by the throat. Fool and doubly blind! A poor pawn, a catspaw raking the chestnuts for unscrupulous men whoße Ignominy he was now called on, per force, to share I In his pitiful egotism he had consented to be a figurehead, and he had been made a tool. A red rage surged over him. No one had ever seen on John Valiant's face such a look as grew on It now. He turned and without a word opened the door. The older man took a step toward him—he had a sense of dangerous electric forces in the air— but the door closed.sharply In his face. He smiled grimly. "Not crooked," he said to himself; "merely callow. A well-meaning, manicured young fop wholly surrounded by men who knew what they wanted!" He shrugged his shoulders and went back to his chair. Valiant plunged down in the eleva tor to the street He pushed past the guarded door, and threading the dl-owd, made toward the curb, where his bulldog, with a bark of delight, leaped upon the seat of a burnished car, rumbling and vibrating with pent up power. There were those In the sullen anxious crowd who knew whose was that throbbing metal miracle, the chauffeur spick and span from shining cap-vlsor to polished brown puttees, and recognized the white face that went past, pelted It with muttered sneers. But he scarcely saw or heard them, as he stepped Into the seat, took the wheel from the chauffeur's hand and threw on the gear. He drove mechanically past a hun dred familiar things and places, but he saw nothing, till the massive marble fronts of the upper park side ceased their mad dance as the car halted be fore a tall Iron-grilled doorway with wide glistening steps, between win dows strangely shuttered and dark. He sprang out and touched the bell. The heavy oak parted slowly; the con fidential secretary of the man he had come to face stood in the gloomly doorway. "I want to see Mr. Sedgwick." "You can't seehlm. Mr. Valiant." "But I will!" Sharp paaslon leaped Into the young voice. "He must speak to me." The man in the doorway shook his head. "He won't speak to anybody any more," he said. "Mr. Sedgwick shot himself two hours ago." CHAPTER If. Vanity Valiant. "The witness Is excused." In the ripple that stirred across the court room at the examiner's abrupt conclusion, John Valiant, who had withstood that pitiless hall of ques tions, rose, bowed to him and slowly crossed the cleared space to h)s coun sel. The chairman looked severely over his eye-glasses, with his gavel lifted, and a statuesque girl, In the rear ofthe room, laid her delicately gloved hand on a companion's and smiled slowly without withdrawing her gaze, and with the faintest tint of col or in her face. ' Katharine Fargo neither smiled nor flushed readily. Her smile wat an In dex of her whole personality, languid, THE ENTERPRISE, WILLIAMSTON, NORTH CAROLINA. symmetrical, exquisitely perfect The little group with whom she sat looked somewhat out of place In that mixed aaaeablaga. Smartly groomed and palpably members of a set to whom John Valiant was a familiar, they had had only friendly nods and smiles for the young man at whom BO many there had gazed with Jaundiced eyes.. To the general public which read Its daily newspaper perhaps none of the gilded aet was better known than "Vanity Valiant" The new Panhard be drove was tbe smartest car on the avenue, and the collar on the white bulldog that pranced or dozed on Its leather seat sported a diamond buckle. To tbe spacewrlters of the social col umns, he bad been a perennial Inspira tion. The patterns of his waistcoats, and the splendors of his latest bache lors' dinner at Sherry's—with such He Hsd Suddenly Remembered That It Was His Twenty-fifth Birthday. Items the public had been kept suffi ciently familiar. To It, he stood a per fect symbol of the elder ease and In solent display of. Inherited wealth. And the groat majority of those who had found place In that roomy cham ber to Usteu to the ugly tale of squan dered millions, looked to him with a resentment that was sharpened by his apparent nonchalance. Ijong before the closing session it had been clear that, as far as Indict ments were concerned, the Investiga tion would be barren of result Of Individual criminality, flight and sui cide had been confession, but more sweeping charges could not be brought home. The gilded fool had nob brought himself Into the embarrassing purview pf the law. • •••••• • The Jostling crowd flocked out Into the square, among them a fresh-faced girl on tbe arm of a gray-bearded man In black frock coat and picturesque broad-brimmed felt hat. her eyea to his. "So that,"fhe said, "Is John Valiant! I'd almost rather have missed Niagara Falls. I must wxlte Shirley Dandrldge about It. I'm so sorry I lost that picture of him that I cut out of the, paper." "1 reckon he's not such a bad lot," said her uncle. He hailed a cab. "Grand Central Station," he directed, with a glance at his watch, "and be quick about it. We've Just time to make our train." •*•• / • * • • Some hours later, In an Inner office of a downtown sky-scraper, the newly appointed receiver of the Valiant Cor poration, a heavy, thick-set man with narrow eyes, sat beside a table on which lay a small black satchel with a padlock on Its handle, whose con tents —several bundles of crisp papers —be had been turning over In his heavy hands with a look of Incredu lous amazement. A sheet containing a mass of figures and memoranda lay among them. The shock viras still on his face when a knock came at the door, and a man entered. The newcomer was gray haired, slightly stooped and lean- Jowled, with a humorous expression on his lips. He glanced In surprise at the littered table. "Fargo," said tbe man at the desk, "do you notice anything queer about me?" "His friend grinned. "No, Buck," he said judicially, "unless It's that neck tie. It would stop a Dutch clock." "Hang the haberdashery! Read this —from young Valiant" Ho passed over a letter. Fargo read. He looked up. "Securi ties aggregating three millions!" he said In a hushed voice. "Why, unless I've been misinformed, that represents practically all his private fortune." The other nodded. "Turned over to the corporation with his resignation as a vice-president and without a blessed string tied to 'em! What do you think of that?" "Think! It's the most absurdly idiotic thing I ever met. Two weeks ago, before the investigation • • • but now, when it's perfectly certain they can bring nothing home to him—" He paused. "Of course I suppose It'll save the corporation, eh? But It may be ten years before its securities pay dividends. And this Is real money. Where the devil does he come In meanwhile?" The receiver pursed his lips. "I knew his father," he said. "He had the same crazy quixotic streak." He gathered the scattered docu ments and locked them carefully with the satchel In a safe. "Spectacular young astf!" he said explosively. "I should say so!" agreed Fargo. "Do you know I used to be afraid my Katharine had a leaning toward him. But thank God, she's a sensible girl!" • •••••• • Dusk bad fallen that evening when John Valiant's Panhard turned Into a cross-street and circled into the yawn ing mouth of his garage. A little later, the bulldog at his heels, he ascended the steps of his club, where he lodgod—he had dis posed of his bachelor apartments a fortnight ago. The cavernous seats of the lounge were all occupied, but he did not pause as he strode through the hall. He took the little pile of letters the boy handed him at the desk and went slowly up the stairway. He wandered Into the deserted libra ry and sat down, tossing the letters on the magazine-littered table. He had suddenly remembered that It waß his twenty fifth birthday. In the reaction from the long strain he felt physically spent. He thought of what he had done that afternoon with a sense of satisfaction. A re versal of public Judgment, In his own case, had not entered his head. He knew his world —its comfortable facul ty of forgetting, and the multitude of sins that wealth may cover. To pre aervo at whatever personal cost tho one noble monument his father's genius had reared, and to right the wrong that would cast Its gloomy ghadnw on his name—that had been his only thought. What he hud done would have been done no matter what the outcome of tho Investigation. Hut now, he told himself, no one could Bay the act had been wrung from him. That, he fancied, would have been his father's way. He smiled—a slow smile of reminis cence—for there hind come to him ut that moment the dearest of all those memories—a play of hlB childhood. He, saw himself seated on a low ■tool, watching a funny old dock with a moon-face, whose smiling Hps curved up like military mustachlos, and wish ing tile lazy long hands would hurry. He jaw himself stealing down a long corridor to the door of a big room strewn with books and papers, that through some baleful and mysterious spell could not be made to, open at all hours. When the hands pointed right, however, there was the "Open Sesame" —his own secret knock, two fierce twin raps, with one little lone some one afterward—and this was un failing. Safe Inßlde, he saw hlmßeir standing on a big, "polar-bearskin, the door tight-locked against all comerß, | an expectant baby figure with his lit tle hand clasped In hlB father's. Tho white rug was the magic entrance to the Never-Never Country, known only to those two. He could hear his own shrill treble: "Wlshlng-Houso, Wlshlng-House, j where are you?" Then the deeper voice (quite unrec ~ol£nizable as his father's) answering: "Here I am, Master; here I am!" And instantly tho room vanished and they were In the Never-Never Land, and before them reared the big gest house In the world, with a row of white pl]lars across Its front a mile I high. . John Valiant felt ari odd beating of the heart and a tightening of tbe throat, for he saw a scene that never faded from his memory. It was the j one hushed and horrible night, when dread things had been happening that he could not understand, when a big DID NOT IMPRESS LANDLORD 4 J ■ T i ■ . Innkeeper Could Berve Excellent Luncheon, But Evidently Was Not of Literary Mind. They are telling in Westchester a story about Richard Harding Davis and Gouvernor Morris. These two writers, It appears, were motoring the other day, and stopped at an inn for luncheon. The luncheon was excellent, and after it was over Mr. Davis went out to look over the car, leaving Mr. Morris alone. Mr. Morris, & good spirits from his fine meal, said genially to the landlord: "Landlord, you'll be Interested, per haps, to know that my companion is Mr. Richard Harding Davis." j The landlord tried his best to look Impressed and Interested. "You don't say," he remarked. "And what business might he be In?" A few minutes later Mr. Morris took man with gold eye-glaaßea. who sraelled of some curious Blcklsh-Bweet perfume, came and took him by the hand and led him Into a room where hia father lay In bed, very gray and quiet. The white hand on the coverlet had beckoned to htm and he had gone close up to the bed, standing very I straight, his heart beating fast and : hard. "John!" the word had been almost , a whisper, very tense and anxious, very distinct. "John, you're a little boy, and father is going away." "To—to Wlahlng-House?" The gray Hps had smiled then, ever so little, and sadly. "No, John." "Take me with you, father! Take me with you!" His voice!* had trembled then, and he had had to gulp hard. "Listen, John, for what I am say ing Is very • Important. You don't know what I mean now, but some time you will." The whisper had grown strained and frayed, but It was still distinct. "I can't go to the Never- Never Land, nut you may sometime. If you • • • if you do, and if you find Wlshlng-House, remember that the men who lived In It • • • be fore you and me • • • were gen tlemen. Whatever elso they were, were always that. He • * * like thom, John. • • • will you?" "Yes, father." The old gentleman with tho eye glasses had come forward then, hasti ly. "Goodnight, father—" Ho had wanted to kiss him, but a strange cool hußh had settled on the .room and his father seemed all at once to have fallen asleep. And he hail gone out, so carefully, on tiptoe, wondering, and suddenly afraid. CHAPTER 111. Tho Turn of the P«Qe. John Valiant stirred and laughed, a little self-consciously, for there had been drops on his face. Presently ho took a chock-book from hie pocket and began to figure on the stub, looking up with a wry smile. "To conie down to brass tacks," he mut tered, "when I've settled everything (thank heaven, I don't owe my tailor!) there will be u little twenty eight hundred odd dollars, a passe mo tor and my clothes between me and tho bread-line!" Everything else he had disposed of —everything but the four-footed com rade there at hlB feet. "Hut I'd not sell you, old chap," he Bald, softly; "not a single lick of your friendly pink tongue; not for a beastly hun dred thousand!" He withdrew his caressing hand and looked again at the check-stub. ty-oight hundred! Ho laughed bleakly. Why, ho had spent more than that a month ago on a ball at Sherry's! This morning he had been rich; tonight ho was poor! What could ho do? He could not remember a time when he had not Lad all that he wanted. Ho had never bor rowed from a friend or been dunned by an Importunate tradesman. And he had never tried to earn a dollar in his life; as to current methods of mak ing a living, he was as* ignorant as a Pueblo Indian. He rose grimly and dragged his chair facing tho window. Tho night was balmy and he looked down across the darker sea of reefs, barred like a gigantic checker-board by the shining lines of streets, to where tho flashing electric signs of the theater district laid their wide swath of colored ra diance. The manifold calls of the street and the buzz of trolleyH made a dull tonal background, subdued and faraway. » TO BE CONTINUED.) his seat in the car, and Mr. Davie remained bphlnd to settle the bill. As he counted his change Mr. Davis in his turn said to the landlord: "Landlord, my friend there Is Gou yerneur Morris." Again the landlord looked impressed and puzzled. "Morris? Morris?" he said. "The name sounds familiar. Meat line, ain't It, sir?" Nature's Adjustment. In the case of all fish which take care of their young, a curious adapta tion of natural law to circumstances la. found. Those which take the great est pains and care in sheltering their offspring have the fewest eggs, per hap 9 less than one hundred at a lay, while on, the other hand, .species of fish which pay not the slightest atten tion to their young produce hundreds of thousands, and even millions of eggs, at a single lay. FALLING HAIR MEANS DANDRUFF IS ACTIVE 'I ■ 4 Ba4« Your Hair! Get a 25 Cant Dottle of Dandarlna Right Now—Alao Stops Itching Scalp. Thin, brittle, colorless and scraggy hair la muta evidence of a neglected acalp; of dandruff—that awful scnrt. There ia nothing ao d eat rue tire to the hair aa dandruff. It roba the hair of Ita luater, Its strength and Its very life; eventually producing a feverlsh neaa and Itching of the scalp, which If hot remedied causes the hair roots to shrink, loosen and die —then the hair falls out fast. A little Danderlna ! tonight— now—any time—will surely save your balr. Qet a 25 cent bottle of Knowlton'a | Danderlne from any store, and after | the first application your hair will | take on that life, luster and luxuriance I which Is so beautiful. It will become wavy and fluffy and have the appear ance of abundance; an Incomparable glosa and softness, but what will J ploase you most will be after just a • few weeks' use, when you will actual ly see a lot of fine, downy hair—new hair—growing all over the scalp. Adv. Over 800,000 women voted In Aus tralla In 1913. Important to Mothers . Examine carefully every bottle of CABTOUIA, a safe and sure remedy for Infants and children, and see that It Signature of In Use For Over 30 Yeara. Children Cry for Fletcher's Castoris The fellow who has a free foot haa no business to bo kicker. Use Ilanford's Dulnam when all else tails. Adv. ( Shepherd girls in Switzerland we«M . men's clothes. v*- Only One "BKOMO QUININIi" ' To gat the tor full nanm, LAXA TIVE BROMO Ot'ININK. Look for aigmture ol K. W. GKOVIi. Curai • Cold la One Dajr. lie. Face and Fight Worry. Realize your worries for what they are worth—for whut they really are. I Face them —stare them liv the face. the futuro to the futurd, and all your worrying and anxious wondering will not alter it an atom. All you dc | Is to burden yourself with your exag gerated conception of your worry and to carry It with you upon your back E 'into your future. Face it, realize Iti limits and fight it. ( [ Famous Authors Receive. More than twenty famous authori f held a reception at the Caxton halL Loudon, on Tuesday afternoon. Febru t ary 3. They gave ten-inlnute readings from their own works and autographed \ their books for sale by auction. Tht . list of celebrities on the platform in eluded Cicely Hamilton, Beatrice Har, 1 raden, Elizabeth Robins, Mrs. 8t . Clair Stobart, C. R. Sims and Eden * Phlllpotts. i , Skeptic's Question. 3 Rev. C. H. Spurgeon, the eminenl English divine, said I hat, as scion as a t man loses his religion, he wants to j | know who Cain's wife was. —The Con gregationalist. i i Astrology. i Sonny—Pa, what Is a comet? Father —A comet is an Atlantaized f i j star; that is, it consists mostly of gaa n ! BCHOOL TEACHERS, t . - Also Have Things to Learn. i | "For many years I had used coffee ? | and refused to be convinced of its bad ? j effect upon the human system," writes t ' a veteran school teacher. "Ten years ago I was obliged to 9 ! give up my much-loved work In the 1 ! public schools after years of contiuu -1 j OUB labor. I hadAleveioped a well de -1 fined case of chronic coffee poisoning. "The troubles were constipation, ! fiutterings of the heart, a thumping In the top of my head, and various I parts of my body, twitching of my I limbs, shaking of my head and, at times after exertion, a general "gone" | feeling, with a toper's desire for very I strong coffee. I was a nervous wreck j for years. "A short time ago friends came to visit vs and they brought a package | of Portum with them, and urged me Ito try it. I was because | some years back I had drunk a cup of weak, I'asteless stuff called Postum • which I did not like at all. "This time, however, my friends made Postum according to direc tions on tj>e package, and it won me. Soon I found myself improving in a most decided fashion. "The odor of boiling coffee no long . er tempt* me. I am so greatly bene fited by Postum that if I continue to Improve as I am now, I'll begin to ® think I have found the Fountain of Perpetual Youth. This is no fancy letter but Stubborn facts which I am glad tb make known." Name given by Postum Co., Battls » Creek, Mich. Write" for a copy of "The ■ Road to Wellvllle." 1 Postum now comes in two forms: Regular Postum —must be well r boiled. Instant a soluble pow > der. A teaspoonful dissolves quickly f In a cup of hot water and, with cream - and tfigar, makes a delicious bever -1 age Instantly. Qrocers sell both kinds. ' ' "There's a Reason" for Postum. "■' ~fv . S ••ii&b.ratiK'
The Enterprise (Williamston, N.C.)
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Feb. 20, 1914, edition 1
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