The Fighting Chance

“You desire to make it a personal matter?” inquired Quarrier, in a low voice, his face dead white in the late sunlight which illuminated the room.

“Personal? No—impersonal; because there could be absolutely nothing personal between us, Mr. Quarrier; and the only thing in the world that there ought to be between us are a few stout, steel bars. Beg pardon for talking shop. I’m a shopkeeper, and I’m in the steel business, and I lack opportunities for cultivation. Good day.”

“Mr. Plank—”

“Mr. Quarrier, I want to tell you something. Never before, in business differences, has private indignation against any individual interfered or modified my course of action. It does now; but it does not dictate my policy toward you; it merely, as I say, modifies it. I am perfectly aware of what I am doing; what social disaster I am inviting by this attitude toward you personally; what financial destruction I am courting in arousing the wrath of the Algonquin Trust Company and of the powerful interests intrenched behind Inter-County Electric. I know what the lobby is; I know what judge cannot be counted on; I know my peril and my chances, every one; and I take them—every one. For it is a good fight, Mr. Quarrier; it will be talked of for years to come, wonderingly; not because of your effrontery, not because of my obstinacy, but because such monstrous immorality could ever have existed in this land of ours. Your name, Harrington’s, mine, will have become utterly forgotten long, long before the horror of these present conditions shall cease to be remembered.”

He stretched out one ponderous arm, pointing full between Quarrier’s unwinking eyes.

“Take your fighting chance—it is the cleanest thing you ever touched; and use it cleanly, or there’ll be no mercy shown you when your time comes. Let the courts alone—do you hear me? Let the legislature alone. Keep your manicured hands off the ermine. And tell Harrington to shove his own cold, splay fingers into his own pockets for a change. They’ll be warmer than his feet by this time next year.”

For a moment he towered there, powerful, bulky, menacing; then his arm dropped heavily—the old stolid expression came back into his face, leaving it calm, bovine, almost stupid again. And he turned, moving slowly toward the door, holding his hat carefully in his gloved hand.

Stepping out of the elevator on the ground floor he encountered Mortimer, and halted instinctively. He had not seen Mortimer for weeks; neither had Leila; and now he looked at him inquiringly, disturbed at his battered and bloodshot appearance.

“Oh,” said Mortimer, “you down here?”

“Have you been out of town?” asked Plank cautiously.

Mortimer nodded, and started to pass on toward the bronze cage of the elevator, but something seemed to occur to him suddenly; he checked his pace, turned, and waddled after Plank, rejoining him on the marble steps of the rotunda.

“See here,” he panted, holding Plank by the elbow and breathing heavily even after the short chase across the lobby, “I meant to tell you something. Come over here and sit down a moment.”

Still grasping Plank’s elbow in his puffy fingers, he directed him toward a velvet seat in a corner of the lobby; and here they sat down, while Mortimer mopped his fat neck with his handkerchief, swearing at the heat under his breath.

“Look here,” he said; “I promised you something once, didn’t I?”

“Did you?” said Plank, with his bland, expressionless stare of an overgrown baby.

“Oh, cut that out! You know damn well I did; and when I say a thing I make good. D’ye see?”

“I don’t see,” said Plank, “what you are talking about.”

“I’m talking about what I said I’d do for you. Haven’t I made good? Haven’t I put you into everything I said I would? Don’t you go everywhere? Don’t people ask you everywhere?”

“Yes—in a way,” said Plank wearily. “I am very grateful; I always will be.... Can I do anything for you, Leroy?”

Mortimer became indignant at the implied distrust of the purity of his motives; and Plank, failing to stem the maudlin tirade, relapsed into patient silence, speculating within himself as to what it could be that Mortimer wanted.

It came out presently. Mortimer had attended a “killing” at Desmond’s, and, as usual, had provided the pièce de résistance for his soft-voiced host. All he wanted was a temporary deposit to tide over matters. He had never approached Plank in vain, and he did not do so now, for Plank had a pocket cheque-book and a stylograph.

“It’s damn little to ask, isn’t it?” he muttered resentfully. “That will only square matters with Desmond; it doesn’t leave me anything to go on with,” and he pocketed his cheque with a scowl.

Plank was discreetly silent.

“And that is not what I chased you for, either,” continued Mortimer. “I didn’t intend to say anything about Desmond; I was going to fix it in another way!” He cast an involuntary and sinister glance at the elevators gliding ceaselessly up and down at the end of the vast marble rotunda; then his protruding eyes sought Plank’s again:

“Beverly, old boy, I’ve got a certain mealy-faced hypocrite where any decent man would like to have him—by the scruff of his neck. He’s fit only to kick; and I’m going to kick him good and plenty; and in the process he’s going to let go of several things.” Mortimer leered, pleased with his own similes, then added rather hastily: “I mean, he’s going to drop several things that don’t belong to him. Leave it to me to shake him down; he’ll drop them all right.... One of ‘em’s yours.”

Plank looked at him.

“I told you once that I’d let you know when to step up and say ‘Good evening’ didn’t I?”

Plank continued to stare.

“Didn’t I?” repeated Mortimer peevishly, beginning to lose countenance.

“I don’t understand you,” said Plank, “and I don’t think I want to understand you.”

“What do you mean?” demanded Mortimer thickly; “don’t you want to marry that girl!” but he shrank dismayed under the slow blaze that lighted Plank’s blue eyes.

“All right,” he stammered, struggling to his fat legs and instinctively backing away; “I thought you meant business. I—what the devil do I care who you marry! It’s the last time I try to do anything for you, or for anybody else! Mark that, my friend. I’ve plenty to worry over; I’ve a lot to keep me busy without lying awake to figure out how to do kindnesses to old friends. Damn this ingratitude, anyway!”

Plank gazed at him for a moment; the anger in his face had died out.

“I am not ungrateful,” he said. “You may say almost anything except that, Leroy. I am not disloyal, no matter what else I may be. But you have made a bad mistake. You made it that day at Black Fells when you offered to interfere. I supposed you understood then that I could never tolerate from anybody anything of such a nature. It appears that you didn’t. However, you understand it now. So let us forget the matter.”

But Mortimer, keenly appreciative of the pleasures of being misunderstood, squeezed some moisture out of his distended eyes, and sat down, a martyr to his emotions. “To think,” he gulped, “that you, of all men, should turn on me like this!”

“I didn’t mean to. Can’t you understand, Leroy, that you hurt me?”

“Hurt hell!” retorted Mortimer vindictively. “You’ve had sensation battered out of you by this time. I guess society has landed you a few while I was boosting you over the outworks. Don’t play that old con game on me! You tried to get her and you couldn’t. Now I come along and offer to put you next and you yell about your hurt feelings! Oh, splash! There’s another lady, that’s all.”

“Let it go at that, then,” said Plank, reddening.

“But I tell you—”

“Drop it!” snapped Plank.

“Oh, very well! if you’re going to take it that way again—”

“I am. Cut it! And now let me ask you a question: Where were you going when I met you?”

“What do you want to know for?” asked Mortimer sullenly.

“Why, I’ll tell you, Leroy. If you have any idea of identifying yourself with Quarrier’s people, of seeking him at this juncture with the expectation of investing any money in his schemes, you had better not do so.”

“Investing!” sneered Mortimer. “Well, no, not exactly, having nothing to invest, thanks to my being swindled into joining his Amalgamated Electric gang. Don’t worry. If there’s any shaking down to be done, I’ll do it, my friend,” and he rose, and started toward the elevators.

“Wait,” said Plank. “Why, man, you can’t frighten Quarrier! What did you sell your holdings for? Why didn’t you come to us—to me? What’s the use of going to Quarrier now, and scolding? You can’t scare a man like that.”

Mortimer fairly grinned in his face.

“Your big mistake,” he sneered, “is in undervaluing others. You don’t think I amount to very much, do you, Beverly? But I’m going to try to take care of myself all the same.” He laughed, showing his big teeth, and the vanity in him began to drug him. “No, you think I don’t know much. But men like you and Quarrier will damn soon find out! I want you to understand,” he went on excitedly, forgetting the instinctive caution which in saner moments he was only too certain that his present business required—“I want you to understand a few things, my friend, and one of them is that I’m not afraid of Quarrier, and another is, I’m not afraid of you!”

“Leroy—”

“No, not afraid of you, either!” repeated Mortimer with an ugly stare. “Don’t try any of your smug, aint-it-a-shame-he-drinks ways on me, Beverly! I’m getting tired of it; I’m tired of it now, by God! You keep a civil tongue in your head after this—do you understand?—and we’ll get on all right. If you don’t, I’ve the means to make you!”